For Liverpool the season is growing closer to being declared over, European qualification becoming an increasingly unlikely outcome. For Reading there might just be a sense of there being something to fight for – if not top flight survival of the club then personal survival of some of its playing staff – meaning Liverpool could be caught cold.

The fans won’t be caught cold. There’s a lot to debate about the whys and wherefores of the problems with the atmosphere at most Liverpool home games but if anything the Reds that travel to the aways are getting louder than ever. Today might just be another party and it might not matter how the result goes.

There’ll be a brief pause in the festivities as those who travel south today remember those who travelled east 24 years ago and never came home. Monday is the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster and it promises to be an emotional one in a slightly different way to usual because this time the truth, or most of it, is finally out there.

The bit that isn’t out there is exactly what part Margaret Thatcher played in what is now proven to have been a cover-up. She held meetings the night of the disaster and in the days that followed, she told civil servants not to welcome the Taylor report because it had a go at the police, what else did she do? The families want all papers released now, including any that Thatcher and her servants might have held back by whatever excuse they could get away with.

Even without the part her government played in the persecution of the families of the victims, not to mention the survivors, she did damage in other ways to Liverpool and its people. Some of those defending her for various acts will try to excuse her by saying that one wasn’t down to her, it was one of her cabinet, or whatever excuse comes to mind. She was the boss! She was in charge of these people who, let’s face it, were doing whatever they thought she’d want them to do. She shaped them that way – and pretty much always had the final say on what they did anyway.

It’s hard to find anyone in the north with a good word to say about her, even those who aren’t happy at the idea of parties or getting “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” to number one are, in many cases, citing the old unwritten rules about showing respect when people, however bad, die. To many of those whose lives were ruined by her policies they feel as much respect for her as the front page of the Daily Mail and its ilk would feel for Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden or Colonel Gadaffi. If anyone could be arsed we’d look for their coverage of those deaths – would we find their pages filled with respect?

To us she’s a bitch and that’s all there is to it. Some of us were directly hurt by her actions back when she was dictating her rules to the country, others are too young but have heard all the painful stories about soup kitchens, families being split up in the hunt for work, being treated like scum.

We could go on – you can probably sense that – but back to today. Some good banners are promised for today’s game – if Reading’s owner doesn’t send out orders to block them from being brought in – and there might even be some fireworks.

On the pitch the fireworks might come from Luis Suárez if Brendan Rodgers gets his way. The Uruguayan won’t be concerned that FIFA are investigating how he reacted after Chile and Nottingham Forest’s Gonzalo Jara “grabbed his genitals”. Perhaps the question FIFA should be asked by the Uruguayan FA is how would they react to that kind of attention?

For many Liverpool fans, and indeed many fans of club football, maybe he shouldn’t have even been there to get that attention. International breaks interrupt the flow of the league season and often leave clubs short of their best players when they come back injured or worn out. Rodgers was asked if the Luis Suárez off day against West Ham was down to tiredness, something he denied. “Luis is fine and he isn’t tired, this is a guy who I’ve seen all year and I’ve got big admiration for him.

“He’s a player who travels a long distance for internationals but when he comes back he always displays that sheer will and desire to play for this club. He’s a boy who has played magnificently for us this season. He has been brilliant in nearly every game.”

“What the West Ham game showed is that he’s human. From time to time he will have an off day; it was just one of those games where it just didn’t go for him.

“What you get with Luis Suarez even on an off day is seven out of 10 because of his work and his intensity; it wasn’t down to fatigue, just a natural consequence of what happens as a footballer. He won’t always be at his magical best, but even when he’s not at his best he’s still contributing.”

Suárez starts today; Rodgers has picked a side with just one change to the one that started against West Ham. Stewart Downing, who went off early due to illness, is on the bench with the player who replaced him that day, Daniel Sturridge, starting in his place.

Whatever happens today it’s going to be a day of remembering and it might well be a day to remember.

Liverpool: Reina, Johnson, Carragher, Agger, Enrique, Lucas, Gerrard, Henderson, Sturridge, Suarez, Coutinho.
Subs: Jones, Coates, Skrtel, Shelvey, Suso, Assaidi, Downing.

