Liverpool Stories
The stories on this site are not included in my book.
The tales are snapshots of my life in Liverpool, the home of the Beatles, and the echo chamber of the Mersey Sound that in the sixties resonated around the planet like an acoustic Tsunami. The stories cover a period of 50 odd years and so they touch on every aspect of my life from the rites of passage to the passing of youth. I hope you enjoy them.
Roll away the stone - Back from the dead in Istanbul
By
John Williams
I am, unashamedly, an armchair supporter, or more accurately a sofa supporter. The rocketing rises in ticket prices have ensured I have only rarely attended Anfield over the past decade. As for travelling abroad to support the Reds, like those 40,000 incredible fans who went to Istanbul to attend the Champion's League final, well, truth to tell, if I had 1400 pounds I would probably opt for a long overdue family holiday. Nonetheless my passion for the reds of Liverpool F.C. burns as fiercely as it did when that Scottish firebrand, Bill Shankly, lit a bonfire in my youthful soul.
Now there are fans who remain calm in the face of the darkest storm, like trawler skippers they stand squarely, staring intently as the rigging and their dreams freeze before their very eyes. In contrast, I tend to panic if we so much as lose the toss!
It wasn't always that way. In those epoch making years between Shankly and Dalgleish I was so confident of Liverpool's ability that even the odd set back of conceding an early goal was a mere irritation, an unpalatable hors d'oeuvre to be followed by a lip smacking main course and the sweet dessert of victory.
Then came the doldrums of the 90's when Graeme Souness took the helm of HMS Anfield and promptly discharged most of the experienced crew before running the once feared battleship into a trough of despair, where it remained becalmed for a generation.
With so many years of disappointment behind us it is not difficult to imagine the state of my nerves as May the 25th, the date of the Champion's League Final against AC Milan drew closer. So much was riding on a victory to ensure Liverpool's survival as a major power in both the domestic league and the European arena that for me, and I daresay many a Liverpool supporter, it was the footballing equivalent of the Armada, Trafalgar and D-Day rolled into one. I was frazzled.
I was so wound up that during the first leg of the semi final against Chelsea I had decided against watching it in the pub as my nerves suffer badly from the tensions; Liverpool only have to concede a corner and I'm reaching for the valium. Instead, I alternated between prowling round the garden, smoking like a coastal steamer and staring blankly at the television, while intermittently pleading with my youngest son to check the score on the internet.
The ensuing goalless draw and the dismissal of Xabi Alonso, thanks to the machinations of the inappropriately named Eidur Gudjonsson, which meant that the brilliant Spaniard would miss the home leg at Anfield, left me with mixed emotions to say the least.
I had steadied my nerves to the extent that I could watch the home leg armed only with an ample supply of cigarettes and a bottle of Stella Artois, which paltry amount was due to my mis-reading of my diabetes medication that can, if taken with excess alcohol, lead to lactic acidosis, a condition that carries a 50 percent chance of death! The abiding memory of Liverpool's victory that still haunts me is the last second miss by the villain of the drama, Gudjonsson. Whew! Now for the final.
On the morning of May the 25th I had my first appointment ever with a diabetes specialist, who turned out to be a young man who had opted to practise medicine in Liverpool precisely because he was a fanatical supporter of the reds! He was also an extremely attentive listener who realised that I was labouring under a misapprehension concerning lactic acidosis as I was a type two diabetic and so less likely to suffer from the dreaded side effect. In short, I could have a reasonable drink whilst watching the clash of the Italian and British battle fleets.
I was so tense that I couldn't even indulge in the pleasure of dreaming about possible match scenarios any more than I could watch the pre-match build up lest I be intimidated by the replays exhibiting the goal scoring prowess of Shevchenko et al and so, as the fingers of the clock finally crawled to the appointed time I uncorked the first of my three bottles of wine, while nervously quaffing large draughts of Stella.
The last coherent remark I can remember making was 45 seconds into the game when I screamed at Djimi Traore,
"Don't give away a foul for God's sake!"
Due to the clamour of the fans he didn't hear me or perhaps he chose to willfully disregard my sage advice. As the free kick was taken my face was a drained as the beer bottles in front of me.
One nil to AC Milan!
It's only one nil I thought as I made inroads into the wine.
Two nil to Milan!
My kneeling position of prayer and the rapidly descending purple haze meant I was struggling to focus on the screen and my dreams were being tossed and blown like those of the the Armada after Drake had sent in the fire-ships, but we still had hope.
