[The Zion Egg]: Articles (Fans)

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Here's a little social experiment for you all to try one weekend. Drive to Sunderland, go into a pub, order a bevvy and strike up a conversation with one of the locals (He'll be wearing a hoop gold earring). Then casually slip this in, '...tell you what mate, you Geordies are fuckin' sound, fog on the tyne's all mine all mine....' I'll stop there because that's probably as far as you'll get and the next voice you hear will be the paramedic's.
We English harbour a xenophobic philosophy, we can't help it. Put it under the microscope and witness scene's like the one above and you begin to see where it comes from; if we hate our nearest neighbours, what chance does the rest of the world have?
And so it is that rivalries are bred across our (un)fair Isles. But wait, what about those mild-mannered people of The Wirral, surrounded by water on three sides with the lunatic border guardians of Ellesmere Port (home of the Astra) keeping out the riff-raff, who could they possibly have a beef with? Right? Read on.

A Coral Fan Vents His Spleen.

Right, contrary to popular belief, Hoylake is important for two reasons. Firstly, it spawned the Coral, music gods, kings of the universe etc. More importantly, a couple of years ago, it spawned me. Now that you know that, I think its pretty clear I am more than qualified to tell you about the not-so-subtle differences between the Good (Us), the bad (Scousers) and the ugly (Welsh).
N.B. In the true spirit of political correctness I feel it necessary to abuse those from Wales and those from Liverpool equally.

On with those reasons:

  1. Football - They've got Liverpool. They've got Everton. God knows how many, league and cup wins between them. We've got... Tranmere Fucking Rovers, last major trophy win, Welsh Cup 1934. Shit.
  2. Music - They've given the world The Beatles, Cast, The Lightening Seeds, Space, Echo and the Bunnymen etc. We've given the world, er... OMD and Half-Man, Half-Biscuit. However, as soon as the world discovers the Coral, all will be well and we can gloat and look very smug.
  3. Jobs - We have them. They don't. 'Nuff said
  4. Reputation - They nick things. We don't. Everyone knows that, surely?
  5. Reality - When it comes to common sense and normality, Scousers are generally a bit out of it and walk around with a superiorty complex (mainly for reasons 1 and 2). We, however, having watched Tranmere Rovers and listened to OMD for life know for sure that life is shit! We're grounded in reality.
  6. Scousers smell.
  7. Tourists - Liverpool has loads. We have, precisely one fuck-wit who appears to have spent ages looking on the map to find us (all you've got to do is follow the fucking road signs).
  8. Scousers never floss.
  9. Danger - On top of being mugged (a near certainty across the water) there is the old bomb threat. If a mad terrorist decides to go after big English cities (be it IRA or al-quaida) where are they gonna go? Liverpool, or Hoylake? You decide.
  10. THE BIG ONE - The Wirral is the proud possessor of ME! The one and only, living legend. Born and Bred in Hoylake (OK I was born in Birkenhead, but I've always lived in Hoylake). This has to be the final straw; we're just simply better than them.

So there you are. Quite simply, we're a superior race. So just remember the old Tranmere chant:

So fuck your cathedral
And your Pier Head
We are not Scousers
We're from Birkenhead


'Til next time, (if there is one)

Fred