Football, and the Value of Community, Family and Friendships

Bonus free chapter from This Red Planet

There were a number of brilliant chapters in This Red Planet - which is available to buy here - but one of my particular favourites was this incredibly insightful and at times emotional set of views about what football means to us.

What follows in this, the penultimate chapter, are a series of short sections written by subscribers, in response to questions I posed regarding the importance of football (and Liverpool FC) in their lives; and its connection to friends, family and community. 

Alex Tate 

In May 2011 I felt I was simply tired; full-time job, part time study, married with a young daughter around two-and-a-half years old. After many tests I was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy. My heart was simply not pumping effectively, it was twice the size it should have been and my lungs half full of fluid.

“It’s as bad as it gets,” said Dr Taylor. “But with medication and even a pacemaker we can get you right.”

“Good,” I replied, “I’ve some studies to finish and a little girl I want to see grow up.”

Dr Taylor very stoically nodded and winked at me.

Within five weeks, one operation and one session of chemo later, I was back at work. But the treatment had affected my ejection fraction, the percentage of how well the heart pumps. From high risk category of 38% I was soon down to 30%.

Over time this gradually got lower. My pacemaker would wi-fi information daily to my cardiologist who knew what was happening before I did. In August 2017, after various life changes, a transplant was raised and paperwork started.

By October the effects were noticeable, by January I’d reduced my work from four full days to three half days. My daughters went to stay with their mum full time as I couldn’t look after them. Even caring for myself was a struggle. Early April 2018 I made the call to the hospital and within hours I was in emergency. Had I left it any later I may not have made it through.

There was six months of multiple operations and more trauma than is expected before I returned home in September 2018. While I had a new heart, I was up for new kidneys too; mine had failed during the transplant and therefore dialysis three times a week was part of my life.

Recovery was slow but then halted when in January 2019 I went into a more local hospital with an infection, and around five other serious ailments. This four-month stay culminated in a diagnosis of lymphoma of the liver. I had three months of chemo, the latter two took me so close to death it was a familiar feeling for me.

A few months later I was in hospital, no surprise, and the nurse wanted to wake me at 4am. I asked, “Sophie, can you come in at 5am instead?” Having explained to her why she smiled and said I should ring the buzzer and she’ll come along.

Sophie saw me watching my phone – Barcelona vs. Liverpool – and asked if it was on the internet. Upon replying Yes, she set up the computer in my room with her ID and I watched the game on a bigger screen. Such was my involvement in the game she asked what was going on. It transpired she was off to Porto next week and on to Barcelona to see her bother. I urged her to go to the Nou Camp. She didn’t make it, but was back in time for the second leg, put the game on the computer again for me where I got to see corner taken quickly.

By July 2019 I was given remission and started work on returning to study. A different qualification to the one when my heart went. Is there some correlation?

Thankfully now, with great support from my medical team, yogis, fellow students and the very best friends and family, plus The Tomkins Times, I am approaching four years since transplant and am fitter than I have been in years. Healthier? Well, this is a completely different issue.

I hope to graduate this June, coinciding with heart and cancer anniversaries, and continue the rebuilding of my life. For what is now the third time! 

* * *

March 2011. Andy Carroll finally wore a Liverpool jersey in a competitive match, a 3-1 win over Man Utd, which only slowed their title bid rather than derailing it. Any win over Man Utd is welcome, a Kuyt hat-trick and a little rejuvenation under new owners bade well.

The semester break brought an opportunity to study intensively in an aid to complete my MA, and I chose Sports Journalism. While the study took a week on campus the actual writing lasted much longer.

With online news becoming much more prevalent beyond the main media channels, and I was already a member of The Tomkins Times, my cohort was tasked with keeping a blog updated several times a week for a couple more months. So I took the issue of Carroll costing £35 million and searched for a club whose whole match day squad was of similar value. This was only an exercise in interest and not to prove anything. Some of the Leicester fans on the forum I joined questioned their squad equating to Carroll’s fee, disagreeing vehemently amongst themselves over the Transfermarkt assessment of costs. 

