I wasn’t meant to make it for a variety of reasons – my impatient birth, incredibly tiny size, and complications left me hanging on a little bit – but thankfully, I did. Unfortunately, I was also lumbered with this pesky thing called cerebral palsy that would follow me around for the rest of my life. It never stopped me doing much, mind you – whether in a frame, on sticks, or on air, I would stand in our pub carpark (The Halsall Arms, in Halsall – it’s not there any more. Some say it never was) imitating Robbie Fowler, my childhood hero, time and time and time again. Sadly, kid me got to love watching the Reds, but never got to see them win trophies. That just wasn’t a thing for the Spice Boys. Failures in finals? Losing to Coventry every year? That was more our thing.

Thankfully, once I got a little older, we found ways to win – wins at the Millennium Stadium and Dortmund, among others, stick in my memory to this day. Then, of course, there was something I never thought I’d see, us winning the European Cup. Istanbul. Rafa. What a man. To this day I’d defend him – he was the first manager who actually felt like he would give me something to shout back at the glory-hunting United supporting knobheads at my school, by now in a tiny village called Euxton, in Lancashire. Suffice it to say, then, that I’ve supported Liverpool my entire life, good, bad, and Hodgson.

It wasn’t just a long-distance relationship, either – I got to go, sometimes. I’ll never forget the first time I went. My dad first took me to Anfield when I was 8 years old, and the crowd sang You’ll Never Walk Alone, and we both had our scarves in the air. I turned to look at him as we sang, and I saw him cry. It was the first time I’d seen him cry.

As a kid, I had no idea why he was so emotional. The following years would teach me why. For one thing, I don’t know if he ever expected to have football with me. Like I said, I wasn’t far from not making it to football age, let alone thinking that I would ever be mobile enough to navigate the steps and seats at Anfield. But it was more than that, Football leads you through emotions, good and bad, high and low, just like life. You remember the moments you spend watching it – being attacked by him in our living room in 2005, after the greatest comeback we’d ever seen, to win our first MAJOR trophy of my lifetime. All the big European wins. All the trophies. The devastation of 2014, and a million things inbetween.

I get it now. I really do. I spent my entire life being taught by this club that anything was possible, that you could follow your dreams, that you could be up against it and no matter what, you still had a chance. That was me. I was lucky enough to get myself fit and well enough to be independent – to pursue a comedy career, to travel to places I always dreamed of, and to even touch the top of a mountain I never thought I’d reach. Living alone. Imagine that, for a disabled kid who’s forever been called ‘cripple’ or ‘spaz’ or whatever. I was about to try doing something that I honestly never thought was possible. Better yet, I knew exactly where I wanted to be.

You’d think it would be Liverpool, wouldn’t you? Alas, no – my friends, my life, my narrative, my ambitions, they all took me to the opposite place – Manchester. I’m still there now, although I’m not sure I could honestly tell you what drew me here, and the reasons to stay dwindle by the day. But we’ll come back to that. I moved here in 2018, and by now, Liverpool had just come off a heartbreaking loss in the Champions League final, to a Lorius Karius inspired Real Madrid. No matter, though, as we were led by a different man now – Jurgen Klopp.

I think it’s impossible to state just how much Jurgen Klopp ‘gets’ Liverpool Football Club. You sit there and you see it in front of you, and the only thing that ever strikes you is how the man looked born to be there. Born to manage Liverpool. Born to be one of us, because he just understood how things worked. What Liverpool fans want, demand, and believe in. From the second he came in, it felt like he should’ve been there all his life, and in a strange way, that mirrored my own life, too. I was happy, healthy, and living alone and thriving. Disabled people don’t always have the happiest of lives. I was never the cheeriest person, I didn’t have the teenage, university years of memories that some people do – it took me a long time to find my independence. I felt like I didn’t really live my life until my mid-20s. That coincided with this run under Jurgen, and as such, I can honestly say that the 18 months between my initial move to Manchester in September 2018, to the inevitable COVID lockdown in March 2020, were probably the best of my life.

