I GUESS that this must be the place. We’ve arrived.
Repeatedly it felt like we’d never get here – 2002, 2009, 2014, 2019. Time and time and time again we nearly got here, we were at the door.
We were at the door again and everything stopped. The game ceased to be. Life was put on hold. But we’ve arrived. We haven’t seen each other for months, we speak distanced. I’d love, love, love to see you but we’ve arrived and we’ve arrived together, you and I. What’s a song without you. Every song I write’s about you.
Remember the times. Remember the people. Remember what hurt and remember the journey. Because the journey has been everything. The journey, frankly, has been your life. What a life. What a privilege.
So much rattles through my head so fast. Every blink a cut, a new face, a new smile. Of all those kinds of people, you got a face with a view.
Adam Melia spending the summer sitting in trees smiling at passersby. Leeds away when Emile Heskey was just remarkable. Walking down Breck Road crying and laughing after Andrey Arshavin scored four. Brendan Rodgers on the pitch when Philippe Coutinho scores against Manchester City.
I’m on my way from misery to happiness today.
Grabbing Paul Senior when Mo Salah runs through and scores against Southampton and it being more bedlam than you’ve ever conceived of because the arc of the universe was bending towards this. Making a pact with God when looking for a cat.
Being in Tokyo at 2am when Fabinho rifles home against Manchester City. Being in the King Power watching Leicester City be dismantled. Swifty and the lads behind me when Mo Salah runs through against Manchester United and the arc of the universe really, properly bending towards this, this time.
He takes his top off. Shining like a national guitar.
Thirty years is such a long time but you barely notice the start. You’re too young or were too blessed with success. But by the year 2000 you begin to worry. By 2002 they have gone close twice, once in the mid-90s and then once again that year.
Vladimir Smicer volleys home against Chelsea as time ebbs away. Liverpool get sold, you protest and Yossi Benayoun scores against Fulham and Liverpool win at Hull but that day United beat Tottenham and you carry it somewhere. It won’t leave you.
More protest and Liverpool go to court and get sold again. Your life moves on, it never stops. You notice more people at football matches look younger than you and then 2013-14 happens and you feel younger than you have in your whole life. Younger than you have ever felt. The 2008-9 season was an old man’s game, but 2013-14 is for the young.
Don’t let the sun go down on me. The thing you carried since United beat Tottenham goes, it dissipates but it isn’t enough. It isn’t quite enough but your heart is open anew.
We allowed ourselves room for greatness, we brought adventure back. We could climb the mountain and smile as we went. This was the best thing in your life. It was a leisure activity not a custodial sentence. Let the greybearded treat it that way.
And then Jürgen Klopp filled that gap. A man able to tell you that this should be the best thing in your life and mean it and smile. Because he was a man able to make it so.
What they’ve done, what they’ve achieved will take time to truly settle, not just for us but for football in general. The mountain climbed by this Liverpool side has been the biggest ever. A Manchester City side that has been financially doped and simultaneously pretty well run and with Pep Guardiola in charge of it. A side capable of averaging 99 points across two seasons. That was the final obstacle in front of the promised land.
That obstacle hasn’t just been overcome, it has been – perhaps briefly – dismantled in overcoming it.
Jürgen Klopp saw all this coming and said “go on then” to the gauntlet Manchester City laid down. And the owners and the administrators; his staff and his players; and us, the loons who had been denied the promised land so many times before, we backed him to the hilt. We followed him to the very jaws of hell. And then we took the next step. We weren’t to be denied. Not this time. Not on his watch.
What Klopp did is unique. Nobody else did it, nobody else even conceived of it. Every other side in English football was content to just wait it out. Hope Guardiola wins three leagues and swerves it. Liverpool FC didn’t do that. Where would be the fun in that? Where would be the adventure? Where would be the joy? And why does Jürgen Klopp spend his time and ours if it isn’t fun, isn’t an adventure, isn’t at least trying to be joyous.
They grew and grew. Got to know one another, improved in each other’s company and reached such a pitch 100 points became possible.
In December 2018, at Wolverhampton Wanderers Liverpool won 0-2 and being there that day was being in the presence of Champions, being in the presence of a side that was winning a football league. It just took a bit longer than normal, that’s all.
There are love stories everywhere beyond ours. There’s a captain who has come through those hellish jaws time and again. Among our ranks there’s a Real Madrid failure and a Chelsea failure and a Celtic reject. There is a group of young men who have found each other, found this place and made it their own. They’ve lived our need and responded to it.
