May 28
Where were you at 6?
As the dust settles on a season of battle, the red mist has begun to descend on Paris. All the eyes of the world are set on one game, one game left in the season, one team looking to rekindle their history in the European game, another, my team, looking to complete a treble.
The past few years with this club, has been nothing but life, fresh air with a bit of rock and roll. My earliest memory of football is with Liverpool, the 2005 final in Istanbul, the miracle. It’s almost been 20 years since them, god I’m close to 25. So the memory is vague but the man in red flying through the air to start the miracle has just stuck to me throughout my life. It wouldn’t be until I arrived in my teen years that I truly began to fall in love with this club. I was too young to truly understand Gilette & Hicks. I never really experienced the suffering of that aftermath with Roy & Kenny, I got a brief taste after 2014.
Looking back to now, it’s been a journey. I think it has been said so many times, by so many different people, it’s almost cliche now but it’s fact. Yet it was 2019 where I think I truly understood why I loved this club. We all know the game. Something along the lines of corner taken quickly. Do or Die, we step forward, no matter what.
After the Brazil World Cup, Divock Origi joined the club, back then I was an avid Fifa player and I always had a weird fondness to the ‘odd’ ones. I remember telling my friends “he’ll be good,” for no reason, based on literally nothing I thought I like this guy. There’s something about Anfield that makes those sort of odd ones become cult heroes. Andy Robertson, Jordan Henderson, Joel Matip to name a few. By no means am I saying “I called it,” I didn’t. It’s just this club that makes you believe, but back in 2015 the belief was running out, we had lost our “star-man” and it wasn’t working, a change was coming.
My mother and I used to travel to Germany to watch pre-season, Munich, Frankfurt & Dortmund. In Germany I experienced the yellow wall, led by one man Jurgen Klopp. The day he joined Liverpool, my mother came into my room, “Klopp joined,” she says, “you’re joking” I replied. It was just after a bad Merseyside derby at Goodison Park. A breathe of fresh air is all I can say. Even when he was mocked he began to make you believe. Dortmund at home, a last minute winner, was just a taste of what was to come. We got to two finals against almost all the odds that year, we lost, but you could smile and begin to have hope something was coming.
In 2019, after the corner, I wasn’t in Madrid I was at home. I had just completed my first year at University, sitting down with a friend & my mother watching the game, I couldn’t stand. My mother couldn’t watch. Even after we took the lead it was a nightmare, but you just could not believe in the lads to deliver. It wouldn’t be until that man from Belgium found the chance and put it away, that it began to feel real. Shouting his name as the ball was slotted in the far corner, he begins to wheel away to the corner flag, now I can’t sit down. Lifting that trophy again after almost 15 years, a moment I won’t ever forget. Again overcoming some incredible odds. Yet, our eyes were set on the League. We lost the title by 1 point. Nobody expected that we would be so close. Just lick our wounds, let’s go again. And we did, winning the title even during one of the most chaotic times in recent human history. Giving not only belief and joy about football but giving belief beyond that. There will be a time where we can see each other again, so for now enjoy this. We never got to celebrate that title properly for obvious reasons but it was a release of everything that had been building. Sitting down that evening watching the Chelsea vs Manchester City game, I just sat there and thought about it all.
It’s all beginning to feel real again, I am getting a little nostalgic thinking about in 12 hours or so singing about 7. It’s not that the game is won, there’s still 90 minutes or more to play but if history is anything to go by, we’ll go again. Then we’ll go again next season in the league, in every competition. It’s the Liverpool way, we just go again. No matter the odds or who puts on that shirt you just believe.
The amount of times I have re-watched highlights, clips, interviews or anything to do with this club is in the millions. Anything and everything just makes you feel alive, makes you feel loved, makes you feel at home. There’s always hope, there’s always a golden sky at the end of the storm.
That’s why I love this club, you can’t not.
”Where will you ever hear a better message than, You’ll Never Walk Alone? It’s the most beautiful song in the World. In your darkest moments you are not alone, I love that.” — Jurgen Klopp.
So I ask you, where were you at 6? Where will you be at 7?
This is my love letter to the club that has given me joy, pain and belief to just keep going.
