Looks Like Liverpool Have Got Themselves A new Manager

Brendan "Buck" Rodgers - Liverpool Manager

Today the BBC news website and Twitter lit up with the news that Brendan "Buck" Rodgers has agreed to manage Liverpool.  There is a lot of opinions being expressed either way about this development.  Some are saying that it's a huge risk and most likely a bad move for Fenway Sports Group.  Others like myself are ecstatic, and I will explain why right now.

When Kenny Daglish was sacked, I was gutted.  I thought it was incredibly harsh on the part of FSG.  As a matter of fact I still do.  King Kenny deserved better than that.  He only finished mid table at the end of the season which in my view is a sacking offence for any manager of Liverpool, even Daglish.  But he reached two cup finals and won one of them.  Mid table or not that's worth another year, at the very least until the January transfer window.

Daglish got a bad rap, but he can take solace in the fact
that he has a dam good replacement!

Anyhoo what's done is done, so there's no point in crying about it so I decided to look to the future.  And to the future I looked.  I attentively kept an eye on the BBC sports section on the internet to see what the possibilities were.  All of the names that were brought up were absolutely disappointing.  Martinez? Crap!  Andre Villas Boas? Oh God I hope not!  Fabio Cappello? He's okay but, nah!  Frank de Boer? Now that's more like it but I'd prefer the other name up for the job!  Brendan Rodgers?  My first choice all day long!  The style he brought to his Swansea team and his sheer knowledge of the job impressed me over the entire season.  He is capable of bringing out the very best of every player under him.  Not to mention that his nickname is "Buck" Rodgers.  Now that's a name I'd like to work for!

Only two weeks ago he turned down the position, and it seemed to me that he was never going to change his mind.  There was my first choice down the crapper.  Not only that, but it seemed Martinez was surely going to land the job.  FSG sacking Daglish in favour of Martinez?  Oh come on guys, what the hell are you guys thinking?  The future I was looking so hard at seemed more bleak than ever.

I was in the mindset of preparing myself for another disappointing season when today, when I turned on the internet, I saw a news item that Brendan Rodgers agreed to work for Liverpool as manager.  Too good to be true I thought to myself.  It's probably just another rumour I thought.  I kept an eye on every update I could find on Twitter and numerous news websites.  I spent hours pouring over every word written about this until I was satisfied that it must actually be happening.

I had to include this one I found on the internet.   It tickled
me just a little bit.

It's been confirmed everywhere except from Liverpool themselves it seems.  Swansea themselves have even confirmed that he's left.  You can be sure that I'll be keeping an attentive eye on everything that transpires tomorrow.  When Liverpool make their official announcement, I'll be watching.

Until then I'll say welcome to Anfield Buck!  I know you'll be amazing and I wish you the best of luck.

FS&R Charity Gig

This was not the gig.  Just a random photo
of me with a guitar at an open mic.

Well last night I participated in a charity evening to raise funds for the Foyle Search And Rescue at the Rocking Chair Bar.  From my perspective the evening couldn't have gone better.  I was the last guest up to play my short set, and the audience reaction was fantastic.  The crowd was large and I'm sure quite a lot of money was raised on pure numbers alone.  That's not even counting the auction that occurred.  Unfortunately I have no video or photographs of my performance as the low light conditions and the noise of the crowd made any photo or video that was taken unusable.  It was good to be back in a live situation though with an audience who seemed to really enjoy my set.  Next up (if all goes well) will be the festival of colours, and I intend to absolutely rock the square on that one.  Watch this space!

Setting off for the last part of the tour.  The boat ride around
the Foyle river.

I didn't sit at my computer to talk about how great I was last night however.  I just wanted to speak a little bit about the Foyle Search and Rescue.  Think RNIB for the Derry area and you have an idea of what they do.  I did a show to raise funds for them before with the choir I'm involved with.  About a month before the show they were kind enough to take us on a tour around what they did.  It was a fun evening that ended with our being invited on to one of their boats for a tour of the river Foyle.

Volunteers at the River Foyle,

The thing that struck me about these amazing people was that they give up so much to ensure the safety of everyone in the Foyle area.  They're not paid (except for about two people who run the place).  Yet they spend so much time volunteering for this outfit at all kinds of hours.  Fighting strong currents and a very dirty river, dealing with suicides and above all else, recovering bodies.  They actually commented on the fact that nothing can prepare you for the smell in their first few recoveries.

They need and deserve every and any penny they can get their hands on.  The recent bad winters have set them back tremendously, because when the river had frozen over a lot of equipment, including their pontoon was destroyed.  As if they're not up against it enough already.

I hope they catch up and get all of the tools necessary to do the job.

For more information on these amazing heroes, you can go to their website at the URL http://www.foylesearchandrescue.org/

Rupert Murdoch Is A Bad Man

Rupert and James Murdoch

Well today the government has deemed Rupert Murdoch unfit to run a major international company.  I mean, duh!  Everybody has known that for years now.  It may be hard to believe, but this whole affair has been going on for about 10 years.  In that time thousands of victims of phone hacking have been discovered, and settlements have been handed out like sweets to a number of them to try to keep quiet about it.  And that was before the news broke that Milly Dowler's phone was also hacked.  All of a sudden Murdoch, Brooks and number of other high profile emloyees suddenly feigned shock at this, even though everyone knew that was going on for years.  Of course they didn't know (sarcasm).

Rebekah Brooks

All of a sudden every celebrity who were afraid to take these people on, for fear of News Internationals powerful array of newspapers and television services would turn on them and completely destroy them, grew a pair of big hairy balls.  They jumped on News International like hyena's to get something out of it. I couldn't blame those celebrities however, if their phone was hacked, you may as well make a bit of money out of it, now there was no fear of backlash.  I have to admit, I'd have done the same.

They Actually Kept A Straight Face Saying All That Stuff

I couldn't contain my laughter however every time Rupert Murdoch and his minions looked at us straight in the eye, and said that they didn't have any knowledge of phone hacking at News International.  I don't need evidence to know that this the biggest pile of cow clap I have ever heard.  This has been an issue for the best part of a decade before the Milly Dowler part of the picture came in.  How could they not know about the millions of pounds of settlements they had already paid out to other victims to keep quiet about the very same crime inflicted upon other people?

There's another part of this News International story however that I'm shocked isn't getting as much coverage.  I had seen an episode of Panorama recently entitled 'Murdoch's TV Pirates', that pointed out that his company played a part in the downfall of 'itv digital', by cloning their viewing cards.  (The first part of the episode can be viewed below.  They paid a hacker to post details of itv digital's viewing cards online.  This allowed anyone with the know how to clone paying customers viewing cards and sell them to anyone who wanted free 'paid for' television.  The idea being to cancel out any competition for Sky.  I'm sure that would have resulted in a mass boycot only for the fact that we all love our Sky Sports and Sky Movies too dam much.

The above are only the crimes that we know about.  Who knows what other secrets they're hiding in that huge sprawling company.  If Murdoch doesn't do jail time in the near future then there's something seriously wrong.

To view the report published today click here.  report