Liverpool - Champions of Europe, Again
There were some remarkable scenes at the Liverpool Homecoming on Sunday. I would say that this victory parade was the best ever, but I always say that. I've seen it all before. It was the same in 2005. I can go back to the ‘Liverpool are magic’ scenes of 1977. All remarkable, all memorable. This is the sixth time that Liverpool have won the European Cup. Only Milan have won it more times. (I don’t count that team from Madrid, for all the dubious politics and finance that has gone into their making).
The decisive 2-0 hammering of Tottenham Hotspur in the final didn’t make for greatest of games. Liverpool were a goal up after a minute and it was game over. I had hoped to play Ajax in the final, a club with real pedigree at this level. Ajax were the team that originated total football, and Liverpool were there at its birth, when a young Johan Cruyff led Ajax to an impressive win over Liverpool. That was all the way back in 1966. Liverpool beat some big names on the way to this latest triumph, including a 3-1 victory over Bayern Munich in Germany and a 4-0 drubbing of the Barcelona of Messi and Suarez. It would have been wonderful to have played Ajax, a marvellous side.
But there it is. Liverpool are the best team in Europe, again, and we look forward to doing it all again in the near future. I’m not sure how many people were in Liverpool yesterday. I lost count after I had run out of fingers and toes and other extremities. I’d guess millions from what I saw. Estimates say 750,000. What a crowd, what an atmosphere. These are the things that make life worth living. I’ll be coasting on these memories for years to come. My faithful old scarf from the early 1980s was with me. As ever. It’s been with me most of my life now. I used to attend lectures and tutorials at university with it curled up in my pocket. Other students used to joke at the bulge in my side pockets. Always with me. It’ll be with me to the end, now, I’d say. There'll be a lot more good times to come before then, though. But bring on the bad times, too. It’s all life. I’ve seen it all with Liverpool. And there’s joy to be had. If it's possible for 750,000 Liverpudlians to be wrong, then it's still good company to be in.
I’ll not bother talking about the final, because it was something of a non-event. Liverpool went 1-0 in the first couple of minutes and we never saw a peep out of Tottenham until it was too late. Was the great Harry Kane, the World Cup Golden Boot, actually playing?
Instead, I’ll recover the writing I did on the Barcelona semi-final victory, because that is really where Liverpool’s great triumph lies here.
I thought I'd seen it all with the football over the years. I have programmes, tickets and season tickets going back a long, long way. Back to the 1970s, in fact. There are some great European nights in there. Liverpool were always the most European of the English football teams, in my considerable estimation. I’m a real student of the game. I always loved the 'brains,' Beckenbauer, obviously, and Augenthaler, but does anybody remember Wilfried Van Moer, the elderly, bald, wise old midfield general for Belgium in 1980? I thought he was wonderful, the way he controlled a game from the middle of the park. I don’t just love football, I know the game. Liverpool were always a classy, clever outfit, once Bob Paisley’s craft was added to Bill Shankly’s brio.
And there is nothing like a European night at Anfield. They were always great nights, and still are – theatre, opera, religious revivals, rock concerts, all in one. There's more important things in life, people say. That may well be true. I would just ask people who say that, who on Earth do you think you are talking about here? You do actually realize that football fans are flesh and blood human beings like you? And, I’d suggest, more human than you are, in the understanding that life comes in the broad rather than the narrow. I know my own history and I know that of other fellow fans. We’ve been through a lot, seen some very bad times. Liverpool in the 1980s was a time of mass unemployment, workers thrown on the scrapheap, young people deprived of a future. And at the end of it we had the abomination that was Hillsborough. So be aware that if you tell me that ‘there are more important things in life than football,’ be prepared for me telling you that 'we know.' We know what life is here. Do you? It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive. I have appended a rather uplifting story concerning a message that Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp sent to a fan with a terminal condition on the eve of the game. It’s a heart-warming story and worth reading. I’ve also added a few harsh words on the people who persist in abusing football fans like myself as idiots. I should ignore them, and usually do. But they don't go away. And their abusive manner reveals something rather nasty and hypocritical about their claims to want to make the world a better place. I don’t think they know real people much, and I don’t think they like people much. But I’ll leave that for later.