Another player who was on Liverpool’s books at the start of the season will also miss out today, Joe Cole, perhaps predictably, is out with a hamstring problem.  When Cole joined the Reds in the summer of 2010 he said “it’s the biggest club in the country.” After going back down south, Liverpool having to effectively pay to get rid of him, he changed his tune and in an interview with a Chelsea fanzine set himself up for a pretty hot reception today (if it hadn’t been for his latest injury absence). He said: “I can only play for teams that I’m passionate about and I think that’s what went wrong for me at Liverpool. I didn’t feel a connection with the club or the place. Obviously they’re not the biggest club in the country any more.”

With Liverpool currently stuck in seventh place, behind our beloved blue neighbours and a long way off winning titles again it’s disappointing to think that 12 months before Joe Cole’s arrival Liverpool had finished second in the league in a memorable, if trophyless, season.

This season is all but over, Liverpool’s hopes of getting something from it rely on the errors of others that ‘something’ is a place in Europe. This was always going to be a transitional season, yet another, and whatever we felt about the circumstances that saw the manager’s post being vacant at Anfield just under a year ago we knew that three seasons outside the top four weren’t going to be fixed all that easily. It’s next season where Rodgers will really need to prove himself. There’s no harm in reminiscing about the good old days but Liverpool need to look forward now and not back at the days that saw the likes of Joe Cole arrive at the club.

Cole took the number 10 shirt when he arrived, the shirt John “Digger” Barnes made his own and one that Cole was never going to live up to. The latest incumbent might do though. Coutinho should get a start today and as someone still picking up the English game having only signed in the January window there are high hopes from fans that the Brazilian is going to bring us as much joy as Digger did.

Daniel Sturridge has had a mixed start to his Anfield career, let down in part by injuries, but as a young signing his manager will no doubt feel he can get him playing consistently well and showing more of his good side than bad. In fact, when the front end of the side plays as well as it can – especially Luis Suárez – there’s almost no need to worry about what goes on at the back. On its day this Liverpool side will score for fun.

Unfortunately the front end of the side isn’t always playing its best and it’s on days like that we’ve seen Liverpool struggle. Far too often this season the defence has leaked far too many goals. It seems a long time since Liverpool have conceded three goals in a game as many times as they have this season.

West Ham haven’t won a game at Anfield since 1963, back before their captain lifted England’s only World Cup, back when the Beatles were about as big as One Direction, back when Shanks had Liverpool in a transition phase. That transition was from the second division club he’d joined four years earlier to the league champions they would become by the end of that season. They’d finished eighth the season before.

Thanks Shanks

That 1963 game, played in the September, saw Liverpool two-down by half time, the goals coming from players who’d eventually become synonymous with that England World Cup glory a few years later. Martin Peters had opened the scoring with Geoff Hurst adding another. In the second half Ronnie Moran missed a penalty for Liverpool and although another one of those World Cup names got one back for Liverpool, Roger Hunt’s goal ended up being a consolation.

It was Liverpool’s third home defeat in a row and at the time it must have felt like Liverpool were a long way off getting their sixth league title. Shanks is quoted as telling the board, after this loss, not to worry too much: “I assure you, gentlemen, that before the end of the season we will win a home game!”

Rodgers has a long, very long, way to go before he can be put anywhere near the level of Bill Shankly and other great Liverpool managers. It’s way too early to compare the two, even though that is what inevitably happens. Liverpool is a club that wants to be back where Shanks put it, back where Paisley, Fagan and Dalglish got it and kept it, but that’s going to take time. Time and patience.

Patience will wear thin though if West Ham break that Anfield hoodoo today. Liverpool have to win this one today. The three points for a win would only make a difference in the league places if Everton lost today, and even then it would only see Liverpool go ahead on goal difference and having played one game more. But these are the games Liverpool should win without thinking about it too much. These are the matches Liverpool have been winning for 50 years.

Sam Allardyce has had his moments against Liverpool, good and bad, today would be a good day to see him have a moment like the one he had back in that 2008-2009 season. The moment that his mate from down the East Lancs said was beyond the pale as Rafa Benítez’s side hammered his Bolton side with the kind of display that is one of the main reasons we pay so much to watch our lads in those Red shirts.

Today is a good day for a win.

