Legends

By AM Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Share Tweet Share Share Email

Anthony McIntyre ☠ It is comforting to be able to say that after a sustained run of seven consecutive victories, Liverpool's calamitous season will not end as it started with that disappointing game against Fulham.

A match can now be viewed with less trepidation, more confidence that the gaping weakness in midfield does not compromise the echelonic defensive formation of the side. It is most unlikely that they will secure a top four slot come the season's end. Still, to end the season in a state of retrieved dignity is uplifting in itself.  Nothing was won this time out but for all the downsides there will never be a repeat in my lifetime, maybe no one else's either, of that memorable 7-0 thrashing of Manchester United. 

While last season's side were lauded for coming close to taking a quadruple, much of the praise was inflated, the assessment of the potential for greatness little more than hyperbole. The warning signs were there. Three cup finals and not a goal scored by Liverpool in any of them, two won on a penalty shootout. A drop off in form seemed inevitable. The side had run out of steam, did not have the strength in depth of Manchester City, and needed to catch a breath. But the panting was evident and heavy. The time out for that lost breath stretched to the point where the pause button seemed to operate on automatic pilot. 

Those who don't shrewdly manage the arms race in the transfer market can all too easily discover that the EPL is as ruthless as natural selection. Leicester, champions a few seasons ago and FA Cup winners after that, now seem destined for the drop. For the King Power fans it must seem like defeat snatched from the jaws of victory, that failure is success turned inside out. Shrewd investment was a problem for Liverpool too but they had the guile to stay clear of the drain Leicester have been circling. It seemed inexplicable that the club failed to purchase an entire midfield, as if it felt the troops would be immune from the ravishing effects of cold without winter clothing. But here we are.

Much of these matters were discussed at a recent Liverpool Legends event in Dublin. My wife purchased tickets for myself and my son as birthday presents well in advance and secured us a front row seat. She topped the cake off with the cream of a Meet & Greet prior to the main course. Ronnie Whelan, Jan Molby and Steve McMahon made up the Legend triumvirate.  

At 65 I am a bit old to have heroes in any theatre. Yet the experience was five star entertainment. The three of them, in particular Jan Molby, were very witty. They were profane, no airs and graces, winded each other up and regaled the large audience in Dublin's National Concert Hall with tales about their careers with Liverpool FC. Nor were they hesitant to have a go at players, past and present. Managers too were not spared the rod. This was no woke safe space outing where criticism was ruthlessly culled. 

The nostalgia in it for me was cemented by the attendance of my son. In prison I was enthralled by what these guys were doing on the pitch, watching each of them, sometimes on the same side, over a ten year period from 1982 until my release a decade later. One of the real joys of prison life, even during the blanket protest, was following the fortunes of Liverpool FC.  So to be accompanied by my son on a journey down Memory Lane was something of a moment captured in time by the images of the night. For me, there was an equivalence between that and the journey I took him on when he was two years of age, deep into the bowels of the H Blocks and into the cell I had been held in for much of the blanket protest, followed by he and I sharing a unique moment in the prison hospital ward where Bobby Sands had died on hunger strike.

Now the tune Memories Are Made Of This has taken up an unsolicited but welcome space rent free in my head. And I don't even have to wonder why.

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.