I will readily confess to being an incurable football romantic. And football is a game that can make me so deliriously happy that I really shall never be inclined to go in search of a cure. And in the 4-0 victory over Barcelona, my beloved Liverpool pulled off a minor miracle on the football pitch. I found it very moving. I get very emotional over certain things. Like football. I remember in my teenage years playing football in the local park, and a couple of girl friends were behaving rather, well, very, seductively. I rather was baffled by their complete lack of interest in football. In fact, they were rather contemptuous about 'boys' playing football. I really had no idea what they were hinting at. If that was some kind of a challenge, I made a point of refusing it. I went back to the game and carried on playing. They seemed genuinely baffled by my lack of response. Frankly, neither love nor money could part me from my football. I sold my football boots far, far too early, in my twenties. I was taking studying far too seriously. I really had to try hard, seeing as I had been a pretty mediocre student at school. So I studied hard and got hooked on working hard to get and keep my grades high. And I succeeded. To those who say there are more important things in life than football, I’d say that there are far more important things in life than studying. Now when it comes to ranking football and girls … I really regret selling my football boots.
I was a lousy footballer, admittedly, and a much better rugby player. But there was nothing like running around on the football pitch, challenging, chasing the ball, working a move, seeing who is on your wavelength, putting in a hard tackle, making a strong clearance, even heading the odd cross. I sold my boots to a guy aged forty. I thought he was rather old to be playing football. He thought I was rather young to not be playing football. He told me that I should play football for as long as I could. Because one day, he said, the day will come when you can't run around anymore. And you'll miss the football like nothing else in life. He was right, you know.
Football romantic I am, and a hopeless case. Fair enough, I was an awful footballer. But I loved every minute I had on the pitch. In my head, I was the greatest player there had ever been. No matter what went wrong, no matter what disaster I was instrumental in visiting upon my poor team mates, in my head I retained the Ideal of what could and should have happened, and what was going to happen the next time I got the chance, should all go well. It never did. But I was never anything less than keen. My team mates were less appreciative of my enthusiasm. To me, I heard their shouts of abuse as shouts of encouragement. In truth, they were giving me the heights of abuse. I did them all a favour by packing in. It didn’t do me any favours, though. I loved playing football. I can’t imagine what I would have thought had I actually been any good at the game. I was OK, not really awful. I ran hard, and got stuck in and was competitive. Just not particularly skilful, not in the actual games. I had all the skills when I was on my own, though. I could just never deliver in the actual games, when playing with others. I know what the problem was. I would practice ball skills and ball control, and I keep the ball in the air for great lengths of time. 164 keepy-uppy's was my record, in the entry on my own. I’d just get so excited in the game as to rush at everything and get it all wrong. I needed to calm down a little. It comes with age and experience. I never lost the excitement.
I pursued my dreams through Liverpool football club. They did on the pitch what I did in my head. My favourite player was Jan Molby. He had a great footballing brain, great control, a beautiful range of passes, and was so graceful for such a big man.
Most of all I loved the team spirit, which extended to the crowd, or came from it - it seemed inter-related.,
This Liverpool side never stops and never quits, never knows when it is beaten, and neither do I.
In all probability, Liverpool had lost the league title to Manchester City the night before the Barcelona game, this despite the fact they have lost just the one game all season. That really was a massive psychological blow. They then lost a couple of their best players, goal-scoring strikers to boot, just when they needed to score goals. Everything was going against them. But they determined to give it a go. It’s a lesson in life. Do your best. If it’s not good enough, you just accept it: but just make sure that it really is your best that you are giving, like Bob Paisley said (Liverpool manager who should know, seeing as he won three European Cups). If you do that, you will more likely find that your best is actually a little bit more than you ever could have thought it to have been. Or even a lot more. You find it when you need it. Reach within, reach deep, search deep down - it's there. Just don't give in.
