“IS this your first time?” she asked me as she held my hand and looked me in the eye.
“Yeah,” I excitedly replied, not quite sure if there were any words I could use to describe what had just happened. She looked at me again, her of at least 60 years of age, experienced, been here before, but that glint of excitement still in her eye.
She tells me now, “You’ll never forget your first one” and I just smile, not quite sure what to say.
I was 18 and dumbstruck, couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. I’d heard all the stories, the tales of what it’s like and other people’s experiences, but I wanted my own story and my own experience.
I’d waited for this night. I then snapped out of it and stood, arms around my two mates’ shoulders, and savoured the moment.
Liverpool Football Club, Kings of Europe. AGAIN.
Only this time, it was my first time. As an 18-year-old lad, I had just witnessed, stood side by side with my mates and fellow supporters, the best night of my life.
As the players completed their lap/bounce/free for all around the pitch and disappeared off down the tunnel to marvel at Igor Biscan in his towel (there was a video of the inside of the dressing room after the game), we began to drift away, to the mayhem of jumping on coaches, planes and anything that moved that could get us home.
I won’t give you the blow-by-blow account of how we got home. Needless to say, as described by many, for most it was eventful.
My abiding memory of the airport chaos is bumping into a school teacher (I was in sixth form at the time) who was so noticeable he was probably the world’s worst hide-and-seek player.
“You haven’t seen me,” he said. Then he disappeared and was not to be seen until a few days later when I saw him sat in the corner of a pub having a bevy with work colleagues.
I looked, smiled and received a knowing smile and nod back in my direction. A smile that said a thousand words about everything we had both seen days before.
The story, like for many of us, had started weeks before.
In the hours after Garcia didn’t score a goal to win us the game, many were talking about, drawing up, finalising and booking ways to get there. I was too busy celebrating in town, the next day, written off by a hangover, spent sat in the common room.
The days after were spent looking at ways to get there.
I had a decision to make. I had my A-Levels coming up. I had a very limited amount of leave left in work. I was saving for my first holiday with my mates in Ibiza.
I decided it couldn’t all happen.
I wasn’t going to Istanbul. I couldn’t afford it and being stubborn, turned down the money off my mum and dad, even the offer of borrowing it.
That was until Mr Hughes, my Business Studies teacher made me realise I was being a divvie and I had to be there. Nice one, sir!
Money borrowed, day trip booked. Scare stories about our airline, a dodgy plane that didn’t allay our fears and telling people: “I’m not bothered about dying, but I want to see the European Cup final first.”
Then we were there. In Taksim Squre, enjoying the site of excited Redmen savouring our moment back in the spotlight.
The epic trip to the ground and trek that followed was horrendous at the time but with hindsight has become our march to our destiny. We all know what happened in the game. If you don’t, why are you reading this?
It was, it’s fair to say, surreal. Not just the football but everything that happened around it. I rang my dad at half time. My mum answered, with all the usual mum questions. I gave her no answer and told her to put my dad on.
“Dad, was it handball by Nesta in the build up to their second goal?”
“Yes son, even Andy Gray said it was.”
“I knew it was. I can’t believe it Dad. I’m gutted. I’m not bothered about money, or how long it took us to get here, I just didn’t expect us to be getting battered in the European Cup final.”
“Don’t worry son, we’ll do this”
“I’ll ring you later Dad.”
Yeah ok, Dad. Mad you!
I spoke to my mate as he got off the phone to his dad. “Me Dad reckons we’ll do this. If we score in the first five minutes we might have a chance.”
A ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ and a ‘We’re Gonna Win 4-3 ‘rendition later, I still didn’t expect us to do it.
The rest was madness.
Three goals…
Extra time…
Divine intervention…
The ball definitely went in slow motion as Shevchenko headed it, then volleyed it and it somehow never went in.
It went to pens. We won, they lost.
As we celebrated after lifting the cup, an old woman in front of me grabbed my hand…
I can’t wait for that day again, when I can ask someone else if it is their first, when I can see the joy in their eyes, when I can smile and know deep down how they feel.
Until then though, I’m waiting for my first league title. I won’t wait long.
Come on Kenny, bring it home!
Cracking stuff Jay. I don’t think any of us will get bored of talking about ‘that’ night. This was my experience of losing my European Cup cherry…
I don’t even need to mention the game. At one point, it looked like Lord Lucan was more likely to come back than we were. Then… six crazy minutes, one Polish hero, a spot of disco dancing on the line and a scouser lifting the cup to take it home to it’s rightful place. Forever.
After an hour of celebrating in Concert Square, followed by three hours of being dumbstruck/emotionally exhausted, I made the walk back to my parents’ Anfield home.
There were no taxis that night. Every red was out watching the game where as every bluenose decided to stay in, only once Gerrard had hoisted that big chunk of silver above his head. They’d have deffo been out if we’d have sunk without trace. Bitter bastards, the lot of them.
I got in at 3am and watched a repeat of the game with tears making tracks down my face. I wasn’t aware of it at first, but noticing drips forming from my chin, I came to my senses. Hairs stood up on the back of my neck and I was swollen with pride. This was ours. No longer did we have to relive former glories through fathers, uncles and grandfathers – this one was one that OUR generation could claim as their own. And what a match to claim.
I woke the next day with the type of hangover inflicted pain that could only be matched by a Chinese torture technician trying to elicit information for the State.
I gingerly made my way downstairs for the cooked breakfast that my mum had just bellowed was on the table. Taking my place next to my dad – trying to be as cool as I could about the whole thing (he’d now seen the trophy lifted five times compared to my one), I said… “that was alright wasn’t it?”
His reply, which will stay with me forever, was: “Some soft bastard jumped on my when we scored the third and broke my glasses.”
There’s nothing like romance in football, eh?!
I was watching most epic match at the Railway Tarvern that night when we won on pens we were jumping for joy that we won the 5th european cup and now let’s get the title back from under noses of Mancauian Clubs City & Utd.