Book serialisation: Far Foreign Land, Chapter 18

The morning after, a confrontation with a Sun reader and musings on the globalisation of football in the aftermath of a match that was a catalyst for bringing American owners to Anfield

These were the last words he said

IN FRONT OF THE Blue Mosque, a man in a Liverpool shirt is reading a newspaper. It is a copy of The Sun, a special edition of the paper printed in Istanbul. I can’t believe it. The paper that accepted the police and Government’s line that we were drunk, burst down the gates, stole from our own dead and urinated on them, too. The paper that told these lies under the headline: ‘Hillsborough: The truth.’

He’s also wearing a ‘Justice for the 96’ badge. If you hadn’t just won the European Cup, something like that could spoil your day. It does anyway.

We exchange bitter words. He’s Scouse, too.

* * *

On Thursday, May 26, we became tourists. We met up and ate in a restaurant, looked around mosques and strolled around the covered bazaar, picking up presents for loved ones back home. But the enormity of what occurred the previous night meant we sleepwalked around Istanbul in a daze.

Apart from me and Dave, the rest needed to leave to get to the airport in late afternoon. There was some disquiet that the celebration parade at home was going to take place on this very night, so that most of those who made the journey to Turkey would miss the homecoming with the cup. It seemed another indication of the club’s lack of concern for the supporters.

‘Should have held it on Sunday,’ Dave said, even though he had no idea where we would be by the close of the weekend.

‘Can’t be done. Everton have booked Sunday for their parade.’ I said.

We all laughed, bitterly. Uefa had already indicated that Liverpool would not be allowed to defend the trophy because they finished outside the top four in the league. Everton finished fourth. The FA could have asked Uefa to include Liverpool in the next Champions League as winners and relegate Everton to the Uefa Cup but that was never going to happen.

In a similar situation in 2000, the Spanish FA simply told the fourth-placed team that it was unthinkable for the winners not to defend the trophy. Real Madrid went in and Real Zaragoza had to be disappointed.

Spain, however, does not have the shadow of Heysel lingering. Had any other team finished fourth, we suspected that the FA would have put Liverpool forward. So we mocked Everton, creating an imaginary open-top bus ride where they celebrated finishing fourth by holding up four fingers. Winning a trophy – even the most important one in Europe – is a much less impressive event in their eyes.

No time for losers? Well that’s not quite true. The way it looked was that Uefa and the FA had no time for winners.

There is a crazy logic at work in football, where the game is not about winning. Managers start the season by claiming that it is a success to merely avoid relegation, to be below average. What sort of business would tell its customers that the product they are buying is not competing with the best in the market and that the most they can hope for is something barely adequate?

What sort of business tells its customers not to expect glory but pray for survival? And then pays small fortunes to the players whose only hope is to finish above the bottom three teams in a division of 20. Some brands they are developing.

When managers complain that their supporters have expectations that are too high for thinking their teams – built at a cost of millions of pounds – could finish in the top eight of a division, they are bringing the game into disrepute. When they field weakened teams in the FA and League Cups, claiming all that matters is Premiership survival, they should be sacked.

Not every club can have the assets of Chelsea but the art of management is to use limited resources to achieve. Sport is about scaling heights, chasing glory and lifting the soul, not encouraging and rewarding mediocrity. When it stops being about glory, it starts to die.

Attendances in football are beginning to slip for the first time in more than a decade and little wonder. When a manager starts the season by saying that he will be happy with 40 points, what incentive is there to get excited about football matches?

It does not matter whether it is feasible or not, but a fan wants to start the season believing that there is an outside chance of snatching glory. A cup run, perhaps, or an unlikely tilt at promotion.

To have a manager say, up front, that he is not good enough, his players are not good enough, should be grounds for dismissal.

But the reality is that the game rakes in so much money that it can be more comfortable to sit back, do the bare minimum and count the piles of cash. The cost of success – higher expectations from fans, higher wages for players – can be irksome and avoided by just muddling along. It is easier, and almost as profitable, to be average.

Football is an amazing business. A cynical owner can asset-strip a club on an annual basis and know that the customers will come back again next year, despite the treatment meted out to them. That is because fans do not see their relationship with the club as a commercial transaction. The team is woven into the supporter’s being; it is part of the supporter’s sense of self. And the clubs ruthlessly exploit this.

