Thought you might be interested in something arteta said

in a webchat on the official everton website:


and uefa say theres no problem?!?

 

* doesn't hate Liverpool. They are the Celtic of the Premiership.

 

yeah right

 

double post

 

we have no such bigotry and secterianism on merseyside mate. the only reason i can think that any celtic fans (mostly young) have that view is: everton play in blue and celtic v liverpooll hillsborough benefit match.

i remember this article from a couple of years ago:
In October 2004, The Guardian published this piece about Boris Johnson visiting Liverpool to make amends for his ill-advised comments about mawkish sentimentality following the hideous beheading of Ken Bigely by terrorists oin Baghdad. The writer, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, stuck his own foot well in with this amazing paragraph:[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]

An echo of sectarian divisions can still be heard in football, so try not to confuse the two teams (as Michael Howard did at the beginning of his career). Liverpool are the Catholic team and play in red at Anfield. Mention Xabi Alonso, maybe with knowing raised eyebrows; don't mention Michael Owen except with a knowing sneer. Everton are the Protestant team and play in blue at Goodison Park. Mention Dixie Dean, not Wayne Rooney.
​

[/FONT]We received a number of letters sent to the ignorant get at The Guardian:

Dear Mr Wheatcroft,
You refer to Liverpool FC as the Catholic team and Everton FC as protestant. Where did you get that from?
Today the sectarian divide between the teams no longer exists except as a memory. But when it did exist Everton was always seen as the catholic team and Liverpool as the protestant team.
The origins of Everton's catholic support lie in the late 19th century when Dr Baxter, a prominent Catholic doctor and a leading light in the catholic community, joined the Everton board. He brought with him the thousands of Irish Catholic families from the Scotland Road area who duly became Everton supporters, despite Everton's origins as a Methodist team (the old St Domingo's).
The Catholic dimension was maintained in various ways at Everton, not least in the 1950s when the core of the Everton team hailed from the Republic of Ireland.
This is what led the Labour MP for Walton, the late Eric Heffer, to explain in his biography Never a Yes Man that he was obliged to lean towards Everton because as the catholic team it was closer to his own High Anglicanism than the more orange-tinged Protestantism of Liverpool FC.
I came from a large Catholic family and was educated at Catholic schools. Support for Everton was instilled in me by family and school alike (including via the priests and Christian Brothers). Indeed when I first started attending games (and was taken to both grounds) I observed that while nuns took charitable collections at the Gwladys Street, it was Salvation Army members who did this at the Kop.
The two most recent examples of the divide I personally witnessed were:
• at a derby game in 1986 when Everton supporters were allocated a third of the kop. I was at the very edge of the Everton section and was greeted by Liverpool supporters holding up banners and placards and waving them at us. The legend on these placards was "Ulster says no" - the protestant slogan at the time of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Amongst the Everton supporters there were more than a few Irish tricolours waved back at the protesting Liverpool fans;
• at Dave Watson's testimonial match (late 1990s), Everton versus Rangers, a huge mob of Rangers fans stormed up Goodison Road attacking Everton fans and screaming at them "* *".
I would like to stress that I regard the sectarian divide as a bad thing and I am glad that it has faded so much from the scene in football. You should take note of that yourself - the religious division between the teams no longer exists in any meaningful sense and it is wrong to suggest, as you do in the article, that it does. I have long since ceased to be a catholic myself, though I remain a devout Evertonian.
However, since you do mention it in your article you ought to have gotten it right in the interests of historical accuracy.
I would be grateful to hear your views on this. Perhaps you have information that I don't have and my understanding of the history of the teams is and always has been wrong (though that will not cause me to change my allegiance today!!!).
Regards, from an ex-catholic but forever an Evertonian.