TTT was about two years old and various members had already provided great articles for the site; Beez, or if reporting in The Liverpool Echo known as Andrew Beasley, had written one on Andy Carroll and I wished to cite this in my work, as well as one on TTT.

Beez and I had music in common as well as Liverpool FC and I feel this moment drew us closer, both fledgling writers giving each other support. Despite a couple of trips from Australia back to the UK to see my family we’ve not met.

I have met Gary the Spud and his family, though. Just before the end of the 2010/11 season I was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy and spent a large amount of time off work and in hospital, even finishing the semester from my hospital bed. To aid this concerning time Gary sent a dozen DVDs full of music which he felt I’d like. Music here had drawn Gary and I together and this arriving in the post was a real boost.

The music theme continued as our first meeting led to trawling a number of record shops in London, a pastime I had greatly missed since leaving the UK in 2002. Our families went on the London Eye and our eldest daughters, both around three years old, gibbered on as if old mates.

Our friendship extends beyond TTT and over the years we’ve both dealt with highs and lows, and sometimes communication in a long distance friendship can give you a great uplift regardless of how you feel.

Donny G wrote a piece for my parenting blog and we’ve exchanged emails since, most recently there’s been more due to the hardships Donny has faced.

A mind-bending early morning telephone call with Leeberolf span me out for the rest of the day.

My brother put up Andrew Chow and his friends at his hotel, enjoying themselves by raucously taking over the pool in celebration of a cup win for Liverpool, a highlight on his trip over from Singapore. My brother works elsewhere now.

Closer to home, and again through music, Fady and I used to get together to watch games at each others houses, and show off our record collections! He and his wife relocated overseas and then once back in Australia settled in Sydney to be closer to Alison’s family. But we’ve caught up when he’s in Brisbane.

We did go to the pub once to watch the Merseyside derby. Our venture out was to meet Krish who was over for a holiday. Unfortunately it was a drab 0-0 but through TTT it was another display of the reach our community has.

I’m not the only recipient of support through these world wide friendships. My health conditions have been documented and many people ask how I am, offer support or have given advice. So while the above are friends with stories, there’s many others from simple interaction on TTT who I enjoy reading their posts whilst knowing a little bit more about them than a common red allegiance. 

Tash and Dowdy

Tash (Taskin) and I grew up literally as next door neighbours. He’s about three years younger so, although he was was born after his family moved in next door, I was so young that I can’t recall a time when he wasn’t there. We lived in a quiet area of Swindon where the neighbours were all pretty close and, despite the age difference, we spent the vast majority of our younger years hanging around together; building dams at the brook that ran alongside our street, going to the park and, of course, playing football.

My brother is five years older than me and had spells ‘supporting’ Spurs and Leeds – but eventually came to the right decision about the Reds! I guess his early allegiances were fleeting and reflect either their relative success or popularity as clubs or, in Spurs' case, the fact our uncle was offered (but declined) trials with them. But I’ve supported Liverpool as long as I can remember and my earliest, albeit rather vague, memories are of the ‘74 cup final. Not sure when Tash got into football first although I do recall him being fascinated by the ‘78 World Cup and having a t-shirt of the mascot (Gauchito?) which he absolutely loved. 

In many ways, Tash was like the younger brother I never had.

Then, Notts Forest had their spell of success and another neighbour became a fan of theirs. Tash won’t thank me for saying this but he ‘wavered’ for a while so it was Liverpool 1 Forest 2 for a relatively short period of time in the local fan stakes but I didn’t give up. I mean, he could only have been six or seven after all and eventually common sense prevailed and he became a firm Red.

