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Liverpool Red Diary 23

by Joel Rookwood

What's going on? Twelve whole days without a Liverpool game, it's bloody ridiculous. What else are we supposed to fill a dozen days in February with, Rugby? Cricket? Shopping? No chance. And while we partly have ourselves to blame, with our premature FA Cup exit denying us a weekend fixture, the England friendly against Australia didn't exactly help. But before I drive myself into a fit of anger, bemoaning international football, the notion of 'friendlies' and Gary Neville, in conjunction with the advice of my physician, I'm going to cut short such lamenting. But I did watch the game, and wasn't exactly devastated with the outcome. Bloody England.

Anyroad, with no fixtures over the weekend I had a complete rest from football, except for playing for a friend's team on Saturday, but that doesn't really count. And before all you shrinks out there start diagnosing me with having a nasty case of absenteeism, at least I didn't trek down to some obscure venue to see a game I didn't care about between two teams I'd barely heard of, to compensate for the lack of local football - for once. But I was set to make up for my football deficiency, with the events of the following football-immersed week only summed up aptly (and unashamedly proudly so) with the use of a single word – 'legendary.'

The epic journey began early on Tuesday morning, with a flight to Belfast with the rest of the Liverpool FC community coaching staff for a three-day coaching and playing event in Omagh. The trip was part of the commemoration of the Omagh bombing disaster five years earlier, with the ethos of the visit being to 'build bridges through football'. Members of Warrington's 'Children for Peace Centre', and a trophy or three accompanied the twenty-one members of staff for the visit to the Irish town.

On the coach from Belfast to Omagh, we started as we meant to go on, singing Beatles music with the boss, Bill Bygroves leading the way with his guitar. Then after a more sombre visit to the site of the bombing, we did a coaching session with local school children, many of which thoughtfully showed up dressed head to toe in Man United gear. After the coaching session prizes were dished out before the kids got the chance to have their photo taken with 'the treble', which is practically a coined phrase on Merseyside since the club won three trophies in 2001. It seems the older generation, consisting mainly of parents and teachers were just as excited to get their hands on the three trophies, and I couldn't resist getting a flag out for the occasion to have a photo taken with the coaches and the cups. Some people never grow up.

That evening a Liverpool select XI played an Omagh Town XI at the Julian's Road ground. I 'played' on the left of midfield, and whilst all of the team had been at a professional club as schoolboys, some of us unfortunately looked like they hadn't played since. We put a decent team out, but some of the weaker links were exposed in a game played at a frightening pace against a fit Omagh side. I lasted as long as I could, which was about seventy minutes before crawling off. What can I say, while most of the Liverpool side play the game, I go the game, and it showed. We conceded a late goal, which unfortunately meant we failed to hold out for a deserved 3-3 draw. But despite the fact we lost, playing in a ground that wouldn't qualify for some Sunday league teams, on a pitch which would have been deemed unfit for some mud-wrestling contests, I was just happy to represent the team I've supported all my life, and wear the number ten shirt, that worn by my boyhood hero, John Barnes. As it turned out it was fitting for me to wear that shirt, as I was about as mobile as Barnes was in his latter days at the club.

After the game we met with the Omagh players and staff, and the Scouse contingent then proceeded to sing and drink the night away, an evening interspersed with welcomes and thankyou's from officials from both the Irish club and our own. A little before the clock struck four, I decided however it was time to leave the few colleagues still left standing, or sitting at least, in the hotel lounge and head for bed. Within two hours I was in the car on my way back to Belfast for the flight home. My trip unfortunately had to be cut short as Liverpool were playing in Auxerre the following day and our group had for some strange reason decided we were driving.

Unwisely we had decided we were to go by car regardless of how the cup draw transpired. Luckily UEFA's officials merely granted us a trip to central France. Thank God we weren't faced with a visit to Turkey. But this trip was to be comprehensive enough, so go and get yourself a pint of coffee, and brace yourselves, for this is to be an epic yarn.

After landing back in Liverpool, I headed for town, where the three other idiots injudicious enough to embark upon this journey were collected. We then set off for the south coast, arriving in Dover late that afternoon before catching the ferry to Calais. Disappointingly only three other Scousers joined us on the boat. The last time I had done this journey there were thousands of us, as we sang continuously en route to Dortmund for the UEFA Cup final. But the small attendance didn't prevent the unveiling of a flag, as the singing and drinking that started in the car that morning continued unremitting.

