Bring Michael Shields home – how you can help

Let’s put the blogging about Duncan Oldham and Koptalk to one side for a moment. Instead let’s spare a thought for Michael Shields and his family, still separated from each other after all of this time. A campaign to try and bring Michael Home was started recently, but it’s an expensive business. However, as it says in the email below, if everyone who went to our next home game donated just £1 there’d nearly be enough money raised to bring Michael home. If you’ve saved yourself 20 or 30 quid on your next renewal for the Insider after reading this blog, why not donate a fiver of it to Michael’s cause?
This email has come from those behind the campaigns on Michael’s behalf. You may have seen it elsewhere, it went out to most LFC sites tonight along with us.

Dear LFC Website Admin/Editor,

You will probably be aware of Michael Shields, the young Liverpool fan imprisoned in Bulgaria. Michael has exhausted all the routes open to him via the Bulgarian justice system and the only hope he has of overturning his conviction is via an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

In the meantime the priority is to get Michael back to England, to do this Michael’s family have to raise money to pay the largest fine in Bulgarian history. Obviously as an ordinairy working class family they’re struggling to do this. To help them Councillor Joe Anderson has launched the ‘Bring him home’ appeal fund. The details are below:

Account no 02499003
sort code 309511

You can donate over the counter at Lloyds/TSB** or send a cheque to the campaign office:

Michael Shields Jr
3 Holland Place
Liverpool
L7 8TU

Phone: 0151 260 7165

LFC have kindly allowed Michael’s supporters to collect money from Liverpool fans at the West Ham game. We’d be grateful if you could let your members know this. We know that money may be scarce but if all our fans could donate just a pound we’d be well on the way to getting Michael back in the UK. Thanks for any help you can give.

Also, there’s a benefit night for Michael on the 25th August at the Devonshire Hotel on Edge Lane. There’ll be live music including Neville Skelly, raffles, prize draws, LFC memorabilia etc. It starts at 8pm

Phone: 0151 260 7165

Kind regards,

There’s some more information too -

This is from JonnyMack of RAOTL, you may already have had a copy in which case please ignore:

from the Free Michael Shields Campaign.

The club have kindly agreed to let us INSIDE the ground to ask for donations, on the afternoon of the first home game.

Through one individual’s persistance and dogged determination to get things done, there was a meeting yesterday with Rick Parry and Ged Poynton.

The club are showing real support for Michael and his family, by allowing this to take place within the ground, so hats off to them.

We NEED at least 60 volunteers to make this happen. Hopefully, this will be run with near military style precision. The volunteers are needed to collect cash INSIDE Anfield on Sat. 26th (West Ham – 12:45pm kick off).

Please be aware that you’ll miss most of the first half (if not all of it) and you will have to be INSIDE the ground at around 11am/11.30am – so you won’t be on the ale.

Please e-mail me on jsmack77@hotmail.com if you’d like to help out or post here:

http://forum.raotl.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=34042

Anyone kind enough to help will have 2 buckets, will stay at their turnstile until 10/15 mins. after KO, then take the buckets to be counted, ready for the Securicor pick up.

Also can anyone help in obtaining authentic charity buckets? We need at least 120, so any help would be much appreciated.

Please leave contact details if you’re willing to help.

Could those of you who go on other LFC independant sites copy this post please.

More info. to follow,

Tony.

If you feel you can help in any way then please do. If you’ve any ideas of raising more money for this campaign then let people know – either on this blog as a comment, directly to me by email, on the RAOTL thread linked to above, directly to the people behind the campaign. You can also try supporting the campaign on other LFC forums too.

Imagine the joy for Michael’s family, especially his mum, if they could at least visit him in England. It’s a long way short of ideal but so much better than what the family are going through now.

The Day Oldham Dreamed Robbie Fowler Called

August 16th, 2006

by Rupert Insider

---

In November 2001, Robbie Fowler received prolonged applause from the Kop when he warmed up on the sidelines before coming on as a substitute.Elsewhere, it was a different matter. He got more than his fair share of abuse at Everton, Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge. He’d heard it all a million times – the smack-head, over-the-hill, spice boy, scally insults – and oh yes, the fat jibes.But On 23rd November 2001 he was preoccupied with much more serious matters – the prospect of his imminent transfer to Leeds United.So what did he do at this, the most critical juncture in his career? That’s right, he called the 27 year-old Oldham!Fowler broke training, left discussions with his agent, his lawyers, his family and life-long friends, and he avoided the attentions of the national and local press. It was that crucial to him that he give Oldham an EXCLUSIVE that he was NOT considering a transfer to Leeds and that he objected to a Koptalk poster calling him “fat”.What a lovely dream Oldham had that day!____________________________________________________(Archived version of Koptalk, 23rd November 2001)_______________________________________________________Kop

“ANFIELD EXPOSED”:Robbie Fowler denies transfer rumours.

