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Toffees or a Marriage Made in Heaven?

It could have all been so different; I’m so glad it wasn’t because supporting Liverpool Football Club has been a major and passionate part of my life. In fact you could say I’m a bigamist, I married my football club long before I met my wife and have divorced neither.

Being born in Liverpool it was always going to be one team or the other for me. In the 50s my dad, like many blokes, used to go to see Liverpool one week and Everton the next, but he had pretty much lost interest, possibly due to work commitments, by the time I came along in 1960. He did however bless me with a taste of the real thing by occasionally taking me to see Liverpool at ‘three quarter time’ when you could get onto the Anfield Road terrace for free to see the last 15 minutes of a game.

I do believe he favoured Liverpool but my uncle was, and still is, an avid Blue. On 15 May 1966 he took me to Queens Drive to see the Toffees parading the FA Cup after beating Sheffield Wednesday 3 – 2 the previous day. I was just 6 years old then and I must say that I remember being impressed by the crowds and the big silver trophy, however when Uncle Les asked me if I was an Evertonian I said no, I’m a Liverpudlian!

Whether my Liverpudlian declaration was due to my ‘three quarter time’ trips or for some other reason I don’t know, but I knew I was a Red and I still am and always will be a Red!

From the mid sixties my passion grew, avidly collecting anything to do with LFC, hanging on to my hero’s every word, (but more about Shanks later) and eventually going to games, graduating from the boy’s pen, through to the Anfield Road and finally a season ticket on the Kop.

In 1971 I moved to secondary school, John Hamilton Technical High School, but don’t be fooled by the name, it was crap! There was though a massive positive, it was about half a mile away from my place of worship, Anfield.

We had long dinner times back in the 70s making it possible for me and a pal to walk to the ground most days – just in time for the coach returning from Melwood with the team aboard ready to get showered after training. Melwood didn’t have the facilities then, unlike now. As the tired players traipsed off the coach, parked where the Shankly Gates are now, most were happy to say hello and sign an autograph so long as you were polite!

This ritual carried on for some years, we saw our heroes on an almost daily basis and witnessed some funny moments, and for me, one very special interaction with my hero!

There was the time when Kevin Keegan’s wife, Jean, was waiting in the car for him to change. Getting inpatient she went in through the Directors Entrance to hurry him, while he came out of the adjacent Players Entrance! There then followed a comical few minutes of slapstick as they appeared at different entrances always missing each other until eventually both appearing at the same time!

Now Bill Shankly is my hero, I adored the man, he was Liverpool and Liverpool was him. You’ve all read the quotes I’m sure, he was a man of the people – “He made the people happy.” For me, as a young lad, happy was an understatement. I’d spoken to Mr Shankly on numerous occasions when this particular day he asked me “What are you doing in school today son?” “I have geography exam Mr Shankly” was my squeaky reply. It was what happened next, a couple of days later, that sent me into ecstasy.

As was the norm, Shanks drove his car back from training and arrived just before the team bus. I was in my usual spec prowling in the car park and Shanks spotted me. He walked over to me and said “How did the geography exam go son?” The man had remembered me and our conversation! He spoke to me like it mattered, because to him it did. His passion for Liverpool Football Club was matched by his passion for the Liverpool fans. What happened in the exam was not important – that Bill Shankly treated me the way he did mattered so much to a young boy – it still matters now.

My hero proved to me that day that as a six year old turning down toffees for a marriage made in heaven was a decision I’d never regret.

YNWA

Editor ~ Thanks to Ian for this submission, a riveting read for any Liverpool FC supporter, or any true football fan for that matter.