Blatantly stolen from Football 365.
Checklist
Are you the sort of person who regards being born in a particular city to be some kind of achievement, as opposed to an accident of fate?
Would you like to be a part of a massive, special, history-laden football club that outsiders couldn't possibly ever understand and therefore have no right to comment upon?
Are you a larger-than-life character with a big personality who enjoys showing it? All the time, every day of the week, so that people collapse to the floor and claw at their faces because you just won't stop? In short, would you fit right into an Alan Bleasdale script or the Big Brother house?
Do you like the idea of following a team where you don't have to turn up all the time - just for cup matches?
Would you enjoy basking in an enormous but misplaced sense of superiority over other Premiership teams who've actually won the Premiership?
Are you easily bored, and therefore attracted to the idea that you'll never know who's in the starting XI on any given day, so that it's like supporting several different teams?
Do you like the sound of a club with so much history that it just can't be bought (except by a foreign consortium interested in maintaining a healthy Liverpool Reds franchise)?
Are you drawn to the idea of supporting a team so important that they can get into prestigious competitions despite not qualifying for them, and are able to demand royal honours from every Scouser's lackey, Yer Majesty the Queen?
Could you enjoy being part of the sort of all-for-one community spirit that means that even if you can't get a ticket to a big match, it's accepted practice to borrow one from the nearest child?
Or if you can't find a child, nobody minds if you pop round the houses of the some of the players and borrow their cars and hi-fi and stuff instead, because you're all part of the one big family?
Hello? Alright, mayte, is that 606? Yeah, I just wanted to say the Liverpule fans were fantastic today. Before the match there was a minute's silence in memory of the Chelsea penalty at Anfield, and it was perfectly respected - PERFECTLY, I'm tellin' yez.'
'Is that TalkSport? Listen, the scum and the cockneys might be winning the Prem on a regular basis, right, but YOU'RE NOT LIVERPOOL and you NEVER WILL BE. It's what we are and who we're about and what we do and...er...where we eat and what we think about in the...er...bath or wharrever that makes us different - alright, mayte?
'Right, you know that bloke who rang up and said that watching Liverpule away in Europe was slightly less interesting than watching penicillin form in a petri dish, right? Well he doesn't COME from that petri dish. It's a proud, fiercely independent petri dish full of earthy humour and toytown characters, right? And he doesn't understand Petri Dish Football Club. Nobody understands Petri Dish Football Club except True Petri Dishers!'
'Is that 606? El-Eye-Vee...Eee-Ar-Pee...double-Oh-El Liverpule FC...L-I-V...E-R-Peee...double-O-L Liverpule FC. Scared now, arencha mayte. Arencha. Thinkin' a bit more clearly now about what it means to criticise the greatest team in the known universe NOW, arencha, pal. Eh? EH? - Hello?' [Beeeeeee....]
Get the accent Seriously, have you never listened to a single phone-in?
You are the pundit 'Just listen to that, John. That's the famous Scouse terrace wit for you. Stevie Gerrard just lamped that ball into the stands in another glory-seeking 35-yard attempt on goal, and they burst out - as one - with that hilarious chorus of "Ste-ven Ger-rard..." I almost wet meself, John, I really did. He's the heart and soul of this club, Stevie Gerrard is, even though he nearly went to Chelsea.'
Club history Liverpool Football Club was founded in 1959 by Lord Bill Paisley of Shankly, who went on to win some cups and stuff and was famous for his famous phrase, "Football is quite important to me." Perhaps the club's finest achievement was their 2001 historic Treble of Cups Nobody Cares About - the year in which they also established their now firmly-established tradition of being thoroughly outplayed in cup finals before winning on penalties.
Fit in instantly with a single sentence: "Ah, big European nights at Anfield. It's what football's about. The lights, the pitch, the songs, the atmosphere, the roar of the crowd. The lo-ong, lo-ong minutes waiting for something to happen. I reckon we've just got time to nip round the players' houses and rob them before we climb back over the wall for the bit where we hold the scarves up at the end."
