SOUTHAMPTON 2 LIVERPOOL 3 "Liverpool FC - The Retro Series" #lfc #liverpoolfc #saints

"Whelan at the double as the Reds edge closer to their 13th League Title".

I’ll briefly recap the game, and Liverpool win, that 40 years ago took the Reds to the precipice of their 13th League Championship title, but first, a more personal tale. For “Southampton Away” (as it was always known growing up) was a pivotal fixture to find and pen with ink onto my footballing calendar every season as I grew up roughly 19 or 20 miles along the south coast in the neighbouring city of Portsmouth and hence, just a 30 minute train ride away from seeing my footballing heroes from Liverpool play. As is thoroughly documented in the article linked at the bottom of this particular paragraph, I attended at least 15 of these footballing clashes between my first in 1985 and my last in the mid 2000’s. I also have a claim to a further 3 matches I can’t account for due to missing match tickets and programmes (as well as a failing memory) and I hopefully weave an interesting story around these games with the attending and being inside Southampton’s famed old (and now no more) stadium “The Dell” with the home “End” appearing ready to fall into the adjacent road or the antiquated floodlights atop the outdated stands and the players who entered the field of play from an old building in the corner of the ground that was past its sell by date long before I first went there in the mid 1980’s.

There were the hologram match tickets that always had the face of local hero Steve Moran on them, the short but eventful train journeys with regular companions Marc and Roger, the paying in cash at the turnstiles and the hours of waiting for them to open and trying to act like a man in a world I was too young and juvenile to understand. I try and paint a picture of what it was like to be amongst “Scousers” and the fervent fans from the city of Liverpool, all of whom had travelled many, many hours to be here whilst I, an interloper from down the road, had travelled three or four stops on the train, and as the subtitle of my article suggests, I rejected love on Valentines Day to be at this famed old stadium and my indulgent local yearly fixture I so looked forward to, only to be smacked in the face by a Jamie Redknapp howitzer in practice before the game that knocked me out!

A St Valentine’s Day Massacre indeed!

The above opening paragraphs are taken from my original article first penned and published to my Medium blog site on 25th October 2022 and which can be read for free and in full (please also consider subscribing for free too!) via my Substack blog site and original article linked immediately below:

https://ramblingmusings666.substack.com/p/whelan-at-the-double-as-the-reds-edge-closer-to-their-13th-league-title-79da84aad1c6

Although not contained within the book on Liverpool Football Club I've always wanted to write (and as I mention once or twice in this video!) I've linked this pride and joy of mine immediately below, together with other ways and means of supporting me, if you are able, to thumb the eye of the traditional publishers who refused to read my original manuscript!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C6W6TYCL

https://www.patreon.com/TheBlackfordBookClub
https://www.paypal.me/TheBlackfordBookClub
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/steveblackford

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