LIVERPOOL

‘The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It’s the way I see football, the way I see life.’

BILL SHANKLY Liverpool manager – one of the most famous quotes in football is actually a shortened version of what he really said

‘Mind you, I’ve been here during the bad times too – one year we came second.’

BOB PAISLEY Liverpool manager – one of the least famous quotes in football, as befitting a more modest but equally brilliant manager

As we speak, a Liverpool team who play a wonderful attacking style of football have just won the Premier League for the first time ever. That seems a strange thing to say about one of the most successful clubs in the history of world football, especially for those of us who spent tedious decades watching them win trophies in season after season.

As you know, I’m fairly convinced that Palace are the greatest and most glamorous team in the world, and I lack only actual trophies to back me up on that; but even I am willing to concede that Liverpool are one of the clubs that can almost match us for greatness and glamour. Their history could fill this book, let alone this chapter, so a brief trot down memory lane will have to suffice, starting with a memory that most Liverpool fans will want to suppress.

There has always been a famous Liverpool team playing in an iconic red kit at Anfield, but for six years it was Everton. In 1892, a row broke out between John Houlding and the other members of the Everton board. He was a local brewer who owned the ground and saw no reason why any other local brewer who didn’t own the ground should be allowed to sell their beer inside it. Whether it was a comment on the quality of his beer, or his threat to raise the rent, the other directors walked out and took their club with them. Faced with an empty ground and no one to sell his beer to, Houlding did what any self-respecting capitalist did, he started his own club.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Except Scousers don’t say that. Mine is a precis of available research, but obviously there are fans of both clubs who can’t accept the version of history that doesn’t make them look like the kings of Liverpool.

I haven’t got a dog in this fight. I’m genuinely not bothered. Although I willingly concede that if Charlton suddenly claimed they were the glaziers who built the Crystal Palace, I’d be furious.

Liverpool’s early years were relatively successful, but by the time Bill Shankly became their manager in 1959 they were actually languishing in the middle of the Second Division, playing in front of crowds of around 16,000 people. He changed all that. And despite the fact that the managers that followed him had more actual success, he is still the name that first springs to mind when you think of Liverpool in the sixties and seventies, and recall those images of the Kop* swaying like barley in the breeze to the music of the Beatles, or waving flags and banners like a medieval army on those legendary European nights.

Although the image is slightly tainted by hearing fans of that generation reminiscing fondly about having to piss in people’s pockets because it was impossible to get to the toilet. Well, maybe not fondly. Ted Robbins, comedian and cousin of Paul McCartney, told his mate he couldn’t possibly piss in his pocket. ‘Why not?’ came the reply. ‘I’ve just pissed in yours.’

If this book was twice as long, I would devote as much time to Shankly† as I have done to Clough, but I still love watching old film of him and that total bemusement he had that everyone else in the country didn’t share his 24/7 passion for football. He understood the importance of football and identity to working-class communities, which made him the perfect fit for Liverpool; and much as supporters of other giant clubs in the north-west may disagree, there was a symbiosis between Shankly and the Reds that has seldom been matched elsewhere. And it was one we could all share, because barely a weekend went by without them being on telly with a commentator telling us the Kop were an extra man who sucked the ball into the net, when they weren’t pissing in each other’s pockets, obviously.

But, whisper this softly, when times haven’t been brilliant, the atmosphere at Anfield could only be described as ‘alright’, rather than ‘breathtaking’. I wasn’t at Anfield the night they beat us 9-0 in 1989, which I am ashamed of because about 25,000 Palace fans claim they were, but I was there two years later when we beat them 2-1 and my abiding memory is that there was barely a peep from the Liverpool fans, even though, for reasons I can’t remember, every single Palace fan was wearing a hat.

I was also there on a freezing cold evening in January 2001 for the second leg of the League Cup semi-final when we genuinely thought we had a chance of getting to Wembley, fools that we were. Even though we were a division below them, we’d had the temerity/stupidity to beat them 2-1 in the first leg at Selhurst, and Clinton Morrison, who had scored one of the goals, had the temerity/stupidity to tell the world he’d do the same at Anfield.

The away end was sold out (of course, we’re a massive club, remember) but a lot of Palace fans were delayed getting there because of fog, and, in our case, really needing a drink to get over Roy’s driving in the fog. So, a lot of us were approaching the ground while on our mobile phones to reassure loved ones that we had got there safely. This absolutely infuriated a female police officer on a horse, who seemed to think that, rather than reassuring loved ones, we were flaunting our phones as a symbol of wealth and southern supremacy. Now, being a gentleman, I make it a rule not to argue with women, and in particular women on horses carrying truncheons,* so I made my excuses and left.

Chirpy, unfortunately, totally overestimating his flirtatious charm, decided to try and work his magic. Turns out that the words ‘calm down, love’ weren’t the soothing balm he’d expected, so he missed the first two goals. Which, of course, they scored. We lost 5-0 eventually. And it says a lot about the mentality of the football fan that, towards the end, we wanted it to be 10-0, so we would have the bragging rights back in Croydon.

Why You Shouldn’t Support Them

■ I reckon I have about 30 mates and colleagues who support Liverpool; 27 are from Hampstead, one’s from Plymouth, one’s from Scotland and one’s from Tranmere. The Tranmere one should be most ashamed.

■ Plenty of other grounds have an atmosphere too. And flags.

■ When is it ever alright to piss in someone’s pocket?