No Pasarán: Goodbye Jose

The Tomkins Times has published my latest bit of drivel.  It seems to have gone over well and the sad but God's honest truth is there's very little hyperbole involved.  That stuff happened.  Check it out:

http://tomkinstimes.com/2013/08/an-americans-trip-to-anfield/

And since I imagine you all aren't paying-members, here's the rest...

...I spend the rest of the evening on the Ropewalks trying to legitimise my [impossibly laughable] “American on a pilgrimage to Anfield,” bit before catching something that changes my plans: Anfield is open for Matchday stadium tours. It’s unexpected and provides an infinitely better exit excuse than headache avoidance, thus bringing to a close my evening out in Liverpool. It doesn’t, however, mellow the anticipation. Regardless, I eventually manage restless sleep and awake to find little has changed, the late morning greyness wholly mirroring that of the late afternoon. While I dress, I start to wonder if this place could be some Truman Show for REST (2) patients, some existential effort to catalogue the effect on a city, of a football club that scoffed at the creeping industrial decay in preference of an ascent to the peak of European influence: an-honest-to-Fowler, real-live per angusta ad augusta. Because the truth is that Liverpool’s is a shirt so laden with silverware that it on occasion proves suffocating, resembling much more albatross than Liver Bird to the players donning it.  And this didn’t occur by chance.  It was spurred by a support unified around a club it saw as an extension of the community in which they resided.  Through the gates of Anfield Road, the Scousers gathered and demonstrated through song and voice their devout admiration for a club experiencing the very opposite of their own:

“It turned you into a member of a new community, all brothers together for an hour and a half…you had escaped with most of your mates and your neighbours, with half the town, cheering together, thumping one another on the shoulders, swapping judgments like Lords of the Earth, having pushed your way through a turnstile into another and altogether more splendid life.”(3)

I hustle downtown in search of the #26 bus that will take me past Anfield.  It’s a full six hours before kickoff and I’m still hopeful that I’ll get on with a tour. And if not, a few pre-match pints at the Sandon should provide a more than sufficient alternative. Unfortunately the driver’s a Bluenose though and prolongs the trip through needless backtracking additional unnecessary stops (or so I imagine), before finally the Centenary Stand pierces the roofline. And it’s striking. But not striking in the sense of size or grandiose or anatomic beauty (4), it’s striking in its impossibly thorough regularity. It sits firmly within suburban stagnation, and it’s comfortable there.

I float off the bus, eyes fixed on “The Kop,” stand below Shankly’s outstretched arms and would swear the bricks whisper, “I’ve seen what a Franco-less Madrid, a Berlusconi-less Milan, and a Messi-less Barcelona can only dream of. I AM the proletariat. I AM THE BEAUTIFUL GAME.

And yet somehow …  some way … some people choose the Arsenal.

I can’t believe my luck as the final tour of the day departs shortly.  I join up to come within inches of the Istanbul cup, touch This is Anfield, and finally march down the players’ tunnel. Things seem to move very quickly around me. I sit in the first row and think – there’s Stevie Heighway’s left wing; Dalglish’s [or still Keegan’s?] #7; Bruce Grobbelaar’s wobbly legs; Shankly, Paisley, and Fagan pacing the sidelines… before noticing the group has walked on. It doesn’t matter though…a stream of YouTube clips is passing before my eyes. Here I am at Anfield … home to Liverpool Football Club for nearly 12 decades … the only home it’s ever had …. the most successful English side of all time …. the …

“Come along, Dev.  The tour’s ending” wipes away the moment. I walk on behind the Kop, and exit out into the frigid sogginess in search of that pre-match pint.

There’s something inexorably strange about being American and supporting Liverpool Football Club. And it’s much less ephemeral than “Built by Shanks, Destroyed by Yanks(5).” Despite its global appeal, the club is so profoundly Scouse and so firmly rooted to the heritage which spawned the Famous Red that pouring myself into it feels almost irresponsible.  How on earth, for example, can I ever truly come to terms with Hillsborough?  I waited with honest and genuine anticipation for the Panel’s words; I’ve watched and been moved by Bill Kenwright’s speech (on numerous occasions); I do not, no matter how tempting, under any circumstances, click on anything from the Sun; and even though I know very little about the woman, I can’t stand Margaret Thatcher. And yet every time I consider the thought of the 96 I feel guilty. Guilty that I’m attempting to force my way into a Club and a despair that could only have been lived to have been understood. Can you imagine losing a loved one? What about knowing the loss was through horrific event mismanagement ? And what about if afterwards he or she was blamed for it? For over two decades. And all along the way you’re told simply to “move on.” In what might turn out to be the understatement of my life: that’s difficult to grasp.

The subtleness with which Jose Reina has exited Liverpool, combined with his heartfelt goodbye letter, has finally got me to write about my trip to Anfield. And as I hope to have conveyed to you all, it was a genuinely special event for me. It didn’t matter that Liverpool were in the middle of its worst league finish in 50 years.  Or that I’d heard You’ll Never Walk Alone louder a few days earlier(6). Or that Liverpool’s latest sublime #7 didn’t play. Because after witnessing in person the angelic purity with which Kenny Dalglish celebrates each and every Liverpool goal, it dawned on me why I’m a Red. Rarely do clubs produce such devout acolytes in the manner and consistency in which Liverpool Football Club does. And rarely do clubs turn exceptional footballing talents into exceptional members of the community.

Pepe is right; it’s special. And it seems horribly unfair that when the tumble appears finally to have been halted and the putrid shadows of Hicks and Gillett to have finally been purged, Reina should be shown the door. But par excellence and as Dalglish before him, he remains almost impossibly gracious in exit. Jose Manual Reina Paez has served Liverpool loyally for eight years, through four managers, an 8th place finish, and in the face of resounding criticism for three full years now.  I for one will miss him greatly.  No pasaron, Pepe, ni pasarán.  You’ll Never Walk Alone.

(1) Winning a 5th European Cup was not just winning any other.  Until recently, any team that won three straight or five total got to keep the real, authentic trophy. Liverpool are one of five clubs that will forever possess a real European Cup. Eat your heart out Barcelona, Manchester, London, and France.

(2) REST = Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy

(3) J.B. Priestly – The Good Companions

(4) Yes, Anfield is alive.

(5) Of which, I am not.  I am a Southerner, thereby excluded from that wretched label.

(6) I got a ticket to the Old Firm as a warm-up for Anfield.