Do you have a special song that you like more than most songs.. a favourite?
Without question my all-time favourite has to be "You’ll Never Walk Alone". "The Reds are coming up the hill" and other songs have a profound meaning and are very important to the arrear of songs we have. But we always try to develop and to think of new ones.
Songs can be developed by a particular match or incident. When we sign a new player there is obviously always the traditional welcome. Perhaps chant the name or come up with a nice slogan. But you will find that the hard core true Kopite will never ever go overboard just because we signed this player or just because this new manager come to the club. He must prove himself consistently over a period of time before there is this street level of acceptance. In the same way we have had to through apprenticeship. The old Liverpool way wasn’t an automatic inclusion. Look at players like Rush who sat on the bench when we first bought them. I know things have changed these days, but they have to earn the right as far as we can see to be recognised in a fashion to which the greats have grown accustomed.
Michael Owen’s recollection of that match was that he was standing on the Kop near by the touchline and he ended in a completely different area from which he was standing before.
Actually I have a funny story about that. I have a Norwegian friend, called Runar, who I’ve known for about 8 years. I can’t remember what year but it was on the old Kop. Tottenham scored the first but we beat them 6-2 in the end. He had never been on the Kop. We bought him a hat, bonnet, scarf and gave him a red chequered flag. We put a programme in his back pocket. ´Come with us to the Kop. When we score don’t worry you’ll always end up where you used to stand’ You could go 20 yards but you would always come back to your same place. Liverpool scored a second goal and it was a massive surge and Runar who was standing in front of me disappeared. The Kop realigned itself and carried on watching the game. Chris and I looked at each other and started shouting ´Runar, Runar´ and in the end our part of the Kop started shouting ´Runar, Runar´ Eventually this guy about 10 steps down, popped up, I swear both eyes looking in opposite direction. He had no flag, no scarf, no cap, no programme... I was really worried and looked at him and said ´Are you ok?´ And he goes ´Oh my god, This is wonderful´. That just made my day. It was fantastic. He thought this experience was just out of this world.
"We need to get a wider audience to sell and promote ourselves the geographical region of Merseyside.."
I remember a QPR midweek game many years ago on the old Kop. I had two tickets for the game. A student was asking for spares. My brother in-law phoned me and said he couldn’t make the game. Having an extra ticket, I said to this guy ´You can have this ticket on one condition. You come into the ground with me and my friends to make sure you don’t sell the ticket to somebody else. And the guy literally got on his knees and kissed my feet and said ´Thank you, there is a God´. I’d never seen the guy, don’t know his name, I knew from the accent he was from the south of England, if anything I hope he talks about this among his friends and puts a positive slant on Liverpool and Liverpool supporters and the club. This I why I what I do for the people that go away from Liverpool. The difficulty that we have within the city is that the local radio stations and the media are always preaching to the converted. My biggest arguement is that we need to get a wider audience to sell and promote ourselves the geographical region of Merseyside, within this country and across the world.
"Hillsborough has been enormously difficult to deal with, but being part of Liverpool football club is my therapy."
I will tell you this one story which is quite difficult for me because I get emotional. It was six years before I could talk about Hillsborough after the event. The last Liverpool fan after the Hillsborough tragedy was Tony Bland who was kept alive on a life support machine many months after the tragedy. His parents decided to turn off the machine. We were due to face Manchester United in front a packed Kop. I made a big banner which quite simply said. ´God bless Tony Bland - The Kop remembers´. Before the match I and Chris asked the stewards if we could hold the banner and go around the ground. We only got permission to walk partly in front of the Paddock and the Kop and partly the Kemlyn road. When we went on front of the Kop it was incredible to see 21,000 Liverpool fans applaud. The power of that message to the world if you like and the depth of the feeling at that time was so powerful I have no words to describe it. It was such a profound feeling of satisfaction to tell the world we were as one together remembering this guy. The media reacted so positively to it, not to me or Chris for making it and doing it, but the Kop. I feel so proud to have done that.
This whole issue of Hillsborough is difficult for me to talk about because I was there in the midst of where everybody got crushed. I went to his parents to explain what I was doing and they were very kind and allowed to make this tribute to their son. They felt a deeper sense of feeling for the club and its fans that he was not just a number but an individual. In tragedy you get unity and if anything it’s made us stronger. Hillsborough has been enormously difficult to deal with, but being part of Liverpool football club is my therapy. I had the badges made and got permission to sell from the Hillsborough family support group and raised several thousand pounds to help these families. Being involved has helped me enormously. Making the banners on memorial days, all helps. Going to the game is the best medicine because you can see that it was all worthwhile. I have never ever seen the memorial without a tribute by a fan even during the close season or the summer. It doesn’t matter. I’ve seen Man utd scarves on there, Celtic, Italian, every visiting club, it’s amazing. I’m pleased because it’s important to remember so a) it doesn’t happen again. The biggest crime if we don’t carry on, if it was all for nothing. When the old Kop went down, we said, ‘The Kop is dead, Long live the Kop, a new one has been born.’
