Waking up as a Liverpool fan on Monday

I am still on cloud nine following our win against Chelsea on Sunday. Being in South Africa you are either a Liverpool or Manchester United fan. There are very few fans outside these two but since Abramovich and Dubai money has come into the game, there have been Chelsea and Manchester City fans starting to come out of the woodwork. The fans that I laugh at are the ones who say they have been Chelsea and Manchester City supporters for many years. All you simply have to do is ask them a history question about their team and they are stumped. I met a Chelsea fan about two weeks back in the local pub and he was going on and on about how he is a life long Chelsea fan (he is 35 by the way) and I asked him what he thought of Chelsea in the days they had Zola, Di Matteo and Vialli and to my amazement he had no idea who Vialli was! So such people I do not bother arguing or debating football with! I just turn away and drink my beer.

Over the last couple of weeks I had been taking a lot of stick based on the form of Liverpool and a lot of it directed from Manchester United fans (as expected). They are still not letting me forget about the Berbatov hat-trick. I just take it all on the chin and continue to walk on with my head held high. A couple of my fellow Liverpool supporters were starting to loose the faith and a lot of them called for Hodgson to go and bring in Dalglish. I will not lie, there were times I wanted Roy to go but I am a firm believer of giving him some time. At Liverpool we are not known as a club which makes rash decisions to chop and change a manager and hopefully Roy and the team have turned the corner now after our four game winning streak.

In the build up to Sunday’s game, you should have heard the taunts coming my way from the so called Chelsea supporters. “We are going to beat you 4 nil!” (I have used the word beat in place of a more vulgar word they used!) Funny enough, Manchester United supporters were hoping for us to win on Sunday for their own sake so for once I did not get much stick from them.
I will not recap the Sunday’s game for you as I am sure by now you have watched the game or read all about it. All I can say is that waking up on Monday morning as a Liverpool fan felt good for a change (even with my hangover from the post match drinks!).

There is some renewed hope and confidence flowing in the team now and its spilling onto the supporters too. I will not even start to describe to you how many people I saw walking around Johannesburg on Monday wearing their Liverpool replica shirts, it was awesome. I am sure these shirts had been stuck in the laundry or sitting in the back of the wardrobe for a while, but it is great to see them out again.

My hope is that the great run Liverpool are on continues and starting with Wigan tomorrow. We have Stoke and West Ham after that and it would not be impossible for us to get 9 points out of these three games. Life is good again as a Liverpool fan!

YNWA