I’m guessing it all started at around the winter of 1991 and I must have only been six years old. I can remember my dad was making some home brew one evening, which I believe must have been a Saturday because my father always used to make the home brew on Saturday nights. Anyway my brother and I were talking about football and he was now supporting Manchester United. I was getting to the age where I was starting to enjoy both playing and watching the game; well watching goals shall we say as that is how it is when you’re that young. Anyway I was wondering which team I should support and being from the northeast about fifty miles north of Newcastle most would assume that the only team I should be considering was Newcastle. The thing was that nobody my age in our area supported Newcastle simply because they were not very good at that time. My brother was trying to persuade me to support Manchester United but I always wanted to support a different team. My dad happened to be listening to us talking and he said I should support Liverpool because they were the best team. This upset my brother a little to hear somebody degrading his team.  I believe this must have been only a short while after the Hillsborough disaster and at the time I have to say that I knew nothing about this being so young but my dad obviously did. Liverpool as a city really stuck together at that time and really that fact alone would have been the best reason to start supporting the team.

I can still remember a short while after when my birthday came round. I remember it was a sunny day and I can recall that my mam told me to go to my granny’s house to pick up my present. I had absolutely no idea what this present was going to be and I was so excited as to what it could be. It’s all a bit vague now but I can remember my granny taking me into the dining room and bringing out a carrier bag. Inside this carrier bag there it was and my face just lit up. I was so happy and I couldn’t hide my delight. It was the full Liverpool home kit, the first one with the candy sponsor on the chest. I had never seen a Liverpool top in person at that stage and the thing that sticks in my mind about the Liverpool one that I received that day was how strong the red was. Manchester United tops always seemed to be more towards the side of orange and it looked so weak and horrible whereas this was so strong and royal looking. Bill Shankly was right when he said how intimidating the red was and that is what stays in my mind to this day. I couldn’t wait to show it off to all my friends.

My friends at school all supported Manchester United, Nottingham Forest, Leeds or Liverpool. Obviously a few years later most supported Manchester United because of their success but I wasn’t interested in them at all. Later as Newcastle started to surge forward under Kevin Keegan lots of my friend suddenly switched to Newcastle and the funny thing about the situation now is that it is those people who will always bring up the fact that you should always support the local team and that I have no loyalty and all that kind of stuff. It was those people who went from giving me stick every year when their team Manchester United won the league and we didn’t to giving me stick because I was strange because I didn’t support the local team. They even said Newcastle were the best because they played the most exciting attacking football ever seen; I could only laugh at that piece of tunnel vision as at that time in the mid nineties it was us who were playing the best passing football in the country.

My friends would always try to convince me to support the zebras but I wouldn’t even consider it. They would always try to tell me that deep down inside I really supported them and even some friends told me they had seen me in a Newcastle top with Ferdinand printed on the back; Good Joke! I remember just before the second of the 4-3 games between the two clubs in 1997; one of my friends invited us all around to his house to watch the match; me being the only Liverpool fan. They all said that they would get revenge after last year. At half time they weren’t saying that as we dismantled them with the best football I’d seen them play in my lifetime as a fan. Obviously I was all alone in supporting Liverpool so you can imagine how good I felt being alongside all these Geordies seeing us beating them 3-0 at half time. Anyway it all turned on its head as we started to misplace a few passes and suddenly we found ourselves at 3-3 with only about two minutes left. They were giving me so much stick it was unreal. I picked up my coat and as I was half way threw the door I heard the commentator scream “FOWLER” and we had scored to make it 4-3 again. I lost it at that stage and shouted, “I get the last laugh” and ran out. I was only twelve then and some of the lads were about sixteen and they didn’t like it so they chased me home. There was no chance they were going to catch me as I was the fastest runner of all of us and I sprinted home laughing. They all knew then and there that there was no chance I would be switching to their team or any other and I felt in love with Liverpool.