That was the season that ended with a night in Istanbul for Liverpool and relegation for Southampton. The south coast side had not long since moved into St Mary’s after leaving The Dell and it hadn’t been a ground Liverpool enjoyed going to – in four visits they’d only won once and had been on the wrong end of three 2-0 scorelines.

That last visit came at a time of huge pressure for Rafa Benítez, in his first season as Reds boss. A league defeat at home to the enemy from down the East Lancs had been followed by the infamous FA Cup exit at lowly Burnley with the Spaniard being told he didn’t understand how important the domestic cups were to the supporters. There’s an argument that some still don’t understand their importance but it’s an argument for another day.

This was also Carragher’s first season as a regular centre-back but injuries meant he had to play at right-back – paving the way for a rare appearance for Pellegrino alongside Hyypia. Alonso was also injured but with Gerrard and Hamman available midfield was the least of Benítez’s worries. Up front he had Morientes and Baros and perhaps it’s no surprise that he’d be making a bid for Crouch that summer.

Despite the win Southampton remained in the relegation zone and ended the season there. Liverpool travelled back north in what was seen as a disappointing fifth place in the table, the position they ended the season in, only qualifying for the following season’s Champions League by actually winning that big-eared cup themselves.

Today’s Southampton side are out of the relegation places but only just and will be looking for an upset this afternoon. They managed one last month, beating current champions Manchester City 3-1, but only managed one point from their next three games.

For Liverpool the rest of the season is about picking up as many points as possible and hoping other sides slip up. Talk of a top four finish has started again but Liverpool would do well to ignore the league table and just keep picking up points the way they have in recent matches. Four wins and 15 goals means the Reds go into this match on top form but in the background there still remains the vulnerability at the back that has seen too many points dropped.

If Everton manage to bounce back from their FA Cup exit last weekend the Reds could drop a place without playing, Liverpool starting the day a place above them on goal difference and having played a game more.

The FA Cup draw means it’s almost certainly going to need a top five finish to get any kind of place in Europe next season and even for that the Reds are going to have to rely on the slip-ups of others.

Liverpool can’t do anything about what the other sides do but they can certainly make sure they’ve got the points in the bag should enough of those slip-ups happen.

For this season at least, fifth would be a good ending to a new manager’s first term in charge – and a platform to build on for next season, when Europa League qualification should be the bare minimum.

It’s easy to forget that Wigan are relative newcomers to the top flight – they were celebrating their first ever promotion to the highest division the same summer Liverpool were celebrating that fifth European Cup – but they now face a familiar battle to keep that status. They are just outside the relegation places – thanks to their goal difference not being as bad as Aston Villa’s – and are now starting to draw on all that experience of fighting for survival. They beat fellow relegation candidates Reading 3-0 last weekend and will be 100% up for this one – the question is will Liverpool be up for it?

LFC head to Wigan (Pic: Dan Farrimond, illarterate on flickr)

Wigan’s short time in the top flight means the two sides have only met 17 times, ever. Two of those meetings were in the League Cup back in Liverpool’s last league title winning season. Liverpool have only lost one of those 17 games.

That one defeat was last season – at Anfield – with Wigan in the bottom two and Liverpool playing like a side who thought their league season was over and done with. The meeting at the DW had ended in a draw. This match comes with Wigan in need of points as much as they were ahead of that game last season – and a serious chance of The Reds turning up with an attitude that their season is over. If Wigan get even a sniff of that kind of attitude it won’t end well for Liverpool.

The sense of the league season being over last time was down to the Reds having already qualified for Europe thanks to the collection of some silverware – the League Cup – for the first time since Tom Hicks and George Gillett went broke and broke the club. There was still a possibility of more silverware to come (Liverpool of course making it the final of The FA Cup) but as far as the league was concerned there was a growing sense that Kenny Dalglish’s men were just going through the motions now that Europe was assured and fourth place – and the Champions League – was out of realistic sight.

That Anfield game also saw Raheem Sterling make his debut for the Reds, coming on with five minutes left of a game Liverpool had already deservedly lost and leaving fans wondering if it might not have been a good idea to bring him on a bit earlier. Dalglish was probably right to be cautious with a player for whom expectations were sky high, a player who was the third youngest to play for the Reds’ first team.

