Liverpool, for Real

When you lift your scarf with both hands above your head and sing You’ll Never Walk Alone at Anfield, your heart inflates ten times its normal size, a well of emotions bores through your centre, and life suddenly seems infinitely more precious than it did just seconds before. ‘At the end of the storm is a golden sky/ And the sweet silver song of a lark…’ It was around the lark bit where I had to take stock. Pausing mid-song not only made me realise just how superior the voices around me were to my own, it also prevented me from breaking down and bawling my cry-baby eyes out. Yup, when it comes to Liverpool I’m a sentimental fool. Glenn Bowden, Kiwi by birth and Scouse by desire, makes a pilgrimage to Liverpool to see his team victorious on their home ground of Anfield. For years, he has admired the Liverpool way - the code of conduct that instills a sense of community, continuity, and soul. Finally, he had to experience it for himself. If football has an evangelist, it is the passionate Bowden. Disbelievers will be swayed by his fervour, disarmed by his humour, and will come to love Liverpool, city and team. Just another book about football? Don’t be fooled, Bowden’s affection and acerbic humour is turned on the city of Liverpool, its inhabitants and the unlucky people in his life. It is as much a rich travelogue and witty autobiography as a celebration of football and the Liverpool FC. By the end of the book you’ll yearn to see Liverpool, doff your hat before Bill Shankly’s statue, and sing with 40,000 loyal Scousers You’ll Never Walk Alone.