I hadn’t been to an away game for years, I think my last
being a glorious FA Cup trip to St. Andrews to see us hammer Birmingham City 7
nil. My away record overall doesn’t read quite so well, having witnessed, among
others, a drab nil nil draw at Leicester City and losses to Bolton, Portsmouth
and Southampton. The scene of that last embarrassment was our destination
today. Having recently moved back south to Wiltshire, Southampton is now my closest
premier league ground and with my Dad’s connections to Southampton and some
Saturdays in the 70s spent at the old Dell, we had earmarked this away game as
a potential one to get to. A speculative enquiry to the editor of this fine
fanzine about any potential spare tickers bore fruit in the week leading up to
the game.
As it turned out my
Dad couldn’t make it, so I turned to one of my previous away day cohorts and
fellow southerner, Joff. We all knew before this game that our record at St.
Mary’s was not brilliant, add to that the fact Southampton are the only side to
have beaten us at Anfield this season and a very capable team and it was clear
that this was a huge game for us. As you may have noted from some of my
previous columns, I am very much a reluctant pessimist and I’m still in a
constant state of anticipation that our season will come crashing down around
us at any moment. Given that mine and Joff’s away record is not the best, we
set off with much excitement, but prepared for the worst. Our aim was to enjoy
the away day experience that we’ve missed so much and the experience that makes
for such a refreshing change compared to the sometimes clinical and staid
modern football roadshow of a home game.
It was a beautiful morning and really felt like the start of
spring. A cheap and relatively swift train journey from Salisbury found us in
Southampton for around 2:30pm, by which point we had already consumed a
relatively large amount of Jager, helped down with Red Rhino or some other Red
Bull imitation and some accompanying Birra Moreti, just to add a touch of class
to proceedings. Joff had cunningly smuggled said Jager in mini bottles of
Vimto, in case any overly enthusiastic southern constabulary took affront to
our public drinking. The plan would only fall down if for any reason a
desperate mother asked for a refreshing swig of our Vimto for their thirsty
child.
More glorious sunshine greeted us in Southampton and having
gleaned from a few away guides and fellow travelling reds that Yates of all
places was the ‘designated away pub’ we started walking up the hill in that
direction. Knowing that the giant doormen on the Yates doors were unlikely to
let us in with 2 or 3 glass bottles of premium lager and some ‘Vimto’ we
decided to finish off the rest of our liquid picnic in the nearby park. It’s
funny what an away day does to you, or allows you to do. If I found myself sat
in a park downing makeshift Jagerbombs from plastic glasses acquired from a
‘Pumpkin’ train café, I’d start to have serious concerns around where my life
was going, on an awayday however, it’s all part of the day and perfectly
acceptable. Just don’t tell Thatcherites.
Yates hadn’t really
started to liven up when we first arrived, and I completely understand the
irony behind my declaration that it was ‘full of wools’ considering we were about
as wool as it comes, but there was a definite feel that it was very much heavy
with Southampton based Liverpool fans with no real sense of ‘atmosphere.’ There
were even some normal Saturday afternoon shoppers / drinkers trying their best
to enjoy their beloved Yates experienced and rubbery Hunters Chicken.
A highlight was probably one of the oldest DJs I’ve ever
seen trying to make us feel at home by playing any remotely Liverpool related
song, extremely loud, and drowning out any attempt at a song from Liverpool
fans themselves. We were treated to everything from The Beatles, to The Zutons
with some slightly odd versions of our terrace favourites thrown in.
As more and more reds piled in and more and more shit lager
flowed the ‘atmosphere’ did begin to pick up and the songs soon got going. By
about 4pm we were in full flow and bouncing around spilling our shit lager all
over the place.
It was around this time that we realised we’d better think
about heading up to the ground to meet JJP and get our tickets. It wasn’t much
of a walk up to St. Mary’s, and to be honest, it was a bit of a blur.
We spotted JJP and his compatriots outside the away end, and
shared introductions before heading in. It was great to see the Ed. after such
a long time and I must thank him again for sorting out the tickets.
The atmosphere inside the ground was already building
nicely, as you’d expect with thousands of scousers having a long trip down for
a 5.30pm kick off and plenty of ‘ale time.’ By this stage my pessimism and
nervousness had pretty much evaporated in vapour of Jager and Carlsberg.
Quarter of an hour in and that pessimism evaporated further
as Suarez finished brilliantly from what initially looked like a lovely through
ball from Sturidge, but in fact turned out to be quite a fortunate deflection
off Fonte into Luis’ path. It’s bit of luck like that which you need to be
successful, especially at places like St. Mary’s. I know it’s a cliché but I think if you’re
positive, luck does come your way.
The travelling Kop were rapturous and bounced to the
stalwart Suarez song, but on the pitch Southampton weren’t going to just roll
over as they spent the remainder of the half playing some nice stuff and
knocking on our door. Lallana was unlucky not to draw them level as his clever
shot rebounded off the post and Mignolet pulled off a brilliant diving save to
deny Rodriguez.
Half-time was spent on a raucous concourse as ‘We are Liverpool…’ didn’t let up and
nor did the flagrant disregard for the smoking ban… which even as a non-smoker
I can’t help admire.
Sterling replaced Coutinho 10 minutes into the 2nd
half and made an immediate impact to slot in yet another Suarez assist. Then we
felt we could relax a little and really enjoy ourselves and the scouse presence
in St. Mary’s didn’t let up in terms of volume.
A great early evening was wrapped up as Gerrard dispatched
his 90th minute penalty with the sort of composure that we have
become accustom to and there ended a genuinely fantastic result for Liverpool
FC.
I would agree with Rodgers that this could well have been up there with the
Arsenal rout, not necessarily in performance or style but certainly in terms of
importance and setting a marker.
The ‘we’re going to win the league’ chants were inevitable
considering the immediate excitement, but as always I am trying to apply some
restraint and realism.
As I write this, 2 weeks have passed without us playing
again and we are now fast approaching the much anticipated trip to Old
Trafford. I can appreciate and welcome talk from the likes of Fowler about
really compounding Utd’s misery and we are in the unusual position, probably in
my entire lifetime of going in to this game as favourites, which is always a
danger. But we should be confident, no doubt.
I would rather we take the Mourinho approach and continue to
play down our chances, and equally play up Utd’s threat… we don’t want any sort
of complacency creeping in.
By the time you read this we’ll know
the result… so let’s just hope my pessimism continues to be proved wrong.
Whatever happens, we’re in for one hell of a ride before the end of the season
and let’s just not forget how far we have come.