Mark Hoskisson (20/10/04)
Geoffrey,
in your attempts to offer advice on how to negotiate the minutiae of Liverpool culture (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9115,1331351,00.html) you will have, uniquely in my memory, managed to equally offend both Catholics and Protestants, Evertonians and Liverpudlians.
Here's how it actually is...
To paraphrase a popular Goodison chant (a chant shared with Catholic Celtic fans, incidentally), "if you knew yer 'istory" you would know full well that both Everton and Liverpool owe their existence to the efforts of socially reformist Methodists during the late 19th century. Therefore, if we were to be purists about this, then the only people eligible to support either team would be temperant non-conformists, with an active concern for the plight of the needy.
My own predominantly Catholic family has always been split between red and blue. Likewise, there are plenty of big Protestant families who are similarly divided in their support for the two clubs. One of the reasons that Everton and Liverpool have, mercifully, been able to maintain a relatively healthy, and for the most part friendly, rivalry is precisely because - unlike Glasgow - our footballing allegiances are in no way rooted in divisive sectarian religious differences.
No doubt, in order to add an extra dimension to their fandom, fans on both sides have from time to time sought to claim a religious divide. Such bigoted behaviour is not only unwelcome to the vast majority of scouse football fans, but also historically and culturally groundless.
Personally, I'm now free of Rome's clutches, although residual sense of guilt and neurosis alas remains, much of which I channel into my often agonised following of EFC. For future reference, I would offer you the same advice as I would Boris Johnson - do your research.
You could do worse than to start here
Take care
Steve Rooney (20/10/04)
ps: Which denomination do you imagine erstwhile lifelong Evertonian Wayne Rooney belongs to?
Dear Sir,
PLEASE Please please correct the uncorroborated statement in your article claiming that Liverpool and Everton have religious allegiances. They don’t, either deliberate, historical or accidental. End of story.
Merseyside Derbies have been famously trouble free due to the fact that there are no common divides between the 2 clubs, not geographic, social religious. There isn't even a division by family with hardened Evertonian families having reds amongst them and vice versa.
One of my first memories of going to Everton as a youth in the early 70’s was the chant of ‘Celtic/Rangers Celtic/Rangers’, where you chanted the name of the Glasgow team that you supported (ie declaring your religion), and it was always a 50:50 split. I understand the same happened at Anfield.
To my knowledge there is no evidence whatsoever for the statement you made, and you should retract it. It might seem a minor point, but for the uneducated it starts a myth. Liverpool might have its faults but mindless religious bigotry attached to its two great football teams isn't one of them.
Your sincerely

Paul Tollet (21/10/04)

 

Hes a forgiener at the end of the day, so he'll be under the illusion that it's still the 80's... Even though hes played for Rangers. Outside Scotland Rangers will always be thought of as a Protestant club and Celtic will always be thought of as a Catholic club. When you know as much as i do thats not the case... I'm sure Paul Le Guen is a Catholic to... You don't hear the Rangers fans making noise about that so that more than proves there is no problem. Only people that seemed to make it public was Celtic fans...

 

thats well funny, wats ur fav song.... cool guy lol... anyways, the sfa an UEFA just have 2 watch the abuse lenny gets 2 c sectarianism in action.. enough said

 

I think yer a hun and you should * off

 

im a foreigner, i had heard of all of their antics, but couldnt believe it was as bad as i had heard. i already liked celtic, and had shirts from around the age of 10 but didnt particularly hate rangers...id much prefer utd, liverpool or real madrid to lose at the time. dont get me wrong i disliked them, but i didnt hate them. until, that is, i traveled up the m6 to the rangers v everton pre-season friendly. we ran out of petrol, not far south of glasgow, and had to come off the motorway to look for a petrol station. we decided to risk running out as we approached a street lined with triangular union jacks and orange banners hung from windows...wed been through lark hall. this shook me up a little, but didnt prepare me for the rest of the day. we set up camp in rutherglen, and drank for a while in a celtic pub. we were treated initially with suspicion, but were welcomed. i then set off to ibrox feeling a little better about the day until, that is, i approached the ground. sneering scots with tattoo's of william of orange and to my amazement at the time, england shirts, grunted things like '* *' without any restrain whatsoever. i entered the ground and felt a little safer as we had sold out our section so we had safety in numbers, only for me to find the rangers fans were occupying the upper tier. the atmosphere was fine until we began singing one of our favourite songs "for its a grand...", this, as expected did not go down too well and bottles and other objects were promptly launched into the visitors section. the game went on and some everton fans began to play on the rangers fans disgust singing the song in my sig and alike, one fella took his jumper off to reveal a celtic shirt and began waving an irish tricolour, but was promptly removed by the police (where were they when the bottles were flying). we approached injury time with the score at 2-2. everton win a free-kick on the edge of the box, a certain alan stubbs steps up and the ball hits the wall and loops over the keeper to make it 3-2. the ref blows the final whistle almost immediately . cue a flurry of coins descending down upon me and various remarks that i cant make out. the walk for a taxi was no better with phlegm raining down on us from random house windows without provocation (not even my everton top on show). so to summarise it is not hard for anyone to see, let alone someone who played for the club, how bad the problem is

 

no chance ud get that at cp.

 

Liverpool and Rangers shouldn't be spoken of in the same breath.
Alleged dislike of Liverpool at CP really took off when Kenny signed for them. Ironically this never happened when Man Utd signed Macari, despite him giving far less time to Celtic. Reception given to Dalglish at Jock Stein's testimonial was hostile to say the least. The Hillsborough memorial game actually went some way to repairing the damage in the relationship thankfully. Anyone who has spent any time in Liverpool as thankfully I have will know that the vast majority of LFC fans are wonderful company.

Given that Le Guen's brother is a priest it's a fair bet he is RC.

The reality is that for some people the old divisions still exist and are played upon but for the majority it doesn't matter.
However I don't think I am being too naive in saying that there are far more people at Ibrox clinging to their old "traditions" than anywhere else.