Spying on your children

Still no-one here! Hit counter says 11, but 9 have been by me! Not even my wife has read these blogs! I should give up, but I won't! I will soldier on...

What a goal!!! Alonso, inside his own half, amazing 70yrd shot into the net! What accuracy, what skill, the man is a genius! If you don't know what I'm going on about then allow me to explain. Liverpool played Newcastle yesterday evening and the Liverpool midfielder, Xavi Alonso, scored from inside his own half, a shoot 70yrds away from the goal - it was absolute quality! (See the video below for more details!)

Liverpool's start to the season has not been good. Already 8 points behind Chelsea and Man Utd, they had to win last night, and what a goal to seal the win! If that doesn't inspire confidence throughout the team, then what will??

I often wonder how players manage to play for different clubs whilst stating that they supported one team when growing up. How can Ashley Cole leave Arsenal and play against them with Chelsea? How can Wayne Rooney leave Everton? These players claimed to be avid supporters of the clubs they played for. To them, it was a dream come true, something that others can only dream of, and yet they all move rather too freely! The only constant at any club seems to be the supporters!

When Liverpool we're going through a particularly poor patch through 2002-2004, I thought I'd try changing my alliegance! If players can do it, so can I. I wanted to support a club that were the regularly challenging for honours. My options were limited. Having supported Liverpool for so long, there was no way I could support Man Utd - too much hatred there, I couldn't support Arsenal, too many people I knew supported them already. There was only one team to consider - Chelsea. Infact it was perfect, they hadn't won anything (but it was blatantly obvious they were going to), and I didn't know anyone else who supported them - it was perfect!

In December 2002, after one defeat too many, I tried to support Chelsea. It was easy for the first 3 games, Liverpool happened to lose all 3, and Chelsea were winning and top of the table. In early January, Liverpool visited Chelsea and won. It was an amazing game - not so much in terms of performance or quality, but for me it revealed my true feelings. I was ecstatic by the result! So what if we then lost the next game and continued having a poor season? I was so delighted by that result, there was no way I could stop supporting Liverpool, no way I could support another team.

It happened again. In the summer of 2005, after the remarkable Champions League triumph, my support was put to the test again! This time it was over the transfer saga of Steven Gerrard, the captain of Liverpool. The year before he claimed that he just could not leave Liverpool, the club he supported as a boy, to him playing for Liverpool was the best thing in the world. At one point he announced he wanted to leave! I couldn't believe it, if he could leave to play for someone else, then I could definitely stop supporting the team. I knew I couldn't support another team, but I would stop supporting Liverpool altogether, become a passionless neutral. My wife was ecstatic, delighted that I was going to stop following football. But then came the news that Steven Gerrard had decided to stay! He couldn't leave the club that was in his heart! Needless to say I was a very happy man. Steven Gerrard was a true supporter of the club and could not change his support to any other team!

Therefore, maybe this incident means that Gerrard is true supporter, just like the rest of the Liverpool fans and that Cole and Rooney were never as loyal as they claimed to be. They only supported their teams whilst the team could benefit them, when that stopped happening, it was time to change tune and jump ship!

After all this, I must apologise. What I've just been typing about is not even my thoughts for today's blog! As you may have worked out, loyalty towards a football team has nothing to do with the title of the blog! I can't explain why I went down this tangent, but now that I've typed it all, I can't bring myself to delete it! I think I'll just move on to the main title as if nothing happened!!

Yesterday the British Home Secretary addressed a gathering of mainly muslims in a very muslim area of East London. He spoke about the ways to handle terrorism and extremism in Islam. On the one hand he went on about how Islam and the West co-exist peacefully and what a peaceful religion it is, whilst on the other hand he spoke about the need to keep an eye on radicals in the community and to clamp down on it. He spoke of how parents should keep an eye on their children to ensure that they are not being radicalised!

Instead of speaking about the cause of this radicalism and the role the British government has played in creating these, he purely spoke about how parents should control it! What he said was pretty obvious! Most parents would be concerned if their children were becoming brainwashed or radicalised. Most parents would try to put a stop to it. But why would children be exposed to radicalisation in the first place? There was no mention of that.

It's similar to saying that climate change exists, the planet is getting warmer due to global warming and therefore take extra precaution in the sun. All this is useful advice, but it is very self-explanatory and ignores the cause of the global warming and climate change. Where is the advice on how to stop the radicalisation? Where is the acknowledgement that government policy has contributed to its existence? Where are the government plans on what they hope to do about it and what policies to change? There was none of that.

It actually felt extremely condesending. As if all muslim parents are bad at raising their children and could benefit from a bit of guidance! The advice he said was useful, but because it was being stated and lectured on by a government person, it felt pretty useless! The overiding feeling was that the blame was being laid at the door of all muslim parents in failing to control their children in the past. Absolutely ridiculous!

In the end, I've only written 4 paragraphs on the main topic of the blog! I've written more about the football! Oops! If your still reading, then an even bigger pat on the back to you! But I guess I shouldn't worry too much, since apart from 'Anon', no one else is interested! Oh well!

Take care all,

Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?