This isn’t a letter to tell you we’re disappointed in you. This isn’t a letter to tell you how to play football or how to score a goal or that we’re absolutely gutted we lost. No. I’m not here to play the blame game. And the reason is cause you lot, the manager and the other running the club know how to go about bringing success to a Football club a lot better than I know and will ever know.
This is a letter to tell you what a Liverpool F.C. supporter goes through week after week. May it be failure or success.
We are supporters of Liverpool F.C. And to us, the club is a lot beyond just football. It’s not like I’m watching Real Madrid vs Barcelona that I’ll support one team for 90 mins and when it ends, flip channels to something else. Probably discuss the game with fellow football fans and show off some expert views. No. Liverpool F.C. is an integral part of our lives. As for me, my life’s made of my parents, brother, girlfriend, friends and Liverpool F.C. None more important or less important than the other. Shankly told us Liverpool F.C. was important than life or death and we have hung on to his words.
Every week is made up of small and big wins and losses. And every week we supporters eagerly wait for our club and our players to wear the jersey, take to the pitch and give us a reason to smile. I, for one, study all week long. Avoid going out, meeting people so that I finish my syllabus. But never ever bargain on those 90 or 180 mins that is my football club. I have given up a close friend’s wedding, a reunion and sorts to watch my boys play. And mind you, it’s no sacrifice. It’s only cause I do what I feel is more important to me. And that’s my football club. It’s nothing put pure love. And as much love as it’s humanly possible. For god’s sake, I got the Liverbird inked on myself on the 30th of May, the b’day of the man whom I feel is the greatest in the world.
Now I don’t say that I’m the alone carrying the marshall of love for this club. There are millions across the world who share the same emotion. Everyone wants to see the club successful. It just comes out in different form. Week in week out I resort to social networking sites to interact with fellow supporters. Week after week I see the same faces come out with the same opinion, me included. Some want this, some want that, some disagree, some fight, some try to reassure one another. But everyone has the same thing at heart, the success for this club. Our football club.
Again I’m sure everyone in that dressing room and board wants the same. But here comes the difference, We are helpless. Just helpless. In our part, we do everything that might help the club win a game of football. That includes superstitions like where to sit, what clothes to wear (right down to underwear), how to go about the match day. And when results aren’t favourable, we try to find faults in what ‘ritual’ did we do wrong today that my club lost.
We do not want to blame you, we try not to blame you and we end up blaming ourselves. Inspite knowing there’s nothing we could have done to change the tide of the game. And we aren’t good enough to play or manage the club either. So all we’re left is ruing the missed chances, living a week of if only’s, trying to convince ourselves for better tomorrows.
After today’s game, again I had no one to blame. But here I am. Feeling helpless, run down and emotional. All I want to do is lock myself in a room and cry my lungs out till it feels better. Maybe it will, but I’ll be carrying around this pain all week long. If I say I won’t be affected, I’m lying.
We love this football club like our own blood. We are proud of this football club like it’s our child learning to walk. We celebrate every victory more than our personal achievements. We are hurt with every loss as much as a dear one hurts us.
I don’t want to tell you what to do and how to play. I just want to beg of you boys to think of the feelings that we go through, the meaning of this football club to us middle class people for whom this joy means so much and maybe the only joy, to think of the emotions once, just once before you pull on a Red Jersey. We ask for nothing else. We love you lot more than you can think it’s possible
Thank You.
Akshay Jajoo
YNWA!!
@aksh_jaj245