Liverpool FC title sparks brilliant summer memories of yesteryear
SUMMER isn’t what it used to be. Unless you’re in London or Dublin, that is, where the endless party nights are in full flow! Summer is Wimbledon. It’s a European Championships or World Cup if you’re lucky. It’s Croke Park, trips to the beach, ice cream, movie nights in, (or days in if it’s lashing out).
This summer is different, and how! Sport is back, but it lacks any atmosphere. (Man Utd fans be-forewarned, you’ll be reading this with clenched teeth).
The early summer of 2020 will go down in history as one of restrictions and lockdowns, but it was unrestrained joy and not disappointment that was the overriding emotion for me and many, many more devout LFC fans, for a few days after the former giants of English football returned to their perch; to loosely coin a phrase from the great Alex Ferguson.
Greatness, afterall, needs to be recognised in all its guises.
Growing up in a samll town in the 80s, I was lucky to follow Liverpool. Ian Rush was in his pomp and I can still remember the Kenny Dalglish team’s 3-1 comeback victory over Everton in the 1986 FA Cup final after Gary Lineker scored in the first half. I distinctly remember that double FA Cup win and the loss two years later to Wimbledon.
Like many growing up in the late 80s, I had the (Panini) football sticker collections. At this 30+ year remove, as I wander down the shadowy corridors of memory, I can still summon images of those shiny stickers and the teams that, for a time, rose to the ascendant heights of the First Division.
Too young to risk my ears going into a pub on a Saturday during match time, I only heard the yelps of delight when Liverpool scored. The teams of the 80s were packed with legends, gods of football. The players were rock stars. Drama was their oxygen, pressure their fuel.
The fact that the best Irish players gravitated towards Merseyside deepened the bonds between the city and Ireland. Man Utd were only getting going when my interest in LFC started to wane in the early 90s.
Teenage years bring up all kinds of distractions and apart from European Cup and FA nights, chances to watch them play were few and far between, but my interest reignited in the 2000s and the night in Istanbul in 2005 still burns bright in my memory.
It was two home grown Liverpool lads who formed the backbone of the Liverpool I came to know and love: Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher.
The rivalry with United, and to a lesser extent Chelsea, added spice to the big matches and nobody then (and no other team) now, does nights of drama at their home ground like Liverpool.
I use the collective ‘we’ when referring to the team. This makes no sense, is ridiculous and lacks any basis in reality, but such is the ephemeral nature of sport: it can and often does occupy a liminal space between the real and the imagined. It harkens back to childhood when we dreamed (and actually believed) we were Ronnie Whelan pulling off that volley against Russia, or Pele slaloming through players with majestic ease.
I had no hand, act or part in Liverpool’s win this year but I am entitled to celebrate it, along with fans across the world, as we love Liverpool. We all need something to rejoice in, especially in these times. Family, friends and football teams are fantastic things to behold in good times, and in bad. We all need a release and escapism but breaking social distancing rules by going out drinking is not the way!