After that, I reckon 80-90% of our conversations, and there were a lot of those conversations, were about Liverpool FC. We’d dream of going to games when we were older, talked about what posters etc. we wanted to adorn our bedroom walls and any news or trivia we could get hold of. Given we lived miles from Liverpool and had no internet, mobile phones and the like back then, I’m still amazed how much information we managed to glean, most of which came from newspapers, Shoot, Match or Football Handbook magazines and probably various other sources that I've simply forgotten.

Our local youth club organised a trip each season to a First Division match and my 1st LFC trips were away games at Chelsea and Villa in the late ‘70s but Tash was too young so didn’t go to these. I think his first was at Coventry in ’85? I’ve still got the ticket stubs from all of them and I reckon he has too although I’ve not asked him. It was a great day and there must have been four or five other neighbours, probably all younger than Tash, who’d followed our lead into supporting the Reds, that also went. I still have a photo taken in my back garden, hours before the coach was due to leave, where we are all wearing kits, numerous scarves each (even though it was a warm spring day!), badges and carrying all manner of flags.

I was given a book about the history of the club and read it in a day. I lent it to Tash and he did the same although it was only a paperback, albeit with ‘shiny’ paper, and the glued spine wasn’t the best so when it came back the next day, half of the pages were loose – presumably where he’d opened it out flat to read. Normally that would have driven me up the wall – especially if a sibling had done it – but, as it was Tash, and it was about LFC there was never a problem. Of course, I still have the book on my shelf at home and never look at it without automatically thinking back to those days. It’s one of those “if I close my eyes I’m right back there” moments, so vivid are the memories and, more to the point, emotions of that time!

Once I could drive, we ventured to Southampton and The Dell. Our first away game ‘on our own’ and I have great memories of parking up and walking to the ground. I think that was the day Kevin McDonald broke his ankle attacking the far post – about six yards from us and I can still hear the crack of his bone shattering.

We also went, with the youth club, to Wembley for the ’87 League Cup Final when, disappointingly, Liverpool – for the first time – lost a game in which Ian Rush had scored. It was a strange day as it turned out our tickets were in the Arsenal end, which didn’t bode well given we were decked in our Liverpool colours. By then, I was 18 and ‘deemed’ an adult for the trip so had four or five juniors with me that I was effectively responsible for – Tash being one of them. 

We weren’t the only ones in the wrong end and after several stewards and policemen had simply suggested we go elsewhere, without any practical suggestions of where we might actually go, we walked back onto the concourse, got pelted with beer by some ‘cockney yobs’, found a steward who advised us to go half way around the ground and wait by a door. After half an hour or so, which felt more like hours, and with kick-off getting close, there must have been 30-or-so of us congregated there. The door opened and we were led down myriad tunnels to god-knows-where. Eventually we saw, literally, a glint of light at the end of a tunnel and we walked out onto the sandy track around the edge of the pitch. It was essentially a maintenance tunnel that led out opposite the famous tunnel end and gave us what was the closest thing we’d ever experience to the buzz the players must feel when they walk out to the noise of the waiting crowd. This was only 15 minutes or so before kickoff so most fans were in place for the game. We were led around the perimeter and let into the LFC end. Sadly we didn’t get the result we wanted but I’m sure we’ll both always remember walking out of that tunnel into the bright sunshine and cacophony of noise!

Our first game at Anfield was Rush’s last game (first time around) against Watford. I think one of Tash’s school mates’ mum won the tickets in a prize draw or something similar and, thankfully, they asked me to be the 4th for the trip – with the aforementioned mum borrowing a colleague’s car for the drive to Liverpool. We left home stupidly early, as you had to in those days, and when we got to the first major junction – the M5 at Gloucester – she got on the wrong carriageway and we headed south towards Bristol, having to turnaround at the next junction and head north instead! We did make it to the ground in time and were there to see Rushie score, what we thought, was his last ever goal for the Reds, racing clear late on to slot home at the Kop end. All very poetic and a fantastic memory for us all – not a bad way to start the list of visits to L4!

