How Kop king Klopp gave Liverpool fans glory after years of grief

‘THIS changes everything”. The last words of the first piece I wrote about Jurgen Klopp in this paper, when he became Liverpool manager in 2015, were written with hope in my heart.

What else was there?

So I would not necessarily claim it as a great shout, because apart from being emotionally involved, I believe I was only reflecting what the majority of Liverpool supporters felt about Kloppo, from the start.

It was love at first sight, at second sight, at third sight — and that was just at the opening press conference.

There are a myriad of reasons for choosing to support one football team over the other, ranging from the bleeding obvious (whoever is winning at the time) to the deeply mysterious (I know someone who supports West Brom).

But in the case of Liverpool, one of the main attractions is a kind of a ferocious intensity

— and Kloppo had that, in quantities so large, it became clear early doors that not only was he worthy of Liverpool, we wondered if Liverpool were worthy of him.

Broken down by so many years of so-near-and-yetso-far, we understood that here at last was a manager who could actually have got “bigger” jobs in the game. It felt, for a change, that he was the one doing us a favour.

Last Wednesday, Roy Hodgson came to Anfield as boss of Crystal Palace, to be slaughtered 4-0 by the club that he managed during an especially bleak time. Indeed, Roy used to manage Liverpool as if they were Palace — never too troubled about getting a result away from home.

Kloppo understood our grief — and he chose the ’Pool perhaps because, like Gatsby, he saw there “something commensurate to his capacity for wonder”.

Could he have done the same thing for Manchester United, when it was all starting to get away from them? Yes… and I hate to say this to my Manchester United friends, but yes, I think he could.

Because he is as intelligent as he is ferociously intense, he set about marshalling the energies of the global empire of Liverpool fans, knowing that if he could give them a team they could believe in, all else would follow.

It is a wonderful thing, and also a terrifying thing, that one leader acting in good faith and calling on so many other good energies, can make such a difference.

Wonderful, because it can mean Liverpool winning the League, with arguably the most beautiful football team ever to represent the grand old club.

Terrifying, because the opposite is also true — because we are seeing every day in the wider world that one bad leader acting in bad faith and calling on all the bad energies at his disposal, can make quite a difference too.

But for now, for the foreseeable future for Liverpool, it’s all good.