Half-past nine 31st August 2012: Clint Dempsey arrives at Spurs Lodge just in time for the transfer window to quiver shut. Ian Ayre belatedly stops offering interns slices of Pizza from boxes he’s cut dick-holes in, and Melwood goes quiet: silence. No more signings. We’re fucked. Rodgers is fucked. Joe Cole is smoking twenty Lambert through his eyeballs because ‘the nicotine gets in your system quicker’. It’s mayhem. LFCTV cut uncomfortably to pictures of Biscan’s cock in the Atatürk changing rooms.
Whilst the season had begun for the rest of the league, it seemed Liverpool still had a few weeks to wait, and now faced the months up to Christmas woefully under-gunned. Still, we prevaricated over Tiki-Taka and lumbered onwards like the walking wallets we are. It was, as you can expect, a typically cheery time.
We couldn’t wait for the Europa League to start: we barely had to. We’d already played fifty-five games by January the previous year. And what reckless abandon we felt as Antonio Di Natale showed up in Zebrette colours and not only shined a light on our lack of forward options, but stretched it out like a funfair mirror. We’re glad to have that kind of European class back at Anfield, but we’ve fonder memories of being able to keep it under wraps.
Udinese was juxtaposed nicely with a grim draw against Stoke, each of their players looking like a bathtub full of feet, and playing like it too. Suarez got a stamp for his troubles, and reaffirmed his commitment to being truly terrible at ‘diving’. “Embarrassingly unconvincing” said Stephen Hawking as he practiced his moonwalk. The mystery of just what is under Tony Pulis’ cap rumbled on: a wart trapped inside a Trojan condom or a USB stick containing Rammstein’s entire back catalogue the current favorites.
As the early weeks ticked by there weren’t many highlights, though a crunch tie at the end of October against Champions League shoe-ins Everton was good. Phil Neville dived; Suarez thrived, latterly skived. One might be adventurous enough to presume creatures with the complexion of Phil Neville and David Moyes would duck the limelight; any light, and still they tickled the hornet’s nest. The result was a bizarre example of Liverpool’s inconsistent lethality and Everton’s recurring self-limitation. Our quiet neighbors seem insistent on being beaten before the game has even started, and that’s how it should have played out but for poor officiating. Suarez’s flop in front of Moyes was most well-deserved insolence.
We followed the draw at Goodison by letting eventual winners Swansea donkey-punch us out of the Unimportant Cup a few days later. I’m sure Brendan Rodgers was thanking his Shaman animal spirit guide for that one. He and his family were pressured into ceremoniously burning ‘that picture’ in the aftermath, you know. I’m just kidding, it’s still there: I’ve seen a photo of it covered in shaving cream on his son’s mobile phone.
Things picked up a bit as Jordan Henderson scored the winner in Udine a few weeks later and Liverpool managed to scramble out of the Europa Group Stage. Jordan could not have predicted his rise to prominence, later to be spoken of in the same breath as Pele, Mother Theresa, and Purple Aki. The green shoots were tentatively fighting towards the ultraviolet lamp of stability. We remained, as ever, miserable and optimistic.
A comeback win against West Ham in early December without Suarez was meaningful, even if Allardyce is distinctly less hate-worthy since he broke ranks from Fergie’s fan club. Benteke ended any hopes of top four just the next game, and though that was when they ended they should probably never have begun. Managing expectations; not being an idiot: call it what you will.
We remained inconsistent and- despite the bright lights of Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho arriving in January- we failed to avoid an embarrassing FA Cup exit to Oldham. They were kind of like Stoke, if Stoke had any reason or right to play that way. Thankfully the magic of the FA Cup burned bright, almost blindingly so.
We did our best to erase Oldham with two symbolic draws away at Arsenal, and then Manchester City. The game at the Etihad in particular seemed important as we witnessed the spiritual revival of Steven Gerrard and his ‘beauties’. As the ball dropped & his right foot connected we all went dewy-eyed with nostalgia, as if Dave Kirby and the green fairy were sharing iambic pentameters on the transience of existence right there on the edge of the box.
