The postbag may not have been a regular feature on TIA lately, but that doesn’t mean the postman hasn’t been filling our inbox! We’ve searched through the spam and amongst the requests for trials for the club, asking for birthday presents from Steven Gerrard, ticket requests, hundreds of rather interesting spam and even somebody wanting to know the fixtures for 2008-09 season as they are ‘travelling to England then’ (no we’re not kidding!), don’t worry we apologised for not knowing them! We managed to get some serious ones though, here’s the best of them…
TIA recently emailed Jennifer Floyd Engel of the ‘Star Telegram’ in Texas, and the author of this rather shocking piece of writing. TIA wrote:
Dear Jennifer,
I write as a Liverpool FC supporter who runs a Liverpool fans website and as somebody who was ‘involved’ in the co-ordinating of the post-match protest on Saturday, which you highlight in your rather biased and totally uneducated article.
I particularly take huge offenece to the opening line “The Liverpool Reds won Saturday, convincingly actually, and fans still staged an angry and — just guessing here — probably drunken protest afterward”.
This is disgusting, I dont know how high regard your newspaper is held but it certainly cannot be too reputable if it allows you write such uninformed and stereotypical writing. You have used a very poor stereotype of English football supporters without ANY ounce of proof or even a hint of evidence. Totally inaccurate journalistic writing like this really shouldn’t be encouraged.
First off, you should know that over 200 supporters from various fans groups, associations and websites met on Thursday night to plan a sustained protest against Hicks and Gillett. Flyers were then handed out pre-match and the protest was done in a co-ordinated way. For you to, wrongly, assume it was some sort of drunken protest is quite frankly a huge insult to your own intelligence. For your information, the protests will continue for as long as Mr Hicks lies and falsely promises the supporters of Liverpool FC.
There are several issues in particular Liverpool fans are hugely unhappy with – from the unproffessional admittance of approaching another manager (a manager with no experience in club football), the false promise of not putting debt on to the club, the ridiculous comments Hicks has made about referring to Liverpool as “Weetabix” and various other PR mistakes and false statements about financially supporting the manager.
I sincerely hope you will write some sort of apology for the hugely inaccurate stereotype you portrayed in your article which does little to help Liverpool fans not wish to stereotype Mr Hicks himself – an American with no knowledge of “soccer”.
As a sidenote, I have worked within soccer in the States for 4 years and have come across these stereotypes so often it makes me very angry and upset – and you writing them in a newspaper does nothing to help the inaccuracies and further enforces the impression all English football fans are hooligans. Completely untrue and I recommend you do some REAL research into football hooliganism, it’s dillution within England over the last 10 years and maybe even ATTEND a Liverpool match before commenting again.
Jennifer replies:
Thanks for reading and taking the time to email.
First things first, I was joking about the drinking thing and after exchanging emails with a few very nice LFC fans I understand why it was not the best idea in light of Hillsborough. So I apologize for that but I guess I am not surprised that Hicks went after nother manager. Am I right that Rafa had criticized Hicks for being cheap? In America, that gets you sacked.
All the best, Jen
Anyone else not get the ‘joke’ about drunk fans starting the protest? And anyone else really work out how Hillsborough has any bearing on her poor judgement in the first place? And maybe she could let know Liverpool isn’t in America so who cares what happens there?
Inter away travel info website
David from Match Hotels writes:
Hi, I have written an article on Liverpool’s Champions League match away to Inter Milan, the article is useful to supporters who are travelling out there for the match as it gives advice on how to get the best deals and also airport and flight information. I was hoping that you might want to review or include the article on your site. I have included a link to the article below and if you would like to include it that would be great.Here is the link.
Support from Dubai
The Dubai Life Magazine wrote:
Firstly let me introduce myself , I’m the Editor of a Dubai based Blog and Online Magazine TheDubaiLife.com.
I’m just dropping you a line regarding the ongoing will they-wont they of the DIC Liverpool takeover. As Liverpool fans this conversation has gripped those of us involved with the blog and magazine on and off for almost a year now. With the new developments we have found ourselves writing about the DIC takeover more than anything else over the last few weeks. In this time we have had feedback asking us to contact DIC to bring their attention to the many fans who would like nothing more than a DIC takeover of Liverpool.
Keeping all this in mind we thought it may be an idea to colate the views of Liverpool fans and send them to DIC to at least let them know of views of the fans out in the UK and even worldwide.
I hope if you feel appropriate you can share this with the users of your site and get the word around.
The webpage where you fans can send their views to DIC can be found with the link below: Link
Also we have section of our views on the whole issue: Link
Support for Hicks from Texas – His PR Company in disguise?
Texas Rangers fan ‘Zach’ writes:
In a recent article in the Dallas Morning News I read about how fans of Liverpool FC are having some issues with Tom Hicks & George Gillett. I know nothing of Gillett so I will not talk about him but I do know a bit about Hicks. The first thing that I will say about him is that he will not abandon a team that he owns. Look at the baseball team the Texas Rangers. Most people would have sold that team along time ago but he is still willing to pump money into it to turn there fortunes around. There has been some mismanagement there but I think that is more the fault of the General Managers that he has hired. When he bought the Dallas Stars they were a good team and he sunk the money into them to make them the best. They won the Stanley Cup in ’99 and returned to the finals in ’00. They have had issues after that but that is not really the fault of Hicks more so the coaching in my opinion. They have not developed a toughness as a team. I am an avid Stars fan and I think that he does what an owner should stay in the background and lets his General Managers have a really long leash. In the case of the Rangers that is where he faltered be cause he had managers that were not the best finding the right talent for the team.
With the Stars he has had better managers and right now with our new co-GMs I think things ill move forward again. While he might not be the best choice or the fans choice as the owner of a football club I think that if he gets the chance he will do well. I think that because to him being an owner is not just about money it is mainly about winning. He wants to win just as bad as you do. You probably don’t believe that but I do. I don’t think you need to love him but just give the man a chance. My guess is that you are most pissed off because he is an American. Liverpool has not won a title since 1990 & Hicks can help put you back on top.
These are just my thoughts and who knows what will happen in the future. I hope I didn’t piss you off with this email.Wish you and Liverpool FC the best.
Touts want us to promote their touting business
Cleafs.com wrote:
Dear Webmaster, With reference to a visit to your website, I would like to suggest to cooperate with you!
We sell tickets off all the football matches around the world. Whether you would like to enjoy a Liverpool match or an other match, http://www.[link-removed].com/ is the right address to purchase those tickets.
We are offering you the opportunity to become our partner by selling our tickets through your website.
For sales that are generated by your website, you will receive a commission of 12 %. The average order at Worldticketshop has a value of 400 euros, which will give you a commission of about 48 euro per order.
The Worldticketshop partnerprogramme is exclusively available at Cleafs. That is why we will be waiting with interest at your reply.
Our reply:
TOUTS – FUCK OFF
And finally…. 
‘Rick Parry’ wrote:
Blame me Rick Parry i secretly love Everton and want to ruin Liverpool, these yanks have ruined the club my plan is coming true next step is no money for players, don’t get into the champions league, go bad on the pitch ;) and turn into leeds, haha! 65 million for a stadium and 45 million for players over 18mnths – class Liverpool football club is finished! 19 years since a prem title haha – least in a few years we might win the championship or league one! are liverpool fans that lame they are not doing anything!!!!!!
your the voice of the fans anfield red, boycott the club get petitions going get some news on getting gillet and hickelberry finn out the FA cup game demonstartions will drive national pr this is anfield not texas!!!!!!
We’re not sure if it really is Rick?!
