During Tom Hicks and George Gillett's time as owners of Liverpool FC and rapid rise to become two of the most hated men in the city, there were plenty of jokes about how they were stereotypical ignorant Americans who just didn't get it. Last year, Rafa Benitez accused them of knowing nothing about the game, which inspired a DT Exclusive about how they would confuse the sport with American football and didn't know a thing about their own players. Well, An Epic Swindle: 44 Months with a Pair of Cowboys -- the new book by award-winning journalist and Liverpool fan Brian Reade reveals that we were all exactly right about them.
The Mirror has started publishing extracts from the book and, simply put, they're ridiculous.
As George Gillett digested the words he was reading, the blood drained slowly from his face.
Surely there was a misprint in this report about Steven Gerrard marrying his long-term partner Alex which completely changed its meaning.
He read it again but it came out the same, so he phoned his co-owner: "Tom, there's something you need to know. Our team captain is gay."
A bemused Hicks asked for the evidence and when Gillett read it to him, in between guffaws, he explained that in England the term "partner" can refer to a member of the opposite sex.
Their captain wasn't tackling for the other side. Alex was a woman.
The fact that he first learned of his captain's significant other through a misread news report really tells you all you need to know about a man who told the press that Rafa Benitez could sign "Snoogy Doogy" if he wanted to. And given that, this bit shouldn't surprise you at all...
Gillett's favourite phrase, when Benitez tried to pin him down on his transfer budget was: "I'll give you �50million plus whatever we get in the draft", which was so nonsensical it almost had Benitez butting walls.
Amazing. It's almost exactly like our DT Exclusive bit, which is both horrifying and hilarious.
Hicks, meanwhile, is described by Reade as a big Texan bully who dominated the much smaller Gillett and did whatever he pleased. He even went so far as to wear a pair of cowboy boots featuring the Liverbird crest. Their reign truly was the product of an ethnocentric English cartoonist come to life.
You really have to read it all for the full doses of cringes and giggles, so I suggest you do just that.
Photo: Getty Images
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