Going to Anfield, a Fairy Tale, and How I Met John Barnes (and Peter Crouch and Neil Mellor)

This is a much longer column than my Aftergame Corner, following Liverpool’s victory over Newcastle that opened up a massive 13 point gap in the title race and effectively sealing it.

Unlike my regular column after the game, I am fully sober while writing this. Still, this is also a reaction column. I wish to share with you what was truly a mind-blowing, once-in-a-lifetime experience for me at Anfield.

Making It Happen

It starts with the ticket.

As I’ve learned from speaking to Liverpool locals, scoring tickets to a home match is a daunting task even for them. It appears that the vast majority of seats are assigned to season tickets holders, and those are impossible to buy these days; the waiting list for a season ticket is thousands long. And because the Reds are arguably the most supported club in world football, not to mention in a really good moment, demand for tickets resold in the secondary market by those season ticket holders is sky high, and competition for them can be robust.

With Liverpool revitalized as it has been under Klopp and now Slot, simply going to a match is not a given. Even if you are a Liverpool resident, the price for the worst seats can run to hundreds of pounds. Being a season ticket holder is, it seems, a highly profitable endeavor. Naturally, it makes it ever harder for those on the waiting list to ever get nearer the finish line.

As an aside, I fear the impact this will have on a generation of young scousers who will never have the opportunity to grow up loving the club the way their parents did.

If, like me, you are traveling from afar and unwilling to risk a secondary market transaction for fear of fraud, it is then orders of magnitude more difficult to get into a Liverpool match at Anfield. Much more so than it was, say, for me to fly to Istanbul in 2019 to watch them win the UEFA Super Cup. When you consider the costs and logistical complexities involved, it becomes near impossible (unless, as always, money is truly no object; if your budget to go see a game runs into five figures, you can always find a way).

Another complexity: rescheduled games due to cup competitions and weather. If you’re coming in from the other side of the world, this uncertainty can be a killer. This is a risk you carry when you set something like this up, and it can be a major deterrent.

After decades of empty promises to myself that “one day, I will see Liverpool at Anfield”, the stars were aligning this season. The right combination of life circumstances allowed it to transition from pure fantasy into potential reality. This is when I discovered the LFC Hospitality Packages. The nice thing about these is that, as far as I can tell, they are not part of the season ticket structure, and anyone can buy them without prioritization.

They are, of course, highly limited and quite expensive. But the biggest challenge is that most of them place you high up in the Anfield Road end. That was a deal breaker for me. Personally; if I’m going to do this, sitting above the away fans behind the goal just doesn’t feel right. As an aside, I don’t think there is a package that places you in the Kop; if so, I didn’t find it.

There is, however, the Japan Airlines (JA) Lounge, and that one puts you right next to the VIPs under the TV commentators, with an almost perfect view of the pitch. And so, as the year turned and I realized that it was, in fact, becoming possible for me to do it sometime between late February and early April, I started planning. A look at the fixture list confirmed that a few games were possible: Newcastle, Southampton, and Everton. They all looked pretty safe from rescheduling. Alas, there were no JA packages available.

Resigning myself to a deja-vu sense of “maybe next year” I still took to obsessively monitoring the website for several weeks. Eventually, in early February, a single seat suddenly showed up. I bought it on the spot, booked the flights and hotels, and then, after a few hours, remembered to breath again.

I was going to Anfield!

Arrival At Anfield

Excited and practically operating on pure adrenaline, I made sure to go down to the Liverpool One bus station a full 4 hours before the game. Why the bus? Because I wanted to experience as much of the local atmosphere as I could. Being on the bus with other fans was part of that. I also wanted to get in as soon as the gates opened. Alas, that did not happen. While I boarded the bus in what I thought was ample time, the trip itself took 50 minutes, about double what Google said it would. I think it had to do more with rush hour than the game – it was an 815PM fixture. Anyway, something to note if you’re going in the future.

Still, I arrived at Anfield in good time, and stepped off the bus right onto Paisley Gate. I could spend pages telling you about it all, and maybe some day I will, but I know you want me to get to the John Barnes bit, so all I will say is this: for me, walking through that gate and breathing in the Anfield air felt like, I suppose, a visit to the Vatican for an avowed Catholic. I like how the stadium keeps things understated, too, not like American stadiums where it’s all pomp and circumstance.

Eventually I made my way to the front, and quickly found the lounge entrance off to the side. As I made my way up the stairs to the second floor, I felt my eyes filling with tears.

I was finally here.

Entering The Lounge

Walking into the lounge, I came upon the hospitality desk. It’s positioned in a corner between two hallways; the right leads to the lounge itself, the left leads down to the stadium. A part of my brain was saying “you’re supposed to go right, you idiot,” but its voice was drowned by the other part which was screaming “it’s…right…there! Go see it! Go see it now!”

I turned left.

That, of course, alarmed the folks working hospitality, and they immediately stopped me. “The doors are still closed, sir. You need to go that way,” they pointed to the right.

Which is when I started babbling, something I did with increasing frequency as the night wore on.

