Why you're a Liverpool fan

[AndSomeAreAngels]

I know we've had threads like this in the past, but I always find it interesting to hear why people have become fans of the greatest club on earth.

I started playing soccer when I was four and the teams in our city's leagues were mostly named after big European clubs. I was fortunate enough to be on "Liverpool" so I've always been a casual fan.

When I started following soccer seriously about five years ago, Liverpool was the default choice I guess. Everything about the club - its tradition, amazing fans, stadium, success, etc. - endeared them to my heart instantly.

When Rafa Benitez was hired, it was a little bittersweet, as the other team I follow closely is Valencia. The situation there was certain to see him exit so I'm glad he came to my #1 favorite club. Benitez epitomizes class, appreciates the history of the beautiful game, and is a brilliant manager, so I'm glad he's a Red.

I just thank God my youth team wasn't "Manchester United"! :D

[LFCFanInCali]

I had always casually followed the game (even got to see Pele play live for the Cosmos when I was a kid) but focused more on the international game than the European leagues. A few months before the World Cup, Brad Friedel moved from MLS to Liverpool, so I adopted the Reds as my England team. Once the US was humiliated in the 98 WC, I stated watching the England team, and remember watching Michael Owen score the goal of the tournament against Argentina. Thanks to the internet and Fox Sports World/Soccer Channel, I've been following the team ever since.

[usscouse]

I don't understand the question........!


You make it seem like there's a choice.

[Twenty26Six]

I don't understand the question........!


You make it seem like there's a choice.

You must spread some Reputation around... yadda yadda

[655321]

You don't choose your team, your team chooses you.

More to the point...my friend in Dallas wouldn't stop talking about LFC and Robbie Fowler (this was when Collymore was still on the team). I eventually got Fox Sports World and the rest is history. The first match I can remember paying attention to the result for was the Celta Viga European disaster. What a way to start!!

[kaisermohr]

Growing up in the states in the seventies and eighties I never had much access to the English game except what I read in books or the occasional periodical. When I was 12, I think, I got a glossy coffee table book from my folks about the world game. It had alot of pics of English squads but most prominently Liverpool and it descibed its history and what a powerhouse it was. The action pics of Souness and Keegan in their bushy perms and moustaches taking on defenders stuck with me. Guess I thought they looked pretty cool.
Anyway, when ESPN2 started showing premier league matches back in '96 they seemed to show alot of Liverpool fixtures more than others. Even though the squad in the mid-late nineties wasn't as dominant as the aforementioned squad I started hoping when I tuned in each week that Liverpool would be the game. Macca and Fowler were the guys that impressed this time around (Owen hadn't gotten his first call up yet) and I've been Red ever since.

[kopiteinkc]

The team comes to you as has been said.

But I thought I would use this as an excuse to regale a connection between my support of Liverpool, my family and the "Arsenal" coincidences.

Growing up in Liverpool both my Mum and Dad were both Liverpool fans. My Mum does have a brother who supports Everton (he was a twin and wanted to be different than my other Uncle). All of my Dad's family were Reds.

So I had no choice.

More interestingly, my Dad would always tell us the story of the 1950 Cup Final. Liverpool lost to Arsenal 2-0 at Wembley in that final and Liverpool still had not won the FA Cup. In 1950 it was a huge event. Liverpool had not been in the FA Cup final since 1914!! Massive.

He went to the match. He talked about two things. One, the injustice that Bob Paisley had not been picked for the final after scoring in the semis (against Everton!!!) and that in the cup final it rained the whole afternoon and it ruined our footballing style and gave Arsenal an advantage as they were "thugs"!!

Now it's not like my Dad was biased or anything. ;) He never missed a home match for more than 20 years and despite the fact that he lived less than a mile from Anfield and Goodison, he never, not once, stepped foot inside Goodison. Even for a Derby match.

As an 11 year old kid in school I was invited to go see an England school boy match at Goodison. I never thought much of it, went with the school and had a great old time.

When my Dad found out I had been "in there" I was in serious trouble!!

Roll on 1971, I was seven and Liverpool played Arsenal in the FA Cup final. all those 1950 stories came rolling out again. The even showed footage of the 1950 match on Grandstand during the preview of the cup final. It was raining!!!!

Well you should know that friggin' Charlie George scored in extra time and Arsenal won 2-1. He lay on the Wembley turf with his arms raised behind him with his long hair everywhere. My Mum was screaming at him to get up and get a hair cut. My Dad was livid and some of the Liverpool players were crying after 120 minutes of an exhausting cup final. It had been 0-0 after 90 minutes and then exploded in extra time with 3 goals and Liverpool on the wrong end of the final score.

You would think that would be a turn off rather than an encouraging event. But of course it was encouraging after the 71 Cup Final, Liverpool started winning everything, UEFA Cup twice, countless league championships, FA Cup in 1974 and then in 1977 the European Cup.

