My life has changed a lot since the late 1980s; indeed, after a near-fatal asthma attack in 1990 – which led to emergency hospitalisation and a ton of drugs – I developed several unwavering fitness issues that, nine years of increasing struggles later, led to the diagnosis of M.E., and the end of my design career (and thus my income), much of my social life, and all forms of strenuous exercise. I’d loved writing (fiction) but had never written anything about football in 1999.
Yet, as news breaks of a potential treatment for M.E., given that Long Covid causes the same paralysing post-exertional fatigue (now aged 50, my aims of resuming a semi-pro career as a striker are perhaps done), I have seen some parallels in my life with the late ’80s, and that obviously includes Liverpool being bloody brilliant.
(Everton, whom the Reds play this midweek, less so.)
At the time of my severest asthma attack there was heavy snow, and it’s snowing as I write this.
But I did get to socialise recently – to attend a concert – and to see a band I hadn’t seen in 34 years.
(I usually make it to a couple of concerts per year, and was back up to 4-5 Liverpool games, pre-Covid. A long way short of my old season-ticket home-and-away days – and tons of gigs – before my health and finances suffered, but not bad.)
The concert in question got me thinking back to those teenage thrills, and the rip-roaring Reds.
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