Swansea had not read the script. Liverpool carelessly lost the ball like the proverbial bar of slippery soap. Swansea attacked to my left and it resulted in a long shot being fired into Simon Mignolet’s bottom right hand corner.
It was 2-3 and Liverpool were in deep, deep trouble – again.
At one stage Philip Coutinho had gone off, Emre Can had finally left – he had done nothing. He was too slow and indecisive and too defensive. I did not know why Jurgen Klopp, our manager, had played Emre Can, Gini Wijnaldum and Jordan Henderson all together in the middle. The trio are all too defensively minded. Divock Origi was on, as well as the enigma that is Daniel Sturridge.
As the seconds ticked by, I realised that they were very, very crucial. If Liverpool could not pull the game around and somehow, not just equalise but go on and win, then the title challenge was over. Right there, right in front of my very eyes…
In my best Neville Chamberlain voice, I have to tell you now, that no such circumstances happened and consequently, Liverpool are not going to win the League this season.
They will not win the League this year or any year in fact, if they can’t solve their defensive deficiencies.
Despite the defeat, I stayed there. Just watching Liverpool leave the field. Some of the players bothered to raise their hands and clapped us. I responded, subdued by what had happened. I wonder if they were as despondent as I was.
I took the opportunity to take some more shots of the new stand, with my battery life on my phone running as low as the spirit was amongst our fans. It was almost like I wanted to drain every opportunity out of this time. I wanted to linger there, amongst the scene of defeat – wishing that it had not happened. It felt like I had just broken-up with a beloved ex and I did not want to leave her but just knew I had to. It was a private time…
We met-up by Bill Shankly’s statue. His arms open, as though at any moment, he was going to wrap the three of us up and give us a combined Welsh cwtch, which our mums gave us when we were kids, to sooth any pain away.
Dean so eloquently summed-up what the result meant.
‘Disastrous’.
We headed for ‘The Albert’, scene of many of our pre-match singing sessions. Even then it was getting packed. We had a beer or two, during which time we debated about what we had not done and more importantly, what we should do, to finally land the League title. At least under Jurgen Klopp the words ‘Liverpool’ and ‘title’ could be breathed in the same sentence.
The consensus of opinion was that we should go all out and get ‘Virgil Van Dyke’ from Southampton. Not wait until the summer, but splash whatever cash was needed and get him now – preferably before Wednesday’s 2nd leg League Cup semi with Southampton. With him alongside Joel Matip, we could actually be solid at the back. There is only one snag though, Chelsea and Man City and Man United and Barcelona and Real, well you get the drift, may go in for him as well.
Then Dean asked us if we would have started the back four of Nathaniel Clyne, James Milner, Ragnar Klavan and Dejan Lovren, especially as we had just conceded three goals. Before the game, I was happy with the line-up but wondered why Joel Matip had not played. Davie though did not answer the question directly and so it started a discussion which would go on, on and on for hours – much to my exasperation. Davie said that for the last three games Trent Alexander-Arnold had played competently and covered the back four. However, no matter how many times Dean and I asked him, if he would have changed the back four for the game, he would again, just like a politician, not answer the question directly.
As the lads argued, I had one eye on the tv screens and they were relaying thirty-year old Liverpool goals, scored by Johnny Barnes, Terry McDermott, Johnny Aldridge and my favourite, Peter Beardsley – just why, oh why did Graeme Souness get rid of him? It was a degree of comfort to see them – again and marvel that we had been able to build League Title winning teams in my life-time.
At last we decided to go, as I said that it was still light and we did not know how long it would remain so. Around the corner and then we were hit by the red bricked metal un-moveable juggernaut that was the new main stand.
Photos left right and centre. We walked up the flight of steps, just marvelling at it. It made me feel a bit better. It was just pride that our club had at last been transported to the 21st Century, as though rocket-propelled. Suits were still emerging from its confines, armed with their ladies and children. During the game I had looked right in the middle of the stand and what I gathered to be the press area. It must have been a superb view from there. Gail had told me that the ground echoed when we scored and it had been some noise.