If the ethos of the Ireland trip was 'building bridges through football' then the slogan for the visit to Ireland was undoubtedly 'sleeping is cheating'. Whenever my eyes started to close I received a swift blow to the head (and rightly so) to remind me of my duties to remain awake, and with a drink in my hand at all times.

With this in mind we headed straight for Auxerre after clambering off the ferry, and arrived in the small French town in the early hours of Thursday morning. After a few shameful hours kip in a hotel on the outskirts of the town, we got up and headed to the town centre and began the ritual of familiarising ourselves with the local area. To our disgust the town seemed to contain no square, which is a vital part of any European trip. Basing ourselves in a square is always likely to make both the obligatory kick around and the displaying of flags a great deal easier, whilst also attracting wandering Scousers.

As it was we stumbled across a bar with reds hanging around with that ending up as our base for the day. The site was officially rendered so with the unveiling of my latest flag, seen only in Omagh and on the ferry en route to Auxerre. With opportunities to hang flags at a minimum in this cramped area, I took advantage of an ideally positioned van outside the bar. I climbed on top of the vehicle and tied the new edition to the roof rack. Others then followed suit and within half an hour twelve or so banners were displayed around the area, five of which were mine.

When the first pint reached my hand at 'Le Mazagran', the bar where we were based, the fact that I struggled to carry it with both hands should have served as a warning sign for the afternoon ahead. It certainly wasn't a pint glass, well not a single one anyway. It seemed closer to a gallon. Some fans came out of the bar to the tables outside with what were virtually wine glasses complimented with a dash of Belgian lager. After the abuse we dished out, these poor lads made sure they only made that mistake once. So before long we had the entire population of the bar, or the Scouse contingent at least queuing to drink their ale out of these monstrous vases. Unfortunately some one forgot to remind me to eat, as the 'sleeping's cheating' rule extended to 'eating's cheating'. Add this to the pack of ciggies I uncharacteristically smoked that afternoon and it doesn't make for good reading.

As on every trip, people I've no memory of meeting came up to me fairly certain that they had made my acquaintance, eager to share stories of the trip so far. When travelling away with Liverpool I've spent hours in the company of lads I've apparently met at the match, though in all honesty I simply have no recollection of. I'll have to try the next trip sober, or less drunk at least. This is particularly relevant as my recollections of the events of the hours that followed are scanty, to say the least. I think I'd finally overstepped the barrier. For even though I'd drank far more on previous trips, in Moscow in particular I put away at least twice the amount of ale as I did last Thursday, I wasn't in a particularly healthy state that evening.

My decaying condition got no better, after I was apparently conceded to be a legend by the locals, who insisted on buying me drinks after seeing me as some form of entertainment. Then disaster struck when someone came in and informed me that the owner of the van with one of my banners attached to had driven off, with my flag still draping from its roof rack. I knew, as did those around me that I must have been bladdered when my reaction to the loss was of one of virtual indifference. However whilst a lot of hard work had gone into that masterpiece, every flag has its life span, and if it had to end anywhere, I suppose it was fitting that it was on its first outing, and in such humorous circumstances.

As for the rest of the flags, I must admit I've got no idea how we got them down and travelled the short distance to the ground, but I do remember watching the entire game in the Auxerre end of the ground, which is a little mystifying considering that my ticket was for the away section. If memory serves correctly, and there are certainly no guarantees that it does, I was close to the Liverpool fans, unlike one member of our group who was in their Kop, watching French lunatics throwing each other around, with the odd nutter standing out from the crowd leading the singing with a megaphone.

I joined in the singing with the nearby Liverpool fans and enjoyed some light banter with the home supporters. I sang in support of Liverpool, and clapped the apparently amusing French replies to my inebriated chanting. I'm sure they were less then generous in their comments but I was in no mood to take anything seriously. Anyway there were two of us, and ten thousand of them. And we're no gladiators, sober or otherwise.