Lesser sides, lesser groups would have been diminished by the domestic disappointment of last season but not this Liverpool. Instead, they turned it into a springboard.
We can’t thank them enough but we can and will try. I’d build a statue of each of them as long you’d build it with me.
We needed them to give everything and they did that. Sadio Mane wanted to win the league more than you because he took that burden on. Look at them and walk around them. They are our heroes, they gave us what was both unattainable and what so many Liverpool sides had attained before them.
The league title they have won is both the first and the 19th. It is building on a legacy and cementing it. It is adding to our history and it stands alone, away from it.
Remember the times and remember the people. Remember the process and hold the process close. I’ve been writing these love songs, these bits of sweetness with tones of sourness for six years now. I’ve been writing about a football team but also about a journey, about all of us embodied in some of us. You’ll have your own gaps to fill in through all this.
It’s the twist of a kaleidoscope, the swivel of hips, it’s eyes locked across a dancefloor, eyes that light up, eyes look through you. Your own moments are yours, treasure them, own them, tell me about them. Our experiences are disparate until they aren’t, until we come together swelling in pride about this side and what it has done in this moment.
All of our lives are punctuated by this. All of them defined in part by the journey.
Liverpool are league champions. Thank you for sharing getting here with me. There could be no better companion.
We’ve arrived at the promised land. We’ve arrived home.
With the burden finally lifted, I can finally relax for the first time since I was 18..this will be another golden decade like the 80’s..who knows maybe the next 30 years.. The spirit of shankly and paisley lives on in Klopp.
YNWA
Well… it’s finally happened. It’s real. Even though it doesn’t feel real, not just yet. I expected to be a blubbering mess, and there’s still time and it’s probably inevitable at some point soon and bring it on I say. Luckily I had a few beers in the fridge. What a group of lads, what a moment, what a team, a squad, a club, a way of life. It’s devotion, it’s vocation, it’s faith and more. Folks, I know I’m just a set of initials on this thing but it’s weird and completely understandable at the same time that I’ve been in thrall since 1987 to a club in a place I have never even been, people and places I know more about and believe in and am absorbed by more than any of the local hurlers or footballers or any other local heroes. It’s been a constant in a way very little else has. And for 30 of those years I have craved this and now it has arrived, thanks to a manager seemingly sculpted from the best pages of our history, forged in another small village in another country also a million miles away from Liverpool. And the players and the supporters I envy every week and everyone else around the world who, like me, is deliriously happy at this moment. Thanks Neil, for all the words. I think I’ve read all of them since 2013 sometime. And Rob and Karl and everyone else. What a grand stage. What a troupe of players. What a time – genuinely – to be alive. Finally. CHAMPIONS.
This is fucking beautiful. Thank you Niel for everything you do
I knew before I read it that this is how I wanted to finish my night. Thank you Neil for all of the poetry woven around the Reds’ actions these past years.
My first title in memory. Bless you all. What a manager we have, and what a team.
Neil, you’re a literary genius. I’ve dreamt of this day my entire life. I felt slightly underwhelmed day in Sefton Park thinking of what might of been. In the ground with arms and limbs. It didn’t matter. One of my first thoughts was: what did Neil have to say. I feel like we’ve been on this journey forever, since the start of the wrap and the big room. Today we’re champions. It was all worth it. Thank you for your words. Your critique. Your pain. Your joy. Philly’s goal, Stevie’s slip. The reds forgetting all that to bring it home. We are one. Liverpool. The Reds. The tears. The passion. The joy. Thank you.
Neil, I’m a long time reader and listener, first time commenter, had to be tonight really! Thank you and all at TAW for providing me and reds around the world with a connection to the club on its journey over the past few years. I’m not able to get tickets as often as I’d, like but in following from a distance TAW provides somewhere to bounce my support off and know that people are feeling what I’m feeling and going through what I’m going through. All of the seasons that have ended in heartbreak – they were the journey. Now we’re here. Now we’re fucking here!
Magnificently put NB; what a glorious night. Coronation Day indeed; be safe everyone in your celebrations. As Herr Klopp has said, we will have our time together some day to share as one global community of Reds fan to adore this splendid football team. Let’s win our remaining games, set all those records, and truly; be the greatest single club association football team ever assembled! YNWA
To reach the unreachable star
Sign Klopp up for the rest of his Working Life
I am 100% for the Kop End being renamed the Klopp End at the earliest possible opportunity.
I don’t care that some may say it sounds gimmicky… Jurgen Norbert Klopp has made his mark on our Club and in our Hearts, and it is the very least the man deserves.
