Tugging My Heart Strings

Football is not a matter of life and death. It’s much more important than that

Reported quote by football manager of Liverpool FC, Bill Shankly in 1959

It was February 2020 and amidst all the pandemic chaos my beloved Liverpool FC lifted the Premier League title for the first time. They had last won the league title 30 years ago, when it was in a different format. OK, so some of you may be wondering who are Liverpool, what is a Premier League? Here is a very brief introduction to you lovely readers. (For context, football is reference to soccer).

I was covered in red

There is a scene in Superman (I), starring the late Christopher Reeve, where his capsule lands to Earth and he is discovered by a couple. When the capsule opens, this super baby is wrapped in a red cloth. When I was born, legend has it I was wrapped in a red scarf belonging to Liverpool FC. So the tribal lines were already marked for me, I had no say. The football club was started in 1892 and experienced resounding success up until the late 80s. They dominated domestic and European football for two decades (70s and 80s) without reply. But like all well built institutions, they failed to capitalise when they were at the top.

The Premier League

Some bright spark involved in the UK Football Association decided it was time to spruce up the current league. In a nutshell someone needed to ‘sex up’ the television rights so that a new league, a Premier League, would contain the top tier of teams making all the money. This rather left the remaining 5 tiers of English football to battle out gradual promotions. The Premier League took an introductory bow in 1990 and has been with us ever since. But in all these years, my beloved Liverpool FC didn’t get a sniff at winning the title. We came close a few times, top 3 but never won it. However, the season 2019/20 Liverpool FC came out like a beast on a mission. By February 2020 we had wrapped up the league, the earliest a team had ever achieved. A few weeks later we were officially crowned champions, after 30 years of waiting. The joy and emotions were overwhelming as I celebrated with both my children. You have to remember from 1990 – 2018 I had pretty much convinced myself the team wouldn’t win a title in my lifetime.

But retention proved too hard

What is it with sport, and predominately football that tugs hard on the heart strings? Under the heavy influence of the pandemic the Premier League kicked off in August 2020, with Liverpool FC defending their title for the first time in this new era. For those who follow the Premier League, you will no doubt have seen that we have no way of retaining our title. Mathematically, yes we still can but there is no confidence or momentum in the team right now. I have spent many a weekends, lots, spewing over lame performances, in total disbelief of the capitulation of our title defence. Each week I sign-off to the kids with the statement it’s coming boys, it will be OK. But in all honesty, my heart is sinking. I mean I get it, we have more important things in life to deal with. But my heart melts with disappointment each weekend now. Can we even mathematically be relegated to the next division? Yes of course, and if that happened then I would just disband all forms of communication. The heat I would face from rival friends would be too much. After the matches I have logged onto sports radio stations and heard grown men breakdown with frustration. You can almost feel the anguish pulsating through the digital airwaves – I feel that.

I’m not even sure why I wrote this post, but maybe there are some heart stricken Liverpool fans out there who feel the same way. It’s only a game I tell myself, but I know it’s not!

As in the revised words of ‘Only Fools and Horses’, this time next year we’ll be champions again.