Now all you really want from a European adventure is a good laugh, a good result and a few stories, and I think this one contained the lot in abundance. The game itself wasn't a classic, but we won and now have a great chance of going through to the next round. The rested Cisse, a target of Liverpool's last season, did not play. He will have something to say in the return leg at Anfield, as the French side attempt to stage an upset. In Auxerre, Hyypia grabbed the game's only goal, with the defence, particularly keeper Dudek, in inspired form. If you're looking for a more detailed match report however, then I'm sorry but you're asking the wrong person. I'm ashamed to say that the preceding two lines are the extent of my knowledge of the events that occurred on the pitch that evening.

The fact that I even got into the stadium is a miracle in itself. But how I managed to watch the whole game without being ejected from the ground is beyond a joke. In England, if I had have been in that state on a match day, the police wouldn't even have let me leave the house. After the game I was set to suffer for my antics when all the contents of my stomach, which was ingested about a week earlier repeated on me. It wasn't pretty, especially given that I was in white tracksuit. Well, a tracksuit formerly known as white.

All this disgraceful behaviour unfortunately meant I missed out on the most legendary event on the trip. One member of the group, the lad unfortunate enough to find his way into the French end, jumped over a fence after the final whistle, passed a line or two of officials and, after speaking briefly to Houllier and getting his programme autographed whilst he was being interviewed by French television, went into Liverpool's dressing room to congratulate the players. Needless to say it wasn't long before he was invited to vacate the room. But who cares, for he had met the players, and in the dressing room. So when I was emptying the contests of my insides, my good friend was in the changing room with the players. And as if to compound the agony, he apparently tried to persuade me to join him on his mission, bit I was in no fit state to even reply. If ever there was an advert for not drinking at football games…

So the night for me was pretty much over, whilst the other lads continued to celebrate the win through the night. The next day however, I was to make up for it.. to a certain extent at least.

We vacated our hotel by midday and headed for the ground, as I wanted to have some memories of the arena. Having got onto Anderlecht's pitch in Brussels on the way home from the disastrous game in Basle last year, our group seem to have it in our minds that every ground we visit must contain a personal pitch inspection. As we arrived back at AJA Auxerre's ground, we were delighted to find access to the arena was particularly trouble free. No gates needed to be climbed, no officials paid off, no tour group joined. We were pretty much free to waltz into the ground, pick up various souvenirs such as programmes, flags and ticket stubs, and spend a good half an hour taking penalties on the pitch. The door that our friend had disappeared down after the previous night's game was unfortunately locked shut, but we enjoyed his recount of the story at the location in which it occurred nevertheless.

A good half hour after entering the ground, as we were heading for the exit a club official asked us to leave, and I think he was a little taken aback by how readily we obliged, obviously unaware that we had spent the last half hour in the arena. We took one last look at the ridiculous pitch, which had been laid the previous morning, and headed for the club shop.

I purchased a home shirt in honour of the visit, to go with the club scarf that a fan had apparently left in the ground, acquired for me by a mate of mine. Whilst we were in the club shop a French woman and her husband, evidently keen to practice their English, stopped me and began asking me about our visit to rural France. As it turned out her uncle was the president of AJ Auxerre, and her husband handed me a business card and said if we were ever in Paris we were welcome to stay at their house. Not a wise move. I can see me turning up at her house with twenty lads en route to a UEFA Cup tie with PSG next season (assuming we qualify).

After bidding farewell to the charming couple, we headed for the river, where the flags got one last airing. We hung them over the bridge, much to the amusement of passers by. Many stopped to talk to us as we tied them up, and this little exercise at least gave the flags a chance to dry off, after copious amounts of ale were added to those spilled on the banners from previous trips. The lost flag was sorely missed.

We then headed north to Paris, and, after driving round the Arc de Triomphe a few times and hanging a flag off the top of the Eiffel Tower, we set off in search of Paris St Germain FC. And what a search it was. Is it in Paris? Is it in St Germain? Is it in France? We ended up driving around this sprawling city for hours looking for the Parisian ground, and all we could manage to locate was the club's training ground, so we had to settle for the Stade de France, where the 1998 World Cup Final was held. So with a futile stop off at Versailles thrown in for bad measure, the general consensus among the group was that our visit to Paris and the surrounding area was far from successful. Attempting to get out was even worse. And as I was driving at half a mile a fortnight through a busy market clearly not meant for cars, I realised our time had come to leave the French capital behind.

