A LOT OF BOTTLE

TO LIVERPOOL AGAIN THIS WEEKEND, hopefully to witness at close quarters the end of the trial for affray of Steven “Stevie G” Gerrard, MBE, professional footballer extraordinaire for Liverpool FC, wannabe Disc Jockey and famous nightclub brawler. Much ado is being made about the trial in Liverpool, centring, in the main, on the horror expressed by so many fans of Liverpool Football Club (and indeed others) that such a “decent lad” as Steven can be even imagined to be a thug.

IT IS NEVER FAIR TO PREJUDGE individuals, as being from Liverpool myself I know how injurious this can be; the mere noting of a heavy fricative in one’s voice can get one barred from the more exclusive dining rooms, clubs, bars and (so I am told) brothels. Thus, at trial, jury members were asked whether they “had an interest” in the outcome of the hearing. This is presumably to discover whether any of them were Everton fans, like Gerrard himself.

GERRARD HAS CLAIMED HE HAD “no intention of having a fight”, but that he believed his accuser, Marcus McGee, “was about to smack him” and so “I punched him on the side of his head (…) and then hit out at him maybe three times, but (…) got him only once.” This is clearly self-defence in Liverpool, although juridical concordance with it may lead to a healthy number of defendants opting for this plea. “I thought he had a knife, so I stabbed him in self defence”, “a machine gun…”, “weapons of mass-destruction…”, “a nuclear bomb…” and so on.

CCTV FOOTAGE, HOWEVER GERRARD pleads, will have the last word. I am not sure that Gerrard understood the question asked of him yesterday: whether he was “sickened” by what he saw when the CCTV footage of him drinking in the bar was shown. Gerrard thought it referred to the affray, of which Gerrard will no doubt be acquitted, but I believed it referred to seeing a decent, supposedly civilised man drinking beer out of a bottle. Sickening indeed.