I have a prized photograph of me with David Fairclough, Supersub himself, the hero of 1977, whose goal with a few minutes to go gave Liverpool victory over the immense St Etienne side. We kids in the park were David Fairclough for a long time after (about ten years for me). The win over Barcelona may even top that night. But such nights are all unstoppable tops. Lovely fellow is David, by the way, talks a good game.
So here’s the story. Liverpool were three goals down after the first leg defeat to Barcelona. That 3-0 loss was most unjust. Liverpool had chances and missed them. Messi produced a couple of miracles. And so Liverpool lost by a very wide margin. They didn’t deserve a defeat of that scale. But that's football. Just one goal from Barcelona in the second leg would leave Liverpool having to score five goals to win. Already facing mission impossible, matters were made even worse by Liverpool losing two of the best forwards in the world before kick-off. Liverpool lost their best two players and were facing a side with Messi and Suarez...
Give up? Give in? Nah!
In one of my football programmes is the tribute to Liverpool manager Bill Shankly, "The Indomitable Man," who had died that week in 1981. The programme is of the Liverpool vs Swansea game. I remember the game very well. Liverpool were two goals down, but came back to draw 2-2. Never beaten. I like this indomitable spirit. I've seen Liverpool lose loads of times, mind, in key games too. I’ve seen them lose cups and titles. I saw Michael Thomas score the last minute goal that took the title from Liverpool and earned it for Arsenal in 1989. We in the Kop stayed behind and applauded Arsenal around the pitch as they showed off their trophy. They deserved it. They showed some real guts and gave their all and never gave in. I like that. Just give all that you have and find some more. That's all there is to it. Just try it. God loves a trier.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said this in the pre-match interview.
"There's hope and it's football."
"Two of the world's best strikers are not available and we have to score four goals to go through in 90 minutes. As long as we have 11 players on the pitch we will try for 90 minutes to celebrate the Champions League campaign to give it a proper finish.
"If you chase a result you lose a bit of focus on the other part of the team. I still like how we tried and defended it apart from one situation. That's the plan.
“If we can do it wonderful. If we can't do it, let's fail in the most beautiful way.
"Let's give it a try with all we have."
They did.
I love those lines: “If we can do it, wonderful. If we can't do it, let's fail in the most beautiful way.
It's Liverpool and there's always hope in the heart. But I was intrigued by this notion of failing in a beautiful way. It’s a phrase that could have been written as the epitaph to my footballing career: he failed but in a most beautiful way. I kept my long hair flowing in the wind and preserved my dreams intact.
Commentators called Liverpool’s win over Barcelona as the greatest ever comeback in the history of European football. Liverpool humbled the mighty Barcelona, and the mighty Messi! We witnessed something special that night. In my view, forever the proud Koppite.
But I won’t describe the night as ‘unbelievable.’ Because I know for certain that very many Liverpool fans turned up for the game believing that Liverpool could win. I believed it, although I didn’t say so for fear of tempting the malign demon that I suspect often governs football into doing its evil worst.
The Barcelona fans were standing and applauding at the end, acknowledging the heart, spirit, and effort the Reds put in tonight.
And I feel like reading some Eduardo Galeano, because he is a writer who gets what I'm on about. I’ll do it when my head clears and eyes start to focus. That may take some time. I need to sober up, even though I haven’t had a drink.
In the meantime, you can make do with my view of football as life and philosophy, and my tale of the day I actually did something good on the football pitch. This was the one time when, just the once, for the only time, after years of many miserable performances and hopeless misadventures on the football pitch, I managed to do something good. In fact, I scored the greatest goal ever scored in the entire history of Blessed Edmund Campion, no less. Edmund Campion is a Saint these days, so I say that my goal had something to do with his promotion to sainthood. But I’m not exaggerating at all when I say that my goal was the greatest ever scored in the history of school’s football at Edmund Campion. In fact, it will remain the greatest goal ever scored in that school's history, seeing as the place was demolished in 1987.
My view:
But what about that Liverpool win, though!