Published November 19th, 2006 The Insider , Koptalk – Lies , Koptalk – Made Up stuff Edit

by Rupert Insider

Photo: Duncan (”Hitman”) Oldham, Executive Editor of the one-man Koptalk website and wannabe author of the book “Anfield Exposed” to be published 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 (maybe).

As revealed EXCLUSIVELY on this blog, Anfield will not be exposed in time for the entertainment of the kiddies at Christmas, despite Oldham’s promises that it would. But he has given us a peek at one of the central claims of his phantom book:

“* What really happened the night before Robbie Fowler’s shock move to Leeds and why did KopTalk insist on the eve of that transfer that he was not leaving when we knew he was”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let’s translate that from Oldhamspeak to the truth.

Less than two full days before LFC announced Fowler’s transfer to Leeds, Oldham wrote a story that Fowler was NOT leaving. He claimed that Robbie, himself, had telephoned to tell him.

He claimed it as a Kop Talk EXCLUSIVE.

It was the kind of exclusive information the public could rely on, he boasted, if they gave him money to be part of the Koptalk “Insider” . His was the only LFC related site that charged for news, rumours, gossip and made-up muck on LFC.

He was so cocky about his scoop that he mocked the “local journos” who were working on the basis that Fowler probably WAS leaving.

Now, in 2006, he says he lied back then and wants you to pay him upwards of ₤10 to find out why.

But that’s a lie, too, because he didn’t lie back then. He actually believed Fowler called him. He actually believed Robbie wasn’t talking to Leeds and was not about to transfer.

Oldham was duped by a prankster who knew how stupid he was and how desperate to print anything that suggested his site was read by players, especially Fowler.

Who, but an Oldham, would believe that LFC’s most popular player, whose future was the subject of intense discussion in the national and local media and on the streets of Liverpool, would break training, leave discussions with his agent, his lawyers, his family and life-long friends and circumvent the LFC Press Office and his friends in the national media to make a call to Oldham, a guy in Scarborough, Yorkshire whom he had never met or spoken to before in order to give him an EXCLUSIVE that he was NOT considering a transfer to Leeds and that he objected to a Koptalk poster calling him “fat”.

Despite his current shameless teaser for his phantom book, Oldham was still ignorant about Robbie’s transfer the night before it happened. In fact, his next piece following his EXCLUSIVE was after the announcement of the transfer had already been carried by all the unofficial sites and the mainstream press.

Scrambling to catch up with the rest the sports world he addressed a sneering “editorial” to the departing player: “Shut the door on your way out”.

He’s never lived it down. After all, he built his Koptalk “Insider” business on the claim that he was Fowler’s stalker and knew everything about him.

He even tried to sell made-up muck stories about Fowler to the S*n and other tabloids.

The Fowler transfer prankster exposed his fraud. If Oldham were genuinely informed about Fowler and if he were an “Insider” at LFC, as he repeatedly claimed, how could he have been so wrong about the most important event in Fowler’s LFC career and one of the most important outward transfers in the history of the club? How could he and his paying customers have been the last to know?

His howler was not good for business. That’s why he tried to re-write history in the above-quoted teaser for his phantom book.

But only a hard-faced conman like Oldham would have the nerve to come back in 2006 to the original “Insider” customers from 2001 and ask them to pay ₤10, or more, to read his trumped-up story.

He prefers to be called a liar than stupid, you see. So it was not that he was duped by a prankster back then – don’t you know – it was he who was lying to his readers.

In other words – I lied to you then so you can believe me now.

And to add insult to injury he has not written a word of the so-called book in the three years since he started taking deposits as advanced orders . If you’re one of those who paid him a ₤5 deposit , it looks like the “teasers” are all you’re going to get, and they are all self-serving advertisements for his dodgy site.

You’d be better off demanding your money back. He’ll pay you because his site is currently being monitored by a Trading Standards officer.

You can read Oldham’s original tall-tale about Fowler for yourself. Thanks to blog contributor Sawyer Insider we were able to retrieve it directly from the Koptalk archives for 23rd November 2001

______________________________________________________

Kop Talk News

23rd November 2001:

EXCLUSIVE:

Fowler – I’m not fat and there’s no deal with Leeds!

We can today reveal publicly for the first time that Liverpool and England striker Robbie Fowler is a reader of the site and in particular our forums.

( Why only “today”? Oldham had claimed many times before that all LFC players, including Fowler, as well as His Holiness Pope John Paul II, read the KT forums. Surely he wasn’t fibbing was he?

