I like to imagine the consortium of world-class larcenists who have spent the last two years availing themselves of the opportunity afforded by the public nature of football match schedules to let themselves safely into Liverpool players’ houses and liberate their car keys and jewelry. What’s it like, speeding away from the escapade in Jerzy Dudek’s Porsche? Do you feel the inner calm that proceeds from having chopped off some of the tentacles of football, tentacles that gripped you in your cradle, strangled your growth, enslaved your weekends, and taunted you with the spectacle of people no different from you being paid millions of pounds to play a game you shouldn’t even care about? Or are you just like, “Wicked Porsche”? Where are you going to fence that Champions League medal? I wonder about this.
On Tuesday Lucas Leiva became the eighth Liverpool player to be burgled since June 2006. He joins a list that includes Steven Gerrard, Peter Crouch, Dudek, Dirk Kuyt, Pepe Reina, Daniel Agger, and Robbie Keane. From these men has been shifted an inventory that includes rare champagnes, gems of all natures, World Cup shirts, Olympic medals, and a small fleet of opulent cars. In late 2006, 20-year-old James Birch, who marvelously shares his name with a player who scored over 100 goals for QPR in the early years of the last century, was convicted of several of these crimes, as well as of robbing some players from other teams, but I don’t believe he was guilty, because he didn’t have a black mask, a rope ladder, a sharp-tongued girlfriend with a heart of gold, or long-established friendships with the major characters from Snatch.
I guess the really intriguing question about the Liverpool burglaries is whether the perpetrators are football fans, or are planning to sell their acquired memorabilia to football fans, in which case a think-piece about whether we’re all somehow stealing from Liverpool players every time we open the Daily Mail is only a page refresh away. It’s also possible that they’re Everton fans, in which case, whatever. If you’re currently in possession of Alex Curran’s Rolex, I hope you get the right time with it. If you’re looking for a guy to fire the crossbow into the alarm system, I hear John Arne Riise misses the city, and as Chelsea fans might recall, no Liverpool defense has ever managed to keep him out.
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by Brian Phillips · November 6, 2008
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My theory was that the perpetrator was a tragic hornbyesque obsessive, slowly assembling his own Players I’ve Burgled From XI and possibly laying out various purloined items in a 442 formation on his kitchen table. Then, when the list grew 10 strong, and after careful perusal of the Liverpool squad, I would deduce that the leftback slot (say) was the missing piece, and catch the villain red-handed as he tried to jemmy Fabio Aurelio’s patio doors open.
But there’s two keepers on the list so it doesn’t work.
See, this is the kind of theory I was hoping to hear. Is it possible that the “two goalkeepers” problem can be traced to the thief’s having fallen behind Liverpool’s transfer activity, so that he had to rob Reina after Dudek was transferred? Actually, I think the Reina robbery happened before the Dudek transfer. Maybe he just needed a backup!
I’m buying a magnifying glass. We’re on to something here.
This plot-line, as it has for sometime, raises many questions for me.
First, are these men not millionaires? And, as such, couldn’t they afford to pay a couple hired thugs to hang out at the manse for a few hours every weekend?
Second, why does this happen only in Liverpool? Actually, scratch that question. I think we all know.