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Free kick. Foul. Frustration. Flickers of hope. You laugh as Millie commentates the match through noise. A series of OO, OO, OO, and oh… Before a GO ON, YES, oh… She is vibrant with life as the ball moves but something tells you that it’s a vibrancy that’s not exclusive to watching football. I’m glad it’s not going to penalties with you next to me, you joke and she elbows you in response, eyes narrowed, wearing a smirk.

Substitutions are made. More attempts at goal. More mistakes. The game moves on and on without any changes to the score. You all still clap and cheer for your team despite feeling dejected.

The eighty ninth minute sees a goal for Leeds and some home fans start to leave. Leeds chant, you’re fucking shit, from their away area and you almost laugh at the amounts of times you’ve heard this chant in your own head, about yourself. There’s no going back now. You know the score will remain 2-1 and that this will go down as a defeat at Anfield.

The disappointment is clear in the stands. People stand stock still. Watching on without the same glimmer of hope that existed before. You all still clap when the whistle blows. You all still love this team. You all just also wish they’d won.

As the team make their way towards the tunnel, Millie says, I’m disclaiming now that you can’t all blame me for them losing just because I was here for the first time. Her arms up shoot up in the air in defence of herself.  Rob shakes his head. I’m telling Sarah she can’t move to Australia and give you her ticket because you’re bad luck. Her mouth bursts open in shock and he laughs and reassures her that he’s only kidding. We’ve lost here before this season, so you’re alright, you say. She looks like she appreciates this as she turns back to Rob, smug.  

The players look dejected too as they head into the tunnel. You can sympathise to a degree, having played football since you were a kid, but when you only have three fans cheering you on it doesn’t matter so much when you lose.

HEAD UP, H, you shout to young Harvey Elliot as he heads inside. Your uncle would say that to you after you cried when you lost. Because even though it was only three fans, it did matter to the team. It wasn’t premier league football, but it felt like it was when you were a kid. Three points lost. None gained.

You feel Millie’s eyes on you. Like she’s working you out. Your eyes move to meet hers and she breaks away, conscious maybe of the fact you’ve caught her. So how do you all get home? She asks you and Rob.  Well, Rob begins before asking you a question with a raise and nod of his head. A nod of your head gives him your answer. We usually go out into town if we play at home on Saturdays, he tells her. You’re welcome to come, if you’d like. We meet a few of the wives and girlfriends, have some drinks, nothing too strenuous. Millie looks shocked at the invitation. Are you sure? She asks and looks between you and Rob to check that you are both in agreement that she could come. Course he was going to say yeah, Rob says and points to you. You’re embarrassed but feel the corners of your mouth turn up. When Millie turns to follow Rob, you send Rob your middle finger and he laughs.

You’re stood on the train now with the usual group, packed in tight. You remember when your auntie and uncle took you all on a trip to London when you were little and you went on the tube when it was like this. Auntie Chell had you. Uncle Daz had Martin and Josie. Afterwards, you all discussed how tightly they’d held you. You didn’t know why back then.

Bit busy, Millie comments as you stand almost chest to chest, holding onto the yellow poles nearby. Just a bit, you say back. You can smell her this close up. Her scent is musky and familiar. You catch Rob’s eye from behind Millie. He’s laughing to himself and looking at you. You try to remain stoic but he’s making it difficult.

A few people get off at Moorfields and both you and Millie step away from each other now you have space. As you stand by the door, you feel you might’ve moved away too quickly. You wonder if she thinks the same.

You arrive at Liverpool Central and you and the rest of the commiserating fans leave the train and head up the escalators.  Lot of people heading into town tonight. You check your phone as you ascend. All done here. All good. See you in town x the message on your screen reads. You pocket your phone and zip up your jacket, burying your head in the collar. You’re looking forward to dancing stupidly and drinking too much.

You pocket your phone at the perfect moment, when Anfield comes into view. The Liverpool F.C crest looks down on you and the thousands of other reds walking towards it who collectively feel this team’s highs and lows in their soul as if it were some kind of divine power. This is the first time you’ve been here and you’re on your own but you’re glad of this. Glad to be soaking up every second as you walk through the gates.

Curtains of rainbow light adorn the inside of the main stand’s windows to be seen proudly from the out. How odd to come somewhere for the first time and feel so at home. You can’t help but bow your head and smile into your chest at how this display of solidarity and representation makes you feel. You haven’t named who you like but you know it when you feel it so labels seem unnecessary. You walk up the stairs to the turnstiles and scan your Auntie’s season ticket just outside. It’s yours now, like it was your mum’s before. Once Auntie Sarah made a joke about the only good thing to come out of your mum’s death was her getting a seat at Anfield. You didn’t laugh at first but then almost felt like your mum was near telling you it’s fine, you can laugh, she’s not wrong. You laughed then even though it still felt like a betrayal.

