Alyson Rudd: 2005 Champions League Final

I am a Liverpool fan and as a child only truly cared about European success. Perhaps that was because I would surreptitiously listen to radio commentary under my bedclothes on a school night and it all sounded so glamorous and so important.

When Liverpool reached the 2005 Champions League Final, I became agitated. I was not important enough to be sent to cover the game for The Times and, to be honest, did not want to be sent to Istanbul for the paper. I wanted to go as a fan.

Contacts put me in touch with contacts and to my astonishment I secured a flight and a ticket. My boss said he would pay for the flight if I wrote about my experience as a supporter. I might have cried. I definitely squealed.

I wrote a piece for the main paper about why even those who do not like football should watch the Final, which pitted AC Milan against Rafa Benitez’s side, and a piece for the sports section on how they don’t make players like Steven Gerrard in Italy. I was humbled that many of those on the chartered flight to Turkey read the articles and came to say hello to me. I had written about the shirt I was given by Gerard Houllier, the former Liverpool manager. It was the shirt worn by Gerrard when he was first made captain. A lot of fans asked if they could touch it or smell it. I had written that I had not washed it. Its scent was Eau de Gerrard mixed with my own perfume.

It was the shirt I pulled on at half time in Istanbul. Liverpool were 3-0 down and I was wondering about the biggest humiliations in football history. As soon as Gerrard scored, I knew we would be OK. The Liverpool fans outnumbered the Milan fans to fill two thirds of the stadium and suddenly everything to do with the Italians shrunk. Two minutes later Vladimir Smicer scored what felt like a slow -motion goal and then Liverpool won a penalty. Xabi Alonso’s strike was saved but he scored from the rebound. Of course he did. The Italians were wobbling.

Of the very many penalty shoot-outs I have watched over the years, this was the least tense. The Final had become something magical. My main emotion was one of impatience. Hurry up! Get your hands on the trophy! The noise when Andriy Shevchenko’s penalty was saved was guttural, joyous, emotional and loud. People I do not know very well texted me congratulations as if I had saved the penalty. One of the funniest aspects of people knowing who you support is that they make you part of the club. ‘Well done’, they texted. In this instance they were right. It was the shirt I had put on at half time. That was why we won.   

I could not immediately find my hotel afterwards, not that it mattered, the bed was so dirty I slept in my clothes for a couple of hours and then hung around the airport for most of the next day. We were treated like cattle, but we did not care. Everyone was smiling and hugging and swapping stories of how they felt at half time and who they saw leaving only to rush back when the first Liverpool goal was scored.  I am convinced I flew home on the wrong flight but there was complete mayhem, and no-one was checking tickets.

I was a little unbearable when I got home. My youngest son, I learned, had wrapped himself in my Liverpool bath towel and cried at half time. He supports Fulham. I was very touched. The next day was his sixth birthday and he wanted to go to the seaside. It was glorious weather and I spoiled it slightly by singing the Luis Garcia song. A lot.

“He’s four foot seven, of football heaven,” I sang.

“Yes, I know he is Mummy,” my son said wearily.

As for my colleagues and friends, I told them I had peaked. That nothing else could come close. I had been a fan and journalist combined, at the greatest game of football of all time.  

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