I'ts thanks to my Dad's dad. He started going to games before the first world war. He lived in Faraday St, just a short walk from the ground. My Dad was born there, and went to his first game, on the Kop, aged 7, in 1935.
I was born, and grew up, in Wavertree. When I was old enough to know about the club, my Dad and Grandad has season tickets in the Main Stand - in line with the edge of the penalty area, 13 rows from the front. They were surrounded by a nice bunch who always welcomed me if my Pop was unwell and I got to go to the game.
About age 13, I could go on the Kop. I'd be outside the gate at Flagpole corner around noon. I had usually read the programme cover to cover a few times before the Kop filled and the game was on.
Two things live we me now that I attribute to those days: lower back pain, that I first experienced having stood on the Kop for 5 hours every other week; and I get hoarse very easily. Seriously, a few loud chants and I'm a gonner! Some 12th man I'd be now?
I saw some great football: the last embers of St John, Hunt, Callaghan. Then Keegan & Tosh, Carrot, Souness, Barnes & Lyndsey, and of course, Mr Kenneth Dalglish. It was an orgy of success, frankly. I hadn't know us not be the best team on the planet until the early 1990s, when I was thirty-something, we reigned that long.
The lean years have, frankly, made me enjoy our recent successes all the more. Though I crave the big one, like you wouldn't believe.
Thank God for the Internet and satellite TV. I only get back for a couple of games a season now, as I live in Philadelphia. I pay silly prices to get home game tickets, because my trips home are usually work-paid trips, I can't plan ahead. I love it though, I take my Dad to the game, sit next to him, and watch the years roll off him. My oh my, he's seen some games in that stadium. He's 78 now, so has over 70 years of following this team. He's as passionate now as I can ever remember, and he is absolutely delighted with Mr Benitez.
"We needed Rafa 15 years ago," he says. I think he's right. "It's the second coming of Shanks."
The most important thing I am grateful to my Grandad for, apart from the wonderful saga it has been following this club, is that it's enabled me to keep in close touch with my Dad. The weekly phonecalls just before a game, the swapping of team news, have all helped us both keep this father and son relationship alive, even though I'm thousands of miles away, and can't "pop in" to catch up with him and my Mum.
Being a Red, among a family of Reds, has been a constant through all these years. I'm proud to say that my son is a fan of the club, a fourth generation supporter. He'll join me and my Dad at his first home game this year. It'll be the three of us, sat together. I hope my son will see some of the years roll off me too.
Come On You Mighty Reds