Odd, too, that he thought it necessary to identify Fowler as “Liverpool and England striker”. Oh, THAT Robbie Fowler!

It was a strange style of writing for an allegedly LFC site addressing LFC supporters. It suggests that he was actually writing for another audience.

At that time he was constantly trying to sell made-up muck about Fowler to the S*n and other tabloids. His grovelling contact with “the nationals” as he called them, went to his head. He came to fancy himself as one of them – their man in Liverpool – not only a “journalist” but an “Editor” of his one-man site).

Robbie, known these days as ‘The Judge’ because of the amount of time he spends sat on the bench……..

(Known as that by whom – apart from the sneering Oldham?)

………made a frantic telephone call yesterday after reading some of the speculation on the forums about him.

( You can call Robbie many things, but frantic isn’t one of them! As for “Speculation on the forums” – Try “unrelenting abuse and false stories” from Oldham and his cronies – for more than two years!

But Oldham gave away his lie in that sentence. If Fowler had been a reader of the Koptalk forums he would not have discovered the abuse only “yesterday”.)

“I can’t believe somebody thinks I’m fat!”, laughed the Liverpool hitman who is desperate to regain his form which can only be achieved if given a proper run in the side.

(“Liverpool hitman” – I guess he borrowed that phrase from the ”underworld friends” he threatened to set on this blog recently.

“desperate to regain his form” – Like the hat-trick he had scored against Leicester a month earlier?

“laughed” – Do you laugh when you’re ”frantic”?)

The England international (remember him?) found it highly amusing when he discovered that one of our readers thinks he’s ‘fat’ but more seriously, he wanted our readers to know that he is not going to Leeds as was claimed by one of our readers yesterday.

(The “reader” said he met Fowler at a petrol pump. He had deduced from the conversation that Robbie would transfer to Leeds in a few days. Oldham was peeved that the reader posted the report on the Koptalk free forums rather than passing it on to him so he could sell it as “news and whispers” from an “Insider”).

It was claimed that a deal had been done for £10million and that he would make the switch in January. A simple prank by someone sparked off a frenzy of phone calls with local journos towing the line at Melwood yesterday having to explain that Robbie was indeed there and not at Leeds once the rumour mill had kicked in and the different versions starting circulating.

( You’d better take a breath here. Read the Editor’s mangled syntax of that sentence again to figure out what the poor man was trying to say.

When Oldham refers to “local journos” he means Chris Bascombe. Chris had embarrassed Oldham in the Liverpool Football Echo by a dismissive reference to “Kop Chat” when he nailed the “outrageous lie” Oldham had told – that Fowler had faked sickness to avoid training after he had been on a bender. So Oldham’s article was yet another clumsy attempt to get his revenge on Bascombe, whom he described as “towing the line” i.e. doing his professional duty by checking with LFC about Fowler’s possible transfer.

As for the “simple prank” that fooled the “journos”? Was it anything like the simple prank that a cheeky scouser was playing on Oldham by pretending to be Fowler – that’s if he received any phone call at all?

There were many who thought his hearing voices was symptom of paranoid delusion. He was always telling his readers in those days about what the voice of the “Guru” was telling him, and the “Mole” and the “Big Cheeses” and “Top Brass” and “Rick Parry” and “the Wallet”. As we now know – all these voices were his own. Not surprising, then ,that when the prankster called Oldham believed he was hearing the voice of “God” – no other than his stalking target – “Fowler”.

And while we’re at it, does anyone know if you “tow” the line with your big toe or your little toe? )

Naturally Kop Talk did not report the speculation because we knew it was crap and had it been true, our ‘Insider’ readers would have known first.

(“Naturally!”)

Robbie wanted our readers to know that he is not ‘fat’, indeed he insists that he’s the same weight now as he always has been (7 lb 8 ozs?) and he hasn’t been talking to Leeds. He’s hoping for a new contract at Anfield and he’s extremely grateful for the continued support he continues to receive from the fans.

(But not from Koptalk?

When the fool from Scarborough posted that nonsense, Robbie was in the final stages of his negotiations with Leeds. He would be transferred in less than two days. Oldham and the paying members of his Insider would be the last to know).

• Subscribe to the ‘Insider’ online today or join by post within the next week for an update on Robbie’s transfer status and of course, all the other tit bits of interest concerning every Liverpool player. Join within the next week and we’ll see that any updates you have missed (such as today’s bumper update) are sent out to you upon request! If you have subscribed to the Insider online prior to 7pm last night (Thursday) and you have not received an update, please contact us immediately.

Have you subscribed to the ‘Insider’ yet?
There could be more news on this article which we can’t publish on site

(These “tit bits” he referred to – was that the beginning of the now infamous KopTalk porno offerings?)

Poster acknowledgements to kraptalk.com

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