Sigh. I don't know anything better than anyone else, Michael. I simply googled the bloody thing and got it straight from Liverpool FC's website in about thirteeen and a half seconds flat. Anyone purporting to quote a quote from some half-remembered source is just bloody lazy, to be honest. Here it is: Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.

As for the offside rule, it prevents players from standing next to the goalkeeper waiting for the ball to be punted up more in hope than with skill. You wanna watch a game with that happening every two minutes and I'm not with you. It also allows an extra level of skill to be employed by the defending team via the high-risk strategy of employing the offside trap, which adds to the scope for actually employing tactics instead of just encouraging aimless and tedious booting of the ball up half the length of the pitch. Got England a long way, didn't it? Wasn't it such a joy to watch?