[lfc-news] Past glories fan Anfield fire - Telegraph

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Daily Telegraph, 3 May 2005
Past glories fan Anfield fire
By Paul Hayward

At the Stanley pub near Liverpool's ground yesterday the star attraction
was 'Babs - The Queen of Karaoke.' But there's a much bigger show next
door tonight. As Roy Evans, a Boot Room graduate, once remarked:
"Anfield without European football is like a banquet without wine."

The red half of Merseyside has whipped itself into a frenzy over
continental contests ever since Bill Shankly changed the strip to
all-scarlet on the eve of the 3-0 victory over Anderlecht in November,
1964, in the club's inaugural European campaign. Using his "colossus,"
Ron Yeats, as his model for the new uniform, Shankly exclaimed: "That's
it! You look about 9ft tall in that kit". White shorts were dumped,
along with Liverpool's parochial past.

Some think Liverpool, the city, looks inwards. Socially, it probably
does. But in football it faces Europe, the great stage on which Bob
Paisley and Joe Fagan masterminded four triumphs in the competition
Liverpool and Chelsea contest this evening. Anyone who witnessed the 2-1
home victory over Juventus in the previous round can still feel the
vibrations in their bones. The noise and mood evoked Shankly's promise
to make Liverpool "untouchable" and "a bastion of invincibility" to
which "everyone would have to submit".

While Babs was stretching her vocal cords, Jamie Carragher, a successor
to Yeats in the heart of the Liverpool defence, responded to suggestions
that Chelsea will need ear-plugs if they are to stop the Anfield roar
scrambling their heads.

"A lot of them are big players, international players, but I'm sure this
atmosphere will be something they've never experienced before,"
Carragher agreed. "No disrespect to Stamford Bridge, but it'll be
something else here. The Juventus atmosphere and the Olympiakos
atmosphere will be eclipsed, and it will be up there with Saint-Etienne
and the great days of the past. Speaking to people on the street,
they're so desperate to get those days back. They can smell it. We're
very close to getting back where we were in the past and that will
create the special atmosphere."

Only a seat in the stands on a big European night can furnish the
sceptic with the Richter scale reading he needs to understand the mania
for European football on Merseyside. The club's history is inseparable
from the story of club football's most important testing ground. So
tonight's all-Premiership clash has assumed a dimension way beyond mere
bragging rights in England. For Liverpool the chance to reach the final
in Istanbul on May 25 is an opportunity to heal the rupture between the
present and the past.

Carragher again: "The club has been built on success in the Sixties,
Seventies and Eighties, and all of a sudden it's just gone. We had a
little spell under Gérard Houllier, but the crowd can sense that these
are the days they had 20 years ago. They'll make the most of it.

"We're a long way behind Chelsea in the Premiership, but you saw the
effect the crowd had when we played Juventus - and you'd have to put
them on a par with Chelsea. We're looking for that kind of performance
again. We are underdogs. They've proved what a good side they are by
winning the Premiership ahead of Arsenal and Man United. When this draw
was made, Chelsea were strong favourites. Now they're slight favourites,
so we've bridged the gap a little bit."

Asked whether he considers this the biggest game of his career,
Carragher replied with familiar sense: "It's on a par with the finals
[the FA, League and UEFA Cups of 2001] when there were trophies at
stake. You feel like the whole world's watching. I never miss these big
Champions League semi-finals and finals, because that's where the top
players and the top teams play. We've got this chance and we may never
play at this level again."

A throwback to the great academy days, Carragher embodies the Shankly
principles of tenacity and hunger that were instilled in Yeats, Tommy
Smith, Emlyn Hughes, Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson - his predecessors
in the central defensive positions. His conversion from full-back is one
of Rafa Benitez's smartest moves.

"Credit to the manager and a big thank you to him for that," Carrager
said. "The first thing he did was buy a new right-back. I was a bit
worried when they brought Josemi in. But I'd played a few games at
centre-half at the end of last season and I started this one there, on
the back of that."

In one sense Liverpool need success tonight more than Chelsea, who have
already captured two trophies. "Yes, this could define our season. If we
go out I'm sure the headlines will say we're fifth in the league and
have been knocked out of the Champions League," Carragher remarked. "I'm
aware of that, but we've just got to focus on the game and be positive
and believe we can go through. This is the biggest club competition you
can win. I know some Chelsea players said the Premiership was their
priority at the start of the season, but that's out of the way for them
now. Hopefully we do want it a little bit more - and will show that out
on the pitch."

Liverpool's feelings for European football were not always unequivocal.
"Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who believes the world
ends at the white cliffs of Dover", Shankly once said. "I'm all for the
Common Market. My only concern is to halt a naïve swing in the opposite
direction, and the belief that the Latins rules the waves".

It's the Russians (Roman Abramovich) and Portuguese (Jose Mourinho) who
throw down the gauntlet tonight. Babs had better drop the karaoke mic
and join the Anfield chorus. Liverpool need all the support they can get.

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