“I’m so sorry…I just dreamed of this moment since I was a little kid…I saw the stadium behind that door, and it’s been fifty years dreaming of coming here, and I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

Squaring my little boy shoulders – at this point, I was 10 again – I took a step in the right direction. The ladies there stopped me, and a nice man joined them. They conferred with each other quickly, then one of them smiled broadly at me. “Would you like to give me your phone?” she asked.

Dumbfounded, I unlocked it and did as asked. The man took it. “Just walk down to the door,” he said. “Don’t think about it, just go.” I hesitated, and the lady said “it’s OK. Dave will take a video. Go on.”

I turned left again, and walked down the corridor, all 30 feet of it, to the door. I looked out of it, onto the stadium that over decades has built such an enormous, mythical presence in my mind.

Then I turned to Dave. He was holding the phone to me, smiling.

I broke down crying. I couldn’t help it.

A Magical Story Begins To Be Written & Neil Mellor

We walked back to the stand. It was still almost three hours before the game, and most people weren’t coming in quite yet. I pulled out my novel, The Crack in the Crystal.

“I know this is going to be a very odd request,” I started. They looked at me with that professional look that says, politely “lay it on us, buddy. What extra thing do you want?” I suppose it makes sense, but my next few sentences seemed to pique their interest.

“Look, this is my debut novel. It just came out a couple of months ago, and Liverpool has meant so much to me for so long. For my whole life. I wanted to somehow thank the club, by sharing this thing that I created with you folks. I know it makes no sense, and you can just toss it in the trash in a few moments, but is there some way I can give it to anyone at LFC? Just as my way of thanking the club.”

I swear they had no idea what to do with me at that point.

After conferring again, the lady (whose name I sadly do not have, but I wish I did because she was wonderful) looked back at me. “Who is your favorite Liverpool player?”

I hesitated. These kinds of questions are always hard for me. Ice breakers stress me out. “What’s your favorite color?” I dunno, I like all the colors equally. “I guess it has to be Sir Kenny,” I said, feeling uncomfortable inside, already saying sorry to so many others.

She laughed. “Alright, that’s a hard one. Who else?”

“Barnsey,” I said. It’s true; I’d loved John Barnes since before he even played for Liverpool. In a way, I always felt a kinship to him, but it would be too long of a story for this column. On the footballing side, I always felt like he more or less fashioned the kind of Winger back then that Mo Salah has elevated to perfection today. He was a childhood hero. I had watched him in person play at Wembley.

She gave me a big smile. “Oh, that’s good. We might have a surprise for you later.” She handed the book back to me. “Take it with you; we’ll come get you once we figure it out.” Then Dave shook my hand and said “I will be your contact tonight. You need anything, you come to me.” As we walked through to the lounge, I showed him the dedication I had written inside, and he stopped and shook my hand.

“You’re a true scouser,” he said, and my heart melted.

That was the greatest compliment he could have come up with.

My brain was already turning to mush, and the game hadn’t even started.

I was sat down, met a bunch of wonderful people who had each arrived independently from all over the world: Anthony from Melbourne, Sean from Philly, Luis from Houston, Kei from Tokyo. About an hour later another fellow joined us who was also from Melbourne, but by then, the chances of me remembering his name were less than zero. My apologies to him if he ever reads this post, because he was very cool and I would love it dearly if our paths ever crossed again.

Dave took my matchday programme with him. He said he’d get it back to me at halftime; I was stunned, and had no idea what to expect, but because of what the lady said, I suspected that maybe they would get Barnsey to sign it. That would be amazing, to feel so close to him this way, knowing he gave a second or two of his time to do this for me, being (I guessed) less than a hundred feet away.

I had no idea just how close he really was.

Neil Mellor came by and entertained us. He’s a great ambassador, and he introduced himself to us as Fat Gerrard, at which I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. He’s got a point, though; see for yourself.

A few minutes before we left the lounge to get to our seats, Dave came back and handed me the match programme. He pointed at the front; Steve Mcmanaman (another childhood hero) had signed it. I was elated, especially as none of this was expected or normal or in any way part of the hospitality package. But Dave said “don’t worry mate, that’s not even your programme, I’m still working on something. I’ll see you at half time.”

Then we went into the stadium to watch the game. This column isn’t about the game, but I’ll say this: even when it’s not at its raucous loudest, Anfield noise levels can be intense. When it gets going, it’s like Tsunami waves crashing into you, one after another, overwhelming you, subduing you and lifting you at the same time. I cannot begin to imagine what it means to the players on the pitch. I’m simply not a good enough writer to describe the remarkable experience of it. And when we score…oh.

Oh.

It’s an experience that will be seared in my mind and heart forever.

Half-Time, Magic Fills The Air, & Peter Crouch

The whistle goes, and I’m trying to post something to our Americanscouser Discord group when my seat mate to my right (and fantastic hugger, as I discovered after Dom’s goal) tapped me on the shoulder. “Someone’s asking for you,” he pointed upwards. I looked up.