For Liverpool supporters brought up in the days of Shankly, it is even worse. The great man worked hard to create the bond between team and fans, to make the people on the terraces believe that the 11 men on the pitch were an embodiment of the supporter’s hopes and aspirations.

When a policeman kicked a scarf off the pitch during a celebration, Shankly upbraided him. ‘Don’t you know what this means,’ he said, conspicuously putting the scarf around his own neck.

Shankly’s political heritage was in the south Ayrshire coalfields and he brought it to a city ready for his message. He built a side based on socialist ethics, where teamwork was paramount. And he made the supporters feel that they were part of that team.

The cynic may say he was a con-man. To us he is football’s version of the holy spirit. The irony is that, with little to work with, he created a club that could easily be turned into a multimillion pound business and built a sense of loyalty among the fans that was ripe for abuse in a capitalist world.

To be fair, Liverpool supporters have been less abused in the money-obsessed world of the Premiership than most. Yet when Thai despots with appalling human-rights records attempt to buy the club, as happened less than a year before the triumph in Istanbul, it is a worrying portent for the future.

It’s hard to see who is carrying Shankly’s flame at Anfield.

Except us. The fans. And the people in power at the club don’t really want us.

* * *

Those who sneer at supporters for the way they still follow their team in the face of sometimes dreadful treatment miss one important fact: most fans know how they are being exploited. The clubs and their followers live in parallel universes. Each party takes what they want from the relationship and chooses to ignore the negative aspects of the exchange.

Ironically, the man on the terraces understands the hopes and expectations of the boardroom far more clearly than the money-men comprehend what drives the fan.

Much has changed between Heysel and Ataturk. In Brussels, the overwhelming majority of Liverpool fans had Scouse accents. In Istanbul, there were not only a variety of accents, but a babble of languages in the Liverpool sections. It is the same on the pitch.

In the 1980s, British and Irish players dominated. Now, who knows how many nationalities are on the team sheet?

Global appeal makes for global profits, but at what cost? In 2005, Manchester United supporters promised insurrection if Malcolm Glazer and his family took control over Old Trafford. While the

American tycoon hoovered up shares with borrowed money, those fans who had rushed with glee to buy into the club when it was listed on the stock market promised to resist. They didn’t. The irony of a group called Shareholders United objecting to a financial takeover no doubt made the pain of the anti-Glazer lobby more acute.

Liverpool supporters enjoyed their rivals’ discomfort in public and in private wondered what was so bad about the owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers American football team. Compared to Thaksin Shinawatra, the Prime Minister of Thailand, Glazer looked like prince charming.

When, at half-time in Istanbul, the Milan fans unfurled a banner proclaiming their support for United and their objections to the globalisation of football, it felt like they were adding insult to injury. Not only

were we 3-0 down, but the Italians were giving succour to our worst enemies. It sent me into a rage.

Before the year was out, Americans would be measuring up Anfield. ‘It’s a great brand,’ Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, said. But it is not a brand. It is not a consumer product.

The elements of love, belief and loyalty that make football clubs transcend the mere commercial and elevate the game’s significance militate against it being a brand. Sever the link, the emotional ties, and the clubs will become a brand, another facet of pop culture to be taken up and dropped as fashion dictates.

The profiteers do not see this. They see only the short-term bottom line.

The irony is that so many of the football clubs that churn out profits and operate without recourse to anything other than financial reward grew out of Church teams. How did Liverpool and Everton, those rival siblings, end up trying to build empires in the Far East after developing from the single spilt embryo that was St Domingo’s church team? What would the Wesleyans who came together to form Aston Villa think of the club today as run by ‘Deadly’ Doug Ellis?

The only thing that seems to have been retained from the early days of the game is the quasi-religious significance that supporters attach to the teams. ‘It’s like a religion for these people,’ is often said, with a sneer, by those who fancy themselves above such vulgar matters as football. Yet that is exactly where many of the clubs come from.

Even when the church was not a component, the game grew from community and comradeship. The workers at the Newton Heath branch of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway formed a side for the sheer pleasure of playing sport with colleagues. The club they created would become that most profit-minded of institutions, Manchester United.

Churches and workers’ associations, spirituality and socialism, would have appealed to Shankly. Thai politicians, American capitalists and Russian oligarchs have very different priorities when assessing the potential for profit.

The game has been globalised and it is an uncomfortable feeling for those for whom the local connection has traditionally been one of the significant factors in support.