Dalglish was sacked in the summer and after a farcical summer transfer window new boss Brendan Rodgers found himself in a situation where he had to make far more use of Sterling than perhaps he’d have preferred. Last week Rodgers admitted the player had suffered as a consequence and that he’d not now be playing as much as he did in the first half of the season: “I just have to make sure I protect him,” said Rodgers. “What he has done this season has been incredible. He is getting to a period where he will need a wee rest, mentally as much as physically and that is what we will look to do, to take him out of the spotlight a little bit.”

Rodgers still had plenty of praise for him: “What I know with the kid is he has had a brilliant season. I think if anyone is looking at his performance level having dipped, that is only a natural development in terms of what was going to happen to a boy so young. If he never kicks a ball for the rest of the season, he has had an outstanding season.”

If Liverpool had reason – if not good reason – to see last season’s league campaign as over by the time they played Wigan at Anfield it’s harder to justify that kind of attitude this season. There’s no silverware in the cupboard and none to play for – but Liverpool still have an outside chance of getting a place in next season’s Europa League and really need to fight to get it.

The Reds start this game a place lower than they started that Wigan game last season, a place lower than they finished last season. The gap to fifth place is six points and that might be a gap too far given the sides that make up the top five – but the gap to sixth is just three points and the side sitting in sixth is Everton. If the eventual FA Cup finalists are already qualified for Europe sixth place might be enough.

The Reds must go all out to win tonight against a side that will need no motivation to try and get their second ever win over them.

As it was Liverpool thrashed Wigan in this season’s Anfield fixture, but this has been a season full of inconsistency and contradiction for the Reds. The ruthless attitude on display in the last two games – the hammering of Swansea and the heart-breaking exit from Europe despite that 3-1 win – would be more than welcome today and for the rest of the season.

There’s no silverware to play for and we know that Liverpool should never be happy with just a top six finish but that’s the position Liverpool are now in. For the rest of this season the target has to be to do as well as we possibly can and set things up for a more satisfactory campaign next time. Beating a side that is a relegation candidate, a side that has only ever beaten us once, might seem like something not worth getting excited about but it’s far better than being beaten by them.

The way to make the best of these last eleven games is to use them to finish the season strong and to have that strength to take into next season. Doing that might just make that final league position more palatable too.

2012 has been a busy year for Liverpool FC; winning a cup, changing the manager, good days and bad days, fans still hoping that this really is the dawn of a new era for the club but prepared to stick it out regardless. It’s also been a busy year for us here at Love Follow Conquer, trying to make our ideas into reality and absolutely buzzing off the reaction to items like the Leiva t-shirt, especially when Lucas himself ordered a load for his family! We’re just as made up when a fellow Red excitedly sends us a picture of their order after it’s arrived, or when they’re wearing it at the match, it’s good to know you like what we do.

We’ve got loads more ideas in mind for 2013, based on the reaction to what we’ve done and the support we’ve had from our customers. As you’re getting ready for Christmas we’re getting ready for Spring and Summer!

Back to that spare for the match – rather than it going to waste why don’t we give it to one of our customers? So, if you can definitely get down to Anfield tomorrow (not to mention get permission from the other half to swerve the Christmas shopping) let us know and we’ll stick your name in the hat.

Tweet @lovefollowconqr these hashtags – #LFC #clobber #getonit – and you’ll be in the hat. (We’ll have to find a hat.)

All we ask is that you’re following us on Twitter and that you’ve got an account on our website at lovefollowconquer.com/shop.

You don’t have to buy anything to sign up for an account and we don’t ask for payment details until you do decide to buy something. We don’t flog your details to anyone else and we’ll only use them if we need to contact you about something to do with Love Follow Conquer.

We’ll pick a winner later and sort out the arrangements with you, so make sure your contact details are up to date on our site. If we can’t match your Twitter account to your Love Follow Conquer account we’ll DM you.

Whoever gets drawn out of the hat will get to see LFC v Fulham from the Centenary stand (aka The Kemlyn) and will get access to either The Shanks (aka the Shankly Suite) or the Paisley Suite for a pre-match “selection of hot and cold high quality food” (aka grub).

