Never Knew Casablanca was in Istanbul
By Leggings
Issue 71, Winter 2006
It had to happen. In the weeks following the glorious 25th May 2005 the internet forums were awash with requests to ‘give us your account of Istanbul’ and the world and his dog followed suit. All except me (well, me and a few thousand others) but always in the back of my mind was the thought that if anything was going to prompt me to ‘do something’ for the fanzine then it would have to be that night. So at the
risk of being told to ‘do one’ in the future I’ll begin…
In years to come when the club gets round to releasing its
150th anniversary DVD or when Granada decides to make
another of those Reds In Europe style documentary programmes, then I’ll wager they’ll feature at least one person who claims to have known we would still win the European Cup even as we trailed Milan by 3 goals at half time. They’ll probably be fibbing of course or maybe they’ll just be the eternal optimist type. Me? I was just worried…
Usually I’m not bad in a crisis. I take it upon myself to try and calm others down and while losing a football match can hardly be deemed as such, the mere sight of my other half’s chin hitting the floor was enough to snap me out of my own self-pitying torpor. My first attempt at raising spirits was shite really. A “Well that went well” attempt at gallows humour didn’t really have the desired effect! Instead it prompted Mr Leggings to air the concerns that many of us in the Ataturk shared but didn’t really want to voice for fear that this might, somehow, make them more likely to happen. “This could end up six or seven,” he said. Oh shit what did he have to go and say that for? “I just don’t want this to get embarrassing”.
He had a point. It’s bad enough losing a non-televised League Cup game to a minnow when you’ve got half your reserves out, but this? Getting thumped in the blue-ribboned event of European football in front of a TV audience of millions? They’d all be watching this right now in the bars of Barcelona, Turin, and Sarajevo. Watching my club having the arse ragged out of it by a superior side. They’d all be saying “How in God’s name did they ever make the final?”. Everyone turning, and pointing the finger at my team and laughing, saying “They’re shite”. Awful. Just then another thought occurred to me. Evertonians were watching this… And Chelsea fans…United fans too. Just when you thought the evening couldn’t get any better! A horrible, sickening feeling was beginning to engulf me as cruel, mental snapshots began to form in my mind of Manc supporting workmates celebrating at home, shouting obscenities at Liverpool fans watching in the same pubs, preparing their barbs for the weeks ahead. Fucking hell.
It’s at times like this when you make a subconscious decision to change tack. It’s as if there’s a battle going on in your head as one part of you reckons you haven’t wallowed in your misery nearly enough and you should see how deep into the abyss this train of thought can take you. It’s a kind of more sinister version of those little devil figures you see in old Warner Bros cartoons - a voice that fills your head with all kinds of negative thoughts. At half time in the Ataturk that voice was saying “I regret coming, I wish the ground would swallow me up”. At the same time, another part of me was telling myself to pack those images away sharpish. To put the lid on the box. Do. It. Now. So I turned to my other half and discussed what Rafa needed to do in the second half. I reckoned Rafa needed to be positive and so did I! So I ventured he should put Hamann on to make us more solid. If nothing else this would aide us in the battle to keep the score down. It would also free up Gerrard to get forward more and maybe, enable us to carry the fight to them for a change. At least we’d be having a go. Let them worry about us (ha ha) I reasoned, give them something to think about. If nothing else it might help us salvage a bit of pride against a side who we both remembered had looked very poor at the back against PSV. I also suggested that judging by that game, Cisse’s pace would worry them and that we should get him onto the pitch as soon as possible. Mr Leggings pointed out at this point however that if Hamann came on we would have already used 2 subs and that consequently it wouldn’t be wise to use Cisse straight from the off. And that as they say, was pretty much that. No more conversation. Both of us returned to our own thoughts which is never the best thing to do as we all know what can happen… The lid on the box was beginning to open again, and images began to emerge.
All this had taken place against the backdrop of Milan fans giving it their all. Throughout half time they’d sang. Well you couldn’t blame them. Their team looked as classy as we did outclassed. If we looked like mere interlopers, like the stagehand who’d been pushed into the spotlight to do a ‘turn’ then they looked like the leading man who’d been waiting his whole life to play this role. What Liverpool fans wouldn’t have given anything to have been in their shoes at that moment.
It was just as I was contemplating this that I first heard it. The first stirrings of a tune I recognised. I decided to join in. Well, I might as well. It was a European Cup Final after all and I might never get the chance again. So off I went singing “and don’t be afraid of the dark…” with all the others. It was beginning to pick up a little momentum as people began to stand all around me and in all Liverpool sections of the stadium. The Milan fans too were beginning to cotton on to this and had began to whistle in what I interpreted as an attempt to drown us out, to maintain their own half time vocal superiority. Hmmn, BIG mistake.
The scarves and banners were going up everywhere now as Liverpool fans realised simultaneously (or so it seemed) that when humiliation and desolation are yours to own then the words to You’ll Never Walk Alone can seem wonderfully apt. “Though your dreams be tossed and blown…” I sang, as strange things began happening to the mental images I’d carried round with me throughout halftime. The faces of my workmates were becoming contorted now as all 4 corners of the mental snapshot burned furiously. I realised once and for all that there was nowhere else I would rather be right now. This, I told myself was what it had all been all about. From the moment I attended my first game as a 6 year old, all roads led to the Ataturk. Do not pass go. Do not collect £200. I had already begun to feel better when IT happened. That take-it-to-the-grave moment that will stay with me for as long as there’s air in my lungs. As the song built to its inevitable crescendo and uplifting chorus I turned, still singing passionately, surveying the stadium and the magnificent sight which greeted you everywhere you looked. My eyes alighted on a small section of Liverpool supporters of probably no more than 700, who were surrounded by Milan fans at every turn. Every and I mean EVERY single Liverpool supporter in that section had their scarves raised above their heads in a wonderfully defiant gesture that said no matter what obstacles they/we faced that night be they geographical, emotional, on field or off, they would not yield. WE would not be cowed. It was quite simply, one of the most magnificent sights I’ve ever seen in my life. In my mind that image has taken on a life of its own. It is the whole of Rick’s Café singing the Marseillaise to the Nazis in Casablanca. And just as the German soldiers stopped singing that night, so the Milan fans stopped singing too. Instead they stood and watched. A team whose fans had just moments before sang with a joy that can only come from knowing your team is about to be crowned European Champions stood stock still, just watching us.
Having worried previously that the whole of Europe would see Liverpool FC laid bare and just laugh, I felt intensely proud of the fact that Europe had seen Liverpool FC laid bare and could do little else but look on in awe. Certainly Johan Cruyff, that seen it/done it all maestro of yesteryear did. Our halftime ‘display’ moved him enough to comment “There's not one club in the world so united with the fans. I sat there watching the Liverpool fans and they sent shivers down my spine. A mass of 40,000 people became one force behind their team. That's something not many teams have. For that I admire Liverpool more than anything." You and me both Johan, you and me both.
As You’ll Never Walk Alone finished a cheeky ‘We’re gonna win 4-3’ started up, and our very own 20-something Scouse version of Victor Lazlo walked by, imploring one and all, to “Fucking stand up and sing it”. No one disobeyed. Already by that time I feel the landscape had changed. If you’d sang that song at the start of half time people would have looked at you as if you were crazy. I’m not for one minute suggesting that everyone thought we could go on to win the game but something was different. We were proud and we were defiant and would respond to any morsel of encouragement the players could provide us with. Things seemed better somehow. I felt better. I wondered if the players had heard it. If they’d doubted before what this football club was about then surely they’d know now.
Game on.
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