Respect our rituals, don't rubbish them

First up, the devils from the City Council decide to extend the residents' parking zone around Anfield roughly towards Chester in the south, and Preston in the north, forcing me out of my second home and depriving the local youth community of several hundred pounds in protection, I mean car minding, fees.

I don't remember any advance warning of this vicious imposition; nor do I observe any information provided by our crafty council on how the hell we're supposed to get to the match in the absence of any usable public transport.

The ground might be relatively accessible from the city centre, but from any other part of the environs you may as well wait to hitch a lift on a passing Roc than catch a deregulated bus from the suburbs. The fact of the matter is that, in Liverpool, the vast majority of the 43,000 fans are going to arrive by car.

I understand that this is going to cause some inconvenience for local residents but it's not as if aliens have suddenly dropped the ground into the area without serving the compulsory 43 days warning notice is it? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the ground in some shape or form has been where it is now for over 100 years, so it's a reasonably safe bet that it was there before the current batch of residents.

Some inconvenience on every other Saturday afternoon should not therefore come as a great surprise. So, as car drivers get forced further from the ground, another batch of residents suffer the knock-on effects outside the current boundary, when they might reasonably have expected to be spared this living over a mile from the ground. Explain that, good aldermen of the city.

The second disturbance to my footballing ether comes from the least expected source: the Rafatollah himself. The great man has decided that our renowned anthem, which has rolled down the Kop since the mid-sixties, should now be sung once the players are out on the pitch and have concluded the various formalities demanded by the Premier League and their sponsors.

On Saturday this meant that YNWA was just squeezed in before the kick-off; I'd swear Andre Marriner delayed his whistle until we'd finished our favourite ditty.

Now I can understand Rafa's logic in wanting players from both sides to feel the might of our support; but at the same time a little piece of our heritage has disappeared.

Traditionally YNWA has been followed by a succession of chants for individual players' names, climaxing in a full-throated roar to greet the kick-off.

So if anything, the lack of time to follow this custom may actually reduce the atmosphere rather than enhance it.

Oh well. That's progress I suppose.

It's enough to make you throw away your lucky 1965 Cup Final underpants.