Red Till The Day I Die

UEFA Champions' League Final: Chelsea 3 Liverpool 2

What kind of a club has a motto of "You'll Never Walk Alone"? Seriously, I mean, like what kind of a pathetic cry for victory is you will never walk alone? I mean, like, "Let's Kick Everybody Else's Butt", or "We Are The Best, The Rest of You Are Losers" sounds like a more appropriate machismo club motto maybe, but "You'll Never Walk Alone"?

Can you see Mel Gibson in Braveheart yelling "You'll nevER WALK ALONE!!!" instead of "FREEDOM!". I don't think so.

And yet, that is the most endearing cry of all. Bleeding from every Scouser heart (native or abroad), lingering in every tear-stained eye, welling up from the deepest souls of every Liverpool fan, resonating around the Kop and to the rest of the world - is not a rallying call to victory - because we know that winning or losing is temporary - but a promise of faithfulness to Liverpool Football Club for the rest of our lives.

The Liverpool economy is still recovering from its post World War 2 decline, and itself has four of the ten poorest postcode districts in the United Kingdom. Blue collar, working class were all words used to describe Liverpool, as far as I know. The inhabitants are called Scousers after the term 'scouse' - a kind of stew. That doesn't exactly scream of sophistication, does it?

Yet it is this underlying rough as guts community that takes their football so seriously that it has spread contagiously throughout the world.

You'll Never Walk Alone. We will be there with you through sunshine or torrential rain.

Inexplicably, even when Liverpool are well and truly beaten on the field, towards the last five minutes, inevitably - a few would start singing the song and like a ripple, it will spread, building up to a swell of "You Will Never Walk A...lone, You'll NEVER WALK ALONE!!".

Confused fans from the opposition will wonder what we have to sing about. Almost like a battered wife, the fans sing the promise of reconciliation, the hope of the next game, the promise of next year.

I think every football club has a personality and will attract a certain subset of fans. And that is what separates us from the other soccer fans.

Clubs like Man United and Chelsea are so used to winning recently that they take it for granted, and some of their fans are almost blase with winning. Accusations of home fans keeping quiet in Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge this year is evidence of that, and yet, the term "The Twelfth Man" has only been credited to the faithful Liverpool supporters year in, year out.

We are the most successful English club in Europe, and at least half of the current supporters can't remember that far back. We used to dominate the local league as well, but since the inception of the Premiership in the early 90s, when I started supporting the club, we have never won the Premiership before.

We have never taken our success for granted, however, because in supporting Liverpool, the disappointment of defeat is to be expected as much as victory, but we have redefined the phrase 'snatching victory from the jaws of defeat'. How many times have the commentators screamed the phrase 'You couldn't write a fairytale like this!' when it comes to Liverpool matches.

No club in recent years can conjure the romanticism of soccer and comebacks as well as Liverpool.

The 2001 season of the unique treble, and beating fierce rivals Everton in the dying minutes, with 10 men, to qualify for Europe. The Champions League finals in 2005, when almost every Liverpool heart had surrendered to a "Well, we'll just have to do better next year" at half time and yet came from 3-0 down to win on penalties, or the FA Cup final of 2006, when all seemed lost until the gifted right boot of Gerrard changed everything in the dying minutes.

It is this heart-stopping games, these breath-taking matches that speaks of a truth - in a game where money has made fickle fans of supporters, Liverpool remains one of the few clubs in England, where, whether you are a player or a fan, it is all about the heart.

And the heart attacks from watching them play, I must add. I am sure my life has shortened by a good few years since supporting this club.

You will never walk alone. A song to outlast the fluctuations of time in the game of football. Not just a motto, but an attitude to life. And that is why I will be, Red till the day I die.