I was young, free, having fun, and I had kindred spirits in two of my still best friends in Patrick and Hugh, and had more fun watching football than ever. That run may have been the wildest of them all – first, the ridiculousness of the 2019 Champions League – in the midst, managing to go mental with people I never knew in Germany as Origi outduelled Messi – I’ll tell that story more fully one day, but it was the best night of them all. We somehow just missed out on the league by a point, but the season ended on the night of the final, and no matter what came of life, no matter where we had to go to see the game, I had my arms round my dad, singing You’ll Never Walk Alone, again. For those moments, Divock Origi will live forever, just as Alan Kennedy or David Fairclough or someone of that ilk did to my dad.

That crushing machine in 2020 should’ve ensured more lovely memories, but sadly, bigger things intervened when it came to the league. COVID and an incompetent government ensured I couldn’t have my arms around him or sing YNWA. I watched it on my own, in my flat, bored, lonely, and sad, but thankfully, the reds made sure that it was still our moment. Fair play to him, no matter the distance, he always messaged, texting as soon as the whistle went and saying ‘I was beginning to think I’d never see us win it again’. I know what he meant. He was 32, not too far from my age then, when we last won the league. I doubt he ever thought it would happen for both of us. But… it did. On top of the world, looking down on creation. So this is a happy story, right?

Wrong. Bump. It wasn’t long after we won the league, actually, that things started to go awry. A combination of lockdown, personal life difficulties, and the fact that the team looked utterly shagged out, left me feeling thoroughly miserable for most of the next year. I don’t want to overstate football’s importance to me – it is just a game, as all sports are – but when every single one of your sports teams shits the bed in the same season, and that season sees you locked inside and not seeing your mates (those who hadn’t moved after deciding city life wasn’t for them), and you’re predisposed to misery anyway, it tends to get you down. Even now, in the first embers of 2024, I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever fully recovered from the affects of almost 3 years locked down.

In that time, we lost my Grandad, my dad’s dad, a football lover and wonderful man, who spent most of his time when I was younger indulging my passion for football – somehow finding the paper to tear up, fold, and put into your old football trophies, and sitting there watching me do stupid cup-draws out of them when I was a kid – to then watch me play the ties against myself! ‘Nottingham Forest…will play…’ – to this day, a cup draw makes me smile. In fact, any time to this day someone references CeeFax or I hear the Grandstand tune, I think of Saturdays I used to stay with him sometimes and watching the scores update and come in. I don’t think I’ve ever loved football as much as I did in those early 5-10 years, apart from under Klopp and I’m pretty sure it was down to things like that. Simpler stuff. So anyway, life was going awry, and with it, so were the reds. We all endured 2020/21, not least Klopp himself.

After so long away, I wasn’t watching games with people any more. Most games were just me, in my flat, on my own. I’d go out the odd time, but it was only occasionally. I barely saw my dad, and that was fine – we weren’t interested in infecting each other, and the games were hardly worth it anyway. Then, in 21/22, something really did change. We were good again. Propelled along by Dua Lipa and good thoughts, we almost did the impossible and came away with everything. I had a hell of a time watching us do it, first with my amazing friend Louise for the Carabao Cup final (she practically dragged me out, and it was the first game I’d watched in a pub in about 2 years), but not least in the FA Cup final, where my shouts of ‘WHEY FUCK OFF MOUNT YOU TORY CUNT’ probably still reverberate around The Footage. That was, now we could do it again, with Dad again, arm in arm, pissed, and happy. I was so happy after that final that I actually watched Eurovision for the first time in my life. I enjoyed it, too. Is this what being in a major city of culture does to you?

Sadly, we couldn’t make it stick, and following the loss to Madrid, my life went into a bit of a tailspin. I don’t need to get into it here, but a complicated personal life, crap professional life, and the numbing greyness of everything that life had become left me feeling about as bad as I ever had. The team also took their cue from me, being mostly irredeemably crap for that season. Still, the season ended, and despite some wonderful moments in my personal life, I was still pretty miserable. Come August, and I’m cutting out a lot here as the piece is long enough, but eventually, one Sunday night/Monday morning, I had to pick up the phone and admit the truth. I was depressed. It might be hard for you to understand why that was such a big thing for me, but as an already avowed Northerner, suffice it to say that people of my ilk aren’t really the first to admit to mental health problems. In Northern working-class families, the women show their emotions, the men show their arses (future teatowel). So it was quite hard for me to pick up the phone and record to my Dad that I was so depressed that I rarely, if ever, wanted to see the next day, and I think it was equally hard for him to hear.

