(...)
Of course, the main prism through which the world views Liverpool isn't news, or politics, or geography, or even its most famous band, Cast, but football. The way we understand Liverpool is through Liverpool and Everton FC, their achievements, their fans. And while Everton might be a huge club who've beaten their neighbours into a kind of stasis in recent years, as an outsider, Liverpool are the team whose fortunes appear most bound up with the city as a whole.
(...)
But the Liverpool of this season couldn't be more different. Currently sitting at the summit of the Premier League with points to spare, they are a young, fearsome footballing side, as dangerous and well-organised as a bomb plot, playing with a joy it feels criminal to see people getting away with outside of a school playground. Up front, they have the league's top scorer and the league's top English scorer. Behind them, they have Mowgli. The manager is a likeable, if slightly naff Northern Irishman who has just enough of the old school about him to disguise the fact that he really, really knows his shit. In Steven Gerrard, they have a man who's playing like he's just days from winning a 25-year-long war and in Jon Flanagan they have unearthed the next Jamie Carragher, a local boy who looks like he should be pushing trolleys round a supermarket carpark but has wound up as the on-pitch manifestation of the diehard Anfield support. Which, at this moment in time, must feel like the best fucking job in the world.
Twenty-five years after Hillsborough, 24 years after their last league title, and with their sworn enemies in Manchester suffering the sort of comedown you'd expect after celebrating for two decades straight, Liverpool finally – finally – seem ready to rule the land again. And from what I can tell, most of England is willing them to do it.
I decided to get on a train up to Merseyside to see what the prospect of Premier League victory is doing to the city. More + pictures...
Related posts:
Of course, the main prism through which the world views Liverpool isn't news, or politics, or geography, or even its most famous band, Cast, but football. The way we understand Liverpool is through Liverpool and Everton FC, their achievements, their fans. And while Everton might be a huge club who've beaten their neighbours into a kind of stasis in recent years, as an outsider, Liverpool are the team whose fortunes appear most bound up with the city as a whole.
(...)
But the Liverpool of this season couldn't be more different. Currently sitting at the summit of the Premier League with points to spare, they are a young, fearsome footballing side, as dangerous and well-organised as a bomb plot, playing with a joy it feels criminal to see people getting away with outside of a school playground. Up front, they have the league's top scorer and the league's top English scorer. Behind them, they have Mowgli. The manager is a likeable, if slightly naff Northern Irishman who has just enough of the old school about him to disguise the fact that he really, really knows his shit. In Steven Gerrard, they have a man who's playing like he's just days from winning a 25-year-long war and in Jon Flanagan they have unearthed the next Jamie Carragher, a local boy who looks like he should be pushing trolleys round a supermarket carpark but has wound up as the on-pitch manifestation of the diehard Anfield support. Which, at this moment in time, must feel like the best fucking job in the world.
Twenty-five years after Hillsborough, 24 years after their last league title, and with their sworn enemies in Manchester suffering the sort of comedown you'd expect after celebrating for two decades straight, Liverpool finally – finally – seem ready to rule the land again. And from what I can tell, most of England is willing them to do it.
I decided to get on a train up to Merseyside to see what the prospect of Premier League victory is doing to the city. More + pictures...
Related posts:
- "You'll Never Walk Alone" returns to top of charts after Hillsborough report...
- Gerry and the Pacemakers: You'll never walk alone...
- The Sun, Hillsborough and Liverpool fans...
- 20 years ago, the Hillsbourough soccer tragedy...
- Never, EVER wear a Manchester Utd. jersey in a Liverpool crowd!!!
- You'll never walk alone! Singapore couple tie the knot Liverpool style...
- Laughing at Manchester United is one of the best things in football...
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