Thank you for all your words Neil. For all your words of comfort, of pain and all your words of joy. For I, and we, have felt them all with you every step of the way.
We have reached the promised land together. Here we are. The Red Men on top of the World once again. Adore them. For we may never see their likes again.
YNWA.
I’m alright with this. Serene. It’s because deep down I know that Klopp and his chosen – and what a thought that must be, by the way, to be chosen by Klopp. To be told that you’re good enough. And even if you don’t believe it at first, to feel his will to win transfer to you, his alchemy to take your base material and turn it into the real, genuine, bona fide stuff, where suddenly on a hot night in June you’ve won the League…..
Anyway. Where was I? Klopp and his chosen have reawoken some feeling that has been asleep for kind while. Liverpool are winners. It’s in the DNA. When I was a kid, winning happened. And I sort of expected it. Just like I expected the title to be delivered once the League was resumed. Waiting 30 years was a long time. Waiting for the league to resume felt longer. But when it did resume, it was only a matter of time.
And now the win is here. The title is here. My house is quiet. And I’m quietly happy, babbling away on a website. Trying to articulate something – and failing – about how it feels to be waking up the morning knowing that Klopp and the boys have delivered.
But luckily for me (and you) Neil’s steam of consciousness is a lot more lucid and coherent thank mine. I watched asking on hotmic last night. Andy Grinning like s Cheshire cat and thinking of his brother in New Zealand. John suddenly left alone in his garden. And Neil looking blown a way by it all, a fizzy bottle of a multitude of emotions, sorting in that interstice between having been shaken and waiting for the release of pressure.
Well in, Liverpool. Welll in the Wrap. Well in, everyone.
Thanks Kloppo. Thanks to the whole squad. Thanks to everyone.
Thankyou Neil for your guidance and poetic reference on the road here. I look to your page to make some sense of the whole shemazzle of this game and magnificent club. On days like this though, I can see that it’s all just pure emotion and yes, you’re correct, it’s the people and connections that we have through the game that really shines out today. Apologies if I am being indulgent but I want to shout out to my father David Frank Strong 1942-2014. RIP and thanks for taking me to Anfield all those times. Happy days and love to the people of Liverpool from the other side of the world.
Jurgen Klopp has delivered us to the pinnacle. What an extraordinary manager. What a remarkable set of players.
I never thought I’d see a team like this in my life. The dark days of Hodgson and the back-end of the Rodgers era – you wondered if we’d ever get there. Then along comes this manager.
I wondered how it would feel when it became clear that City dropping points would deliver us the title. Utterly surreal when Pulisic scored. You realise that Chelsea have it in them to beat City and you can actually start to entertain the idea that we’re going to be champions here and now. Tonight. Thirty years of waiting comes down to one moment on a Thursday night.
This Liverpool side have broken Manchester City. Broken the will and resolve of one of the best teams to play in the Premier League. The scale of that achievement will stand the test of time. Imagine being them. They had all the advantages. Financially doped, one of the best managers of all time, a squad crammed full of sublime talent, but we cracked them. We knocked them out.
So many moments to look back on, all of which I can’t wait to re-live, but for now………….
Back on Our Perch.
It has been a tough battle, a hard fought one with a team that believed and a leader that believed more…30 years it may be but we have fought and fought hard..this is just the beginning..Liverpool isn’t going away into the night, we will be the ones to beat..enjoy the title boys! You deserve every minute!
I was actually in Anfield the last time Liverpool were presented with the league title the old first division as it was then, it was May 1990 and was to be Kenny Dalglish’s last game as a player. The fact that a 10 year old supporter and his dad without season tickets were able to get tickets for such a game tells you all you need to know about the apathy that the Anfield faithful were showing towards the league title. It was Liverpool’s 7th title in 10 years and since I’d been following them avidly from 6 years old I was working on the basis that we win this thing at least every other year so whilst very pleased I wasn’t too excited myself. The game was typical end of season stuff with Gary Gillespe scrambling home the winner from close range to seal a one nil victory. The fact that it was King Kenny’s last game was a much bigger factor and I remember seeing the tear in my dads eyes as they did the lap of honour at the end, “he was the best I’ve ever seen son” he muttered.
If you’d have called any national bookmaker on that warm May night and asked them for a price on Liverpool not winning the league again for another 30 years the mind boggles at price they would have actually quoted you…. But that’s what happened, now I could write a book on the reasons why we never from the blindingly obvious to small intricate details where things just seemed to go against us on or off the pitch to conspire against us winning the Holy Grail ever again.
