Fickle Football Fan

Evening all,


I trust you are all well. I am back in the routine of working odd hours, sleeping when I can and enjoying the sunshine when it's there.
Today I met up with two very dear friends who I have known since our school days. We're talking over 40 years! We have helped each other through many a drama and will continue to do so for as long as we can.
We met today at a local garden centre with the mums of both of my pals. Both of the mums are fantastic. I always smile when I meet them. The mums and their lovely daughters have been a very big part of my life for a very long time.
 We chose our lunches - I had a sausage roll (bad) and salad (good) -  and we all sat chatting about the latest goings on. We must have sat at the table for a couple of hours filling each other in on the latest developments with our children, our husbands and all of the usual 'girly' gossip. It was a lovely catch up and I'm meeting the girls next week too so that's something to look forward to.


Anyway, I was reminded today about the huge part that football has played in my life, purely as a spectator and a fan.
I first became interested in football and Liverpool FC in particular when I developed a huge crush on Kevin Keegan. I loved him and his curly perm! Or, at least, I think that's where it started. I know that Dad used to tease me because I always used to turn to the back pages of the newspaper to read the latest sports news before I read anything else.
I remember my first trip to a game. My stepdad agreed to take my best friend ( one of my lunch dates earlier today) and I to see Liverpool play Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. It was an FA cup replay. We were so excited. We must have driven our chaperone crazy! Liverpool won the match but I was more thrilled because I had heard Kevin Keegan shouting to his colleague John Toshack. Yes indeed, I was overjoyed because I had heard my idol shouting. Deary me!
After that my love for Liverpool grew. It was in the glory days of Bob Paisley's reign when, at their height, the team were within touching distance of a treble - the FA Cup, the league and the European Cup.
I read every bit of news I could find on my team, I wrote to the players for autographs and was always thrilled when they replied. I still have the scrapbooks that I made chronicling that wonderful summer of 1977. I nagged my Dad into coming to Anfield with me for a midweek evening European cup match. The team won, Dad loved it, it was snowing and cold and we missed our train home but I was thrilled. I had finally been to Anfield.
Sadly Liverpool didn't claim the treble...they lost to Man Utd in the FA cup final...but history and memories were made when they picked themselves up from that defeat and won the European cup a few days later.


Fast forward a few years and I am now engaged to a die hard West Ham fan who humoured me with my LFC obsession and encouraged me to go to Upton Park with him occasionally. I loved it at Upton Park and it was so much easier to get to than Anfield! My allegiance to LFC began to fade much to the amusement of my family and friends and my obsession became West Ham which culminated in me going to see them beat Arsenal in the FA Cup final at Wembley. Trevor Brooking headed the only goal of the game after 9 minutes. It was an amazing day followed by an equally good trip to the East End the following day to see the cup being paraded through the streets of East London by the team on an open topped bus.


Then marriage and children and the priorities changed as is usually the case.


These days I have little interest in the game. I still get caught up in World Cups and so on because the family get so excited about it but the rest of it passes me by.


However, my eldest daughter is a Liverpool (and Jamie Redknapp) fan, the next daughter is claret and blue (West Ham) through and through (obsessed like her mother at times!), youngest daughter knows more about the game than I ever did and has a soft spot for WHU because she was taken there often as a youngster and my son is Man Utd like his Dad. Even the grandchildren have West Ham shirts that they wear on a regular basis and the eldest has already made a trip to Upton Park at the tender age of 4.


As Liverpool look set fair to win the premiership this season, 25 years after the Hillsborough disaster, I just wanted to mention that I remember that dreadful day with such clarity. As the scenes unfolded on TV I had to look away and the pictures that were printed in the papers of the suffering of some of the fans over the following days were just dreadful.
I was so moved by what had happened - let's face it, it could have been me there on the terraces for that game - that I decided to drive up to Liverpool and pay my respects to those that had lost their lives. My husband thought I was mad but I felt that I had to do it. Mum and my little brother and sister came with me. It was a long old drive there and back in a day but I was so glad that we went.
The images of the shrine that was Anfield were all over the newspapers as people queued for hours to lay flowers on the pitch and take a few moments to think about what had happened. People were also leaving scarves and shirts over the terracing on the Kop and I took my most treasured Liverpool FC possession, a European Cup winners scarf, and made my way to the Kop where I stood and looked at the incredible sight of the pitch being almost covered in floral tributes etc and I tied my scarf over the terracing and cried.


If, as expected, Liverpool do win the Premiership this season, what a fantastic tribute to the 96 who went to support their team on that fateful day in April 1989 and never went home again.


You'll never walk alone!!


Much love


xxxx