A ‘psychic’ pig living on Merseyside has predicted that Liverpool will win Sunday’s derby clash at home to city rivals Everton.
The boar, named Jurgen as a tribute to the Anfield club’s manager, was found as a piglet near Melwood, the Reds’ training facility in West Derby.
He now lives at Freshfields Animal Rescue in Homer Green near Crosby, and is garnering something of a reputation for being a clairvoyant.
Perhaps he is biased, but Jurgen has made prophecies prior to the last two meetings between the local football heavyweights, and successfully predicted back-to-back wins for Liverpool.
The prediction process involves putting some of the hog’s favourite foods inside blue, red and white boxes, to represent an Everton victory, a Liverpool win, or a draw respectively.
This time, bread was placed inside each container, and Jurgen forecast a hat-trick of successes for the team managed by his namesake.
John Rullo, Fundraising Manager at Freshfields told JMU Journalism: “He’s been here for a while now, and he’s grown quite a bit, but we also think he has gotten a bit wiser with his predictions as well.”
YouTube: JMU Journalism
After victory against Brighton at the weekend, Liverpool have gone eight games unbeaten, but must face Spartak Moscow in a crunch Champions League match on Wednesday before the derby. Everton won their first game under new manager Sam Allardyce against Huddersfield Town, but haven’t beaten their local rivals in seven years.
Before the last derby match, Jurgen appeared to being going for the blue box, only to switch to red at the final moment in a telepathic twist.
There was no indecision this time, however, as the preternatural porker only ever showed interest in eating from the red container.
Possibly the most well-known ‘psychic’ creature was Paul the Octopus, who rose to international fame after predicting the outcome of some matches in the 2010 World Cup, including Spain’s eventual tournament triumph, before sadly passing away later that year.
If Jurgen continues to correctly predict the outcome of Merseyside derbies, there is no surely reason why the swine couldn’t go on to become the next supernatural sensation.