He dealt with that by reinstating the best bond we had. Liverpool Football Club. Not a week later, we go down to the pub, starting a new tradition, to watch us play the new stinking face of sportswashing, Newcastle United. I was pretty vulnerable that day, and my mood wasn’t especially helped by the early sending-off and general ineptitude of the referees. Then, like a bolt of lightning, someone reminded me what football was all about.

Him! Possibly the face of Klopp 2.0. But also the face of what football is to me and was to me. Win, lose, draw in my own life, there was always them. The last 5 or 6 years, since I moved to the enemy territory, have been up and down, triumph and disaster, love and heartbreak, but I was saved by one thing. The fun of supporting Liverpool. Full of drama, and unforgettable moments, delivered on a season-by-season basis. There was that song. There were the tears when I remembered Grandad, or linked arms with my Dad to celebrate another trophy. There was reasons to live. There were reasons to believe. There were happy moments, sad moments, and everything in between. Maybe some people don’t ‘get’ football, or understand why it inspires such devotion, but that’s why. It can be a microcosm of life. It can lift your day or ruin it.

But it’s always there for you, and there was always Liverpool Football Club. There was always the games, there were always the drinks, there was always the song. Sitting here in 2024, I’m a better man now than I’ve ever been, with memories that will last forever, and more than most, at the heart of it all, was always Jurgen Klopp. Now he’s leaving, so I don’t know what happens next, for Liverpool Football Club, or for me. I’m sure it will be fine. If life’s taught me anything for the last 2 years, it’s that everything eventually will be at least tolerable. I don’t support Klopp Football Club, after all, but he understood it more than most of us ever will, and it’s hard not to feel like it will never quite feel just as fun, just as sweet, just as freeing, again. Still, we’ve got 4 more months of drinks with my Dad to enjoy. With any luck, we might lift a few more trophies and get to sing that song all over again.

Thank you for everything, Jurgen. You made the world a better place for me and everyone else for a while. YNWA. x

Thank fucking god for no Martin Tyler on our screens any more at least, eh? Right then, let’s get started.

1st – Man City

Ho fucking hum. A combination of billions of pounds spent, plus the little goblin they’ve got up front, probably means another processional season of title winning for the boys from the Kippax (I’m guessing 90% of their fans now don’t even know what that is). A quality side, but completely fucking soulless and dull, and their march to the title, again, should prompt calls of how predictable the league is becoming, but almost certainly won’t. With the Champions League monkey now off Guardiola’s back as well (and a fairytale, if you believe BT Sport/TNT/whatever the fuck they’re called now), who knows what they might do.

2nd – Liverpool

Possibly hubris and optimism by me, given my noted Liverpool fandom, but I’m feeling pretty good about this season, even as we continue our childish playground fight with Chelsea over Moises Caicedo. With some deadwood off the books, and two quality signings in Szoboszlai and MacAllister made, hopefully we can finally get back to partying like it’s 2019. Outside bet? Darwin Nunez to become the new Divock Origi. The man with the incredibly inflating transfer fee (I was told yesterday we signed him for 90m!) is due to break out, and I think the Kop will take him into their hearts. I’m also looking forward to seeing Cody Gakpo continue to develop into the new Roberto Firmino, which probably means Jamie ‘Gobshite’ Carragher will be back to criticising him by midseason.

3rd – Arsenal

After spending more than a government department, I think Arsenal would actually be quite disappointed if this prediction came true. Nonetheless, despite some decent additions in Timber and Rice, I’m still sceptical of Arsenal being able to mentally maintain their momentum from what was a great effort last season. Both their and their manager’s mental fragility started to rear it’s head towards the end of the season, and I’m predicting something similar here. To improve on my prediction, they must improve in the bigger games, but it might be a year too early for that. Nonetheless, congrats to them for finally getting back to where Wenger had them before they hounded him out.

