Why Liverpool FC?

One constant love of my life has been Liverpool FC. Footie was not part of my family life, my father being from the valleys and an ex-rugby player, winger, which oddly enough for the one season I was forced to play rugby at school was my position too). On that point it was not part of my school life either, my school was solidly a rugby school and the school rules stated that you could not play football within 30 metres of the school building and you could not play on the playing fields as it would “cut the turf up for the rugby boys”. Possibly one of the most asinine diktats in the history of eduction. Given the playground stopped about 20 metres away from the school building it was therefore physically impossible to legally play soccer.

Anyway, the one soccer match that we always watched was the FA Cup Final. In the 1970s out of the three channels available two carried coverage from early in the morning through to some time after five. Obviously we had to pick a team to support and I had no bias whatsoever from my father, when he was young Huddersfield used to battle for the title but it never reached the fires in the hillsides of Glamorgan. Sometimes I chose the team on the day, this would depend on how they came across in the various programmes prior to kick-off, such as “Meet the Teams”, chats with them at their hotel before they left for Wembley, the road to the final sections. However, one year I was incensed by the attitude of one player, especially when compared to the attitude of the opposition.

Malcolm MacDonald was the sort of striker that Newcastle fans always love, big, ballsy, almost the traditional English striker. He was also incredibly arrogant. In one interview he basically said Newcastle were far superior to Liverpool and they would wipe the floor with them in the final. Looking back not only is that sort of arrogance common in some people but it is also something that I take with a pinch of salt now. However, to my eight year old self this was unbelievably rude. The Liverpool players by contrast were the personification of the old-fashioned sportsmen. One of them, Ian Callaghan, had never been booked and throughout his professional career of almost 900 games for the only club he ever played for Liverpool he was never booked. Indeed the one booking he picked up, playing for England against Luxembourg (I think) was a travesty, it was not even a foul let alone a bookable offence. The Liverpool manager was one of those postwar Scots who came from a tough background and who never forgot those lessons; Jock Stein and Sir Matt Busby were two others in the same mold.

It was therefore clear to me from some days before the final who I would be supporting, Liverpool all the way. The build-up from early morning on TV showed that most of the Newcastle players were not as arrogant as their star centre forward but it was too late I had set my heart on Liverpool. The match itself showed that Malcolm MacDonald had been right about one thing, it was very one sided. Keegan, Toshack and the boys in red put three past Newcastle with no reply. They played beautiful football, skillful and not dirty. I had found my team. Just to put the tin hat on it their goalkeeper, Ray Clemence, shared the same birthday as me.

In the last 33 years the players have changed, the manager has changed, even the owners have changed (more of that in another post) but the ethos has stayed the same. Just as a recent example when Liverpool beat the non-League Havant and Waterlooville after twice going behind to the amateurs the Kop stayed behind to give the opposition a standing ovation. No other fans are as generous in their praise of opposition players, no other ground sounds like Anfield on a European night. No other club is quite like Liverpool, especially for me.

Liverpool FC