We have all suffered as Liverpool fans but spare a thought for me, my dad took my a good few times a season from 1986 but when my brother came home to live in the UK after years abroad it meant that I had someone to go with every week and go we did. The season was 1991 / 1992 I used to pay £3 to stand on the old standing kop 16,000 fans jammed in together I loved it. I was only 12 years old but was big enough to hold my own and see plenty of the games. In 1992 we beat Man Utd at Anfield in the league which crowned Leeds as champions “you’ll never win the league” we chanted joyfully, to be fair that one came back to bite us!
In 1993 I became a season ticket holder and have remained one ever since so effectively I started watching Liverpool every single week the very same season our bitter rivals Manchester Utd won their first top flight title in 26 years and started a sickening period of domestic domination for them. Don’t get me wrong I’ve watched some fantastic Liverpool sides over the years, Roy Evans spice boys were a fantastic side who played wonderful football and I was convinced we would win the league but somehow he couldn’t get us over the line. Gerard Houllier brought a new approach and made us hard to beat and again for around a season and a half I felt sure we would win it but in the end the pressure seemed to tell and the sale of Fowler, choosing not to keep Anelka and Marcus Babbell being struck down with a life threatening illness meant we lost our way. Eventually Houllier himself had a heart problem during a match resulting in months away from the job meaning that momentum was once again lost never to be regained.
Next up was Rafa who won The Champions League in his first season giving us the fairytale that was Istanbul he then went on to build a terrific side, Alonso, Reina, Mascherano, Gerrard and Torres were all world class and once again I was convinced that we would win it but somehow we never quite got there. We finished second with the highest ever number of points (until the next time!) and looked ready to take the step but behind the scenes it was unravelling and within a short 18 month period all of our best players except Gerrard were gone and Rafa went with them to be replaced by Roy Hodgson. The threat of bankruptcy hung in the air and Roy’s nightmare was ended quickly and King Kenny was brought in to steady the ship, he won a cup and reached the FA Cup Final but couldn’t get a sniff in the league.
Brendan Rogers arrived from Swansea and after an underwhelming first season he very nearly achieved the impossible in his second. With Stevie G re invented as a quarter back and Suaraez playing on another level to everyone else we went on a 14 match winning run putting us in the driving seat but Mourhino’s Chelsea spoilt the party and to rub salt in the wound our talisman the man who we had watched lift mediocre teams to heroic levels was left with the blame.
To be honest after that happened I thought we were destined never to win it and swore never ever to think that we would win it ever again, the disappointment was off the scale too much to take. The departure of Suarez compounded it and the year after we looked as far away as ever our rivals referred to us going close the year before as the anomaly, and they were right. Rodgers eventually bowed out in October 2015 to be replaced by an enigmatic German by the name of Jurgen Klopp. First impressions were good and he was obviously a fantastic orator. We looked like we were going to win the Europa League but caved in against a good Seville side in the second half. I’ll admit that whilst I always liked Klopp I questioned his hesitancy in the transfer market and was against the sale of Sakho and his persistence with Karuis, however to be fair since he arrived Klopp’s mantra has been simple “if they are not better than what I’ve got then I don’t want them”. Jurgen refuses to play the numbers game and believes in coaching and if you are good enough you are old enough, also whilst other previous managers had always seemed to be looking for the final piece of the jigsaw Klopp never ever publicly said that his squad was missing anything only that he believed in them and that they would continue to work. We went so close in 18/19 losing only one game and finishing on 97 points missing out by a single heart breaking agonising point then we got snotted 3 – 0 at the Nou Camp and it looked like we would win nothing after all our efforts. Fans from a North West rival of ours stated that “you are measured by the trophies that you win and other records count for nothing”. The sad thing was we knew they were right but then a miracle happened at Anfield and that one came back to bite them!
On to this season after the agony of last year it was hard to know how the players would react.. We needn’t have worried as Jurgens red tide swept away all before them leaving fans of our closest rivals looking for new hobbies and bastardising modern day football as ruined by VAR. So there we were 25 points clear waiting to be crowned champions I still refused to believe it would happen until it was mathematically done and I almost said I told you so when a world wide pandemic struck and the world was locked down. The talk of null and void was loud and serious as the pandemic took hold and I really thought that it would be scrapped as the howls of the threat to public welfare whistled down Everton Valley and the East Lancs Road.
Eventually null and void was taken off the table and thankfully football has returned which is a victory in itself as no industry is immune from COVID 19.