It doesn’t feel like a betrayal anymore. She knows you’d rather have her here. But you feel her here. You know she walked here once. She smiled and laughed and shouted here. The echoes of her are all around. This comforts you as you buy a hot chocolate and scan around for stand seven. The accent of home buzzes around as you walk there once you’ve spotted it. You are home.

Your breath is stolen as the pitch opens up infront of you. So much greener, you think, than how it looks on TV. So much bigger. You begin to think that you’ve been watching an illusion on TV and find it hard to believe that this pitch will soon be filled with the same players you scream for and shout at. They are real too.

You read the row numbers and find your seat. There’s not many people around you yet. It’s still early. You sit down and sip your hot chocolate, forcing yourself to look around at every inch of your home team’s stadium, taking it all in. You start left and see the tunnel just below you and imagine just an inch of the anticipation the players must feel as they head out of there.  As you go along and round to the away fan’s end, you see them all stood there. The threat of a win and the joy of a defeat in the air, but for who? You move along and see their players warming up close to their fans. You laugh as you think they look even more ridiculous doing the moves that you see on TV before the game in real life. More people start to fill in as you tour the stadium with your eyes. The Kenny Dalglish stand towers over you straight ahead, the different tiers holding just some of the tens of thousands of fans who call this stadium home. The Cop is to the right and you know that this end holds power. If this stadium has a boss beyond Jurgen, it’s the Cop.

Your tour ends as people start to clap and shout and your eyes quickly search to try and find out why. Your goalkeeper comes into view out of the tunnel and claps, looking straight up at the main stand you sit in. You almost feel like he’s clapping for you given that he looked in your general direction and laugh to yourself. Your hot chocolate keeps you warm as you watch him head over to the goal, followed by the other goalkeepers and coaches. More clapping. You clap along, the illusion turning to reality as you realise that he is truly there. They all are. You feel ridiculous for thinking this but decide not to berate yourself. This is special, this is the first time. You’re allowed to feel like this.

More people flood into the stadium and the atmosphere of readiness starts to build. People are eager for the game to begin. You’ve nearly finished your hot chocolate.

There’s half an hour till kick off before someone comes and sits in the seat next to you on your left. A fella called Rob who Auntie Sarah told you about. You smile as he greets people left right and centre of him before turning to you and extending his hand. Alright? He says. Nice to meet you. Sarah told us you were coming. His scouse accent is thick and he feels like home. You haven’t had many male figures who felt like that but the ones who did made up for it. You get the feeling that Rob could be a new one to add to the few. You too, you reply. I’m Millie. Rob smiles and asks you what you do, which leads to all kinds of questions about his job too. You tell him you’re a youth worker and he tells you he works for the Ministry of Defence. You get excited thinking you can pull some top secret information out of him related to his job but he stops you in your tracks when he tells you that he only analyses data. He reads your mind as you scowl and laugh as you tell him that you feel that that’s a bit of a let down. He agrees. No wonder he’s one of the few straight men Auntie Sarah likes.

Whilst you’ve been chatting, Anfield has packed out and there’s only a few seats left empty. You wonder how on earth anyone could leave a seat empty here, including the one to your right. You cheer and shout as the players run onto the pitch and begin to train and you can confirm, they are all real. You tell Rob about this and he laughs but says he knows exactly what you mean. Excitement and expectation pass round the stadium like some kind of metaphorical Mexican wave and this only grows when the players run back through the tunnel ten minutes before kick off.

The seat next to you is still empty as they return to stand in their line. Liverpool on the right, Leeds on the left. The players wave to people in the main stand you sit in and you wonder who they’re waving to. Mums, siblings, friends, partners? You almost want to wave back.  

Magic happens next. Anfield fills with the collective red voice of You’ll Never Walk Alone and you don’t realise until you feel the tears cooling on your cheeks because of the breeze that you’re crying. You’re so in the moment you’ve forgotten all about the millennial urge to take pictures and videos of moments like these. You don’t need to. You know you won’t ever forget this. Since your mum died, there have been many moments where you felt like you were walking alone. Big and small ones. Big like graduation. Big like new jobs. Big like the hours between 1am and 4am. Small like not being able to ring her to ask her how her day was. Small like not needing to make three cups of tea in the morning. Small like using her perfume. Small things that are actually big things after someone has died and big things that seem huge when someone is no longer there. But somehow in this stadium, wrapped up in this song and these fans and this feeling, you are not alone. You never have been. She stands there with you just as these people do too.