To fans from outside the city, singing of ‘poor Scouser Tommies’ and declaring ‘I was born to be Scouse’ may seem like an attempt to keep them on the outside and maintain some sort of proprietorial exclusivity. But that would be missing the point.

The clubs grew out of churches and social groups and are institutions that have roots in the community where they were founded. Many of us believe that it remains important to recognise that pedigree while at the same time welcoming anyone from anywhere in the world who is committed enough to support the team.

As businesses, it is better for the clubs to shed any local baggage that restricts their audience. In my circle of friends, no one owns a replica shirt or buys memorabilia, except for their children. I suspect the club would rather replace us with people who buy kits every time they change and have a less jaundiced attitude to those in the boardroom.

‘I felt like the Mancs have felt for years,’ I said, explaining the few Scousers around me in the stadium by alluding to Manchester United’s massive support from outside their city.

‘We all want to be Barcelona,’ Dave said. ‘But even Barcelona don’t want to be Barcelona.’

Around the table in a small courtyard adjacent to the covered bazaar, everyone nodded.

It was true. The Catalan identity that turned the club into a cultural symbol limits their global appeal. They want bigger markets. Everybody wants bigger markets.

* * *

A number of years ago, I interviewed for the position of official Liverpool website editor. A rather camp young man asked me what I knew about the club as an opening gambit. ‘Where do you want me to start?’ I asked. ‘At the beginning?’

He reacted with horror. ‘No, no, no. We don’t want all that history stuff. Only the future matters.’

Like the guilty, marketing men hate the past. Only the old are interested in history and young is the demographic they’re looking for.

In football, it’s even more pronounced. Every season has to be bigger and better than the one before. Competitions can be rebranded every few years so that records can be broken in each newly-named, longstanding tournament without any reference to the overall picture.

So, the to flight of English football, the Premiership, only exists from 1992.Who cares about the 104 forgotten years of the Football League? Heritage and culture take too long to build so it’s better to grab the floating fan, milk them for all they’re worth before they move on and let the next generation of punters ‘grow’ themselves, because looking beyond your nose is almost as bad as looking backwards.

The game has moved from having deep-seated psychological connections with the community in which the club is based, to a pop industry where a new and different design of shirt can create a generation of fans or, better still, a good-looking superstar can put 10,000 on the gate and millions in the merchandising coffers.

But, when David Beckham went from Manchester United to Real Madrid, how many of the popettes went with him? Love and loyalty, the driving forces of the traditional supporter, are not respected when it’s easier and more lucrative to chase the infatuated and the feckless.

When the name on the back of the shirt becomes more important than the badge on the front, the entire essence of team sport comes into question. Stevie Gerrard failed to understand that when he refused to share the cup after the game. He needs to be generous, even when he’s carrying the team.

This is not criticism of non-Scouse Liverpool fans, some of whom are far more motivated – obsessed, even – than people on Merseyside. Their energy and commitment to the cause is stunning and admirable.

It’s just that the club feels more comfortable with them, values them more – simply because they buy more – than the boys from the likes of the Flat Iron and the Yankee, whose flags, songs and legends are homemade.

* * *

The boys from the Flat Iron and the Yankee parted in Istanbul with rare hugs – physical contact usually only occurs briefly after goals have been scored. This momentous trip had joined the litany of shared experiences – good and bad – that bind us together. New friends are great, but there is something deeper, more satisfying, about being with people who have retained a mutual closeness over the decades. Football may even learn that lesson one day.

But that was it. You could spend a lifetime in Istanbul and never truly say you know the place, but one long afternoon as tourists was enough for us. We didn’t come for the sights and the city had little use for us now the game was over. Maybe one day we’d come back and see it properly.

It could never match these few days, though.

Back at the hotel, we packed for the journey. Clean clothes were no longer an option. We’d planned the trip up until kick-off. After that moment, life could take care of itself.

As we left, someone was still giving voice to Ring of Fire. ‘Easier to learn than Scouser Tommy,’ Dave said. He was right. But whenever we hear it from now on, it will recall Istanbul. It is a happy sound.

‘Enjoy that?’

Dave smirked. ‘There’d have to be something wrong with you not to come to this. Wait until I see the people who didn’t bother and watched on telly. The abuse they’ll get…’

We boarded the train and hung out of the window as we pulled away. One last look at Istanbul and then to our reeking beds.