4th – Newcastle

I think I’m the only one who thinks they can do it again, but they almost fell in here by default, mostly due to their previous success in this area. Couple that with the basket cases behind them, and I think when all’s said and done, they’ll find themselves back here. I hear the concerns about the lack of transfer activity (dodgy sales notwithstanding), but I do believe their squad, without injuries, will hold up enough to do it all again.

5th – Manchester United

Yes, I’m talking about Manchester United. Manchester United! Manchester United Football Club! Having got themselves back into the top 4 at the expense of a flatlining Liverpool and Chelsea, this summer would have been a great point for them to have built on their prior success. Of course, after months of breathless takeover speculation and innuendo, the Glazers (not Glaziers, mancs, they don’t have anything to do with windows) remain in power, and the spending remains…well, odd. I’m struggling to see how Mason Mount (a player who shows up on camera but not in the statistics), Andre Onana (a worse De Gea but better on the ball), and a complete unknown in Hojlund actually make them net better than last season. Couple that with still not having a Casemiro rotator/replacement and I forsee a disappointing year.

6th – Chelsea

Football’s answer to the Harlem Globetrotters, if every player played the same position. I remain unconvinced by Chelsea, and their summer business. It all, to me, feels like someone gone mad with a credit card under the influence of alcohol – a bunch of disjointed signings with no real logic behind them. Most of the optimism for Chelsea’s season seems to be around the almighty ‘Poch’ somehow assembling chicken salad out of this particular brand of chicken shit, but I remain sceptical of his ability to do so, and his influence on the club hierarchy, who largely seem to be playing fantasy football sponsored by Clearlake. They can’t possibly be as bad as last season, not least because Pochettino at least looks vaguely capable of managing a football club, something not even his family could say about Frank Lampard. Still, a lack of proven goals up top and a strange unbalance at the back will, I think, cause them to fall short of their ambition.

7th – Aston Villa

It’s really hard to accurately predict Aston Villa, largely because I can’t quite work if Unai Emery is a genius or an idiot. I’m leaning towards ‘genius’ following his work with Villareal and how he managed to turn Aston Villa around following the nuclear crater that was Steven Gerrard’s reign. I’m impressed with the canny summer signings of Pau Torres and Youri Tielemans, and I’m intrigued to see what Moussa Diaby brings to the table. Hopefully he hits the ground running faster than Leon Bailey did, as I think a quick gelling of this squad, plus further development from players like Jacob Ramsey and Ollie Watkins, could see them mixing it up in the European places.

8th – Brighton

I’m backing Brighton to hold pretty much exactly where they now seem to have taken residence in the Premier League. I love the summer business to bring in Milner and Dahoud, two experienced heads who fit well into the Brighton style of football. Joao Pedro feels like a big risk to me, but if he can bring the part of Brighton’s play that’s been missing (regular goals!) then he could well prove to be the spark that bridges Brighton’s chasm between the edge of Europe and perennial European contenders. The losses of Macallister and Caicedo will hurt, but if there’s a team you’d trust to replace them adequately, it’d probably be Brighton. With De Zerbi, it certainly isn’t going to be dull, either.

9th – Spurs

Life without Kane begins, and in all honesty, it probably won’t be that much different. This is a hard prediction to make for multiple reasons:

– Where will the Kane money go? (Hopefully not Joe Lewis’s back pocket as he fights insider trading charges)

– Is Ange really the messiah?

If I was looking at this at the end of the transfer window, when I’ve got some idea what Spurs are up to in the market and have a few games to see if Ange’s ‘charge of the light brigade’ style might actually cause some damage in the Premier League, I’d probably move them up or down as appropriate, but as it is, as I write with an hour til the season kicks off, I’ll put them in this middling position and see what happens.

10th – West Ham

Ah, purgatory. I’m not super confident in this prediction given the talk of friction between Moyes and his sporting director, to say nothing of the slow transfer activity, but somehow, this is a team that always rises above all kinds of shite going on. I’m sure Moyes will be on his ‘final warning’ about 60 times, but I think they’ve just enough about them to keep their heads above water. What might sink them is the extra games in Europe, but there’s no guarantee they’ll stay there long enough for it to affect anything.

