No Nonsense by Joey Barton

Author:Joey Barton [Barton, Joey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471147685
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE PEOPLE’S GAME

On the advice of Steve Black, my friend and spiritual ally, I seek serenity in Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral. My favourite place to sit and think is an alcove, close to the tomb of Frederick Arthur Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby. Legend has it that anyone who finds the minuscule bronze mouse hidden on this monument to a Victorian man of means must rub its nose and make a wish.

I am tempted . . .

His legacy, as a former Governor-General of Canada, includes the Stanley Cup, ice hockey’s greatest prize. Stanley Park, the green lung between Everton and Liverpool football clubs, is named after him. He belonged to an age of poverty and paternalism, which coexisted in a city developed by the despair of the slave trade and the desperate ambition of Irish and Italian immigrants.

Pay £5.50 to reach the top of the cathedral’s sandstone tower, and the panoramic landscape spread 154 metres below you takes in the Irish Sea and River Mersey, industry and distant hills. Gentrified streets, elegant rows of smart three-storey houses, were once slums which spread from the dockside before they were cleared into the hinterland.

Liverpool is a place of impulse and contradiction, emotion and discord. It is no wonder I feel so at home there. It is a political city, an opinionated city. People will happily engage you in conversation about football, or the issues of the day. I was weaned on stories of the Toxteth riots, and opposition to the poll tax.

I am resolutely agnostic, and find it difficult to reconcile the purity of unquestioning faith with the commercialism that means this building, the world’s largest completed Anglican cathedral, lacks only a rollercoaster ride to relieve visitors of their loose change. Yet its scale is so imposing I can understand how supplicants are drawn in by a belief in a higher power.

It has become a cliché to speak of football grounds as modern cathedrals, but, like most clichés, the observation contains a grain of truth. There is a similar sense of worship, of population by ghosts. They are places where men and women congregate, to share and celebrate their dreams. They leave behind something of themselves, an intangible residue of raw emotion.

St James’ Park is the classic cathedral on the hill. It dominates the Newcastle skyline. Sam Allardyce sold me its sanctity. He promised passion, a life lesson. I was touched immediately by the yearning of the fans, the longing for their loyalty to be at least appreciated, if not reciprocated. It sounds crazy to say this, but I have always seen myself as an extension of the people I play for.

I’ve fallen out with fans on more occasions than I care to remember. I’ve spoken my mind and delivered uncomfortable truths. I told QPR supporters I joined their club solely for financial reasons. It didn’t make me try any less on the pitch, but I will never repeat the mistake of allowing money to be the single factor dictating an important decision.

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