Liverpool Football Fanatic

I am a Liverpool Football Fanatic.

I love the club. I have supported it since the Dalglish days in the 80s. My late father who went to study at Kirkby Teacher's Training College in the early 60s supported Everton, but he did not influence his children on their choice of teams.

Like many Malaysians, we followed the English leagues avidly since the 70s.

My two brothers had a lot of those Match magazines around, and I decided to read them too. In the 70s, I watched a lot of Leeds United game on Malaysian television, but in the 80s, Kenny Dalglish, Peter Beardsley, Alan Hansen, John Barnes were right up there as the best footballers in the English leagues. One of my brothers and I decided then to follow Liverpool FC. And the youngest brother decided on Arsenal because he liked the name and he wanted to rile us up. Well, Liam Brady was the Arsenal star at that time when he was growing up.

Currently, Liverpool is making waves again. They topped their group in the UEFA Champions League campaign beating Chelsea to head the group. They had not lost in the last 14 CL matches so far. Is it possible for them to win it again the 6th time in Paris next year? They would need to beat many top teams in Europe again to do so.

I remembered going to Anfield to two of last season's matches last year, one against Deportivo La Coruna and the other against Bayer Leverkeusen. It was tough for them to qualify to the knock out round, and they had to get in a last minute goal by Steven Gerrard to beat Olympiakos to get through the group stages. And now they had managed to get through the group stages relatively easy and topping it above Chelsea as well.

I never thought Liverpool was going to be champions last May. But they did. And what a final that was against AC Milan. 3-0 down and they managed to win finally with 4-3 on penalties. It was an amazing night. I called my brother in Malaysia, at that time it was 4 am in Malaysia, and he said he cried. I cried too. Liverpool's two Malaysian fans crying their heart out for their favourite team in a telephone conversation 5,000 miles apart.

I took my mother and my brother and his family to visit Anfield last year in August. (Picture above shows my nephew and I sitting on the bench in front of Alonso and Garcia's shirts in the player's changing room.) I think my brother and I was going on a "pilgrimage" to the football stadium and ground. We were so happy and we were absorbing everything. Yes, they do say that football is like a religion, and when you read comments and opinions in the football club's websites, you would think so, definitely.

(See liverpoolfc.tv) (See redandwhitekop.com)

Liverpool is starting to really work as a team, and they could provide a serious challenge to Chelsea even in the Premiership league. Well, we shall see. YNWA.