Three nil to Milan.
By then I was so anaesthetized that I couldn't feel the pain and made a slurred phone call to my dad assuring him that we would witness a miracle but of course it was the booze talking as I struggled to hold my head up high. In any case, as an agnostic I had no right to even dream of miracles.
I sat glued to my sofa unable to stir and realised that my smoking habit had driven my wife and son into the front room to watch the game on the other television. Now I am a slob at the best of times and my Tee shirts, which my wife calls 'butterflies', attract stains the way Chelsea FC attracts glory hunters. Indeed, on one memorable day I went through three counterfeit Ralph Lauren Polo shirts* and I haven't even got a horse!
I mention my slovinliness because as I sat, numbed and bewildered, praying for divine intervention not on the scale of a miracle you understand, but just for a goal or even a determined attempt at a fight back that would take the sting out of what looked like an inevitable victory as no team had ever reversed a three goal lead in the Champions's Cup final, I realised that my knees were covered in a coating of ash so that I resembled a victim of Pompeii, that other great example of explosive Italian force.
I couldn't even bring myself to resent Milan because they had been magnificent as they sailed majestically through the ragged Liverpool defences leaving despair in their imperious wake. I was on the verge of striking the red ensign and hoisting the white flag. However, Admiral Benitez was reviewing his strategy and had decided to employ the pocket battleship Hamman in an attempt to disrupt the Italian line of supply.
The second bottle, sorry, second half, began and Liverpool withstood several early assaults on their goal so I was slightly calmer, until, before my heavy lidded eyes, Steven Gerrard's header looped into the Milan net!
3-1!
Reeling with delight and alcohol I stumbled toward the front room to embrace my son, but I fell over and narrowly missed braining myself on the hall radiator before staggering into the parlour where I beheld my wife and son cheering madly as Vladimir Smicer scored Liverpool's second goal! I had missed it!
I stumbled back to my smoking den just in time to catch the replay of the goal I had missed!
3-2!
Through a blur of booze I saw Xabi Alonso almost miss a penalty before savagely smashing in the rebound. [I have it on good authority that he saw Eigur Gudjonssen's grinning face miraculously appear on the ball just before he booted it into the net!].
3-3!
The battle for supremacy ebbed and flowed and then Jerzy Dudek did a passable imitation of Gordon Banks and we were taken to penalties. By the time Jerzy had saved from Shevchenko, thereby ensuring that Liverpool FC were champions again, I was talking fluent Spanish, and wondering why the ITV anthem for the Champion's League was dedicated to what sounded like 'Lasagne', while waving deliriously, from the supine position on the floor.
I vaguely remember phoning my dad and ludicrously claiming that I had foreseen it all. Like hell I had! I was led to bed by my sober family where I spent the strangest night life of my life, hovering between ecstasy and the whirlypits.
The next day, after I had sufficiently recovered to be able to distinguish the white telephone from the white walls I phoned my son who was at university and apologised for not being able to phone him on the previous evening. He said it was okay and we briefly discussed the miracle of old Constantinople as he had to leave for his lectures.
I spent the rest of day glued to Sky Sports News, a package that came with my Telewest set top box, and relished the dismay and anguish that the ex-Everton centre forward and commentator, Andy Gray, will endure for the rest of his life as the cruel editors of Sky constantly replayed Milan's third goal, which was accompanied into eternity by Gray's brutal assertion,
"That's game over!"
No Andy, it was just the beginning of your nightmare!
That night when my wife returned from work I mentioned that I had got through to her student son and made up for not phoning him the night before.
She looked at me in amazement and, laughing, exclaimed,
"You were talking to him from Eleven Thirty until midnight! Going on about whether it was a moral victory or a victory of morale!"
Oh what a night!
*In actual fact they were genuine Ralph Lauren's but I am feeling magnanimous and so I am pandering to those sad supporters of Chelsea and Manchester United who can only come to terms with the amazing history of Liverpool FC by making snide remarks to the effect that we Liverpudlians are, to a man, either paupers or thieves. This in spite of the fact that they all covet Steven Gerrard and fear Jamie Carragher, Liverpool born multi millioniares both, whose only attempt at larceny resulted in their stealing millions of hearts worldwide on that evening in Istanbul when we witnessed the latest and probably greatest tale from the Arabian nights!
YNWA
05/06/05
My stepfather, who took me to the old Kemlyn Road stand in 1960, died yesterday. I think he'd been hanging on to see the Reds make the European cup their own.