We were quite quickly out of our final competition as Zenit proved too much mid-February, but a moving awakening of the Anfield atmosphere in the return leg fueled a gentle upwards trajectory and a certain level of recuperation.
Naturally the internet remained hostile, as is its prerogative, and after Rafa joined Chelsea the sideshows ruled. Twitter began enveloping itself like a snake tail lunch: ‘Wools’ fought off the caps lock; the ‘lfcfamily’ continued its relentless binary fission; the deadest of the die-hards began to wear ‘bin-dipper’ as a badge of honor, as if echoing the black man's reclamation of the ‘n-word’ (without half the rhyme or rhapsody). Kenny was criticized, or analyzed, and Rodgers adored as a fraud. Casually, the internet as a whole learned to disagree to disagree.
On the pitch we showed our mettle against Tottenham in amongst occasional flexing and a defeat to Southampton. The football was beginning to take on an identity, was looking great when it clicked, but the best progress came outside Merseyside as news feverishly spread that an old foe was slain.
They partied in Liverpool. They partied in Brixton. One particular tune from the ‘Wizard of Oz’ stormed the charts. On April 8th 2013 Maggie Thatcher died and at once the air seemed a little fresher. Though her warped view of social welfare lived on as funeral costs mushroomed, if you'd put that bounty on her head Scousers would’ve paid it up years ago.
The funeral provided a perfect gathering point for the contemptible, and George O$borne was careful to wrap affected tears around his puffy human exoskeleton. The honest man celebrated the exorcism of Margaret Thatcher, whilst the rich took one last look at Pandora’s box before they closed it. Dreams of a Lizard armada now fully rest on David Cameron’s shoulders. The irony of a ‘woman’ so sneeringly against public transport having to make small talk as she was ferried across the River Styx remains a grain on the left side of the scales.
The rest of the season paled in comparison but there was time for a last gasp draw against Rafa’s Chelsea and an absolute violation of Newcastle United. Suarez forgot to bring his lunch to School and got ten games detention for it. Though the season in many senses fizzled out, our football didn’t, and positivity remained on the up until the final game. A beautiful tribute to Jamie Carragher was the least he deserved, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ taking on a dulcet, reverential tone. The spirit of both will need reviving next season and beyond if they are to be done proud.
There was time for more off-field success as the other enemy packed up his two European Cups and slinked towards a life of single malt breakfasts. Clearly, having climbed Everest only to realise our Bob had built another on top, Fergie sympathetically left us with the parting gift of his successor. And what a gift it was: in one move Everton and United were both weakened, and delirious Reds started pinching anything waist-up to see if it was real. What Davy Moyes’ locker may have lacked in porcine surprises, it certainly made up for in invisible medals, and as he cleared it out and shuffled disbelievingly towards Old Trafford we expected spontaneous birdsong and fanfare and rainbows.
An unerringly stable and optimistic summer has just started to kick in, and we’ll all fill our boots with the transfer nonsense. If you’re the likes of Indykaila I suggest you see sunlight at least once a day, providing you can reach to chip the faeces off the window. But the takeaway from this year has to be the Hillsborough Independent Panel’s report and findings that shocked even those expecting them. It rocked not just football but society too, and in no way should it ever be trivialized or downplayed, especially whilst the IPCC investigation continues a long road towards justice.
Another special mention goes to Anne Williams who sadly passed away this year, and I think even those that do not believe in such things would hope there’s a Heaven for people like Anne.
Enjoy your summer everybody, it’s an important one for Liverpool Football Club. We’ve actually got a lot to look forward to this year (not being linked to Carlton Cole et al for starters) and thank your lucky stars we’re not playing manager swapsies for once. Recharge those batteries and enjoy what could be some scintillating footy next season. In the meantime, there’s still work to be done: starting with stripping Norman Bettison of his Knighthood (you can find the link below).
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/47770You’ll Never Walk Alone, BP
