The first of two awayday reviews looking back at August follows a LoftforWords travelling party of five to Liverpool – which, incidentally, is well cultured these days innit.
As much as things change they stay the same. The Premiership may have changed beyond all recognition since our last spell here but Goodison Park looks the same and QPR still rather like it there. This was like going to look round your first house and remembering your early sexual encounters, then sleeping with the hot estate agent who took you there on your old bed.
The hammerings we handed out here in 1992/93 and 1993/94 were the product of two of the finest displays of passing, attacking football ever produced by Gerry Francis' impressive QPR side of the time. This latest success was a more backs-to-the-wall type effort and Rangers rode their luck on occasions but deserved the victory for effort and defensive stubbornness alone.
Tommy Smith, looking more and more like one of the Bee Gees illegitimate offspring with each passing week, scored the crucial goal midway through the first half. Smith picked up a canny pass from Akos Buzsaky in the area after a mistake by Phil Jagielka and calmly slid home the first goal of the season for Neil Warnock's men. That goal came at the end of a sustained period of possession and pressure from Rangers and it seemed that after the opening day mauling by Bolton the QPR players had quickly got the message about what happens in this league if you give the ball away too much, and what can happen if you retain it.
Everton had plenty of chances, and only Tim Cahill will know how he planted a first half header wide of the post with Kenny beaten and the goal gaping, but an anticipated second half barrage never materialised and Fitz Hall and Danny Gabbidon impressed at the heart of the defence with Shaun Derry at his imperious best ahead of them.
David Moyes selected a strange team for this game, leaving out Marouane Fellaini, Louis Saha and Mikel Arteta. Injued? Out of form? Or did Moyes secretly think they had enough to see us off without them? Of their replacements, youngster Ross Barkley impressed on full debut but Jack Rodwell was distinctly below par wide in midfield and Jermaine Beckford looked almost park standard in attack. It may be terribly middle class of me but I must say I enjoyed seeing somebody with a neck tattoo make such a tit of himself. If only Beckford was half as good as he thinks he is, what a player Everton would have on their hands there. Or, given the situation at Goodison Park at the moment, what a very happy bank manager they’d have when they sold him on to somebody better than Leicester for more than £3m.
Moyes introduced his benched trio during the second half, but in doing so left his team without a recognised striker on the field for ten important minutes that enabled Rangers to regroup and catch their breath. I was reminded of the TV producer on The Simpsons who allows Lisa to make a long broadcast about loving her brain because he’s “trying to get fired” as Moyes persisted with a Paul-Hart-like 4-6-0 formation when he was supposed to be chasing this game. When Fellaini did come on he was sent on as an auxiliary striker but a criminal lack of knowledge of the offside law saw him doing more harm than good. Neil Warnock on the other hand sent on Hogan Ephraim and Jay Bothroyd who were both superb in their respective roles.
Scores >>> QPR performance 8/10 >>> Opposition performance 4/10 >>> Referee performance 7/10
I dare say that there will be a few grounds we go to this season that will be almost unrecognisable since our last spell in the Premiership 15 years ago. Man City and Arsenal play in completely new stadiums, Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge have changed beyond all recognition since our last league games there (although we’ve been to both in the cup) and even places like Anfield have a new stand or two. Goodison Park however, is exactly the same as when we left it last. I remember sitting high up behind the goal for the 5-3 and 3-0 wins here in the 1990s and then in the main stand as part of a hospitality package on the day they opened the new stand at that end and Daniel Amokachi scored in a 2-2 draw. It looks exactly the same now as it did then, like finding an old toy in the loft.
Everton have tried to move from here, saying the place is holding them back, and it's easy to see why. Our tickets must have been some of the first distributed by QPR because the LFW travelling crew was stationed right on the back row of the Lower Bullens (nee seventh circle of Dante's Inferno) tucked away in a corner between two brick walls. The second tier of the stand overhung to such an extent that the ball would disappear from view whenever it went more than six feet off the ground and one can only imagine that when Stoke play here later this season Peter Crouch will appear as a bizarre headless figure to those in the same seats.
If you weren't there and want to recreate the effect at home then for tomorrow night's England game position a portable TV around 15 feet away from your front door and set the picture to an extra wide setting so everything stretches widthways, then go outside, close the front door, sit 15 feet away on the other side and try to watch the match through your letter box.