I had printed off the weekend fixture list for various countries of northern Europe. With Liverpool not playing until Sunday we decided to stay abroad until then, and take in a game on the Saturday. We decided on RC Lens against Montpellier in northern France, but when we picked up a copy of L'Équipe on the morning of the game to check the time of the evening kick off, we were amazed to see scores next to the fixtures. All the matches listed corresponded to those on my sheet, so my only thought was that the games had taken place the evening before. When I relayed the information to the rest of the party, I was not a popular man - we had left it too late to go to Germany or Belgium for a game, and our only hopes lay in France. But despite their lack of belief in my organisational skills I had vowed that the evening would not prove a disaster.

But I couldn't understand the mistake. In my confusion it seemed the situation could only be resolved, or at least explained by interpreting one phrase at the top of the page above the list of games. "Aujourd'hui" - if that meant 'yesterday', we were in trouble, 'tomorrow' worse still. Our only hope, or rather my only hope, of us seeing a game, was that the scores given were from a previous encounter, possibly the corresponding game last season or earlier this term.

And as we arrived in Lens and made for the stadium, it was clear that fortunately the term meant 'today', as fans decked out in red and gold were beginning to fill the streets. In an attempt to apologise for ruining the mood of the trip, I offered to pay for the tickets, which cost me a princely fee of £21 for the four of us - daylight robbery. I wonder how those poor Frenchman can afford their nine euros each time they want to go to a game. Still drunk on generosity I bought the lads a scarf as well, which were selected from a massive range, including mixed team scarves. I was tempted by the Lille/ Lens scarf on the wall, but opted instead for the Lens/ PSG effort in honour of our unsuccessful stop off in Paris. I couldn't believe they actually had joint-scarves including their two nearest rivals in the club shop. I wonder if Rangers and Celtic or Real Madrid and Barcelona have ever been tempted to follow suit.

I then continued my parenting duties in the neighbouring alehouse, and bought my adopted sons a pint or four. It was the start of a night we'd never forget. We were unsure of what to expect as we went in that pub, but if we ever felt we might not be welcome, we were reassured by the fact that just about every team in Europe, from Vitesse Arnhem to Macclesfield Town had a scarf displayed on the walls of the bar. We offered to put one of our own up, but my French was incomprehensible to the bar staff, not for the first time on the trip.

So we got talking to some Belgians as we watched the detested PSG lose to Guingamp, but before I started to think of this group of men as being as alien to these parts as us, we soon learned that these were die-hard fans. They go to every game, home and away, which in France is no mean feat if you're French, never mind Belgian. They have their own website, with a fan club called KSO, which refers to the Kop, which is where they sit in the ground, and blood and gold which are the team colours. We thought their team looked more like a packet of fruit salad then anything else, but blood and gold does sound a little better I suppose. Despite being tempted, we resisted throwing black jacks at them.

I wasn't really expecting to have a lot of respect for the fans of the French side. They average over 39,000 at the Stade Felix Bollaert, yet the population of the town is only 33,000. So it doesn't take a genius to work out that a lot of out-of-towners support Lens, a thing I rarely respect, particularly in England. But these seemed a fairly loyal bunch, and made us feel pretty welcome, buying us bevies and swapping stories. I learned more about French culture in those two hours than I did in five years learning the language at school. Gerard Houllier is from that neck of the woods, and we spoke at length to the son of one of his closest friends about football in France. It was an education, I can tell you. I swapped shirts with a Lens fan (although I've washed the thing three times since and it still stinks), and some of the lads exchanged badges and various other memorabilia.

As kick off time drew closer, we made our way to the ground and despite our best efforts failed to secure a spot in the Montpellier section. With a thousand mile round trip a stipulation of their attendance, we were fairly sure the lads from the South Coast would be fairly nuts, particularly given that they are bottom of the league and facing relegation. We were amazed to see that the two-hundred-strong army were completely enclosed, with only the tops of their heads visible from the Lens fans' section, where we were sitting. We got as close as we could to the away fans, and watched as they paraded their satanic-like flags, each lunatic taking it in turns to stand on a pole at the front and lead the mob in their passionate chanting. They were no match however for the swaying Kop at the opposite end of the ground, who were loud throughout.