So, to get in the Love Follow Conquer hat:

1) Sign up at lovefollowconqr.com/shop (if you haven’t already)
2) Follow us on Twitter
3) Tweet  #LFC #clobber #getonit to @lovefollowconqr.
4) Do this by 10pm tonight.

If your name’s drawn we’ll get in touch with you to sort out the arrangements, you’ll need to be able to meet us about an hour before kick-off so we can pass you the ticket.

Even if he’d been fit Liverpool’s striker Andy Carroll, on loan at West Ham, would have been ineligible to play against his parent club. There might still be a sight of a one-time Red player on the other side – Yossi Benayoun is a possibility for The Hammers having been out with a knee injury.

The other player that joined the club at the same time as Carroll, a player whose signing was very much overshadowed by both the signing of Carroll and the departure of Fernando Torres, is also going to miss this game. Luis Suárez has managed to rack up five bookings this season and so misses out due to suspension. It says a lot about the continued disruption at the club in the two years since the duo arrived that Liverpool have no other recognised first team striker to fill in for Suárez today.

Liverpool did sign another forward in the summer, Fabio Borini, but having suffered a foot injury that needed surgery he’s back in Italy recovering. He’s aiming to back in Liverpool for Boxing Day but will obviously be some way from a return to the first team at that point – and he wasn’t signed by Rodgers as a replacement for Carroll. Nobody was signed as a replacement for Carroll. Mixed messages seem to be coming out of the club as to why that happened and it won’t be until the end of January that Liverpool fans will be able to tell if the problems that caused it to happen have been dealt with.

For now Liverpool have to make do with the players already here and available and that means either blooding another youngsters or using someone out of position. Midfielder Jonjo Shelvey seems most likely to get the nod to play up front, although Raheem Sterling could yet be asked to play a role more like the one Suárez has done to such great effect this season.

Steven Gerrard didn’t make the trip to Udinese for the game that saw Liverpool win 1-0 and finish top of their Europa League group. This wasn’t because Rodgers chose to rest him for a competition the importance of which remains a matter of dispute amongst supporters, it was because he was ill.  He’s over that illness now and will almost certainly be back in the starting eleven at Upton Park.

As well as possibly welcoming Benayoun back West Ham could also see a return for George McCartney.  The fixture has come too soon though for Ricardo Vaz Te, Jack Collison and Alou Diarra who are all still out injured.

West Ham’s manager these days is Sam Allardyce, a man it’s safe to say isn’t popular with Liverpool supporters. It’s not just the brand of football he likes to see his teams play, or his teamwork with Ferguson in the “beyond the pale” incident (he’d just seen his team hammered by Liverpool and got upset with Liverpool’s then-manager Rafa Benítez for daring to be happy about it), it’s the overall product that is known as “Big Sam”.

He’ll no doubt be feeling quite smug about getting one over Benítez, now Chelsea’s boss, with that 3-1 win last week and he’ll want more of the same this week. They’ve started the season well since promotion back to the top flight and are currently two places above Liverpool in tenth having picked up 22 points from their first 15 games.

If Liverpool win today they’ll leapfrog West Ham and take tenth place themselves, a position that isn’t one Liverpool aspire to. But the league this season hasn’t been like the league of most seasons and a win would see Liverpool move to two points behind sixth-placed Arsenal, who are currently two points behind fourth-placed Spurs.

But these are the types of game Liverpool need to win.

Rodgers played down the impact of their post-Udinese flight home being cancelled until the following day, saying the players would have mainly been resting and feeding, and says that’s only a problem if you make it one. If anything Rodgers is more likely to use it to motivate the players, having had them captive for longer than he might have done had the plane not been broken.

Liverpool have only lost one game in the last ten in the league but need more of those unbeaten games to be wins than draws.  Suárez might be top scorer but his absence will give other players the chance – and the duty – to get into goalscoring positions and if that works out it might just help spread the goals out a bit more over the remainder of the season and certainly over the festive period ahead of a transfer window that Liverpool probably won’t be able to rely on as the answer to all the problems.

As important as a win today is for Liverpool they face a side who have lost only once at home in the league this season and won’t need much motivation to keep that record going. Liverpool have only won one away game this season, the hammering of Norwich which featured a Luis Suárez hat-trick.

