I hope this is ok to put in here. As the person I speak about, only really became a red in the later years of his life.
In 2009 and 2014 I spoke often via email with my Dad about those two title challenges, as he often lived and worked away and by 2014 I was at university. In the last year or so and now well into retirement, he wasn't quite as responsive to messages, or that talkative on the phone. Age was getting to him as was his diabetes and other afflictions.
He knew how much a league title would mean to me though, especially after replying to one drunken message of mine in 2014 to say that while he found my obsession for football and Liverpool extraordinary, he was ultimately glad he had sent me to Istanbul for arguably the greatest football game of all time. I used the excuse for Istanbul of a "once in a lifetime experience", but was soon to beg him again for his help, when that once in a lifetime became Athens and then Basel. He helped me to go with barely a question asked. Three once in a lifetimes then!
I converted my brother fairly easily, who since 2006 has travelled far and wide to many Liverpool games with me and will be standing next to me in the away end at Old Trafford on Sunday. My mother soon followed. She used to go to Burnden Park with my Granddad, who we lost when I was 8 years old, so I sometimes ponder if I remind her of her Dad as he was apparently very passionate about football and Bolton Wanderers and was buried with their scarf. But my Dad was the always most difficult one to get on side. He was more a Rugby League fan. Wigan Warriors. Andy Farrell, Martin Offiah, Kris Radlinski. Plus, due to his Lancashire roots, he had a striking admiration for Alex Ferguson and used to wind me up about football and especially Liverpool. But over time, he changed. I took him on the Kop in 304 in 2009 as Robbie Keane scored two but with his arthritis, he didn't find it that enjoyable and never went back, but I took him in the wheelchair end for the preseason game a few years later as we played Wigan away and teenagers set off smoke bombs down the concourse.
Over time though, he definitely came round to the idea of joining in with the fun that my brother, my mother and I were all having cheering the reds and discussing it amongst ourselves. He was excited as much as me and my brother to see our enthusiasm as we would leave for games and would start to watch as many of our games as he could on TV. As a typical 'aul arse', his comments generally were about how shit everyone was and how they could play better, but I laughed because at least it meant he had started giving a shit even if he showed it in a different manner to how I would hoped he would do.
Over this season we hadn't actually communicated that much. I would usually only get the odd word or two off him, whether I messaged him or actually called him up. I would send a message after a good win saying "we are the business" and I'd get a reply along the lines of "Fucking Brilliant! x". That was good enough for me.
My dad called me before the Man City away game, knowing that I was to watch it but I missed his call. For some reason it slipped my mind to return it. A few days later we played Wolves away and while I was watching that ball fly around the pitch at Molineux, he was watching that same ball fly around the pitch (and into our net twice) on his TV at home. I left the ground disappointed at a football result, but little was I to know that his time in this world was very quickly coming to an end. He was unconscious with a brain bleed about an hour or so after that game finished and upsettingly, he would never come back. I found out about this development about 5am in the morning after returning home from the game through my brother. He wouldn't be waking up and it was only a matter of time. My dad died two days later. Sadly, my home was 200 miles away from his.
I finally picked up that voicemail two weeks later by total chance and to my delight, despite my regret for never fielding the call when it first came in as I was asleep, it was him leaving me a message to wish us luck for the City game, evidently as excited as I was about this Liverpool title challenge. "This is the big one", "We need to make sure we win this one". "We need to stop that fucken Sterling", "good luck Tom, I hope it's a good one, I hope you enjoy it". I mean, we didn't, we lost, that's football, but the sentiment was there all the same.
I've been in bits since then. Like I say, hardly a departed red in the grander scheme of things, but by the end, he was to me. I had often regaled (or bored him depending on his point of view at the time) in regards to Liverpool FC. It gave me some small comfort that towards his end, he was looking out for our results, hoping for wins. I had flooded his inbox in 2009 and 2014 about the machinations of the title challenges at the times and eventually, he had given a shit. The hardest nut to crack in my immediate family had come on board as well. Had him cheering players, speaking highly of them and willing us to win games. Sadly, he won't be around to see it through till the end this year and I won't be able to bombard him with the possibilities as this season moves towards it's conclusion.
We may not win it this season as I had so romantically dreamed but a few weeks back when we had a stranglehold over the league, and it would be typical of football to work that way, as nothing is promised, nothing is guaranteed. Before the game against Bayern Munich I sang You'll Never Walk Alone as loud from the Kop as I have ever sung it before. My brother waved our flag for him, proudly and defiantly at the front of the Kop. I finished the game without a voice. I went up to sit in the seat my Dad had stood in front against Bolton (only a row back and 5 seats along from where I stand in Europe) and thought about him a lot as everyone filed out of the ground and I shed a few tears. I've got no right for us to win it this year because of him. No more so than anyone who supports any other team in the league who are going through much worse than I have gone through does. But I've waited my entire life for this to potentially happen and I would be lying if I said I didn't want it more than anything now than at any other time. A momentous occasion of happiness and tears, at the exact same time. It would be beautiful. I can only hope it comes to fruition and I do my bit when I can go the match in the run in. I promise you, I'll do my best to enjoy it though Dad. x
Mike Higham 1943 - 2019.