We played the best team in the world, started the game three goals down, with our two best forwards missing. And proceeded to win by four goals to nil. My word. It’s days like these that redeem every promise we had ever invested in football when young and foolish/idealistic. With football, we are forever young, and a little foolish. Football is a game that, like life, destroys yours ideals, inverts them, turns them into their opposites, only to restore them and, in the process, redeem your greatest hopes and dreams.
I think we should do some singing at this point. This was a night to savour and I’m feeling very emotional.
Reporting from home, I have to say that there was much jollity and frolics here at Critchley Towers. I think I may be talking about this triumph for a long, long while to come. Let’s face it, I am still talking about the St Etienne game from way back in 1977. But this one may top even that one. Let’s savour all the great wins, I say. Add to them, let them keep growing, and grow with them. It did me a power of good, I know. I even broke the 14km mark on my bike for 30 minutes for the first time after the Barcelona game. With the Tottenham game I hit 14.70km for 30 minutes. I’m feeling physically fit. Football is a huge help for body and soul.
I shall praise the mental toughness of this Liverpool team. To appreciate how immense this achievement is, you have to put this game in context. This was going to be the biggest hard-luck story in football. Liverpool have lost one league game all season. They have been exchanging the lead with Manchester City week after week now but, the day before, Manchester City went two points clear at the top, with a late and lucky goal. With just one game left, the odds were that the title had now been lost, despite Liverpool having played so well. Then, with a three goal deficit to turn around, Liverpool lost their two best strikers through injury. It was all against Liverpool. “I want to spit in the face of these Badlands,” sings Springsteen. I believe in the love and faith that will save me, he continued.
I love what Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said in interview before the game.
"Let's give it a try with all we have."
They did.
There is a lesson there. You don't merely do the best you can, you reach deep inside and find that the best you have is so much more than you ever thought you had.
Praise to Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp. He knew that Liverpool had actually played very well in that first leg against Barcelona, even though they were beaten 3-0. I said at the time that Liverpool did not deserve to lose by so wide a margin. They more than matched Barcelona but did not take their chances. Late Messi magic added two goals to give Barca what looked like an unassailable lead. Klopp kept his nerve. He had seen how Liverpool had rattled Barcelona in their own ground and determined to do it again. He went on the front foot and took the game to Barcelona again. He took the view that Barcelona may have been tired out having to compete with Liverpool the week before, and may have been inclined to rest on their three goal advantage. Make them play hard at a high tempo again, risking losing a goal to a counter-attack. It worked. Barcelona didn’t know what had hit them and couldn’t muster the strength to resist and fight back.
But you don't just turn performances like this on at will. The performance speaks of a self-belief and passion that is born of history and, more, of planning and training instilling some steel into belief. This has been years in the making as a result of a management getting players to play to a system. To produce something like this, the management has had the players working hard, playing with their heads as well as their bodies, to a plan that the players know, understand and, with the hearts, believe in and have the confidence to impose on their opponents, however great they may be – and Barcelona are a great team.
Only Liverpool could have pulled this off, people are saying. This is why I have loved football with a passion since ever. And Liverpool carry on redeeming every hope, dream and vision I ever had for football since kicking around a ball on the local field and in the back entries. Amazing.
I remember saying in 1989 that if Liverpool were to never win another game for as long as they played (or I lived), I'd not complain, since I had already had some of the happiest moments of my life supporting the team. I have to say to all those who have never enjoyed the experience that there really is nothing in life to compare with being grabbed by the hairiest man in Christendom – he was shirtless, and had more hair down his back than I have ever had on my head – as well as being grabbed by many others and being made to sway along whilst singing “Liverpool Lou” at the FA Cup Final against Everton in 1989. There really is not enough communal singing of this kind in the world.
As for the Barcelona game, to outsiders it really defies all logic and all odds. They were debating on BBC Radio 2 whether “only Liverpool” could have pulled this off. It's not just about the incredible skill, the talent, the tactics – it's the passion, the desire, the self-belief, the history, and the delirious madness of people who sing “You'll Never Walk Alone” day in and day out, year in year out.
