Ben Wilkinson

Days

when you weren’t anyone. Days gone undercover. Days half-dead in half-light, days under the covers. Days hoping for a dawn that wouldn’t come, days nights and the sun a dull, faded thing seen through nights of curtains drawn through days of nothing but you, you being the last thing you’d want to think about, you being, you’d discovered, precisely the fucking problem. Days indistinguishable. Everything a problem. Days gone, days not done but done in from the start, days of never touching a pen or making a start but thoughts a blank — days of feeling nothing then everything, everything come to nothing. Days put behind you. Days that don’t deserve the name. Days put behind you. Days would never be the same.

This is Anfield

Living up to its fabled buzz, the Kop roared and rose even before kick-off. Down in the main stand I watched; John Barnes adjusting his captain’s band on the hallowed turf. Waves of red in rows and rows – a kid in that season’s kit, I swelled with a kind of borrowed pride, belonging without belonging; my dad and brother craning to see McManaman darting, how Fowler propelled strike after strike.                                 Half-time over, and a crashing header left the keeper without a chance … the place erupted.