West Ham haven’t won two in a row this season in the league and in reality would probably be happy with a draw today. Liverpool won’t go there looking for a draw but following that draining trip to Italy and in the absence of their only striker they might just take one.  They certainly don’t want a repeat of the last result they got here when Kenny Dalglish’s side were beaten 3-1 in February of last year.

It feels wrong to be talking about draws as good results and Liverpool are more than capable of winning this one. But what’s important for this match is important in Liverpool’s style of play under Rodgers and in the context of the whole season and also these early days of a new manager’s reign. Patience is vital.

To use a phrase we hear a lot at this time of year – “wait and see”.

That win was against Reading four weeks ago, the third match of what is now a six-game unbeaten run for Rodgers’s side in the league – but a run that has only yielded 10 points. There’s a cliché that ‘the league table doesn’t lie’ – one that might be factually true but is still pretty meaningless. The league table after 11 games is not the league table after 38, and that’s the league table that matters in the end. That said, the one that’s out there now is depressing enough – Liverpool are 13^th, with 12 points and a goal difference of minus two.

That run of ten points from six games isn’t too bad when compared to the two points Liverpool managed from the first five games in what has been perhaps a tougher fixture list than usual. Those first eleven games have included some difficult opponents – champions Manchester City, European champions Chelsea, the old enemies of Everton and Manchester United and another two sides that finished above Liverpool last season, Newcastle and Arsenal.

The next six games are crucial to Liverpool’s season. Phrases like “must win” do little more than add pressure but it’s hard to see how Liverpool can take this season seriously and not pick up a decent number of points from that run of games.

The good news, perhaps, is that three of them are 3pm Saturday kick-offs, at home.

After today’s game, and a Europa League game in midweek, Brendan Rodgers will be heading to South Wales to take his new club to visit his old one.  A few days later and it’s a trip to North London to face Spurs – where two ‘new school’ managers who replaced quite popular ‘old school’ managers will do battle.

The game against Spurs is arguably the toughest one facing Liverpool in this next run of six games, but the visit to West Ham is another that might turn out to be tougher than it should be. Not just because West Ham are currently above Spurs in the table, and not because Andy Carroll will be facing his mother club – he’ll be ineligible – but because Liverpool are still a scalp for the likes of Sam Allardyce.

These sideshows shouldn’t really stand in Liverpool’s way. The number of players Liverpool have bought and sold, the changes in coaching staff in recent years and the long-standing rivalries mean there aren’t many games for Liverpool that don’t have some kind of sideshow. The next two home 3pm kick-offs after today are against Southampton and Aston Villa.  Southampton have decided to change their home kit to one that suits us more than them but apart from that there isn’t much else to say.

All of those games are in the future though and today it’s the turn of Wigan and the sideshow is that their manager was approached by Liverpool‘s owners for the manager’s job. LFC say they didn’t make an offer, Wigan say Martinez turned LFC down. It doesn’t matter anyway – Martinez is still at Wigan after looking likely to get the sack at one point last season and Rodgers is now charged with getting Liverpool back to where Liverpool feel they should be.

And for Liverpool to be where Liverpool should be, home games against sides like Wigan should be opportunities to showboat, to show the world how good the Reds are, for Wigan to expect to be beaten and to hope it’s not by too embarrassing a score. It feels like we’re a long way away from that right now.

Those who want more three o’clock Saturday kick-offs don’t just want them back for the old routines either side of the game, they want them back the way they used to be, when Anfield was a fortress and the entertainment came with points and went without saying.

Supporters played a part in that – and today is the kind of day where the team need the supporters more than ever.

This is a good day to lose your voice, to show Martinez what he missed out on, whoever’s decision that was, to be a part of what will hopefully be looked back on as fondly as the days of Toshack, Dalglish, Digger and the rest.

* Send us what you like best – or not – about Saturday 3pm kick-offs or how your routine used to be compared to now. You can send it to us on Twitter, Facebook or leave a comment below. We’ll share the best ones – but it might be after the game, we’ve an old routine to follow.