Dave was waving at me to come.

So here’s the deal: my brain froze right there and didn’t thaw for a few minutes, which led to one of the most awkward moments in my life as a Liverpool fan. I sensed the reason for his wide grin. “Am I really going to meet John Barnes?” the sudden thought, and the attendant disbelief, were accompanied by a flood of emotion.

Then came the next thought: “I better not blow this up. I better not blow this up.”

I blew it up.

As we turned the corner, and the lady from the front said I should put my coat and hat back in the lounge and hand her my phone, I was right in that space: a little kid, awed, excited, a bit frightened, out of place, desperately wanting not to upset any of the adults.

Which is why, when I got out and Dave stopped me and said “hey, wanna say hi to someone?” and that someone offered his hand, I shook it and mumbled quietly “nice to meet you.” He looked down at me in disbelief, and then smiled and walked away. Dave asked me “do you know who that was?”

I nodded, dumbfounded. “The height,” I whispered, still in a daze. I just shook hands with Peter Crouch, and all I could manage was a polite “nice to meet you.”

I am so genuinely sorry, Peter. Love you to bits. You’re the funnest pundit these days. I wanted so badly to say, “what are you doing here?! Go get dressed! We need a proper number nine!” but I didn’t. In retrospect it seems utterly ridiculous. I am a grown man, successful, a CEO and an author and a board member in multiple companies. Public speaking is right up my alley, often in front of hundreds. None of that helped me in that moment. I was a little kid who could only lower his eyes politely and mumble “nice to meet you.”

If I ever meet you again, Peter, I promise you that we will have a much better conversation. It was just the wrong moment, at least in terms of my emotional capacity to process.

John Barnes

And then the moment was upon us. They asked me to take a few steps forward, and opened the door to Executive Room #10. It was full of people, a couple of whom gave me a bored glance, probably wondering what on earth I was doing in their private space. But none of that mattered, because as I gazed upon the room, my eyes locked on one of the greatest English footballers of all times, a Liverpool legend, and someone who for whatever reason I felt an immense connection to as a teenager, the one and only John Barnes.

Keep in mind that I did not expect any of this. I wasn’t prepared. It was all I could do not to run over, but I did walk and ask if I could give him a hug, which he immediately accepted with a huge smile. He hugs good, Barnsey. He really does. One day maybe I’ll get a mythical Klopp hug (in a few years when perhaps he is a bit less wary of being in public for fear of being mobbed – a boy can dream, can’t I?) but for now, I will tell you that John Barnes is a fabulous hugger.

And then we chatted. Some of it is on video, including me telling him about the one time I saw him play in person, in Wembley, before he even signed for Liverpool. But when he asked me how old I was when that happened, my brain produced not anywhere near the right age, but rather, the age I felt in the moment. I was in such a daze I responded “eight.” He knew it was wrong, but let it slide with grace. He moved on to talking about the Oakland Raiders, and I couldn’t help but squirm. Barnes quickly understood and laughed. “It’s the Vegas Raiders now, huh?” he offered, and I gratefully accepted. John is really endearing, has a great laugh, and can make you comfortable even if you’re shaking like a leaf.

I gave him the book. I told him why I brought it, and showed him the dedication. How much he and the club meant to me. He asked if he could keep it, which finally caused my brain to fully short-circuit as I nodded, dumbfounded.

Then it was time to go. He turned away and I did the same only to realize my knees were shaking really hard. I was afraid of buckling over. Happy to actually make it to the door without causing a scene, I stepped outside, and then lowered myself to the floor as I caught my breath.

I’d met John Barnes.

I hugged John Barnes.

There is a kind of euphoria you can get, a high that feels like a dream state. People sometimes chase it with drugs, especially when reality seriously bites. That hug, that moment, put me in that state. The rest of the night was a blur. We scored another goal. I hugged many people. I appear to have a second match programme that has four signatures on it, one of which looks like Terry McDermott’s. I’m pretty sure Dave handed it to me at some point and told me who they all were, but I just don’t remember. It’s embarrassing, really, but it’s a nice puzzle to try and figure out. Maybe you can help?

A few hours later I got back to my hotel and somehow managed to still write the regular reaction column. But I knew I had to write this one, too. I had just had one of the most remarkable experiences of my entire life, a life already full of incredible experiences (good and bad), and I wanted to share it with all of you fellow LFC fans as well.

Walking in, all I wanted was to say thank you to LFC and share a journey of my own creation as a small token in return for the the decades-long joyful and grounding journey they have taken me. The hospitality people somehow took that and reflected it, transformed it into something truly glorious. It all made it so I feel even more connected to the club, in a way I never did before, never knew I could.

So thank you, LFC hospitality, every single one of you. You were all amazing. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, John and Peter and Neil and Steve and Terry and the three mystery legends who signed my programme. It’s an odd thing, to be in your fifties and have an eight-year-old out-of-body experience like the one you gave me.

Thank you.

Here’s me and Dave.

Oh, and John…if you ever do read it, I hope you enjoy the book 🙂