ENGLAND’S absence from Euro 2008 may have caused considerable consternation in households up and down the country, but it’s doubtful whether those in Merseyside were among them.
Instead of being caught up in the usual national debate as to why our players don’t reproduce their club form in an England shirt, whether Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard can play in the same side (as if we’re bothered) and whatever happened to our left wingers, we’ve been able instead to bask in the reflected glory of a successful campaign featuring four of our number picking up winner’s medals in a red shirt.
Not for us the hair shirt of another disappointing performance crowned by a failed penalty shoot-out; we’re out on the streets of Madrid, hailing another trophy win courtesy of a Fernando Torres super-strike.
Though not quite matching the feeling as the fleet-footed one rolls the ball into the Kop net, the vicarious pleasure from watching a Liverpool hero clip the ball nonchalantly over the keeper to clinch a major European trophy was reason enough to leap off the couch and celebrate with another handful of cashew nuts.
Add in a delightful cameo from Xabi Alonso demonstrating the art of passing the ball to your own men in advanced positions and the sense of smug satisfaction was hard to conceal, disturbed only by the nagging regret that he may soon be displaying such attributes in the shirt of Juventus – I’m going to need that explaining again I think.
Pepe Reina and Alvaro Arbeloa played their part also, and no doubt all four (or maybe three) will get a rousing reception when the new season gets underway at Anfield.
I don’t think we’ll be hearing “We’re not Spanish, We are Scouse” tumbling down the Kop anytime soon.
Strips tease me
ISN’T it funny how, when forming a mental picture of Liverpool playing in a former strip, it’s always a particular player who comes to the front of the mind’s eye? (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please turn over the page and save me any further embarrassment).
For me the three Adidas stripes slung across the shoulder of our mid-Nineties kit always conjures up the image of Steve McManaman torturing Bolton in the 1995 Coca-Cola Cup final; the classic mid-Sixties kit with the white crew neck and the large oval badge is inextricably linked with Ian St John’s jack-knife header in the 1965 FA Cup final.
It works the other way too; the grotesque green-and-white quarters we wore against Man United in the 1996 Cup final still sends a shudder up my spine despite a clear image of Jamie Redknapp striking 50-yard passes wearing it; and Sammy Lee is forever framed in my mind wearing the bizarre red, white and yellow combinations that resulted from the kit man’s baffling confusion every time we visited Watford.
So the revelation of our new grey away strip last week spent me spinning into an emotional battle to form a positive association from our recent past.
The silver/grey number we wore in the late Eighties/early Nineties should have me purring at the thought of John Barnes and Peter Beardsley carving open opposition defences, Ian Rush scoring goals galore or Steve McMahon’s thunderous tackles. Our last league championship was won wearing that kit.
So how come I keep thinking about Glenn Hysen and the FA Cup semi-final defeat by Crystal Palace?
The pain and trauma of that day must be buried deep in my psyche indeed.
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