When Liverpool Lose

Another weekend that has gone south. I woke up in good spirits like usual on a weekend. Weather was great, I woke up early enough, had a nice sesh with me morning devotion and even snuck in a good hour with The Magician’s Nephew by C S Lewis, great book, I will be doing a review when I’m done with it. All was looking good, I even forgot Liverpool were playing till my phone gave me the courtesy beep that signals thirty minutes till a Liverpool match starts. Like the football addict I am I soon begin searching for a stream to watch it online, the channels over here are pointless, almost like ZNBC back home, they are oblivious to football matches or anything good.

Great book by an even better author

I find a stream that was pretty good just in time to catch the last bit of You’ll Never Walk Alone, Liverpool’s anthem. The squad line up was shown and I was pretty psyched, we had just won our last two matches and I was going to watch Coutinho, Lallana and Sterling in the same line up, what could go wrong? Stupid question Mwansa, stupid question. First thing to go wrong was the internet went off so the stream goes right out the window, laptop almost followed it but I had a bit more control.

I started flicking through all the channels on the TV in a vain attempt to find any possibility of watching the match. 152 channels of nothing! Absolutely nothing! So I was left with my last option, follow the match via twitter. I spent just over an hour flicking down to refresh the app every minute or so. Any small movement by my annoying roommate had me up against a wall ready to rip him to shreds, all because of a footy match. I was hoping for anything, any sign of life, any bit of hope to tell me the team was doing well and would win. Nothing came.

I did that for an hour then someone came to distract me for the last ten minutes of the game, thank God. As I was helping him out my phone gave me the dreaded whistle, full time had come and the score was nil-nil. What a let-down, the lads had failed to win again. I was beaten broken ready to throw away another weekend in sulking just because the team had lost. After the guy I was helping left I remained alone with my thoughts and my roommate who was doing his best rendition of The Annoying Roommate, Oscar winning performance by the way, when I realised that things need to change.

The annoying scoreline that has haunted me today

In actual fact I have had this thought almost every weekend that Liverpool have had a bad result which in retrospect is every other weekend but this time the subject was different. Before I was thinking along the lines of things need to change at Liverpool. Tighten up the defence or improve the attack or bench this player and bring this guy on but the problem was not Liverpool, the problem was me, the problem is me. I had placed Liverpool into the be all that ends all of my weekend, a position it was never supposed to occupy.

The truth is I am an addict. Anyone who knows me might be quick to say I’m addicted to coca cola and maybe I am but the addiction here is football. Football is my addiction and my laptop is the altar on which I worship, I realised that in full colour today. I have put so much of my satisfaction on the success and failure of not just Liverpool matches but football in general. I spend a lot of time watching it, I know stuff about it that is borderline ridiculous at times. I am usually able to tell what boot manufacturer players get their footwear from and not even the high profile ones, I’m talking mid to lower table. I follow U21 and U18 football and watch matches, all bragging aside this is a problem and I cant ignore it any longer.

In the words of Jefferson Bethke if you cant put it down you don’t own it, it owns you. This might be true of me ad football and I am going to find out. Most of the things I put on here are problems I have already solved, well this is a new kind. It is an issue that needs solving. I need a break from football before I put it so high that I cannot bring it down without an earth shattering system overhaul. We’ll see how things go in the next couple weeks.

If you can't give it up you don't own it, it owns you
- Jefferson Bethke

Lastly it is possible that all of this is a reaction to my team not doing well. I could be the wolf in failing to get the grapes that are high up and walking away calling them sour, no idea why a wolf would want grapes but it’s an actual metaphor. This could be a decision sparked by that but the reason I think it is more is because I see the need to wean myself off of all football ad not just Liverpool’s. We’ll see how things go but of this I am certain, the only thing I want to have such a strong hold over me is that which already has it’s hold over me, my loving service to my God.

I might be shivering from withdrawal in a couple days or weeks’ time but hey, it’s the road to recovery