Similarly on the pitch there was always going to be one winner, with the home side cruising to a four-nil win, inspired by former Liverpool defender Rigobert Song, who looked surprisingly reliable. We were right at the front of the stand behind the goal and with each goal scored we became cockier in our celebrations. After the fourth went in we were climbing up the fences and rattling them to our hearts content. If some one asked you to stop you simply said no. That's just the way it is in that part of the world, and when in Rome…

It was a cracking night's entertainment, and it was good to see an atmosphere in a ground. It was also good just to be conscious at a football match, and a day that started off in nightmare fashion, proved to be thoroughly entertaining. After the game we stayed in the area for a while, before making our way to Calais for the ferry back to England and on to Birmingham. We arrived in the place annoying people refer to as 'Brum' at a ridiculously early hour. And I have to say that this day out in Brum, meant to serve as a grand finale to the trip, proved a day we'd all rather forget, as the intended crescendo, petered out with a whimper.

We met with a couple of lads who hadn't come via Auxerre (the part timers!) and set off on foot in search of a friendly bar. We did eventually find a pub whose entry fee wasn't a broken rib, and watched the locals watching rivals West Brom lose at home to Fulham on the TV, which was mildly amusing. The rest of the day however was a complete non-event.

It was like walking into Fort Knox trying to enter St Andrews, with the police, still armed with a first division mentality evidently on high alert to prevent overage fans gaining access with child tickets. I know middle aged men who go in by using child tickets to every game, and hundreds were being turned away and made to pay the extra to have their ticket validated for the match. I eventually got through the four lines of police and into the ground, and I had an adult ticket. But I'd not been to Birmingham City before, neither had many others and I don't think Liverpool people knew quite what to expect.

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The nightmare though hadn't even started, as little did we know but we were about to witness a shambolic display of football. Liverpool, so I'm told were impressive in Auxerre, but we were awful in our return to English soil. Timid, tired, uninventive, and humiliated. And that's just the fans. As for the team who represented us, well they were narrow and lacklustre, and just painful to watch.

It was Steven Clemence, the son of former Liverpool goalkeeping legend, Ray Clemence who opened the scoring, heading in a Lilly, sorry Robbie Savage cross on thirty-one minutes. It was a dull encounter, but few would begrudge City the win. They performed to the best of their ability, which isn't much, but we were shocking. Baros was livelier than most but had no service from a midfield devoid of creativity and we didn't look like we'd even have a shot on target never mind score.

People can point to a penalty decision or two that didn't go our way, but those who bemoan refereeing decisions tend to be fighting a case with insufficient evidence. Yes we should have had a penalty when the ineffective Cheyrou was tumbled in the box early in the second half, but having had that decision waved away, we should have driven on to find the equaliser. And when Michael Owen replaced Carragher on the hour mark, we knew in him lay our last hopes of salvaging something from the game.

But when panic set in, as we went in search of the equaliser, it seemed we were playing with a flat back two, when Lazaridis skipped clear of the Liverpool defence before crossing for Morrison to score Birmingham's second. The subdued Liverpool crowd were further silenced as a result - I've heard a better atmosphere during sponsored silence days at deaf conventions. The ambience was Old Traffordesque.

The faithful among us found hope temporarily when Owen latched onto a Murphy pass and slotted home, but in truth a second goal always looked beyond us. As the final whistle went, we were left with the incredible statistic of two wins in sixteen league games. And that followed a series of twelve games without defeat at the beginning of the season. It's a good job it did, otherwise we'd be looking over our shoulder at the form of cellar dwellers West Ham, West Brom and Sunderland with nervous interest. That's how bad things are in the league at present.

I'm sure Houllier and co know what is wrong and how to address the problem. We have the nucleus there to form a championship winning side, and there lies our frustration. A few pieces of the jigsaw puzzle need to be found, with those pieces currently trying to hammer their way into a picture in which they clearly do not fit, needing to be cast off and thrown back in the box.

But it's not all doom and gloom, while we've had our fair share of disappointments this season, going from title hopefuls to wannabe also-rans, we've got a UEFA Cup quarter-final against Celtic to look forward, should we finish the job off against Auxerre on Thursday, and then there's the little matter of a cup final with our mates from Manchester in undoubtedly the biggest League Cup game ever played, with rivalries in English football growing by the day. Both managers need to win, both teams are desperate for victory, and both sets of fans fear losing more than anything else in the world right now.

But in the meantime we returned from Birmingham somewhat disheartened yet proud of the trip we've just experienced, for it was simply legendary. Bring on the Weegies.

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