You let the tears fall. You don’t try to wipe them away, feeling like that would almost do them an injustice. You feel a hand on your shoulder. You smile as your eyes sting with tears. Thanks, you mouth to Rob.

Walk on, walk on, the crowd sings as people start to move to your right like in the cinema when someone needs to get out to go to the toilet. You’re still crying but you’re not sad.

The song finishes and applause rumbles around the stadium. Shouts of support and love land on the pitch as the players run into position after the coin has been flipped. Someone is sat next to you now but you were too busy soaking up the magic to look at who. You finally dab at your cheeks with the sleeves of your hoodie when the person who’s sat down says, it’s powerful, isn’t it? Through your glassy eyes, you see that the source of the voice has a soft, kind face. You nod in response and feel like you could cry again at this small display of empathy.

You sit down as the whistle blows and the match begins. The man on your right with the soft face digs his hands into his pockets to keep warm. You will introduce yourself to him when you have a minute, not wanting to seem rude given that you know you will be sat next to him many more times this season. Your eyes follow the ball down the pitch as the reds get it to Salah. Excitement and tension and joy build as it is passes from player to player only to end up with Salah who unfortunately misses the goal. You can’t believe you’re here, watching this, watching him, whether he misses the goal or not.

Disaster strikes when Leeds get the ball into their half. Defence fails and the goalkeeper slips and your heart sinks as the score becomes 1-0 to Leeds. But you love this club more than you dislike losing so you’re quickly back to clapping for them with the rest of the fans. Cheering them on as if to say, don’t worry, we’ve got this.

A corner. A wide header. A foul. An accidental grab of the person to your right’s arm as the ball heads towards the Liverpool goal but is blocked by the opposition’s goalkeeper. Sorry, you shout, your face scrunched up in apology. I’ll probably do it again though, without thinking, you tell him. He laughs and waves your apology away. I’m used to it, he tells you. At the football, anyway, he clarifies and you both laugh.

Time seems to speed up as possession is lost and gained and another corner is won. You stand tentatively with the crowd as the ball gets within range of the Liverpool goal and find yourself bouncing up and down with jubilation when it hits the back of the net. There’s joy like finding a ten pound note on the floor and there’s joy like your friend telling you they’re engaged. And then there’s joy like Liverpool scoring at Anfield.

Your cheeks hurt as you sit down and the match continues infront of you. You and Rob laugh and commentate on the game as it moves. The lad on the other side of you chuckles with the guys around him and at one point counts the players on the pitch to make sure Leeds haven’t got extra. You all laugh even as Liverpool’s players are dispossessed and attempts are missed.

The half time whistle blows and people head off to get food and go to the toilet before the second half begins. You stay where you are, not wanting to miss a second of the action even when the players aren’t on the pitch. Rob asks if you want anything before he goes and you say no thank you, but he asks you again and looks like he genuinely wants to know. A cup of tea, please, you say and Rob smiles and nods. He nods at the guy next to you too who asks for the same. I’m Charlie, by the way, he says when Rob is finished taking orders. You consider extending your hand for him to shake like Rob did but it doesn’t seem like the right thing to do. Millie, you reply with a smile. Sorry if Sarah was a bit more of a chilled spectator, you say. I’m notoriously known as the rowdy red at home. You both laugh as you realise how odd that sounded and you find yourself apologising again. He shakes his head, still laughing. Nah, she was a mad one too, he jokes, his eyes searching your face for something. You laugh, not knowing if he’s found it. How long have you had your ticket for? You ask, searching his face in return. Since me and my brother were sixteen, he tells you, a flash of something on his face as he says it. Got it from our auntie and uncle. We swap who comes to each game.

You know what you were doing when you were sixteen. You were joking around with your brother and sister in the garden in the summer of finishing high school, knowing college was on the horizon. Dad away as always, mum in the house cracking on with the jobs you all should’ve helped her with. Time meant nothing during those summer months. Did you watch the football then? Not so much, you think. You knew the scores but didn’t watch it as religiously as you have done in the past few years. There was more to do back then. More life to live. Now, this is part of the life you live. A part that holds you all together. You wonder if it’s the same for him.

Nice, you reply. And it is.

Rob returns with four takeaway cups and hands them out. Welcome, Millie, he says as he presents you with yours. Pay me later, he says to the guy behind him who ruffles his hair. For the better twin, he says to Charlie as he gives him his. Charlie nods proudly in what looks like agreement. She told you they’d welcome you.