We all stood respectfully at the new location of the Hillsborough Memorial. There were lovely flowers there. Then we looked at the ages of the people, some were just under twenty or just over. It was sobering, especially as I said that in 1989, I had only been twenty years old myself. I could not help but go and touch the memorial, laying my hand flat on it. There was a time when I had my season ticket and it used to be by The Shankly Gates, that I always used to do that – just out of respect.
Dean summed it-up, ‘It looks really good there’.
Getting chips near ‘The Twelfth Man’ – which used to be called ‘The Salisbury’ back in the day when it was my first watering hole, we flagged a taxi down with a local lad and as we debated again on the deficiencies of our back-four, we arrived near Lime Street. Our train was not until 18.40 and so we killed time by going in a bar called, ‘O’Grady’s’. Of all the people in there were a mob of Swansea fans. They were good lads and up in town for the weekend. They did not rub the win in our noses and we chatted about our different accumulated bets. One of the lads had put Newport County down to score and they had let us down. Swansea winning had also been a coupon buster for their fans. Maybe we should bet on Liverpool losing every game, that way we would be in a win-win situation – no, that would kill me.
A couple chatted to us and even bought us drinks. They had been to the nearby theatre to see the musical, ‘The Commitments’. It had meant that the fella, John, had not been able to ‘go the match’ and it had been for him, just as well.
‘We were dancing in the aisles’, his wife said, laughing.
I recommended that they see ‘Blood Brothers’, saying to the lady that her husband would love it, as it is set just outside Liverpool. In one way it was a relief not to talk football, but about other things. I felt then that I wished we were all staying-up in the city – maybe that will keep for another time.
Raiding a Sainsbury’s, not robbing it, as Davie joked that I had, we boarded our Virgin train and before we knew it, Crewe was approaching, just as a paranoid Dean made sure that it would.
‘Make sure that we don’t miss Crewe’ he had insisted, as he refused to drink the can which Davie had stuffed with Pringles and paper.
When we got to Crewe, the mother of all rail connections, we headed for the bar. There we got into conversation with a group of Preston fans and they said, ‘Newport are here lads’.
‘We are Liverpool fans’, Dean said, not for the first time that day. It was akin to displaying a proud badge of honour.
The train came and lo and behold, there was a lad on there I had seen about in work and always seemed nice enough. He was a Swan and we all chatted as we flew back home. He had gone to see Wales lots of times and to Euro 2016 of course. Davie and I had loved it, seeing Wales there and Dean knew that for a few years I had watched Wales. Dean though was Liverpool and that was it. Like I said earlier, Wales probably come fourth on my list.
I told Huw that my second cousin, Leighton Phillips had played for Swansea a few times and for Wales too. That he was from Briton Ferry, in Neath, where my dad is from. That I had only met him once but he had known who I was. All I could talk to him about though, this player who had captained Aston Villa once and had given me and my brother a photo of that team, was of course Liverpool. Now I would ask him lots of things and try and write a piece on him. Maybe I will meet him again; this person who told me Paul Walsh was a tidy lad, as he had played with him at Charlton.
With drink in our bellies, with pride still in our club, we had songs to sing and Dean started the ball rolling with ‘Bertie Mee said to Bill Shankly, have you heard of the North Bank Highbury. Shanks said no I don’t think so, but have you heard of the Anny Road aggro’. And that was it. A starting pistol. The three of us sang – badly. With memories of better times flooding back into our veins, of being ‘In the Albert’ again, in Rafael Benitez’s times.
We just sang the full repertoire, performing our own ode musical to our beloved Liverpool. From Xabi Alonso scoring from seventy yards, through to a ‘Team of Carragher’s’, ‘Every Other Saturday’ to Luis Suarez’s ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ and then finally, heart-warmingly almost, considering how he left us, we finished off by singing about one of the much loved world class players ever to grace a red shirt, in the form of one Fernando Torres – ‘Bounce’ as we nearly jumped-up in our seats.
We did not care who heard us. We were in our own little clique, like lovers talking about their shared experiences and sharing their own special songs.
We had a bond that would never leave us.
We may have left Liverpool but you could not take Liverpool out of us, especially on the day we had visited our ‘Spiritual Home’…
4,286
Andrew Phillips
22/1/17
Andy's Anfield Articles 