From the Fab Four to the Kop: A Liverpool Love Story

Forty years of faith, heartbreak, and never walking alone

It all started with a cassette tape. My father had a collection of them, neatly stacked in a wooden rack beside the old tape deck in our living room. I must have been around eight or nine years old when I first pulled one out — The Beatles. I did not know it then, but that small plastic rectangle would change the course of my life in ways I could never have imagined.

I played those tapes over and over, completely captivated by the melodies, by the harmonies, by something I could not name but could not resist. And then came the questions. Where did these men come from? How did music this extraordinary come to exist? I learned that The Beatles were from a city in England called Liverpool — a name I had to look up just to be sure I was saying it right.

A City in My Imagination

Knowing the Beatles came from Liverpool sent me on my first real adventure as a researcher. I was just a kid, but I made my way to the local library and spent afternoons flipping through encyclopaedias and whatever I could find about this remarkable city on the banks of the Mersey. Some of their most beloved songs were inspired by actual places in Liverpool — streets, parks, landmarks. A place that could inspire music like that had to be extraordinary.

Liverpool lived entirely in my imagination then. A grey, misty, working-class city in northern England that somehow produced the greatest band in history. I was completely enchanted.

One Night in Goodison Park

Then came the night that sealed everything. My father had switched on the television — football was on. I sat beside him, not particularly interested at first, until the announcer's voice pulled me in. Liverpool versus Everton. A Merseyside derby. I had never watched a proper football match before, not really, but something about this one felt electric.

"Liverpool won 3–2 at Goodison Park. I did not fully understand what I

was watching — but I knew I would never stop watching."

From that night on, I was a Red. Completely and irrevocably.

The Tabloid Ritual

This was the mid-1980s. Live broadcasts of English football were rare luxuries in Indonesia. There was no internet, no satellite TV beaming games into our living rooms every weekend. So I did what every devoted fan in that era did — I waited. Every week, without fail, I bought a copy of Bola, the football tabloid, and I read every word about Liverpool Football Club. Fixture lists. Match reports. Transfer rumours. League tables. I memorised it all.

Liverpool in the 1980s and early 1990s were an extraordinary side — league titles, cups, the relentless consistency of a club at the very summit of English football. Following them felt like having a secret passport to something magnificent. I was proud in the way only the truly faithful can be proud.

The Lean Years — and the Mocking

Then I moved to Australia for high school and later university, and Liverpool's fortunes began to shift. The 1990s were not kind to the club. Trophies grew scarce. Manchester United dominated. Arsenal rose. And my mates — supporters of those very clubs — made sure I heard about it. Constantly.

"I wore the red through the mockery. Through the drought. Through every year the title slipped further away. That is what faith actually is."

But I never switched. Never wavered. A man who changes his club when times get hard was never really a supporter to begin with. I was a Liverpool fan before they were winning, and I would be one long after the trophies stopped — if that was what it came to.

Istanbul, 2005 — My Greatest Regret

And then came Istanbul. The Champions League Final. Liverpool versus AC Milan. The most famous night in the club's modern history — and the night of my single greatest regret as a fan.

By half-time, Milan led 3–0. Three goals. It seemed impossible, grotesque, an act of cruelty by the football gods. I sat there beside my pregnant wife, and I gave up. I switched the television off. I went to bed.

The next morning, I turned on the TV and could not believe what I was seeing. Liverpool had come back. 3–3 after extra time. Penalties won. The European Cup was coming home — and I had not watched a single second of the greatest comeback in football history.

I will carry that with me forever. Not as pure joy, but as a lesson carved into my chest:

never switch off. Never stop believing. Nothing — absolutely nothing — is impossible.

The False Dawn and the Long Wait

I hoped Istanbul was a turning point. Instead it felt, with time, more like a glorious exception. Liverpool flirted with greatness over the next decade but could not quite grasp it. There were near-misses, good runs, promising squads that fell just short. The Premier League title remained elusive. The wait stretched on and on.

But supporters do not choose when to love their club. You carry it through the ordinary seasons just as you carry it through the extraordinary ones.

Klopp — and the Return of Belief

When Jürgen Klopp arrived at Anfield in 2015, something changed immediately — not in results, not right away, but in feeling. Here was a man who believed in his players the way a great fan believes in his club. Passionately, unconditionally, loudly. He called the fans the twelfth man and meant it. He ran down the touchline with his fist in the air. He transformed a squad into a brotherhood.

Slowly, patiently, the pieces came together. Champions League glory in 2019. And then — during a global pandemic that had emptied every stadium in the world — Liverpool won the Premier League title for the first time in thirty years. Jordan Henderson lifted the trophy in an empty Anfield, and I watched from home with tears I did not bother to hide.

Thirty years. I had waited thirty years. Every mocking comment from a United fan, every blank season, every near-miss, every moment I might have chosen to look away — all of it had been worth it.

Never Give Up — The Lesson That Outlasts the Trophy

This is what I want to leave you with — from one fan, one human being, to another. It does not matter whether we are talking about a football club, a business, a dream, a relationship, or any cause worth caring about. The moment you switch off is the moment you forfeit everything that was about to happen. I switched off the TV in Istanbul in 2005, and I missed the greatest comeback in football history. I will never make that mistake again.

Keep the faith. Stay in the room. Believe when believing makes no logical sense. Because the moments that change everything almost always arrive when you least expect them — and only to those still watching when they do.

You'll Never Walk Alone.