This is why I love football, said Leroy Rosenior. He was not a Liverpool player and is not a Liverpool fan. But he recognizes how Liverpool redeemed every dream and vision we all had as little folk playing out our big football fantasies in the local park, our theatre of dreams. They did it by more than wishful-thinking, though. They did it through courage and commitment, self-belief, an indomitable spirit, by playing on the front foot, taking the game to Barcelona, not man-making the great Messi, but cutting his supply off at source by playing further forward, taking the risk of being caught up too high, but breaking Barcelona up in the middle, playing at and sustaining a high tempo, having the nerve and keeping their nerve to go toe-to-toe with the most skilful footballers in the world in a shootout. This is Barcelona, people! But Liverpool were not afraid.
I hope you realize that as I write here on football that I am spelling out some serious lessons for life and politics, about what it takes to get things going and to get things done. It’s not the facts that matter so much but what we do with them. The facts often tell us that we are beaten. The facts before this game told us that Liverpool were in all likelihood beaten. They were already three goals down. They won.
I tire of people who endlessly whine about all the crises and problems in the world, and then tell government to sort it all out. It doesn’t work that way. If somebody should do something, then remember that you are that somebody. Identify the ‘something’ that needs doing and join with other somebodies and raise support for the right actions. Some folk are three goals down before a ball has even been kicked, there attitude is so debilitating it hardly enthuses and encourages others.
But this involves more than will. You don't just turn performances like this on at will. The performance speaks of a self-belief and a passion that is born of history and, more than that, of plan. All the past wins in the world don’t win you another trophy. You draw on the history, use it to set standards and goals. This result has been years in the making and is the product of a management getting the right players to play to a system. To produce a triumph like this, the management has had the players working hard, playing with their heads as well as their bodies, playing to a plan that the players know, understand and believe in with all their hearts, giving them the confidence to impose their game on their opponents, however great they are – and Barcelona are a great team.
I shall have to post a picture of the programme which contains the tribute to the great Liverpool manager Bill Shankly, who had died that week in 1981. Shankly emphasised teamwork, commitment, individuals working to a common plan in common endeavour. He called it socialism. He built this Liverpool team in the 1960's, investing the club with his big heart and soul; it is there to this day. He said this:
“Above all I would like to be remembered as a man who was selfless, who strove and worried so that others could share the glory and who built up a family of people who could hold their heads up high and say:
‘We are Liverpool’.”
That's the history. We believe this. This is what we convey every time we sing “You'll Never Walk Alone.” History alone, however glorious, won't win important matches. You need the talent, the skill, the organisation, the dedication, all of those things. You won’t win the big matches without those things. But you need the passion, the desire, the belief, the enthusiasm, because without those things your ability is nothing but potential. You have to want to put those things into effect. You have to have meaning. As Bob Paisley said, talent is nothing without sweat on the shirt.
This is about the desire and the passion to work as one. Liverpool have had many great players. Other clubs have probably had much bigger stars than Liverpool. Liverpool's best ever player, I would say, was Kenny Dalglish. I'll bet fans from other countries barely know him. He's not a Cruyff or a Messi, he's not a Rummenigge etc. But Liverpool beat Cruyff's Barcelona in 1976, in Barcelona, and they beat Rummenigge's Bayern Munich in 1981 (when Dalglish had to leave the pitch early with an injury, his place going to a young reserve, who proceeded to run Bayern ragged). And now they have beaten Messi’s Barcelona. Because Liverpool football is socialism – a unity with differentiation, with everyone working together as a team to a common end, every last man playing his part, rather than relying on individual genius. Many good judges rate Messi the greatest player ever. He is indeed a genius and produced the moments of magic in that first leg to give Barcelona a three goal advantage over Liverpool. Liverpool did not blink, did not flinch. In adversity, facing the destruction of all that they have played for this season, they took the game to Barcelona and played Messi off the park. And played Suarez off the park, too, a former Liverpool player and one of the best players in the world today.