PRESS RELEASE
12 November 2012
Love Follow Conquer launches autumn-winter 2012-13 range

LOVE FOLLOW CONQUER, the menswear label offering something unique and different for Liverpool supporters to wear, has launched its new collection for autumn-winter 2012. Inspired as always by Liverpool FC, the new range has been designed for every day, not just match day.

The names of the items in the new collection give a bit of a clue as to the inspiration behind the designs – ‘Awaydays’, ‘Rome ‘84’, ‘Paisley’ (the man not the pattern), ‘Wembley ‘78’, ‘Digger Barnes’ and ‘Spion Kop’. They join items already in Love Follow Conquer’s range like ‘Leiva’, ‘Old Big Ears’, ‘Rome 77’ and ‘Shankly’. The label was born out of the frustration of having been there and done that but not being able to find the right t-shirt. Each to their own but the offerings in the club shop aren’t for everyone.

Love Follow Conquer don’t just do t-shirts – like the new Digger Barnes and Spion Kop designs – they do polo shirts, sweatshirts, jackets and now jumpers and overshirts. For the time being at least they don’t do jeans and trabs (trainers for the uninitiated) but there’s plenty to choose from to dress yourself from the waist up.

Words about clothes can never do them justice so Love Follow Conquer got actor Scot Williams in to show them off. Scot – who played Joe Glover in Jimmy McGovern’s award winning drama ‘Hillsborough’ and Ged Brennan in the ‘The Crew’, the popular adaptation of Kevin Sampson’s bestselling novel ‘Outlaws’ – needed no persuasion.

Football supporters might have grown used to corporate sponsors being plastered across every spare bit of space on the gear their idols train and play in and those fans might have accepted that this helps pay the wages those idols earn. But Love Follow Conquer feel that still shouldn’t mean fans have to walk round advertising those sponsors if they want to show their loyalty to their club.

One of the new pieces in the collection is a grey smock jacket called ‘Awaydays’. The jacket features embroidered badges on the chest, one of which is a nod to LFC’s ‘Five Times’, and if you want to wear them it includes three pin badges and a metal badge. One of the pin badges features the logo of the popular LFC podcast and website ‘The Anfield Wrap’ – this badge isn’t available anywhere else.

Love Follow Conquer badges, including TAW one

The badges are also included in the new ‘Paisley’ track jacket. Based on Love Follow Conquer’s earlier red ‘Shankly’ track jacket, which is also available in white, this grey version with red and white trim is made from single nylon with a white mesh lining. No purple in sight, this version is named in honour of Bob Paisley, the man who brought LFC the first three of its European Cups.

The ‘Paris 81’ jumper is a nod to Bob’s, and Liverpool’s, third European Cup. Also supplied with the pin and metal badges, this top is a simple crew neck 100% cotton jumper with a useful pocket on the lower chest which features Love Follow Conquer’s embroidered logo.  It was three years later, under Joe Fagan, when Liverpool made it four and the ‘Rome 84’ overshirt is a nod to that.

The overshirt is zipped at the front and designed to be worn more than one way and can be used as a conventional shirt or as a jacket. There’s a detachable collar strap for when the collar is being worn up and on the lower chest are two pockets ideal for cash, cards, phones and the rest of the stuff we’re inevitably carting round with us these days. There’s a concealed pocket on the opposite chest and again this item comes with the metal and pin badges.

As much as Scot didn’t need any persuasion to model the new range he did need to find a way of fitting the session into an increasingly busy schedule. Having just finished filming his new film ‘Flight Redirected’ alongside Vinnie Jones, Scot is on the verge of announcing the cast for his new stage play ‘Hope’, to be premiered in Liverpool next spring.

‘Flight Redirected’ was filmed and set primarily in the Baltics, described as ‘The British Hangover’ it is due to be released next year.

‘Hope’, which you can follow on Twitter at @Hope_Is_Coming is the first-project of new film and theatre production company Thirty7 Productions, of which Scot is the co-founder.  Written and directed by Scot himself, ‘Hope’ is described as “a darkly comic psychological thriller”, its premiere will be at Liverpool’s Royal Court theatre and will feature an all-star cast.

The new range from Love Follow Conquer is out now and available online through www.lovefollowconquer.com.  You can also follow @LoveFollowConqr on Twitter and ‘like’ them on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/lovefollowconquer.

