With my son being a bit sport crazy, it can be difficult keeping up with the various conversations relating to transfers, touchdowns, goals and home runs that he has caught online on any given day. I'll hold my hands up, the fascination with different sports is quite possibly my doing. We've gone from watching the Red Sox throw away a more than decent chance of winning the world series in the autumn of this year to being glued to game day coverage once the NFL season started (I'm a Patriot, he's a Green Bay fan!), we now find ourselves frantically trying find a stream to watch NCAA college football in the hope that the Michigan Wolverines maybe, just maybe win the championship this year.
These are extra innings interests that help pass the time when our true sporting love are not playing at home or we aren't travelling around Scotland for a Celtic away match. I would say I have little to no interest in football south of the border, the EPL just comes across as too commercialised for me (even more than NFL & MLB). However, Gabriel has grown a real appetite for Liverpool in recent years, his interest started to grow when Brendan Rodgers was in the dugout at Anfield - the Liverpool team that agonisingly slipped at the final fence in the title race. A champions league & premier league title since then has made up for that in his eyes. So, when I won tickets to a Liverpool match at Anfield, I only had one person in mind to take with me on the road trip.
Travelling down to Merseyside on the Friday night meant we would have all day Saturday to look around some of the places of interest in the city. We stayed in the town of Waterloo which looks out on to the mouth of the river Mersey and the boats travelling to and from Ireland. A frequent train service from Waterloo station means it is only about a twenty minutes from the buzz of central Liverpool. Our first port of call had to be Albert Dock just to get a glimpse of site where “This Morning" was filmed many moons ago. We then made our way through shopping precincts to the famous Cavern Club and the birthplace of The Beatles.
Perhaps it was because I had been starved of any live music due to the various Covid restrictions, but as soon as we walked into the Cavern Club we were spellbound. With live music from 11am onwards I felt like a regular Day Tripper as musicians took us all on a magical tour of the artists who have played at the Cavern over the years. We could only stay for the first 2 of the resident artists performances, Gabriel lapping up Johnny B. Good from Gary Murphy & I was delighted to hear Working Class Hero performed by Richard Batty. I cant stress this enough – the Cavern Club is somewhere every music fan must go to experience the magic of it all.
Now, it was on to the main point of our venture into England, the world famous Kop & Anfield was only a few miles way. We got a train from Liverpool central to Sandhills station where we caught the connecting “soccerbus" to Anfield. Even though we were about 2 or 3 hours early there was still a steady stream of fans making their way to the match. A walk around the stadium showed the sheer scale of the new main stand as it dwarfs the closely bunched houses standing in its shadows. The murals on the walls in the streets around Anfield are a striking nod to former glorious victories and the hope for more silverware to come.
Gabriel & I paused for a few moments of reflection at the Hillsborough memorial and said a few silent prayers in memory of those fans who tragically died supporting their team on the 15th April 1989.
Our tickets were in the new level of the main stand, thankfully the construction team had folk like me in mind when they built this towering structure by adding escalators taking fans to the very top. The concourse was packed with fans watching the 3pm results come in from Soccer Saturday. I could enjoy the novelty of a pint of lager in the stadium before we took our seats for the match.
The air of excitement grew for Gabriel with a rendition of You'll Never Walk Alone. A slow match came to life after thirty minutes when Jürgen Klopp and Mikel Arteta squared up to each other on the touchline, the passion and noise this confrontation created pushed Liverpool into a greater sense of urgency and by far the better team. At half-time the hosts were 1 nil up over Arsenal , but I was running back to the concourse to check the score in the Celtic match against cup holders St. Johnstone in the cup semi final at Hampden.
In the second half Liverpool completely outplayed Arsenal and ran out deserved 4 nil winners, the red fans on Merseyside left the stadium with a spring in their step, as did Gabriel & I with news of the victory for Celtic at Hampden. Honestly, it was good to watch football match without moaning at the referee, centre back or striker. Although, I think Gabriel kicked every ball sitting next to me.
We returned to Anfield the next day for a stadium tour and while it was an experience to see the stadium so empty, the tour did feel a bit hollow. Maybe I just expected too much, or maybe listening to a recorded audio guide is just not my thing. I would much rather hear the passion of a fan telling me the stories of great victories or historic moments.
With that our breath-taking weekend on Merseyside was over. Some fabulous new memories created for us both and a three and half hour drive back home in time for the 6pm match-ups on NFL Sunday.