There was not one man of the match in the Barcelona game. This was a game won by each and every player giving all that they had to work together as one out of commitment to a team ethos, a plan of action. They knew their roles, knew how to fit their talents to the whole, and overcome a team of footballers who, individually, were stronger than they.
And it was a squad performance, too. Liverpool lost key players with injury before the game. The players who came in were able to play at the highest standard at the very highest level not out of luck, but because, week in and week out, they have worked hard, trained hard, listened to their coaches as to what is required of them, made a commitment to the club and its ambitions for the future. Origi, the stand in striker, scored two goals in the 4-0 win against Barcelona. It's a dream come true, yes, but a dream in which a club and its staff and fans have invested blood, sweat and tears. If it is fantasy, then it is a fantasy backed by skill, knowledge, desire, training. If you want results like this, you put the time and effort in and you work for them. This is so much more than sloganeering. And just take a look at that fourth goal! The audacity of a young man of twenty to take a corner like that, catching the entire Barcelona team by surprise. Very Liverpool, a place where people live off their wits. You need a lot of tools in your toolbox, and you need to know when to use them.
Anyhow, I could write forever on Liverpool. I had better start drawing this to a close. I don’t know if there are more important things in life. I do have important things to be doing. I have a lot of written work to finish. And much else besides. But I shall be returning to this game in the years to come.
But this, as non-Liverpool folk were saying in the aftermath of the Barcelona game, is why I love football.
I feel like singing again.
Watch Reds players and fans sing YNWA after stunning Barca win
I've done this a few times. There's nothing like being in the middle of this.Note Mohammed Salah's shirt: “Never Give Up.
My scarf has been raised somewhat high in recent days.
I’ve just found my comments as I reported on the Barcelona game as it unfolded. I love my cool and clinical match reporting. I think a career in sports' journalism beckons. Possibly. I quote:
“Liverpool one up against Barcelona in seven minutes and are on the attack again!!
Whooo!
Allez les Rouges!!
There are times when I love this game.
Two more goals and the Mighty Reds are back where they belong: top of the whole wide world.
Back to the game.
Stay calm.
Liverpool have momentum.
Keep composure
and press ever on
I may need to lie down later.
Allez les Rouges!!
Liverpool TWWWWWOOOOOO!!!!!!
WHOOOOO!!!
WHAAATTTTTT!!!!
LIVERPOOOOOOLLLLL THREEEEEEE!!!!!!
Liverpool are threatening to do the impossible, overturning Barcelona's unassailable lead
UN BE LIEVABLE
This tops the lot.
This is even better than St Etienne!!
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
What an atmosphere, what a team!!
Heavens to Murgatroyd!
I said it couldn't be done.
It's not often I am wrong.
What is it about Liverpool, Anfield, the Mighty Reds, football.
ALLEZ LES ROUGES
ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ
ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ
This Liverpool never stops, this Liverpool never quits
We don't do if only.
Much singing and dancing here.
And shouting
Anfield at its awesome best.
Spirit, Heart, Belief, Character.
And give it some ooomph.
Now then, where are we?
We are now on level terms - this is one of the great European performances.
It's all to play for. This could be the greatest comeback in the history of almost everything.
Anfield is rocking.
I have my beloved scarf high, handsome and proud tonight.
I may be talking about this for many years to come.
This goes with St Etienne in 1977.
We keep talking about Liverpool games from 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years and more ago, and we shall be talking about this game in 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years and more to come. Remember this date: Tuesday, 7 May 2019, because this has been one heck of a good night.
Liverpool 4-0 Barcelona (4-3 on agg)
This is why I love Liverpool FC. This is why I love football. Yet again, the Reds redeemed every dream and vision I ever had as a boy living out my billion fantasies in the local parks. Football has us playing forever on the field of dreams. Time and again, Liverpool turn fantasy into fact to make us all, and the whole world with us, young again. I said in 1989 that if Liverpool were to never win another game for the rest of my life, I would die happy. I've had the happiest moments of my life on the Kop. But they just keep giving. It doesn't get any better than this. I’m happy. And I ain’t dyin’! But read on.