My family had moved house in ‘86 but we kept in touch and, after Tash left school, we played in the same Sunday league side that I’d introduced him to. But, we lost touch in the early ‘90s after I married and had started a family – life just getting in the way as it does from time to time. Unbeknown to me, Tash moved to Barcelona and it was by pure chance that we got back in touch in mid 2006. 

I’d been on a work event in London, involving several beers, and got the train back. I hailed a taxi for the trip home and got talking to the driver who seemed a good bloke. From the name shown on his ID card, I guessed he was of Turkish descent and sure enough he was. When I mentioned I’d grown up next to a lovely family of Turkish Cypriots, and mentioned the three children’s names, he replied “I know Şeniz [the middle of the three], she works for a charity I use”. The conversation went on and I asked him to pass my business card (it’s all I had on me) to her as I’d love to catch up with Tash again. A few weeks later, I was sat in our Bristol office when an overseas call came in, from Tash.

Why am I telling you this? Well, because it’s probably the best way I have to explain what sort of friendship we have. Whilst so much time had passed and lots had happened to us both in the intervening years, it was like we’d never lost touch. We simply picked up again where we’d inadvertently left off years beforehand. Obviously he was living overseas so we couldn’t meet up easily – that started again in earnest when he’d come over for games and we’d travel up together. At that stage, I had access to two Kop tickets and was on the waiting list for two of my own, which eventually came when the Main Stand was expanded – 18 years after joining the list! Of course, we often talk about other matters including friends, family, childhood memories and current world events but LFC is the glue that binds us together!

When we made the Champions League final in Kiev, we were successful in the ballot for all four tickets. My sons and I were definitely going but my usual travelling companion couldn’t make it so I offered the fourth ticket to Tash. The dilemma must’ve been terrible for him. Apart from the issue of getting flights to Ukraine – we only secured ours a week before the game when we’d all but given up hope of getting there – he had another dilemma. He’d already promised his nephew, who has travelled to games several times now, and a cousin, who was due to be over from the US for the game, that he’d watch with them. It would’ve been a huge issue for him because family and loyalty to friends is a huge part of what makes Tash who he is.

It’s why, when my eldest son and his partner visited Barcelona a few years back, Tash was only too pleased to be on hand to collect and return them to the airport and to help them find their way around the city. I’m sure lots of people might offer to do so but he actually did it.

  One thing that perfectly sums Tash up, and in particular his good and caring nature, is that after Hillsborough, he organised a charity football match. Full 11-a-side with a load of his college mates, myself and one or two of my mates. It was intended to be a more significant event than the eight-hour five-a-side game we’d held a few years earlier, for Sport Aid/Relief I think. After all, Hillsborough was just more personal to us and so we decided to play for 12 hours with only short 10-minute comfort breaks every 2 hours on a rolling basis so the game continued throughout.

I was working for Allied Dunbar at the time, and they had a great social club with excellent sports facilities and happily agreed to let us use one of the pitches for the day and the local paper agreed to send someone to cover the story – although for the life of me I can’t recall if they ever did!

Not surprisingly, with 22 lads, aged 16-20 years, running around there were some funny moments, such as when someone got caught in the ‘swedes’, but generally we all kept it relatively serious as it was such a traumatic event. We managed to raise £795. Although it’s not a massive sum of money now, it certainly felt significant in those days. All down to Tash and his desire to do something to help people in real need.

Alan in Australia 

About 18 months ago my marriage ended suddenly and, thus far at least, acrimoniously. One thing has kept me sane during the past 18 months: my subscription to TTT. Not only does it provide easy access to intelligent, cogent and respectful discussion of all things LFC, but it has also provided a bridge back to human engagement, from which I temporarily withdrew. It’s only about three months since I recovered the ability to eat and crap regularly. The previous 15 months I found myself so miserable I couldn’t consume much food at all, and when I did I’d usually vomit. (All of this aged 55, eek!) 

