Soccer is the most popular sport at youth level in America, but the coverage of beautiful game is very limited in mainstream American media. Liverpool Supporters Club New York has been doing charity work and there is no coverage in media about it.
Liverpool Supporters Club New York was formed in 1995 by expatriate Scouse and Irish supporters of Liverpool Football Club. People from Liverpool are called Scouse. The word Scouse comes from stew Lobscouse mainly eaten by sailors in Liverpool. Originally, LFC NY only had around 15 members and very few matches of European Soccer were shown on American television at the time. There was no professional soccer league in United States at the time. LFC NY member gathered at a bar in the upper west side to see Liverpool take on arch rivals Manchester United in the final of 1996 FA Cup. Football Association Cup is the full name of FA Cup and it is the oldest cup competition in the world. United won that final.
11 Street Bar in East Village is the current home of LFC NY. It is a quiet neighborhood Irish bar. It is not a sports bar and the Irish owner wants to keep it this way. It gets very crowdy on match days as the exiled Kopites invade the 11 Street Bar. Spion kop is the famous single tier stand at Anfield. Most passionate Liverpool supporters stand in the Spion kop to watch their beloved Liverpool. Spion kop was the name of battle in the Boer war in South Africa in which many British soldiers mainly from Lancashire died. Many English clubs have Spion kop, but Liverpool has the most famous one with a legendary history.
LFC NY organized a charity tournament this October in partnership with Downtown United Soccer Club. Supporter Clubs of Everton, Real Madrid, Cardiff and other participated in the tournament. “We already had contacts with Aston Villa, we knew Everton were at Mr Dennehy’s so we began there. We also had contacts made at the Giants Stadium tournament with New York Red Bulls. The other teams were found by Steve Lee via the internet.” said Chris Cummings, LFC NY secretary “Everyone involved loved the event and we’re urging us to make this an annual event, if not a bi-annual event so we will be looking to do this at least every year and hopefully help it grow bigger and help out more kids in the process.”
“We raised approximately $5,000.” said Chris Cummings “The money goes towards hiring the pitches, football kits, equipment etc.” DUSC works with public schools in New York City and helps them provide better facilities for school kids. It is a pity that soccer is an upper class sport in America and inner city kids have few opportunities to play the beautiful game. LFC NY and DUSC are playing a little role in closing this gap.
LFC NY also organizes food drives during the soccer season for a local food bank. Chris Cummings said, “We are holding a food/coat drive for the mission on 11th st this Sunday (man utd game). We normally try to do this at least once a year. We have raised money previously for the HJC (Hillsborough Justice Campaign) also. ” On April 15, 1989, 96 Liverpool supporters died at Hillsborough Stadium after failure of crowd control by Sheffield police. Hillsborough Justice Campaign is a group based in Liverpool and run by the families of Hillsborough Disaster victims. They want people responsible for the Hillsborough Disaster to be punished under the English law. Nobody has been punished so far for their role in the disaster.
“We will be looking to help out the DUSC and/or any other worthwhile charities. At the end of the day we can be more than just a bunch of people in a bar watching a game of footy.” said Chris Cummings.
