As a disclaimer before you start; this is very much an international break article. And you can tell.
Football is great. I obsess over it. It has it all; love, hate, excitement, debate. What more do you need? Pies? We got them. Beer? Tick. Mates? Usually, yeah. I can’t think of anything else I need from life. It should have been one of the new ‘seven wonders of the world’ – sat right between Machu Picchu and the Great Wall of China. As Jay-Z once said, “the eighth wonder or the world”. It’s amazing. I won’t go as far as Sepp Blatter and say that it could ensure peace in some regions of the world (why should it hold that responsibility? It’s a game where 22 people kick something around a set area and usually end up shouting at each other while doing it. Super peaceful) but I will defend it to the death against people who bitch and moan about it. And why? Again, it’s because of the love. Always with the love. As John Lennon said “love is the flower you have got to let grow” – well it’s grown into a bloody garden over here. It’s taken over my house.
The love means that a fair amount of girls I have had the pleasure of being in relationships with have endured all sorts of cancelled plans. That, or we’ve visited some really shit pubs, all because “oh, look at that, there’s a TV in there showing the football” – there’s also a load of fellas eating pickled eggs at the bar and a smell that lends itself to an abandoned public toilet. Yet we would still enter – because of the love. I would like to add as a caveat that I am a single person now, and the closest thing to a relationship I have is indeed with the footie. It’s a cruel mistress, often delivering blows of unforeseen depths. We see each other very often, too often some might say; Monday night, Tuesday and Wednesday, occasionally Thursday. There’s usually a night off Friday, and then back to it all day Saturday and all day Sunday. It’s how we like it. It’s love, and that’s what we’re after.
I began watching football in the mid-to-late-90’s, starting with Euro 96, but I really entered the room when, if I remember correctly, Michael Owen scored a consolation goal in a 1-2 loss to Wimbledon on the last day of the season following. From then on I was hooked. Liverpool was the team for me when thankfully my dad got his way, and not my granddad, who supported the blue meffs down the road.
After a couple of years of obscurity and generally thinking upper-mid table finishing with no trophies was a good thing, the 2000/2001 season was the moment the dominos fell. This was the Beatles/Ed Sullivan moment in my relationship with football. Shit was about to kick off big time. Everything that came before was about to be changed going forward. I am positive my school scenario was affected by this year. Winning trophies is the best thing you can experience as a football fan, by miles and miles, and my nights from then on consisted of watching the UEFA cup or the Champions League hoping for a trophy instead of working as hard as a lower-than-average-level intelligence teenager should have done. If I wasn’t watching football then I was playing it. In my garden with my brother, in my garden on my own. I didn’t need anyone else, but having a goalkeeper to try and put the ball past was always a bonus. But the ball bouncing off the wall mimicked a brilliant save well enough in my imagination.
I remember where I was when I watched the 2001 FA Cup final. I remember where I was when I watch that absolutely ludicrous UEFA Cup final and I remember the day we won the Worthington Cup with what can only be described as an absolute PEACH of a goal by Robbie Fowler. It could just be my mind idealising these three days, but I swear the weather each of these days was more beautiful than anything I really remember. The sun was shining, the air was warm. I, along with my friend Tom Cashen, chanted about how Liverpool were “going to win the treble and we’re going to win three cups” (this made ABSOLUTELY no sense as both statements mean exactly that same thing; there’s that lower-than-average intelligence showing its face again). But there it is again. The love. I identify this as probably THE moment. THE year. 2001. Things changed this year. The dominos had fallen. Shit had kicked off.
The reasons I love Liverpool are too many to name in one article. Too many to name in one lifetime. It’s the history, the tradition, the people and the fact we’ve almost always had something to smile about. Every last one of us. The Liverpool fan community is huge, the people on this site and hundreds of others like it show how much the club means across the globe, and that’s what I love. Plenty of people have bemoaned our international fan-base, but that fan-base has probably, in all honesty, bought us a fair few players in the past. Would our club be here without fans across the globe? Absolutely and unequivocally not, no. We nearly went under with them, without them we wouldn’t exist as a club. Yeah, ok, it annoys me that a lot of tickets are farmed out to other countries for far higher fees than we’re charged, but that’s only a tiny annoyance. Why look at it negatively? These people love our team so much they’re willing to fly across the world to spend a couple of hours sitting in a cold stadium with no guarantee of three points. That’s some special feelings they have for Liverpool Football Club.
I am lucky enough to live in the general region of Liverpool. It takes me an hour tops to get from my living room to the Kop, and that is amazing. I’m made up for that. Because not only do fans come from other countries to cast an eye on our lads in action, but they also come from all corners of the United Kingdom, too. At vast costs, both in respect to time and finance. And why? It boils down to that word again, doesn’t it. Love. Some fans from Liverpool think the geography of you as a supporter in relation to your club is the be-all-and-end-all. Give me a break. I have a mate, Matt (who will probably be reading this; alright pal) who travels from down south to each and every home game of the year. Almost without fail. And he is as passionate as they come. He gets involved before the game, has a bevvie or two, talks football to anyone who is listening, and then sets off back home at 5pm on a Saturday. Or 6pm on a Sunday. Or 10pm on a Monday. His faith in Liverpool FC is being tested every time we don’t come away with a win. How many lads from Liverpool give up their tickets when the going gets tough? An awful lot I imagine. How many lads in the ground don’t sing like he does and urge the team on like he does? Again, I bet an awful lot. I’ve heard some people sing and chant in accents and languages I literally can’t understand. Honestly I don’t have the foggiest idea what they’re saying. But I’m made up they do, because that’s where atmosphere comes from. From the singing, and the scarf-waving. The chattering and the buzz. And the love.
The treble season started my trophy addiction but I am sure that there will be another shot in the arm sooner rather than later. We’re entering a great time to be alive in relation to Liverpool Football Club. We still exist, for a kick-off, which you know, is nice. It’s good to be around. Winning, losing and scoring. Being a football club. It nearly all went away when those fucking clowns across the ocean decided to take us on a roller-coaster with no safety belt. Now we have don John Henry, balls as big as the city and plenty of effort. Yeah, we have Mighty Red, who is a tit in himself, but we also have Jordan Henderson and a new stadium on the way. Has any new owner got everything right? No. Ours seems to at the very least have his heart and head in check.
Not only do we exist, but we’re thriving. The lads are on a roll, and Brendan Rodgers is the modern, young manager that most other teams would kill for. Manchester City want him. Well, good luck with that one. You’ve got Oasis, we’ve got the Beatles. We’ve won the Champions League a massive five times, you’re struggling to get past the last sixteen. Yeah, other clubs may have more money than us, but that’s not all that matters. It’s people like you. People like me. People who really, really enjoy the footie. From the top of the country to the bottom, from Norway to the US and back, as long as they love the football, let’s hear what they’ve got to say. We’ll have you. Join our club. We don’t claim to be the chosen ones. Because we’re clever enough to do the choosing, and we all chose the right club.
So if you love Liverpool FC like I do, then sing a little louder. Let’s show everyone how we do. Because we are Liverpool, and our club is better than theirs.