Happily my resumption of eating, currently two healthy meals per day plus regular bowel movements, has led to a subsequent recovery of my sanity, by and large. I’ve managed to engage with Family Court processes, and hopefully will soon regain access to my two children, now 11 and nine. (I’ve even managed to type this with a wry smile rather than sobbing! A major achievement.) 

Sadly I suspect my 18-year marriage is over, much to my regret, but hopefully we will recover the ability to co-parent sooner rather than later, notwithstanding the intrinsic adversarial nature of Western Australian family law processes. 

These past year or two, I’ve taken an enormous amount of strength and solace from TTT. Primarily it’s your writing which appeals to me, whether it be football analysis, discussion of the insidious impacts of confirmation bias (my own as well as others’), the wonderful Jeff’s posts on all and sundry (particularly anything about Dallas, who has become my substitute pet), the sweet reason of Nari Singh, the self-deprecating humour of Krishaldo – I could go on for ever. [Alas, Jeff’s dog Dallas died aged 13 in June 2022.]

It really is a marvellous culture that you have developed on this site. This is not just the best football blog ever, it’s inspiring in so many ways, and has helped me to put my personal woes into perspective.

The site you have created – community is a better description – has been an oasis for me during my own battles with mental health issues. 

Alan (born in Wallasey, before emigrating to Australia in 1972).

Beez and AriseSirRafa

Andrew Beasley

We are often told that people are becoming increasingly isolated thanks to the internet. That we live our lives online rather than in reality, more concerned with likes and retweets and thumbs-up rather than human interaction.

The lockdowns brought about by the pandemic only accentuated that feeling further, yet seven days after the UK first ground to a halt in March 2020 something truly remarkable happened.

But our story begins a little over 11 years earlier. As a fan of Paul Tomkins’ writing on the official Liverpool site, I joined his subscription website The Tomkins Times in November 2009. It’s fair to say it changed my life in more ways than one.

While there had long been online forums in which you could discuss the ups and downs of the mighty Reds, I had never partaken. To put things into context, I hadn’t long had an internet connection at home at this point. It was a very different world (for me, if not everyone).

Having spent a few days getting to grips with TTT, I was intrigued to see a new thread pop up at the end of my first week as a subscriber. It was regarding stats and the first two posts were from someone going by the handle ‘Arisesirrafa’. I approved of the username and the info he provided. Somehow the vital connection was made.

A few months later, TTT subscribers in London began meeting up to watch Liverpool matches together. Plucking up the courage to go along – meeting and talking to people I don’t know is a personal nightmare – I met Arisesirrafa, or Andrew Fanko in the real world, as well as loads of other great people. We started going to matches together, whenever he had a spare ticket, and continued to catch the Reds on TV too. It reached the point where members of the London chapter of TTT were going to each other’s stag dos and weddings. Genuine friendships borne out of a niche football website. 

More was to come though. In 2018, Andrew and his wife Frankie decided to apply to go on one of the hardest quiz shows around, the BBC’s Only Connect. But they needed a third wheel for their team and knowing I loved the programme they asked me. 

If you’re a football fan, you often measure your life by matches. The day after I got married, Liverpool won 3-2 at Loftus Road, for instance. And on the day of the Reds’ crazy 4-3 victory over Crystal Palace in January 2019, we took part in an audition to appear on Only Connect.

I enjoy a good pub quiz. I often guided teams to victory in work quiz nights back in the days when I had a proper job and wasn’t a freelance football writer (something else for which I have TTT to thank).

But Andrew and Frankie are incredible quizzers – way, way above my level. When we were conducting our audition, with mock questions for the show, they were answering them before I’d barely read them. 

Fortunately, I was able to contribute more on the actual programme. Our aim was to win an episode. Do that and we could hold our heads high, and we’d always have the memory of a victory.