And then many years later I was at Hillsborough as many of you know and my own life fell apart witnessing such awful events. We did salvage the FA Cup that year, but Mickey Thomas' goal at Anfield in his "Fever Pitch" moment brought Arsenal the championship. For me looking for solace from my grief from Sheffield with a League title; well that was denied. That was fool's gold anyway. A league title wasn't gonna take that pain away.

Then in 2004, near Thanksgiving, my Dad passed away from Luekemia. I flew home from KC to Liverpool for the funeral and then a couple of days later Liverpool played Arsenal at Anfield. I didn't go, I had my flight back to KC the next day from Gatwick. So I was at my brother's house in Reading and when Mellor's miracle goal went in -- we both said "Dad blew that one in!"

You can't explain what it means to support Liverpool Football Club, you just have to do it.

Now let me tell you about a trip to Rome in 84 or when the wall fell down at Walsall in the League Cup semis ... ;)

[liverbird]

The team comes to you as has been said.

But I thought I would use this as an excuse to regale a connection between my support of Liverpool, my family and the "Arsenal" coincidences.

Growing up in Liverpool both my Mum and Dad were both Liverpool fans. My Mum does have a brother who supports Everton (he was a twin and wanted to be different than my other Uncle). All of my Dad's family were Reds.

So I had no choice.

More interestingly, my Dad would always tell us the story of the 1950 Cup Final. Liverpool lost to Arsenal 2-0 at Wembley in that final and Liverpool still had not won the FA Cup. In 1950 it was a huge event. Liverpool had not been in the FA Cup final since 1914!! Massive.

He went to the match. He talked about two things. One, the injustice that Bob Paisley had not been picked for the final after scoring in the semis (against Everton!!!) and that in the cup final it rained the whole afternoon and it ruined our footballing style and gave Arsenal an advantage as they were "thugs"!!

Now it's not like my Dad was biased or anything. ;) He never missed a home match for more than 20 years and despite the fact that he lived less than a mile from Anfield and Goodison, he never, not once, stepped foot inside Goodison. Even for a Derby match.

As an 11 year old kid in school I was invited to go see an England school boy match at Goodison. I never thought much of it, went with the school and had a great old time.

When my Dad found out I had been "in there" I was in serious trouble!!

Roll on 1971, I was seven and Liverpool played Arsenal in the FA Cup final. all those 1950 stories came rolling out again. The even showed footage of the 1950 match on Grandstand during the preview of the cup final. It was raining!!!!

Well you should know that friggin' Charlie George scored in extra time and Arsenal won 2-1. He lay on the Wembley turf with his arms raised behind him with his long hair everywhere. My Mum was screaming at him to get up and get a hair cut. My Dad was livid and some of the Liverpool players were crying after 120 minutes of an exhausting cup final. It had been 0-0 after 90 minutes and then exploded in extra time with 3 goals and Liverpool on the wrong end of the final score.

You would think that would be a turn off rather than an encouraging event. But of course it was encouraging after the 71 Cup Final, Liverpool started winning everything, UEFA Cup twice, countless league championships, FA Cup in 1974 and then in 1977 the European Cup.

And then many years later I was at Hillsborough as many of you know and my own life fell apart witnessing such awful events. We did salvage the FA Cup that year, but Mickey Thomas' goal at Anfield in his "Fever Pitch" moment brought Arsenal the championship. For me looking for solace from my grief from Sheffield with a League title; well that was denied. That was fool's gold anyway. A league title wasn't gonna take that pain away.

Then in 2004, near Thanksgiving, my Dad passed away from Luekemia. I flew home from KC to Liverpool for the funeral and then a couple of days later Liverpool played Arsenal at Anfield. I didn't go, I had my flight back to KC the next day from Gatwick. So I was at my brother's house in Reading and when Mellor's miracle goal went in -- we both said "Dad blew that one in!"

You can't explain what it means to support Liverpool Football Club, you just have to do it.

Now let me tell you about a trip to Rome in 84 or when the wall fell down at Walsall in the League Cup semis ... ;)

Post of the year!

[kaisermohr]

Yeah, thank you for the wonderful story kopite. Very nice.

[usscouse]

Good one Kopite.

We were one of the few in our 'hood' to have telly back in May 1950 so our house was full of neighbours. Sorry bleeding buch afterwards.
I remember when the team came home after losing, my dad took me to the Town Hall. You'd have thought we'd done the treble the way the crowd welcomed the boys home. Made you proud to be a supporter of the Reds.
Just scanned this from Billy Liddell's book. (It's been with me in 4 countries and 4 US States since 1960.)
http://static.flickr.com/19/101055122_0b1c8f0d3b_o.jpg

Then in 1965 we sang "God save our team" to the queen when we won it at Wembley, even though it was another 25 years before god signed on..! :)
http://i7.ebayimg.com/03/i/06/1a/d5/18_1.JPG

[stanaccrington]

when the wall fell down at Walsall in the League Cup semis ... ;)

Oh I remember the wall coming down, what a shithole Walsall was, do you remember having to walk down a road with all the walsall supporters above us throwing anything down at us and the cops just laughing and telling us to shut the ******** up and stop singing.