Additional
I loved this story: Jurgen Klopp sends sincere message to sick Liverpool fan fighting for his life against cancer
Dave Evans was diagnosed with terminal cancer just weeks after emigrating from Britain to New Zealand.
He and wife Liz have also received messages of support from Liverpool stars past and present including James Milner, Jamie Carragher, Jamie Redknapp.
They were stunned to learn Jurgen had broken off preparations for the match to record a moving personal message.
Jurgen said in the video:
“Hi Dave, Jurgen Klopp here from Liverpool here.
“I heard about your story and of course it is something really difficult to take it even for me but of course you.
“I heard you are an unbelievable fighter but the only thing I can tell you is we think of you. You are really with us.
“That is the only message I want to give to you and that you fought so hard.
“I could not make comparisons to what the team did over the year because it is more than football, it is about life.
“And the only thing what we would try to do the whole year is to give people some hope. Some joy. Some good moments to remember.
“We share these moments.
“This season or three and a half years since I'm in. We share these experiences.
“That makes us actually friends.
“I wish you from the bottom of my heart all the best and, yeah, I'm Christian … so see you.''
Listen to Dave’s response
“The bit at the end with the Christian bit he feels he’ll see me again on the other side.”
I had heard that Jurgen Klopp is a man of faith and belief. See you somewhere down the road.
There’s more important things, then … right ... we football fans do, actually, know. I make that comment because of the presumptions that non-football fans continue to make with respect to football fans.
I have to address the abuse I and other football fans continually have to face from po-faced politicos who think that I and the rest of the ignorant herd should all be following them to the promised land. You see, they know better than the likes of us, mere brainwashed idiots as we are.
This life would be so much easier should the people who think they know better than others ever decide to come down off their high horses and stop being so damned blinkered and condescending and actually engaged with people. I caught hell on social media for talking about the Barcelona game and received some serious flack for my love of football. Apparently I and the common herd are dumb and guilty of distraction. I have come across this abuse too many times now to keep letting it go. One character – a friend who is very much into changing the world - summed me up as saying that if we all bought a Liverpool season ticket the world would be united. As the abuse went, that sneering dismissal was mild. I ignored it, and am inclined now to keep well away. I did call the bluff of these people and invited them over to see the political causes I fight for, and come and join the people I know who are doing the fighting. The abusers talk a good game. But not one single solitary person responded to the challenge. I don’t care for myself. I don’t mind saying that I am classes above such folk. I do bitterly resent the sneering contempt they have for ‘ordinary’ folk, though, people who maybe lack the words and the confidence that I have to fight back. Such abusers render others voiceless, stamping on their joys and pleasures, making them feel inadequate and apologetic, neurotically seeking out a happy parade to go and rain on, ensuring that all have to share their joyless take on the world. Not to put too fine a point on it, I can’t stand such folk. And neither can others. People stay away from them. I would just ask them whether they are serious about winning numbers to their politics? Or just want to abuse others for having the good sense not to submit to being their followers. There is a lesson here: don’t presume that others share, or ought to share, your obsessions. And don’t abuse others when they don’t. If such people ever succeeded in making their politics as attractive and as believable – not to say as successful – as my favourite team sets about their business, then they would have no trouble attracting the numbers. But there’s no signs of them ever doing that. They just have a talent for insulting people. They may well be much more intelligent than the likes of us. It must be true. They tell us often enough. And I may well be a ‘moron’ with a ‘small mind’ that is easily distracted by ‘small things,’ as one brainbox told me. If so, then I’m far from being alone in this, as the 750,000 Liverpudlians out for the Sunday homecoming demonstrated. Such are the people of the world, what are you going to do with us? Because we are going nowhere. Of course, if all of these people joined this or that political party or social movement, then the world would be a much better place. That’s the argument I was given. And it is based on fallacious reasoning. You can’t presume what politics people should be supporting. I can say that people should all unite behind me, you can say that they should all unite behind you; and everyone else could say the same. There is no unity here, only divergent views. How we reconcile those different views by way of the broadest fit is what politics is all about. This is what we do at election times. And if everybody supported me, the world would be a much better place... Of course, we want people to support our particular platforms. But that’s the point, people support different positions.
