My Liverpool Story: The Gift
Fitting for someone who, like Nick Hornsby’s Fever Pitch, was also born in 1992, my Liverpool story starts in a similar fashion as his Arsenal story. My father worked abroad and was in foreign locales more often than home. He apparently felt guilty enough about this that he would always come back with some kind of gift. The gifts always had a theme: a Dreamtime boomerang from Australia, a carved flute from Turkey, etc. A 2004 trip to the UK had him bring back a pair of soccer jerseys for my sister and me: Chelsea for her, and Liverpool for myself.
READ MORE: My Liverpool Story: A Chance Encounter by Steven Cook
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The Liverpool Hand Was Dealt
Soccer was already the star at the center of my sporting universe. I had yet to truly be initiated into the insane, impassioned, and occasionally imbecilic world of being a true supporter. My father had by complete accident set me on the emotional roller coaster that was being a Liverpool supporter in the Premier League era. I would enter the fold just in time for the Miracle at Istanbul, an event of such transcendental majesty that it, unfortunately, left me poorly prepared for the next several years of “almosts.”
In my temperamental adolescence, I at times resented being chosen by fate to be a Kopite. With my dad supporting Manchester United and my sister supporting Chelsea, they enjoyed an orgy of trophy lifts and exciting new developments throughout the 2000s.
Missed The Glory
Liverpool, on the other hand, was seen as a club whose best years were behind it. Poor, pitiful, over-the-hill Liverpool had been left in the dust by the sea change of the Premier League era. The club struggled to reclaim a semblance of its former glory. It had been an extremely dominant club, both domestically and internationally, throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s. But by the time I had entered the picture, Liverpool had been deemed a fallen giant.
At my worst, I sometimes rued the fact that I had not been attached to a flashier club like Arsenal. At my best, however, I was a dug-in, stubborn diehard, for whom supporting Liverpool was a quasi-religious commitment, with its own doctrines (hate Manchester United with your entire being) and rituals (hum The Fields of Anfield Road at every opportunity). I continued to insist, buttressed by snippets and quotes from Shankly and the like, that Liverpool was actually a club about values, that Kopism was an ideology that transcended the game itself, silverware or no silverware. My dad would, on occasion, jokingly accuse me of having joined a cult, which I cheerfully affirmed with “I sure did!”
Jurgen Has Entered The Chat
My faith would rewarded by the emergence of a messiah figure. In 2015, having just started law school, Jurgen Klopp would join our humble club. I did not watch much soccer that year, owing to the first-year grind. But I did watch two of the first games of the season. At the risk of speaking with the benefit of hindsight, I knew Klopp was a truly special manager. The first was a 3-1 victory against the defending champions; Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea. It was a true full-circle moment that would have made 12-year-old me weep with vindication. The second was a 2-1 loss to Crystal Palace at home. This led to Klopp’s now-famous castigation of the fans, who had shown embarrassing disbelief by filing out early.
Klopp’s “I felt so alone” speech is practically a cliche at this point, but it was a profound moment for me. At last, I thought, we had a manager who believed in the club and its principles as stridently as the supporters claimed to. At last, we had our Bill Shankly. Klopp had, through the articulation of the very same principles that gave the club its identity and refusing to accept an abandonment of those principles in the face of defeat, had proven to us everything that we could be. He demanded that we aspire to take over the world again. And take over the world we did. Amidst an army of doubters, Klopp’s Liverpool conquered all of Europe. Almost more importantly, he lifted the first Premier League title Anfield had ever seen.
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The kind of devotion that Liverpool FC inspires in its supporters often baffles and disgusts other sports fans. But I remember what it was like to be a dour, constantly- disappointed junior high student. Being an accidental fan of a team destined for a miraculous triumph in one of the most dire years in world history sustains me through even the most disappointing moments with the firm belief that if I never waver from my belief that Liverpool is the greatest team of all time, we will certainly conquer the world all over again. If LFC is a cult, I will delightfully count myself among its martyrs.