With the low roof and brick walls surrounding us on all sides, coupled with the close proximity of 1,500 excitable QPR fans, the whole away end became like a clay oven. I'd hate to have been up there on a day any warmer than the one we had because I reckon you could have taken a batch of dough back there and made old style pizzas as it was.
I also couldn't help but think that, with its wooden floors and bizarre exit routes that took us almost 20 minutes to negotiate at full time, were even a small fire to break out here many thousands of people would be dead within a matter of minutes.
But I loved it. My thoughts on the Walkers Stadiums of this world are well documented and I was delighted that our first away match in the Premiership was at an old historic ground like that. You can smell the history coming off the place and the atmosphere in the away end was absolutely electric as Rangers took the lead and then clung to it.
The stewards were old school as well, friendly guys who were all genuine Everton fans and keen to talk about the match with us while allowing us to stand at the back unchecked. Take note Loftus Road. At half time we leant over the fence and spoke to the adjacent Everton fans about the match and their club without a hint of trouble. It seemed to go off a bit in the middle of the away end during the second half but where we were the atmosphere was fun, exciting and friendly. My time spent following Rugby League, where things are a little more relaxed, tells me that in the great majority of cases segregation breeds as many problems as it prevents. Left to chat over a low slung fence the Everton and QPR fans mixed freely without a hint of trouble.
Everton have had their application for a new ground turned down and presumably are now looking at alternatives. This might just be me but I was surprised at the amount of scope there seemed to be to develop the place they're in already. I expected it to be hemmed in on all sides like Loftus Road is but the stand behind the goal is backed by a car park which could be built on and the majority of the houses behind the side stand we were in were derelict and boarded up. There must surely be a possibility that those two sides could be demolished and rebuilt with all the required hospitality facilities?
A final point – QPR’s first away match in the Premiership for 15 years, our first away match of any sort for more than three months, our first away match since winning the Championship title, and a Saturday 3pm kick off and we took the lower allocation and couldn’t sell it. The QPR fans that were there were fantastic but I found the amount of fans we took there embarrassing. Especially as you just know that in a couple of weeks everybody will be moaning about not being able to get a Fulham ticket.
Scores >>> QPR support 7/10 >>> Home support 5/10 >>> Overall atmosphere 6/10 >>> Stadium 5/10 >>> Police and stewards 10/10
Chester is a very beautiful and historic place – a Roman settlement, scene of a brutal seventh century battle, a key town in the industrial revolution, and scene of the first half of the most embarrassing cup exit in what is becoming an increasingly long list of embarrassing cup exits for our dear football club. It has to be asked though, why does Chester require an hourly high speed train service from London? I mean, towns much bigger than this make do with barely having a train service at all and yet there we all were packed onto a Virgin train pulling slowly into a very grand and impressive railway station in the heart of the town early on a Saturday morning.
You might think that the train being packed is justification enough for this incredibly fast and frequent Virgin service, until it became apparent that almost every single person on board was there for the same reason as us. You see Chester also sits at the very end of the Merseyrail service which connects Liverpool with its outlying suburbs on the south of the river. During the week this will be packed with commuters heading into the city centre but at the weekend tickets can be picked up on there for less than the cost of a Mars Bar and as the tickets from London to Chester are dirt cheap as well we, and everybody else, had decided to head north and change there for less than a third of the price of a simple return ticket to Liverpool.
How very typical of the British railway system this is, sending hundreds of people to a city they don't want to go to so they can all walk over a footbridge en masse and pack into a little two coach affair to take them to one they do. The Germans and Swiss would laugh at this if they knew: "Why not just run a more frequent, cheaper service to Liverpool?" they would ask between snorts. Best not tell them about our secret shame.
Anyway the journey to Chester was very nice and as the sunlight streamed through the carriage windows we happened upon the epic tale of Joey Barton stealing Frank Lampard's breakfast in one of the morning papers for the first time. Frankly I could have been on a prison train heading to death row and that tale would have cheered me up.
On the way home our search for an off license in Liverpool city centre went almost as well as the search for a breakfast café had done earlier (much, much more on that to come shortly) so that left us with Marks and Spencer's overpriced Simply Food offering only. We selected a pack of Italian lager, and a pack of Spanish lager, which it must be said came in strikingly similar bottles and with almost identical tastes.