Except that we won and won and won again. On the night between our successful quarter-final and semi-final, the Reds brushed aside Porto 2-0 at Anfield in a quarter-final match of their own. I’ll leave it to you to decide if the Champions League outweighs Only Connect. Whatever your choice – as if I need ask – it was another major life event marked out by a Liverpool match. 

We then won our semi-final the following day, and the final the day after that (with it being broadcast on the eighth day of lockdown). Five wins out of five. Oh campeoni! 

We later returned to win a ‘Champion of Champions’ special episode too (which was filmed on the day Alisson Becker scored a remarkable winner at The Hawthorns; I listened to it on the train home and burst out laughing). Using the info from the back of the second Only Connect book, only two teams prior to the 007s (for that is our name) had won at least six episodes without losing any. Well, we have now done that too. 

I’m a realist. Had I never met Andrew and Frankie they would have gone on the show with somebody else and still stood a very good chance of winning.

But thanks to TTT I was part of that journey too, and I now have my name on the Only Connect Wikipedia page. 

That’s not bad going for a fiver a month to join The Tomkins Times, is it? 

Owen Ravenscroft

I had two tickets to a match I never expected to go to. But who to take? My dad was the first person I thought of. After all, it was he who shaped my entire outlook on the game. However, I settled on my 11-year-old daughter, Alice.

… I suggested we walk around the back of the Main Stand as we have to get to the other end of the ground to take our seats. In doing so, we took in the Hillsborough Memorial. A place where I’ve been several times, but it never fails to affect me. It was her first time. She didn’t really understand, so I explained that when I was roughly her age 97 Liverpool fans went to a football match and never made it home. She asked why, and I said they were tragically crushed to death, but it wasn’t their fault. She said ‘Oh’, and we continued on to entrance S.

We climbed the stairs. She was excited and almost racing up them, and when we reached the concourse I asked whether she wanted a drink and food, or to go and find our seats. She chose the seats, and so we climbed up the U2 entrance and into the cauldron of Anfield. She stood stock still and took it in, then she started the long walk up to the top of the stand. We sat for a while, taking it all in. The pitch looked fantastic. I could tell she was in awe. She grabbed my hand. I said something like “Isn’t this magnificent?” and she replied “can we get that food now?”

We headed back down the steep stairs, stopping for a quick picture of Alice with the Kop as her backdrop, back into the bowels of the stadium. What would you like? A sausage roll and a Coke. Lovely. I’ll have a Carlsberg and a cheese slice. Possibly the best pre-match warm-up in the world?

We stood and looked over Stanley Park towards Goodison while we ate and Daddy drained his pint. We discussed the rivalry, and the friendship. And then they came. About 200 Everton fans, average age about 20 I’d guess. They looked like they were shouting and were clearly trying to ‘give it large’. The police (on horseback) were marshalling them superbly.

… Before we knew it the players were back on their way out. The noise level rose, and Alice was clearly unhappy, complaining about how loud it was. I ignored it, thinking that once the match kicked off she’d be alright. She wasn’t, she was clearly agitated, and wanted to escape the furore but she also wanted me to be happy so she persevered. She started clock-watching (ironic, given Everton’s tactics).

We got through to half-time and she was mostly fine, although I did allow her to play on her phone for a bit to try to keep her distracted form the noise. We went back down during added time. We hit the stairs just as Jordan Pickford hit the deck with the ball in his hands. I bet he regrets that decision more than we do ours, given Alisson’s parody at the end of the match.

Half-time came and went so quickly. We queued for another drink, another Carlsberg for me, a hot chocolate for the little ’un. Probably the best half-time in the world?

And so with a few minutes gone in the second half we went back to our seats. I told Alice that the noise won’t stop, so the only way to not be scared is to join in. She starts enjoying the game. Watching. Clapping. Chanting (although when I was singing either “Liverpool, Liverpool, Liverpool” or “Going down, going down going down” it transpires that she was singing “Dorito, Dorito, Dorito”).