Beautiful game as we savour winning ugly

THE essential nature of Liverpool-United clashes dictates something: they should never produce one-sided hammerings.

No matter how wretchedly one or the other is playing, no matter what the respective league positions may be, honour and tradition ensures you are battling on an almost-level playing field at kick-off. Any winning margin of more than two goals is almost unheard of, and thus usually an anomaly that requires explanation.

Thus in 2003 we beat them 4-0, but only after the contest had been destroyed after a hundred seconds by a red card and penalty.

In 1990/1, we lost by the same margin at Anfield, yet I recall we played exceedingly well for much of the match, had been crippled by injuries, and that ‘Pool luckily produced a goal with just about every decent attack they had. The scoreline told one story, but the emotion another: we weren’t hammered. Not really. And on Sunday, once again we ended up with the anomaly of a ‘thrashing’ that, well, doesn’t really feel like it.

Don’t get me wrong: we will happily rub their noses in it for the next several months, and we certainly drank heartily to it whilst watching the jaw-droppingly superior London derby, but we all recognise any true contest at Old Trafford ended ridiculously prematurely with the hilarious sending-off — compounded by comedy ‘keeping a la Jerzy Dudek’. The “slaughter” is one for the scorebooks to commemorate rather than the psyche.

In case you were wondering, by the way, there hasn’t been a true, noose-fingering, hog-whimpering hammering in three decades viz the 0-3 Christmas horror show that Sexton’s so-called ‘Soldiers’ produced at OT in 1978. And the previous one was another whole decade back — Bobby Charlton’s rocket spearheading a 4-1 win at Anfield in 1969. I was too young to see that last one, so I still feel like I have never truly seen the Scousers properly humiliated by us. And part of me feels that this is how it should be.

May we be grisly, tight and unrelenting together, entwined and writhing in our mutual old Lancastrian hellfires, until the end of time.

The game was heading in the direction of being one of the worst such ‘classicos’ ever, until the madness kicked off. Ronaldo, yet again in a so-called top game, was mystifyingly anonymous, though he took his goal superbly bravely.

His dive in the box with three minutes left displayed such horrific cynicism combined with utterly moronic pointlessness that, for a split-second, I wanted him to get sent off for it. How else will he learn, after all? Of a similar ilk was Rio’s grossly ungentle manly attempt to get Torres sent off, which any would-be captain should have been ashamed of… and yet you forgive ‘em, because it was a United-Liverpool match. The writ that applies to the other 36 games doesn’t run for these two. It’s how it’s been ever since our relationship began to go truly sour in the mid-70s.

So instead of bitching at our players, I should salute them all, for successfully seeing a man go down and giving him a damned good kicking well beyond the necessary. As any Scouser would do in our position down a dark alleyway. Liverpool-United: it’s the Eastern Front of the Premier League.

Would my fellow Terrace-Talker Mr Kelly and I have preferred a stirring, highly-skilled and fluctuating feat of football such as that enjoyed by Miss Trizia and Mr Azulay hours later? Well, yes, doubtless we would have done. But we don’t really do those, do we? The 3-3 in 1994 and a couple of 80s FA Cup ties apart, it’s never been connoisseur-level. You do wonder why the cameras keep coming, in fact: much better to turn them off and leave us alone to hate each other and play Attrition-Ball to our heart’s content. Not least as we wouldn’t have to put up with moralising handwringing from the pathetic likes of Alan Green about our “poisonous” atmospheres. (Green, I am informed, went right off the Mary Whitehouse scale on Sunday’s BBC coverage.) Sometimes, y’know, it just feels good to revel in ugliness. ”

* By Richard Kurt, whose classic ‘Red Army Years’ is now re-issued, only via [e-mail]