It’s time to throw out a tattered pair of sweats. They were never meant to last, really, but here they are three and a half years after I’d bought them from a Primark outside Manchester on a very cold January day. As I pause to throw them out I consider that day, sitting on the floor of my hotel room with a less-than-decent pizza and drinking another overpriced beer. That’s when I remember it was the first time I ever watched football - really watched it, not just been in a place where it was on as background noise - and how different my life is now because of that first game.
The story of how I’d ended up stranded in a Manchester airport hotel just days into the new year of 2018 is both predictable and not worth repeating. Suffice it to say, someone had completely let me down, as they’d continue to do until I learned to stop letting myself down. Plans had been canceled, lies had been told, and in the end I had been left standing alone in more than a few English railway stations. I try and reach out now, across my memories of that time, and whisper to myself “go home - go to Denmark or Spain or Texas. Don’t just stand here waiting for someone who was never waiting for you.”
There had been one moment where I felt close to this person, and instead of counting all of the loneliness against them, I held onto that tiny feeling of connection instead. Days earlier, I’d stood in Anfield for the first time on a tour that was meant to be a gift for them but ended up being more of a gift to myself. I know stadium tours are meant to elicit a deep emotional reaction in the diehard fans who come to wander the facilities, but for someone who knew so little about The Most Beautiful Game, it certainly had a profoundly moving affect. (Someone remind me to write a letter to them one day, thanking the woman who led that day’s tour.) There is a moment when you see the pitch and the empty seats for the first time from way up in the stands, and the sound of tens of thousands of fans singing is being piped in around you so you can immerse yourself in the feeling of being there on a game day. It was energizing and all I could think about were the people who made that wall of sound, who came to this place and so many like it around the world to be together, united behind one thing.
In the airport hotel days later and spiraling through heartbreak and frustration, someone came to my rescue with a hearty lunch and a car ride to a place that sold clean underwear. That’s where I bought the sweats. They were soft and comfortable, which is as close to reassuring as I’d get at the time. Later, when boredom and hunger set in, I put them on and ordered room service for the first and so far only time in my entire life. I was going to self-medicate with alcohol and carbs, but I needed an audio/visual distraction as well.
It was Friday, January 5th and after one loop of all the available programs on the little TV at the foot of my bed, I finally settled on what turned out to be the third round FA Cup match between Liverpool and their Merseyside rivals Everton. There they were in their red kits running back and forth across a pitch I’d been standing beside just three days earlier. The faces in the crowded stands around them were chanting and singing and booing and cheering; it looked just as I’d pictured it. Trying to follow along, I had no idea what the rules were, and I did not for the life of me understand why the commentators were talking about spending £75million for some very tall guy. And then his header won them the game. It was exciting. It was exhilarating. For those 90 or so minutes, I wasn’t sad or lonely. And after that, I was hooked.
The sweats have holes in them now - mostly from my new puppy’s razor sharp baby teeth and claws. In the years since, my love of football has grown, and the heartache has diminished. Now that I know the rules and love the game as much as the team, I no longer think of it as something related to someone who hurt me. Now it is attached to dependable and hilarious friends and our shared memories of triumph and defeat. These days my jersey says Van Dijk on the back, but I will watch any league or team suggested to me just to learn and experience something new.
The sweats make a dramatic last minute addition to the trash just before the collectors come, and I go back inside to pack for a vacation where I will brandish an England scarf that was gifted to me by my best friend and cheer in a bar with her and her husband. I will be surrounded by people who love the same things I love - 90th minute headers, insane completion rates in major tournaments, and players who stand up for themselves and what they believe in. No matter what the outcome, it will be great fun to cheer and laugh and be amongst friends, and be reminded that we are never really alone.