11th – Wolves

I’d actually finalised this before Lopetegui upped and left. I like Wolves’s squad, although their FFP troubles have undoubtedly crippled further expansion and improvement of it. I thought Lopetegui did an excellent job last year of turning their form around and giving them a defined style of play that had been utterly missing since Nuno’s departure. Unfortunately, he’s gone now, and this task falls to Gary O’Neil. While he did a decent job at Bournemouth, the underlying numbers weren’t great, and whether this prediction stands or falls will depend on how he can get them playing.

12th – Brentford

With hindsight, is this too low? I’m inclined to stick with it, although I love their style of play, recruitment, and Thomas Frank as a coach (why a larger club isn’t in for him, I’m not at all sure). The loss of Ivan Toney will have a major impact in my opinion, and while they’ve often pulled off recruiting miracles, replacing that many goals at that consistency would have the feel of a tall order. I think they tail off a bit, but will fight their way to enough results to stay out of trouble.

13th – Crystal Palace

Meh. Roy Hodgson. Ray Lewington. Crystal Palace. As John Peel said about The Fall, ‘they are always different, and they are always the same’. Perfectly fine and safe, a stable PL club, but about as exciting as a muesli addiction.

14th – Fulham

Another one I have tailing off, mostly down to a combination of second-season syndrome and poor recruitment (trying to draw the last juice out of Raul Jimenez feels like a fools errand, although Calvin Bassey has pretty good talent, even if he is somewhat limited), as well as a couple of injuries. I really enjoyed watching Fulham last season, and they were a genuine surprise package in the league, which is never a negative, but I predict a slight drop off this year – a drop off that could get larger if Marco Silva is either tempted away or forced out.

15th – Bournemouth

This is a rocky one for me – replacing O’Neil, limitations or otherwise, with Iraola feels like a risk, and possibly too big of one at that. There’ll be an adaptation period while they acclimatise to his style, and hopefully they’re not in deep trouble by the time it clicks. There has been some exciting recruitment too, with the likes of Kluivert, Aarons, and Alex Scott heading to the Cherries, but it feels like a lot of moving parts for a team that likely needs points on the board early. That said, I like any team that wants to play good football in an increasingly ‘results-at-all-costs’ league.

16th – Nottingham Forest

Currently 2-0 down to Arsenal as I type, I’ve got Forest having another season-long struggle with the drop, but I do think there’s enough quality to get out, or more likely, just three or four worse teams than them. I hope Steve Cooper keeps the job there and continues to develop them and keep them away from trouble – it’s nice to have a football club with genuine history in the Premier League, especially in the era of sportswashing.

17th – Burnley

Another team playing good football, who were badly done to by the scoreline last night against Man City. I’m not sure they have the quality to be definitively and completely safe, but when it comes down to it, I think they’ll do enough. I look forward to watching them play and hope for Kompany’s development as a manager to continue. This is probably the first time ever that Burnley have players who could actually be asked the question as to whether they can indeed ‘do it on a wet Wednesday night in Burnley’, and it might just be those games against their fellow strugglers that determine where they finish up.

18th – Everton

This just has a whiff of Southampton about it – long-term decay, mixed with not much transfer activity after just avoiding relegation, coupled with a manager who may not be there long term…look, ultimately Everton have been the Premier League’s ultimate survivors over the last few years, but eventually, as with Coventry, West Brom, Portsmouth, Southampton et al, your luck runs out. Barring Dyche finding some talent and goals that didn’t seem to exist last season, I think they’re in dire straights.

19th – Sheff Utd

Given their off pitch shenanigans, it’s honestly a miracle they’re even here. They’ll have some good days and it’ll be a great experience, but they don’t have and can’t recruit the quality needed to stay up in my opinion.

20th – Luton

It’s an amazing story, but it’s not going to get much bigger. Luton are hamstrung by their size as a club and lack of ability to generate revenue. Their best bet is to chip some points off some established Premier League sides, have some fun, and invest the money they receive for doing so wisely. There’s a real opportunity to build something long-lasting here, and after a great effort to get this far, I hope they take full advantage of it.

All that remains to say is good luck, fare thee well, and ignore this post from about November onwards.

Until next time. x

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