Since the age of six
And emotions that come with winning’
y not to win the title. appen in the league affer did give me one my life. at the word ‘Istanbul’ s with a Champions is as the capital of h football fans. The ble, just for the sheer
miracles at half-time. did. You’d never give his was, talent-wise, one of the weakest teams to make a UEFA Champions League final opposite an AC Milan side with legends of the game smattered throughout their line-up.
But that was Benitez, he always had a plan. His changes that night were matched by the hunger and belief of the players as Liverpool did the impossible and claimed ‘big ears’ for the fifth time on penalties.
I watched it at home in front of the TV, and it was extra special because all the family, hardened Liverpool fans, were all together and it meant the world to us all.
I’m sure a lot of you will be familiar with my brother, Jason, who covers some games for the paper when possible and has taken the coaching pathway, currently getting ready for his first season as manager of Wexford F.C. Under-15s.
Jay was a spindly little nine-year-old at the time and I think it inspired him on his chosen career too. I know some of his work down his path has been based on Rafa Benitez, so he gets it too.
Things were changing at Liverpool at the end of the decade, and not for the better. What Rafa was doing was magical as far as the vast majority of hardcore supporters were concerned, but there were problems in the boardroom that became a distraction.
At times they spilled out for the world to see, and the relationship between managers and owners soured. Not to go too deep into it, but the club were slipping into huge financial difficulty and Rafa Benitez got this information out in his press conferences.
This didn’t go down well with American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett, while rifts were also forming with other high-profile, big ego figures in the boardroom.
Protests started during and after games. I was around and involved in some of them. Staying around after the game, singing songs of displeasure outside the boardroom post-match when we got word that the owners were in town; getting the word out online - there was a mini-community feel to the whole thing, like it was a fight for the future of the club.
Liverpool is huge business but they were just days from potential administration owing to the financial mismanagement.
By the time it all came to a head, the owners had long since sacked Benitez and the club was in turmoil. It was run by people who didn’t have the club in their heart, and that crushed me.
I had to take a step back, as I wasn’t able to recognise the monster Liverpool Football Club had become, a soul-less, bumbling cesspit of money-grabbers just casually waiting to strip all the cash they could out of the club.
A few men helped save Liverpool, and one of those was Martin Broughton. He had his faults but at the end of the day the man appointed by Hicks and Gillett as Chairman, with the help of the High Court, ousted the Americans. In debt, they were forced into a sale to Fenway Sports Group.
From my time following baseball and the Red Sox, I knew a decent bit about John W. Henry and his fellow owners at ‘FSG’ and immediately knew this was a great move.
They had worked wonders in Boston by running the club as a business but doing it properly, and that’s exactly what Liverpool needed.
Kenny Dalglish was back but deep down it didn’t feel right, like it wasn’t supposed to be. He didn’t last long under Fenway and in came Brendan Rodgers.
With investment under Fenway amped up, he was able to compete but he just wasn’t a good fit for Liverpool and, despite a second place finish, it was never going to last.
Enter Jurgen Norbert Klopp. I had been back to Anfield under Rodgers but it still felt like the soul of the club was missing.
The German was the man to bring it back. Unlike his predecessor, it was obvious from every word he spoke, every sentence he constructed in his own special version of English.
Personally I started to re-locate my connection to the club I first saw in person as a six-year-old. Liverpool did things with a touch of class again, they stood out from the pack, and that was down to Fenway and Klopp.
I started to go back more frequently, only once or twice a season, in midweek when it’s quieter around Wexford, but it has become something I could look forward to again.
Making the Champions League final in 2018 was a sign of a team improving, getting closer to what Klopp saw as his brainchild.
Progress has been constant and winning the European Cup for the sixth time last season was hugely special.
Being so consistently brilliant and losing the league was tough last year. I’ll be honest and say I didn’t see Liverpool winning 26 of their first 27 games this season to put them in an almost uncatchable position, but this group is truly remarkable.
The team plays in the spirit of the manager. As a whole they are good people and that makes rooting for them that much easier than some of those who came before.
To me that’s hugely important but not something that’s always easy to achieve within a club when egos are involved.
As I write this, Liverpool are two wins from becoming champions of England’s top league for the first time in 30 years, but the season has been halted by the outbreak of Covid-19. It had to be halted, but what happens next will interest everyone.
First and foremost, the most important thing are the people. It’s important that we as responsible people limit the spread of this virus and hopefully we can get back to normal sooner rather than later.
For football, things are being made to seem more difficult. The clubs met to discuss the situation and resolved to finish the league when it was safe to play football again.
That’s the only equitable, fair approach to take but money, and potential loss thereof, probably played a bigger part in the decision than the fact that it was the right thing to do.
It’s therefore almost certain that Liverpool will be Premier League champions 2019-’20. Like every fan, I’d prefer that to be on the pitch and it seems there’s an appetite for it to happen organically.
Having said all of what I have so far it might surprise some, and others might not believe me, but at the end of the day if it was decided that the league wouldn’t finish and Liverpool couldn’t be awarded the title, it wouldn’t kill me.
Supporting a team, a club, a sportsperson is about the experiences along the way, it’s about the feeling and the emotions that come with winning and succeeding.
Liverpool are far and away the best team in the league this season, it’s obvious, and if other people are too bitter to acknowledge that it says more about them than anything else.
For as long as I’ve lived, I’ve seen Liverpool competing for honours, experienced great games and moments. It’s not about one season or one trophy, it’s about living those experiences, wherever they take you.
When I’m watching a game, be it Liverpool, the Green Bay Packers or whoever, I want to win, I always look at refereeing decisions this way: what if the roles were reversed, would I be happy to concede a penalty or goal to that decision? If the answer is no, it shouldn’t be a penalty or goal at the other end either, and vice-versa.
I look on what remains of the season the same way and come to this conclusion: if it was Manchester United, City or Everton (as if!) going for the title, would I be happy that the season could be voided and they wouldn’t get the trophy? Absolutely not, that would not be equitable and fair, simple as that.
In my opinion it’s a very easy decision and I can’t really see what the issue is. The current season should be played to a climax whenever the planet is healthy enough to get back to playing sport again.
Finish out the nine remaining games, crown champions, allot ChampionsLeague places if applicable, relegate the teams that finish in the bottom three after 38 games, and promote the best teams from the Championship to replace them. It’s so obvious and not at all difficult.
Unfortunately, tribal nonsense does somewhat dampen the enthusiasm I have for the game, and it’s why I talk very little about my support of Liverpool.
I guess I’m one of these people who gets my joy from my team success rather than someone else’s failure. There are plenty of us, but unfortunately there seems to be as many who live the opposite existence.
It’s weird behaviour. It goes way beyond ‘banter’ into the realm of hate, which in turn meshes with the problems we have in society nowadays.
I guess it was always there, but Twitter seems to spew out these morons in their thousands and they are as prevalent as ever in recent weeks.
In probably his most famous line of many, Bill Shankly said: ‘Some people think football is a matter of life or death, I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.’
Unfortunately, we’re about to get a big example of how false that statement is.
Football and everything that goes with it can just wait a few months. Simple.