Reggie and Ronnie would have loved it

I was touched to read Stephen Gerrard's heartfelt denial of intent on the Kevin Nolan in the recent Reebok encounter between Liverpool and Bolton Wanderers. It is indeed reassuring in world cup year that Gerrard draws the line at intentionally maiming "good scousers".

However it doesn't stop there does it? Oh no! How do you, one, define scouser and two, good and bad?

Long work went on during the 80's to define the very nature of scouseness and "wool" - woolyback culture. To the uninitiated it is akin to the definitions Jew and gentile. Them and Us. The seminal 80's magazine The End - invited its readership to help define where scouse ended and "wool" began, was it Old Swan, Huyton surely not as far as St Helens. The Norman Chester Centre must surely have conducted some form of in-depth study to help bring clarity to this most thorny of issues.

Safe to say that the 69 players competing against England in our Group at World Cup 2006 TM can safely be defined as wools and can expect the full repertoire of the two-footed signature "tackle" he favoured earlier in his career. Only man safe could be that Port Vale geezer for Trinidad, apparently he has an Auntie in Bootle