Lager can essentially be divided up into three categories – there's your rat's piss brands like Fosters, Carling, standard issue Carlsberg which have such a tiny alcohol content in them that by the time you've had enough to be drunk you've actually worked the first few out of your system and all that is created as a result is an endless evening of trips to the bathroom for no rewards. Then you've got your standard issue 5% issues such as normal Becks, Peroni, San Miguel etc. And then there are the stronger or more upmarket offerings like Leffe and Budvar. Once you've found your group it's pretty difficult to tell the difference between one and another which makes marketing important. You'd never guess from all the ridiculous adverts that Carlsberg (so good the Danes hate to see it leave) and San Miguel are usually brewed in Burton Upon Trent. Hell it wouldn't surprise me to hear that they all come out of the same vat.
The M&S versions promised solemnly on the labels that they were brewed in the respective countries. I have my doubts.
Anyway the real story is which mental case decided that gin and tonic, rum and coke, Bacardi mojitos, Pimms and other such mixtures could actually be pre-mixed and sent out ready-made in cans. Is there a market out there for this? Does our Tracey count as a market on her own? Quite possibly so given the variety and quantity consumed on the return trip from Liverpool.
Finances stretched to a direct train on the way home – but not until just before 8pm. At the end of the journey Neil and I burst into Mabel’s Tavern and promised to purchase more alcohol if they put Match of the Day on for us. Which they did, and we cheered the goal all over again to the consternation of the locals. Scores >>> Journey 8/10 >>> Cost 8/10
In 2008 Liverpool was named the European Capital of Culture, a source of immense pride for the city and great mirth for everybody else. I spent a lonely night here once back in 2004 when QPR, on their way to promotion, drew 0-0 at Tranmere Rovers in a re-arranged game. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, an absolute shit hole. A vile, dirty place that was almost completely deserted and closed after 5pm and had that sort of thinly veiled, unspoken threat about it like a deserted subway after dark. We weren't mugged, and there was nobody around who looked like they might mug us, but it felt like we might be anyway.
Whether it was the glorious weather or a general improvement in the place in the intervening six years I was stunned when we climbed out of the Lime Street underground station and blinked in the morning light. There was a brash confidence about the place suddenly, people were milling around, historic old buildings towered on all sides. It looked like somebody had spent the time since our last visit going round with a pressure washer in one hand and a tazer gun in the other – removing the grime and scum with ruthless efficiency. From the steps of Lime Street station on a bright, warm Saturday morning Liverpool looked absolutely fantastic.
And yet, as the day progressed, there was an overwhelming feeling of the place trying to be something it wasn't. Like it was trying to be both European and cultured to live up to its title and failing frequently on both counts. We arrived just after 11am and went on the hunt for a breakfast establishment of some sort – a search that proved ridiculously protracted. Is there a city centre in the country with so few decent eateries? We wandered through the city for a good half an hour and happened across only a Bella Italia (scene of the worst meal I've ever been served in a restaurant in Southend last year) and a pub called The Vines that advertised a full Irish breakfast but couldn't even make it look appetising on the promotional poster.
Eventually, through a pressing need to piss rather than an increasing hunger, we settled on an establishment that billed itself as an 'Italian café' on Bold Street. Alas it seems that Bold Street does have some decent places to eat had we just continued a little further on foot but we went for the first half decent place we saw and paid the price. This theme of 'trying to be something you're not' set in as we walked up a narrow staircase into the café – painting things green and red no more makes you Italian than donning a yellow and blue shirt for six-a-side makes you Ronaldinho. This place was about as Italian as Captain America.
Not only that, but it was barely even a café at all – sitting awkwardly in the corner of an open plan space that also included a hairdressing salon and a chiropodist. Should you ever find yourself in Liverpool in need of a bacon sandwich, a short back and sides and a bunion seeing to all at the same time then I have just the place for you. The place smelt of hair and old feet but having taken the trouble to climb the stairs to get into it we would have felt mean turning round and walking out again.
I ordered an orange juice for my breakfast and was presented with a bottle of Pago ACE which the official Pago website describes as "remarkable" and says is made to a recipe that is "regularly copied but never matched." Well it was certainly remarkable, given that it glowed in the dark, but I sense that any imitations fail to match it simply because the few lunatics who have tried to recreate this hideous crime against taste buds have stopped adding sugar too soon. My teeth fizzed as I took a swig so I left the rest in the middle of the table to act as a lamp.
