M18CTID said:
The long-standing rivalry between the cities of Manchester and Liverpool means City and Liverpool fans haven't exactly been the best of friends down the years but our shared hatred of all things United coupled with the fact that we haven't been in direct competition with each other at the top end of the league since the 1970's until very recently has equated to a generally good-natured rivalry. Now that the dust has settled on last season's title race I don't think things are much different amongst most fans of both clubs and the "hate" is mainly restricted to a minority of fans that post on a single LFC forum, and vice versa of course. Save for the usual Manc/Scouse banter and jokes about how Liverpool fans were celebrating the title win last season I and many other City fans certainly don't have a significant issue with the average Liverpool fan and I'm sure most Liverpool fans feel the same way about the average City fan. I drank amongst LFC fans and engaged in conversation with a fair few of them in various pubs around Liverpool before and after last season's 3-2 defeat at Anfield and there were were no problems.
A sane post. Nice to see.
The changing face / sanitised nature of football means that club rivalries that were once played out almost exclusively against the backdrop of the terraces are now conducted more and more on the internet.
Whereas Liverpool and City have never been the best of mates - in my opinion anyway (various trips to Maine Road over the years told me that much – as recently as when Owen scored a hat-trick there in the Houllier era and you just KNEW it wasn’t going to be pretty afterwards) then, as above, I’ve been in many pubs over the years where both Liverpool and City have mixed amicably both before and after games – and that's including last season.
I tend to gauge the mood on these kinds of experiences - or ‘real life’ as it’s also sometimes known.
The internet is a different beast of course where any faceless crank / halfwit can have both a presence and an opinion.
That said, more and more these days when people refer to ‘Liverpool fans’ being this or being that then, to be completely honest, I don’t actually have much of a clue who they’re talking about – interest in the Premier League is such now that it’s appealing to a global market and the make-up of Liverpool’s (and many other clubs' - if City aren’t there yet then they certainly will be) support is so diverse then it's almost impossible to generalise.
Infact, I’ve probably got far more in common with your average United fan in Salford than I have with half the people you see inside Anfield these days.
As the prices keep going up and the clubs look more and more to exploit the match-day ‘experience’ to anyone with money who’s got a few quid to spend then, in the short-term at least, it’s only going to get worse - and not just at Liverpool.
Anyway, Old Trafford on Sunday.
Up the reds!