[edlova]

Growing up I never followed any league other than USL and MLS here...then I watched 98 WC and made sure to watch all the US (unfortunate year) and England matches...being 15 while the WC was being played I was in awe of Owen being so young and so talented. I said "I will follow the team he is on" and have never looked back. Instantly loving the team and became a bigger fan of Fowler after a short while. The first time I saw a match live broadcast was April 2001 when I was on holiday in Torremolinos, Spain (near Malaga) when we beat Barcelona in UEFA...I watched it in an English run pub and loved it. I saw 2 of the 3 North American matches (5-1 over Celtic and 2-1 over Roma) in person and now living outside Boston I am at the pub almost every week to watch the lads play at a great pub in Cambridge, MA.




I am trying to make it to Anfield in the spring, if not I will get there in the fall...that is my story

[kopiteinkc]

Oh I remember the wall coming down, what a shithole Walsall was, do you remember having to walk down a road with all the walsall supporters above us throwing anything down at us and the cops just laughing and telling us to shut the ******** up and stop singing.

And then charging us with their police horses, the bastards!

[usscouse]

And then charging us with their police horses, the bastards!One of those big bastards stepped on my foot, once outside the Kop, heavy bugger. Just as well the scuffer didn't see the right uppercut I caught dobbin with, right in the basket. It was like punching a drum...and he backed off.

[diplomatique]

I'm an American, so I'm a late bloomer, when it comes to footie. I started playing "soccer" when I was two . . . and absolutely hated it. I much preferred to watch. My brother and sister played for years, so my only exposure to the Beautiful Game was white suburban kids with orange slices.

Then I started going to Mexico a lot, and noticed that every town has a church and a pitch, and if they can't afford both, they have a pitch. I started to become educated in the socio-political aspects of the game through my travels. Then when I was 13 I was staying in the same hotel in Mexico as one of the Mexican youth teams, and they were so amazingly nice and mature that I promised I'd watch a game of theirs when I got back to the States.

About that same time, my dad bought a television package with every sport imaginable, so I tried to catch a soccer game. It was in Spanish, and though it seemed relatively enjoyable (and especially entertaining when there was a goooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllll), my Spanish wasn't good enough to understand much. I decided to try to find a game in English.

In late 2000 or early 2001 (unfortunately I don't remember the date; I had no idea how much football would come to mean to me), I found an English game on TV. A team in red was playing a team in blue. Shortly into watching, this one player in red hit the ground quite hard and when he got up it looked like blood was pouring down his face, but he refused to leave the pitch for treatment until he was basically forced to. It totally shocked me, because I was used to watching American football where fully padded guys hit the ground and have medics run out immediately. Right after that, this really tiny player in red got possession of the ball and took off from one side of the pitch, passed what looked like 15 opposition players and scored. Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen had me hooked on football, and Liverpool, from that moment on.

Liverpool chose me; I had no say in the matter. I'm lucky to have stumbled upon that game, because every single day I find another reason to love Liverpool FC. There is no other team like it in the world, in any sport. I am so blessed I accidentally became a Liverpool fan, and regret not remembering which specific game it was.

[Menace2Sobriety]

Don't know really - simply that I've been a supporter as long as I can remember. No interesting story, no lucid moment.....After 3 decades, I still have the feeling this was the club I was born to support.

[what a goal!]

Because my favourite player is Harry Kewell. I have followed him from club to club. He is a great player to watch.

[CCSC_STRIKER20]

I liked to follow Liverpool when Michael Owen played with them, and then I fell away. Over the last two years though I have basically ate, drank, and slept Liverpool, especially after I finally got Fox Soccer Channel.

[docliver]

It's in me veins and plus im from kirby . Been with them through the good and the bad times and i wouldn't ever change a thing becasue they are my team forever.

[Champinho]

Being from Philadelphia, I once read a book called "Receiving Erin's Children", which compared Philadelphia and Liverpool in regards to Irish immagration to the two cities after the potato crop failed. This made me feel a certain connection to the city which is very similar in many ways to my own. I started to support Liverpool after reading this book and got totally hooked after hearing YNWA sung so loudly. Hearing YNWA reminds me of Celtic matches, where it never fails to give the Bhoys a lift. As a side note, I was upset when I found out that the world's greatest band of all time, The Beatles, actually support Everton.