God’s Scouse, we were feeling good and tonight, at least, there would be no nightmares.

Epilogue

OVER A RAPTUROUS SUMMER, Uefa relented, allowed Liverpool to defend their trophy and the future looked bright. But fate had one last trick to remind everyone that there are no happy endings.

The Champions League draw placed Anderlecht in the same group as the holders. This meant, that on October 19, 2005, Liverpool would be back in Brussels for the first time, 20 years on.

Liverpool won the game 1-0. There was no trouble.

And no official delegation from Liverpool Football Club made the two-mile detour to lay a wreath at the plaque for the dead of Heysel.

In memory of those who have never been given justice

Rocco Acerra, John Alfred Anderson, Colin Mark Ashcroft, James Gary Aspinall, Bruno Balli, Kester Roger Marcus Ball, Gerard Bernard Patrick Baron, Simon Bell, Barry Sidney Bennett, David John Benson, David William Birtle, Tony Bland, Alfons Bos, Paul David Brady, Andrew Mark Brookes, Carl Brown, David Steven Brown, Giancarlo Bruschera, Henry Thomas Burke, Peter Andrew Burkett, Andrea Casula, Giovanni Casula, Paul William Carlile, Nina Cerullo, Raymond Thomas Chapman, Willy Chielens, Gary Christopher Church, Joseph Clark, Paul Clark, Gary Collins, Giuseppina Conti, Stephen Paul Copoc, Tracey Elizabeth Cox, Dirk Daeninckx, James Philip Delaney, Andrew Devine,  Christopher Barry Devonside, Christopher Edwards, Dionisio Fabbro, Vincent Michael Fitzsimmons, Thomas Steven Fox, Jacques Francois, Eugenio Gagliano, Francesco Galli, Jon-Paul Gilhooley, Barry Glover, Ian Thomas Glover, Derrick George Godwin, Giancarlo Gonnelli, Alberto Guarini, Roy Harry Hamilton, Philip Hammond, Eric Hankin, Gary Harrison, Stephen Francis Harrison, Peter Andrew Harrison, David Hawley, James Robert Hennessy, Paul Anthony Hewitson, Carl Darren Hewitt, Nicholas Michael Hewitt, Sarah Louise Hicks, Victoria Jane Hicks, Gordon Rodney Horn, Arthur Horrocks, Thomas Howard, Thomas Anthony Howard, Eric George Hughes, Alan Johnston, Christine Anne Jones, Gary Philip Jones, Richard Jones, Nicholas Peter Joynes, Anthony Peter Kelly, Michael David Kelly, Giovacchino Landini, Carl David Lewis, Roberto Lorentini, Barbara Lusci, Franco Martelli, Loris Messore, Gianni Mastroiaco, David William Mather, Brian Christopher Mathews, Sergio Mazzino, Francis Joseph McAllister, John McBrien, Marion Hazel McCabe, Joseph Daniel McCarthy, Peter McDonnell, Alan McGlone, Keith McGrath, Paul Brian Murray, Lee Nicol, Stephen Francis O’Neill, Jonathon Owens, Luciano Papaluca, William Roy Pemberton, Luigi Pidone, Benito Pistolato, Patrick Radcliffe, Domenico Ragazzi, Antonio Ragnanese, Carl William Rimmer, David George Rimmer, Claude Robert, Graham John Roberts, Steven Joseph Robinson, Henry Charles Rogers, Mario Ronchi, Domenico Russo, Tarcisio Salvi, Gianfranco Sarto, Colin Andrew Hugh William Sefton, Inger Shah, Paula Ann Smith, Mario Spanu, Adam Edward Spearritt, Giuseppe Spolaore, Philip John Steele, David Leonard Thomas, Patrik John Thompson, Peter Reuben Thompson, Stuart Paul William Thompson, Peter Francis Tootle, Christopher James Traynor, Martin Kevin Traynor, Kevin Tyrrell, Tarcisio Venturin, Colin Wafer, Jean-Michel Walla, Ian David Whelan, Martin Kenneth Wild, Kevin Daniel Williams, Graham John Wright, Claudio Zavaroni

Order Far Foreign Land here: Cost £10 UK, £15 Europe, £18 Rest Of World. All including postage

For those interested in the culture of Merseyside, try my non-football novel. Good Guys Lost, an epic of Liverpool life set from the 1960s to the 2010s