Tight-arse Liverpool supporter tries to blag e-season ticket

Yesterday was a bad day for Liverpool supporters for two reasons: one, a lacklustre performance against Borussia Dortmund produced a 0-0 scoreline and made the task of getting through the Champions League first round that much harder. And two, the Liverpool FC Web site's free e-season ticket finished and informed fans they'd have to pay £3.99 a month from now on or a flat fee of £39.99 for the year.

The e-season ticket option on the Liverpool site is, quite frankly, extremely enticing - if you're a Liverpool fan that is. But as with anything on the Internet, when you start charging, a big question mark pops up. This reporter is unsure whether to cough up or not.

So it seems is one of the IT reporters for The Daily Telegraph. Sure, it's a great service but £4 a month? Flicking a credit card in one hand and clicking through other sporting sites with the other, inspiration struck.

How else can you explain the front page story on the dotcom Telegraph this morning: "Liverpool FC scores with Net technology"? What follows may look like a carefully crafted piece of objective and informative journalism but is in fact little more than a flagrant attempt to get a free e-season ticket and who knows, an all-expenses-paid trip to Anfield to meet Houllier and the boys.

We are outraged and disgusted. That we didn't think of it first.

We contacted the journalist in question and his pathetic excuse was this: "Sometimes you get stories because you dig diligently and ferret out a great tale (I'm hoping to get one of those anyway...) and sometimes you stray across something cause you happen to use it anyway. That's my excuse - I
swear there were three other paras mentioning other clubs but they got cut at the last minute... I am coughing up the cash today I think - so far it's top notch."

This last claim to be paying for the service anyway is clearly a smokescreen as we happen to have pictures of the journalist in question receiving a username and password from a dodgy looking Scouser in an underground car park in Canary Wharf yesterday.

We would like to make it absolutely clear right now that we will not stand for such underhand tactics. We say quite openly and proudly that if Liverpool gives us a season ticket we will write nothing but lovely things about it from now on. [Although fellow reporter and Man U supporter John Leyden may have different ideas.]

And if driven up to Anfield in a limo, with an entourage of ladies in Liverpool kit and more champagne that we can handle (quite a lot) we promise not to ask Gerard Houllier why on earth he didn't bring on Robbie Fowler last night when Owen had two men on him and Heskey was clearly having an off game. ®

Related

The blagging Telegraph article
Liverpool FC.tv