Magnets All Round

Liverpool v Manchester City

Sunday, the 11^th of November, 2019.

As I pulled-up at the car-parking spaces allotted to the visitors to the flats, I saw the orange BMW but more significantly, 7 – year-old Kelsey.

She and her dad, Dave, were fresh from their, ‘once in a life-time’ holy-bobs to America and the Universal Studios and Disneyland. Wow!

She was grinning and could not wait to give me my present, as she handed me, the one thing I had requested from their holiday; a fridge magnet. It had ‘Florida’ on it with a dolphin. It meant something. They had not forgotten me!

Quickly we went up to Dean’s flat, number six. Top floor, as it was still, just about light, on early Remembrance Sunday evening. I had deliberately put the TV on at a quarter to eleven, just as my dad would have done. Afterall, by rights, I should have taken him to Sheila’s on this day.

Instead, on the way through I had just popped-in to see mum, because I felt like it, not because I had to. I was glad that I did as she was so pleased to see me, giving me a Welsh ‘cwtch’ which our manager, Jurgen Klopp could not have bettered.

I had a cuppa, snaffled some of those delicious chocolate Malted Milk biscuits and generally tried to cheer her up. She is 80 going on 21 – believe me. ‘I’m going to get a perm this week’ she said, with a twinkle in her eye. I had to laugh. It’s that sort of thing which keeps her going – love her.

So, Dean was wearing his white away top. So smart. So traditional. Nike take note. He too looked well for the holiday and I found that they had not drunk to excess. Saving themselves for their jaunts around the various theme parks as they stayed in a villa in which the 9 of them were never crowded.

Presently I handed Dean and Davie a magnet each. The rectangular one in which Jordan Henderson is lifting the European Cup, won in Madrid, don’t you know, with every red all around him in utter joy. It was a memento of my recent visit to Anfield and Davie said, ‘Magnets all round!’

So, this was it. Or so it felt like it. I had burned with a deep feeling of desire the like of which I had not felt since the end of the 2018-19 season when Liverpool had finished League runners-up to Manchester City by a single point.

On this day, Liverpool could help wipe that hurtful memory out and I had thumped the steering wheel hard as I had come along the M4 motorway and travelled along the leafy, ‘Western Avenue’, a short cut to Dean’s flat. I was absolutely desperate for Liverpool to win; for revenge almost. That’s how much it meant.

The situation was that Liverpool stood 6 points above Manchester City. A draw did not even come into my thoughts. I wanted a win. Full-stop.

There was no change to the expected Liverpool starting 11. Alisson in goals, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson as wing backs, Dejan Lovren still deputising for the injured Joel Matip alongside Virgil van Djke at centre-half; Gini Wijnaldum, Fabinho and captain Jordan Henderson in the middle with the terrible trio up top of Mo Salah, Sadio Mane and Bobby Firmino.

As for City – well, I couldn’t care less. They didn’t have Ederson in goals and Laporte at centre-half, que the violins for a multi-billion – pound funded team, which had been bought by some Arab’s loose change which had fallen behind the hareem sofa.

What City’s billions couldn’t buy was Anfield’s atmosphere and after the exemplary observed minute silence, which prompted Davie to say that it was remarkable that so many people could remain silent so long, the moment finally arrived; kick-off.