Our enthusiastic waitress Trace then returned to take a breakfast order. Neil and myself went for the full English breakfast (£3) with scrambled eggs at which point we were told in a voice that could easily have come out of Steven Gerrard's mouth: "Errrrm, I'm not sure he knows how to do scrambled." Given that Trace then went behind a small screen and cooked the breakfast herself I'm not sure who "he" was but it turns out that scrambled eggs are possible, but not to a quality you'd even want to feed to your dog. Tracey ordered a bacon and sausage sandwich and was immediately asked "how would you like your eggs" which didn't seem very relevant.
I've laboured this point too long, there are two pub write ups still to come, but suffice to say the food was so awful I'd actually rather have licked vomit from a Friday night of excess off the pavement outside for free than pay £3 to do that to myself. Which evil bastard is furnishing Wetherspoons and other establishments with these disgraceful little chewy sausages that seem to be made mostly of ash? Sausages are supposed to be thick, and succulent, with herbs and spices and meat. They shouldn't make a wheezing noise and deflate when skewered. I promise you that after eating a proper version of one I could shit out a better sausage than the one I was served here.
Miserable and still hungry we then went in search of The Dug Out bar which says on its own website it is: "One of the most inviting venues in Liverpool to watch the football and other major sporting events. The Dugout Bar cannot be beaten; offering wall to wall plasmas screen televisions showing Sky Sports, (all Premiership football matches including our very own Liverpool Football Club, Champions league, League Cup matches, FA Cup matches and Carling Cup matches) comfortable seating and drinks promotions during matches."
To be honest my biggest fear, given that Liverpool were playing at lunchtime against Arsenal, was that we wouldn't be there in time to get a seat. I needn't have worried. We arrived at The Dug Out just after noon to find it closed, locked and very dark. The bar is actually part of The Lord Nelson hotel so we walked round to the main reception to find out what was going on. We were told by the very friendly young girl on reception that the manager of the Dug Out had "slept in" but she was hoping to arrive in time for the Liverpool game at 12.45. She eventually arrived at 12.43. In the meantime we were invited to sit in the main hotel bar and watch the game there, but we would have to fetch the receptionist to serve us whenever we wanted to get a drink in.
When the Dug Out did open it was cold, and dirty, and populated by no more than ten Liverpool fans who spent the duration of their comfortable win slating the Liverpool players, particularly Andy Carroll, and stating that they, and he, are "not good enough for a club of this size." No wonder Roy Hodgson didn't last.
Stupidly we returned here after the QPR game to try and watch either the Chelsea or Ipswich evening kick offs. It turns out the Dug Out Bar can be beaten and doesn't show all Premiership matches because it was once again closed when we arrived. "It closes early on Saturdays," said a new receptionist who then told us that whatever we'd been told this morning was wrong, the hotel bar was for guests only and she would not allow us to sit there and watch the game or serve us any drinks.
Were I the manager of a hotel in the centre of Liverpool with a designated sports bar and hotel bar with big screen that didn't open until a minute before the kick off of a big televised Liverpool away match, then only attracted ten customers and closed in the middle of the afternoon, and later refused customers who wanted to come and spend money there then I think I'd bypass the inquisition and move straight onto a very public and very bloody execution of staff and management.
So after the hairdressers that was trying to be a café and the sports bar that only opened for two hours on a Saturday we completed the third in a trilogy of places trying to be something they're not by going over the road to The Liner – a bar that's trying to be a pirate ship. We settled in the wicker chairs surrounded by lengths of rope and lifebelts and asked if they were planning to show either of the evening games which they promised us they were. However the staffing situation at The Liner is rather unique – they employ three bar staff, one of whom can serve and change the television channels and take food orders, and two others who can do none of those things and therefore stand by the coffee machine chatting and gormlessly looking at a queue of customers getting increasing irate at the wait for their drinks and the lack of live football on the screen above the sign that advertises live football. By the time they did turn it over (after another customer had seized the Sky remote and threatened to beat one of the gormless idiots at the other end of the bar over the head with it) West Brom had already scored so we'd missed the best bit.
We ordered "stone baked pizza" from the bar later which arrived in flat cardboard boxes looking suspiciously like they'd been ordered in from a nearby takeaway. I was reminded of the pub in Norwich which offers a full Indian menu that is actually the menu from the takeaway next door at a £2 mark up on every dish – they did at least have the sense to tip it out onto plates before serving though.
Scores >>> Pubs 3/10 >>> Atmosphere 5/10 >>> Food 3/10 >>> Cost 8/10