I am a Liverpudlian & I stand on the Spion Kop.
I was born a Liverpudlian, on May 1st, 1959. Born a scouser, bred a Red. Seven months before Shankly arrived. My Mum, Sally, & My Dad, Bobby, were both Liverpudlians. courting for them included cavorting on the Kop.
The first Liverpool game of my life was a 1 – 0 win against Everton in the Lancashire Senior Cup Final. The third Liverpool win, following a 2 -1 & a 3-2 home & away Floodlit Challenge Cup double, over Everton that season. Good going for a team that had been in the 2nd division for five years.
Fast forward five years, to May 1964, & Liverpool were being crowned First Division Champions. I hadn’t started school but my education on the Kop had begun. Like my older brothers, Robert (Bob) & Laurence (Logsie) before me, My Dad took me to the match, got us in at the half time gate or through the exit gates when they were opened at ¾ time. I’d watch the game, sat on my Dad’s shoulders, from the Kop, in the Main Stand corner. By the time I left infant school, Liverpool had won the 1st Division again & culled the curse of the cup, by winning the FA Cup for the first time on my 6th Birthday. May 1st, 1965. Shankly called that FA cup win his greatest achievement as Liverpool manager. 60ish years on, it still stands out as one of the greatest days of my life.
Liverpool’s first game defending the FA Cup was the first I attended on my own. Things didn’t end well on the pitch but for me it was a landmark game. The first of about a thousand I’ve seen at Anfield since. League, Cup, League Cup, Fairs Cup, Uefa Cup, European Cup, Cup Winners Cup, Screen Sports Cup.
Final, semi final, first round or friendly, I found a way to follow Liverpool. In the beginning, I’d be in the Boys Pen, but by the time I got to my teens I was standing, swaying & swirling, singing & chanting, on the Kop. That’s where I’ve stood, swayed, sang, chanted, or more recently sat, in the thousand or so games since. I had some skinhead skirmishes in the Anfield Road, saw the St.Etienne 77, the Tottenham title match ’83, a cursed FA cup game against Coventry with my kid, Tom, & a crew of his mates, 98, & the Chelsea ghost goal game in 2005 from there.
I’ve seen occasional games from the Kemlyn Road/Centenary Stand but I haven’t been in there since it was named after the greatest player I’ve ever seen, the Kenny Dalglish stand.
The Main Stand is best remembered by me for the light it shed on the pitch when the recent refurbishment was completed. I’ve been in there a number of times. Not a massive number of times. I was in there the night the Uefa Cup final was abandoned in 1973, just to get the geg on what real Germans looked like. More recently, I was in the Main Stand the night we beat PSG in September 2018 with a last minute winner by Bobby Firmino.
If football is a religion, & it’s not far short, it’s certainly spiritual. It may be churlish to suggest going the game is akin to attending a church or a chapel. & it be could be that calling the Kop the people’s pulpit is pretentious, but for me making the pilgrimage to see Liverpool play is an important part of the person I am. When Liverpool play, I play my part. A supporters part.
I am a Liverpudlian & I stand on the Spion Kop.
I like to sing. I like to shout. I get flags out quite a lot.
We support a team that’s dressed in Red.
It’s a team that you all know.
It’s a team that we call
LIV ER POOL
& to glory we will go.