Dazed In The Life

At the outset, I’m going to say that my brother, Killian, is sitting beside me plucking merrily on his guitar – twat. I’m going to see how long it takes him to notice that I’ve typed this opening sentence.

Anyway, on Sunday the 5th of October 2008, Liverpool Football Club gave me the shivers. The previous night at my mate Brian’s 21st, I placed a cheeky €5 bet on the club to win the Premiership with another friend, Manus – who incidentally supports Newcastle, hence my confidence in my own judgement over his. The following day I renewed my subscription to the Liverpool website’s e-Season ticket, which gives me exclusive access to live audio coverage of all the club’s matches – a necessity for the devoted Reds fan who has just discovered that his team’s match is not being carried by Sky or Setanta Sports, nor by any of the radio channels available. So, £45 later, I was now set to listen to the afternoon’s clash with newly-rich, oldly-shite Manchester City. I pottered away in the alcove of a kitchen which lies at the heart of the flat I share with previously-mentioned Twat-Brother (184 words in, he still hasn’t twigged). A bolognese inside me, I logged onto the Liverpool site just as the match kicked off. As I listened, I had the Rangers-St.Mirren match on the TV (muted) and, displaying mankind’s – or just my own – ability to believe my own eyes, occasionally thought to myself “Hang on, the commentary doesn’t fit the picture…” How did I ever make it to college? Killian, how have you not noticed the insults yet? Twat? Hello?

Anyway, the website commentary went ahead and I was doing some work, typing up a list of names (of new members of DU Players, not of my enemies), trying to not get too frustrated as Dirk Kuyt put what was described as “an absolute sitter” over the bar. My typing action became slightly more staccato however as Stephen Ireland vollied the Sky Blues ahead after a defensive lapse. Wonderful. Watching the highlights later, I came to the conclusion that, had I been watching the game live, I would, in all probability, have flung the remote through the TV screen in an effort to hit Fabio Aurelio for giving the ball away in the lead-up to the goal. Given the softness of the goal and the seemingly imminent bad-day-at-the-office, I’d probably have hit him too and put him out for two weeks. A second goal came from a stupid freekick which their left-back, Garrido, scored. He had never scored for the team before. We had conceded as many goals in one half of football as we had in the previous 6 matches. The commentry halted at half time and, rather than ad breaks and a panel of experts, all I heard was the sound of the mic and earphones being flung onto a desk and the commentator stomping out of his little room. Then silence for the 15 minutes. Said a whole lot more than any analysis would have. Agree Killian? Thought so. Twat.

The second half of this game renewed my belief in destiny. Liverpool were, by all accounts, magnificent. Fernando Torres scored before Zabaleyta was sent off for a dangerous tackle on Xabi Alonso. But already, fifteen minutes into the half, the writing was on the wall. The remainder of the game was all one-way traffic. It was wave upon wave of Liverpool attack. The commentator kept predicting “another goal for us” – no need for balance here! It came pretty sharpish too, Torres again, rising to meet a Steven Gerrard corner. There followed glaring miss upon miss by Kuyt, Keane and Torres. It looked like it was bound to be ”one of those days”.

And, in the manner of all great scripts, Martin Skrtel had to go off with a serious injury leaving Liverpool (who had used all their subs) with only ten men, before Dirk Kuyt reacted quickest to poke home a deflected Torres shot in injury time. From 2-0 down to a late, late 3-2 victory. Alone in the flat, I punched the air and the image of Steven Gerrard lifting the Premier League trophy flashed before me. Now that, that gave me the shivers.

I love Liverpool Football Club, the greatest club in the world. The list of reasons and memories are for another blog entry. For now though, there are 31 games left in the season. It’s a long way to go. The team have had many false dawns. But this time, I don’t know why, there is an air of “championship contenders” about this team. In the past, 2-0 down would have meant the end. Where Manchester United managed to come back from 3-0 to beat Spurs 5-3 a few seasons ago, Old Liverpool would have capitulated. New Liverpool don’t have that capitulating look. A lot of people won’t be able to understand why I even give a second thought to this group of eleven red-shirted guys chasing a leather ball, trying to kick it into a net while eleven different-shirted men try to get in their way, all the time earning several hundred pounds per footstep. A lot will wonder how one can invest so much emotion into a foreign team, a group of people I have never met. Well, you know what? Sometimes we need to invest our emotions into something. Sometimes we need to believe in the power of dreams. Right now, Liverpool let me dream.

Oh, and Killian never noticed the “twats”. Do I win something? Just wonder how long it will be before he reads this post.