Now that we have won it the relief and emotion that I feel is really very hard to explain and I find my mind wandering to staunch reds who are no longer with us there are so many of them but the three that spring to mind are my Nana Amy who was Liverpool mad, Tony Hassett and finally my uncle Jimmy Roberts who I know will be absolutely ecstatic wherever he is. To put it into context the last time we won it I was in third year primary school and now I’m a 40 year old man with a wife and three children. The changes that have happened in my life, the world in general and football since we last won it are virtually incalculable, the players are now mega stars earning hundreds of millions and the game is broadcast all over the world but its still football and we are still delighted. The games are behind closed doors but its still football and Liverpool are still Premier League Champions and RIGHT BACK ON OUR F…ING PERCH. The celebrations will be long and nauseating for those of you that hate Liverpool but I’m afraid you’ll have to endure it as this one has been a long time coming and its gonna be around for a long time yet. I hope we reach 100 points I think this side deserves it they really are that good. 19 Times Champions I’ve waited 30 years to say that…. Sounds good doesn’t it… I’ll finish by saying 7 Years and counting you know you are.. Auf Wiedersehen.
Love the Graceland reference – for that is where we are now. You beautiful beautiful team!
Thanks Neil. What a beautiful journey and destination. Not that it needs it, but a piece like this embellishes it further.
Thanks Neil , not just for this inspirational , tear jerking piece , but for what you all have done for the past years covering this mad, great club.
Keep it up please .x
Great post Eric. Can empathise with a lot of this . YNWA
It is not until now that I have truly understood the importance of the football manager.
When klopp was brought in I couldn’t see what difference it would make. The owners seemed to sell the best players when the money was good and it felt like we were never destined to reach the top again, not because of fate or destiny but due to their lack of ambition.
How glad I am to be so wrong. Of course it’s about the players, the crowd, fans, the owners and all that stuff. But oh my, I never truly understood how much it was about the person orchestrating the whole thing.
Well done to FSG, Klopp and his staff, Michael Edwards, Dr Ian Graham and his Intelligence Unit and the players…………thanks to all of them!.
It’s strange- for years when I thought about the moment LFC ended their title drought, I imagined our own “Aguerooooooooooo!” moment in front of a raucous Anfield, late in the game on the final day of the season in this vivid romantic vision that would be played out over and over with any number of musical scores backing it. And yet here we are…
The difference between this season and the previous ‘nearly’ seasons is that we could see this coming from a long way out. It wasn’t like they’d been good (but not great) or even average the previous season and then suddenly found ourselves with the real possibility of this being “the year”. 97 points, Champions of Europe- we knew 2019/20 was going to be another year of going at City on equal terms. After all these years watching Man United/ Chelsea/ City win the title looking on another level and wondering when our turn would come, here it came. If anything, it’s felt like a formality since the Man United game in January. But even then, there was never one moment that felt like we’d clinched the league, it’s been too hard to define one moment because there have been many-
So it was I sat here in Australia early Friday morning, relying not on that magic AGUEROOOO moment or a corner taken quickly. Instead LFC had dominated Palace the previous morning, and now we were all watching another game in another town, in a virtually empty stadium, in order for the dream to be realised. As the sun rose on the horizon outside, the sun set on our 30 year wait. I had old friends messaging me after f/t and saying they were in tears and yet me?
Just a pleasant feeling- somewhere between relief that nothing could- nothing would- delay the wait any longer and it was now official, and knowing at last what it feels like to have everybody saying without doubt that your team were the #1 in the Premier League all season. I drank a tall can of Carlsberg. Went outside for a victory smoke. Came back in and opened another can. Now my attention is on other stories in the league: the relegation scraps, the battle for top 4, Arsenal’s continued source of amusement, the Championship fight for promotion- all stories parallel to our own I’ve been following closely ever since the question of “Who is going to win the Premier League this season?” felt like asking what date will Christmas 2020 be on?
The title is ours- but the job isn’t finished yet. There are still more records to be broken, new chapters to be written, parades to be held- which our glorious manager wants to do everything in his power to make it happen- and on we go.
Our dreams often don’t come true exactly how we imagined they would, in some ways different and in some ways even better. But here we are- drink it in. We are the Champions.
Marko Grujic
Harry Wilson
Rhian Brewster
Nat Phillips
Herbie Kane
Does this Coronavirus affected
transfer market mean such players will now be given a chance at Liverpool……..it worked for Chelsea when they were banned from buying players!.