The unity that people see in the enthusiasm that others have for the game of football or for a favourite football team is, firstly, not something that is separate from the world of politics: most football fans will take some part and some interest in politics; and, secondly, is not something that can be translated directly into politics: different people will have different views on politics and different allegiances. These critics may have missed the heated political exchanges that take place around politics, the anger in ‘debates’ on television and radio, the claims and counter-claims that are hurled back and forth at election times. There’s a lot of politics in the world. It’s just that people do not speak with one voice, and do not unite behind the platform you want them to unite behind. But, yes, agreed, if everyone united behind Green politics with the enthusiasm they bring to football, the world would be a better place. I’m just wondering that if that would also be the same for every other political platform.
I note the presumption that people should be supporting a particular politics. That’s a rather entitled view, I would suggest. You earn your support and your votes in politics, like everyone else. You don’t own my vote or support or that of anyone else. And isn’t it possible that, if people enjoy this activity or that, they are actually happy with the way the world is at present, and are not inclined to agree with their claims to be able to make it a better place. They may not actually want the world to be improved, and very possibly are sceptical of your promises.
As for this patronising comment that football is a distraction ... patronising because it presumes football fans are dumb and brainwashed and the people who dislike the game constitute some enlightened elite … please …. spare me. I’ll file it with all the other cultural snits and sneers I have heard from the middle brows of the world, people who lack what it takes to challenge the high brows, so indulge their spite by sneering at people they think beneath them. They are monstrous intellectual snobs.
And I’ll say this:
When you give up your movies, theatre, opera, books, and music, give up your eating out at fancy restaurants, picking over menus to buy fancy overpriced food, give up your interests in fine wine or real ale, your yoga, your gardening, your entire sex life - since 'saving the world' is so much more important than indulging pleasures - equestrian, canoing, mountaineering, photography, whatever it is that rows your boat, then you can maybe think of telling me and others to give up the football. Not that I will. Because this kind of thinking is a nonsense.
We had this kind of scorn for the lower orders at the time of the music hall. There are people out there who really begrudge working class people actually enjoying themselves, and really get narky when they see the common folk getting excited. Football is no longer a working class sport, now, of course, but it’s cultural roots are very much working class. There is, most certainly, a class angle to this sneering at football. Football has always had the capacity to draw the contempt and ridicule of those who despise the working people and who think themselves better. We see this across media and culture, certain values of certain classes constantly promoted over against those of others deemed beyond the pale. The working class have ever been portrayed as dumb and feckless.
Spare me the tyranny of value monism within the self-enclosed humanist world. The search for the one thing of overriding concern is a chimera in the human world. It is the little things that knit together a rounded life. I do a lot of little things. It doesn’t stop you doing any of the big things. And I reject in the strongest terms this "what about-ism" too many express in their views, it is the primary fallacy of current times. Whenever anyone expresses a view on a matter of particular interest and concern to them, it is immediately countered with a "what about" this, that, or the other. We had an outbreak of "what about-ism" at the time of the fire at Notre Dame cathedral, with environmentalists being the worst offenders. It is fallacious reasoning. You think it's ‘this’ that’s important, and I think it's ‘that,’ and the next person thinks it’s the ‘other,’ and the next something else entirely and so on; and in the mutual indifference such self-cancellation nurtures, civilization will continue to die. Since all things are connected, a concern for one thing is perfectly compatible with the concern for other things. These things are not mutually exclusive. I can do football, cathedrals, and environment. Books and music, too. Split these things up, and they become separated, splitting people up in the process. You will never win a mass constituency for your politics that way. I manage to combine my love of football with many other things. So do millions of others. I know this much, neurotic whining about others’ passions and concerns as a diversion from one’s own obsession is frightfully off-putting. And there’s too much of it about to augur well for the future. I can guarantee you this: no-one will ever vote for Nurse Ratched. Whether she was right or wrong, no-one will vote for her. Because her approach was wrong.