ENDS

For further information on Love Follow Conquer:

email: info@lovefollowconquer.com

Love Follow Conquer, Wychwood Barn, Wychwood Lane, Shermanbury, West Sussex, RH13 8HE

For further information on ‘Hope’, Thirty7 Productions and Scot Williams:
Follow Scot on Twitter @scotwilliams, visit www.thirty7productions.com or follow @Thirty7Ltd on Twitter. ‘Hope’ is also on Twitter, at @Hope_Is_Coming.

From the topless bird to the liverbird, everyone’s been having their say and so we’re not going to cover old ground. Instead we’re going to focus on the new Liverpool of Brendan Rodgers; a side that’s shown glimpses of brilliance in the season’s opening weeks but without the rewards to show for it.

Rodgers would be the first man to admit that two points from five games isn’t enough and he’d be right. As such, we sit firmly in the relegation zone and on the surface things aren’t looking pretty. But underneath lies a very different story.

Yes, it sounds so horribly clichéd and emblematic but we simply cannot continue dropping points if we play like we have for the majority of this short season. Outplaying the Manchester duo – last season’s top two – is no mean feat, and neither is going to the Stadium of Light and pinning them in like we did.

Yes, there are issues that need ironing out but can’t that be said of all clubs? I for one would be feeling far more downcast about the season ahead if I hailed from the other end of the East Lancs; a team that looked slow, sluggish, completely out of ideas and could hardly string three passes together until gifted the time and space generated by Shelvey’s dismissal. Let’s not beat about the bush; we played them off the park with 11 men and still dominated with 10.

The primary concern has to be defensively with just one clean sheet (3-0 at Norwich) since Spurs in February, exacerbated now by mid to long-term injuries for Dagger and Kelly. Coping without Lucas was already a huge loss; his protection in front of the back four has been sorely missed. But Rodgers’ tenure is in its infancy; we will only improve with time.

The overwhelming feeling today is one of pride; primarily for the pre-match ceremonials in which both clubs did the 96 and their families proud. Emotions ran high; 23 years of lies and deceit and finger-pointing all lifted like a heavy stone. The result was important but win or lose, it pales in significance to the result of last Wednesday – a victory for people who have endured such tortuous loss for too long.

The clothing label, which draws its inspiration from Liverpool FC culture, will feature in the September edition of the Kop Magazine which is sporting a makeover for the new season packed with more content, humour, analysis and give-aways to strengthen its reputation as a leading unofficial Liverpool FC magazine.

The Shankly Track Jacket is based on the iconic tracksuit top synonymous with legendary former reds’ manager Bill Shankly and has proved to be hugely popular among Liverpool supporters since its launch on lovefollowconquer.com.

Ian Maloney, founder and designer of Love Follow Conquer, says:

“We’re really proud to be associated with The Kop magazine, especially this month with it being the re-launch edition; it was great to be asked to get involved.”

You can enter the Shankly Track Jacket competition in the 209 (current) edition of The Kop Magazine which is on sale nationwide from WHSmiths, independent retailers and merseyshop.com. Subscriptions are also available, as is an iPad version from Amazon. The competition closes on Sunday 9^th September.

‘Shanks’ also features heavily in the Kop Magazine elsewhere this month with intriguing extracts from his diary that dates back 50 years. The extracts have been compiled in the new eBook titled “Bill Shankly: The Hard Road Back”.

For more information on Love Follow Conquer, visit lovefollowconquer.com @lovefollowconqr on Twitter or www.facebook.com/lovefollowconquer

-ENDS-

For more information:

Ian Maloney
info@lovefollowconquer.com
About Love Follow Conquer

Love Follow Conquer is a clothing label for Liverpool fans which draws its influences from a retrospective understanding of one of the most successful clubs in British history. From Albert Stubbins and Billy Liddell to Kenny Dalglish and Emlyn Hughes, right up to Steven Gerrard and Luis Suarez, Liverpool has a truly distinct identity and heritage – celebrating this is what Love Follow Conquer is all about.

The Love Follow Conquer collection aims to offer something truly unique for LFC supporters; something exclusive and timeless with no corporate logos or sponsorship.

Its clothing is available exclusively online at lovefollowconquer.com.