Imagine the scene, a young couple, in the throws of first love, perhaps. Their burgeoning feelings, their shared sexual awakening and subsequent exploration. The inevitable disclosure of kinky secret yearnings is often timidly broached: Tell me your fantasy...
More often than not respondents will put forth images of a nurse or maid in uniform, or a chaste Austenian narrative, where our eyes meet across the room. What one would not expect to hear in reply to such overtly sensuous probing is:
Well, my fantasy is to see the return of a king. Two decades after his abdication, hastened by turmoil and anguish - a loss suffered both privately and publicly - to return in our time of need, like Tolkien's Aragorn, to lead his people, to reclaim his birthright. The King is dead! Long live the King!
The king in question, is of course, Kenny Dalglish - King Kenny - and his return to the throne at Anfield is, for many on Merseyside, the realisation of a dream.
This is the long awaited sequel. The final instalment of a great unfinished story, where our protagonist seeks redemption. Riding off into the sunset with the girl in tow - the sentimental Hollywood ending - is surely how we all see ourselves in our dreams. It can therefore be no surprise that Dalglish jumped at the opportunity to write his own ending.
Some see King Kenny's return as further evidence of Liverpool's descent into mediocrity. But this is the cynic's view. This is the view of those who claim to have seen It's A Wonderful Life, but changed channel before the end, and wonder what's so great about it? Too often, optimism is euphemistically referred to as naivety; and cynicism as a sagely and worldly characteristic.
What makes a football club great, is more than what goes on out on the pitch. Though intangible, a club's narrative, nurtured from one generation to another - from the kid in short-pants lifted over the turnstile, to the terrace, to the season-ticket holder - becomes inextricably woven into the fabric of identity, and can elevate a club beyond its discernible successes and failures. Anfield is one of those places; a place where romantics are still welcome. Liverpool is not immune to the perils of cynicism and the fundamentalism of modern supporters, but it is a place where, independent of changing footballing ideologies, the philosophy of You'll Never Walk Alone has, by and large, remained constant.
This was a week when the realms of fantasy and reality were seamlessly intertwined and though the story may have begun gloomily, like all tales of fantasy, it's a happy ending we're after.
*
No comments:
Post a Comment