You carry them. You birth them. You do your best to raise them well.
And then one of them grows up and buys a Carlow GAA jersey.
For a moment, I had a small insight into what life must have been like for my lifelong Leeds United supporting dad. He had such high hopes for me, the only one of his children to love sport.
But alas.
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In my case, it started with Ray Houghton. Well, specifically, his putting the ball in the English net in Stuttgart in 1988. I needed a team to support, so it was always going to be his. I mean, he scored against England, after all. And so another Liverpool fan was born. My life as a football supporting neutral was over.
I should prepare you for some of the hypocrisy that will flood parts of this column. I will support whatever team is playing England. Just like the ABDs, (anyone but Dublin supporters) in this country, every time Dublin is playing. I know they exist. They’re often in my Twitter mentions and my Instagram private messages. Sometimes, they’re even married to Dubs and have seven Dublin-born and reared children.
I’ve never subscribed to this, “let’s put the past behind us and support our nearest neighbours”, nonsense when it comes to England. It’s a sport. Sporting rivalry should be lifelong. Yes, of course, I love my English family and friends and want the best for them as people.
So do I want their national team to lose miserably?
Also, yes. I’m an ABE.
But when it comes to supporting club football, Liverpool don’t really count as an English team, I tell myself. To get around the hypocrisy, like. Plus, we as a family regularly attend League of Ireland matches, so it’s grand.
Anyway, back to Liverpool. Or off to Liverpool as it was. I wanted to be a sports journalist growing up. Well, really, I wanted to play for Liverpool. But I couldn’t, largely on account of being brutal at football, much as I loved to play it. So I devoted myself to consuming everything I could about football instead. Ireland and Liverpool posters adorned my bedroom wall. Liverpool curtains and duvet covers were my decor of choice. And I was suitably distraught when my mam drew the line at me getting an Ireland football shell suit. I was committed fully to the cause.
So, on the August bank holiday, as I flew out to see Liverpool at Anfield in their preseason friendly against Athletic Bilbao, I’m not sure who was more excited, me or the mini-mes who had been reared in the spirit of being Liverpool fans, as the good Lord intended. As is common practice, when I’m flying, I contact the eldest from the plane, just before take-off, to tell her I loved her and where she could find the latest version of my will. I’d scribbled it quickly on a piece of printer paper on the way to the airport and shoved it in the car’s glove compartment. I also told her where the car was parked, because that was a headache she could do without, if the plane went down.
She questioned the potential legality of the whole thing. But anyway.
And off we went to Liverpool. The club shop was the first stop where two eager beavers were keen to get their hands on the new jersey. I could sense my credit card flinch as we walked in the door. And I winced when I saw the price tag. Decisions were made about which player’s name would go on the back of their jerseys, and I considered which vital organ I might need to sell to support my children’s growing football obsessions, going forward.
We’d secured seats in the Kop, this particular adult fulfilling a lifelong dream. And we belted out You’ll Never Walk Alone with the best of them. Twenty minutes in, the fans and the players stopped to pay tribute to Liverpool’s forever number 20, Diogo Jota, who had died in a car crash alongside his brother André Silva the previous month. It was Liverpool’s first home game since his death. A flag hung from another stand commemorating the brothers.
Liverpool won their matches. And, to top off the whole experience, we even got to celebrate seven goals (in the Kop!) over the course of the two games.
On the way home, little boys chatted about potential future careers as professional footballers, and I explained that while MumBappe may never have got to play football for Liverpool herself, I did once interview Jason McAteer for the paper.
Which is kind of the same as being a sports journalist, right?
