ANFIELD/ Liverpool Football Club
Chris Lampie was a Liverpool Football Club fan, and he had been a fanatical supporter all his life to the point where his long-suffering wife Denise, had allowed her three sons to be named after previous players and managers. Chris Lampie hadn’t missed a game home or away for six years, neither had his friends. Les White, mad Adie and dodgy Si as they were known, had travelled the world with Chris watching Liverpool play football. The only time they missed any of the season was years ago. All four diehard fans had missed three months of the season six years before, by being sentenced to twelve weeks detention at Her Majesty`s pleasure. They were allegedly attacked by a much larger group of Chelsea fans at an away game in London, and in the process of defending themselves, they managed to hospitalise all bar two of the Londoners. Their combined yearly spending budget for buying season tickets and paying for hotels and airfares would be grounds for divorce if their respective wives ever found out.
When Liverpool played their matches at home Chris Lampie and his crowd of friends always met in a pub that was in close proximity to the Anfield Stadium. From the public house, which was called the Sandon, to the Anfield Stadium, was three hundred yards. Lampie and his group of fellow supporters sat in the same seats in the Sandon every time Liverpool played at home, and it had affectionately become known as `Compost Corner`. The Anfield stadium had been built in 1884 and had been the home of the most successful British football club in history ever since. Liverpool Football Cub had won the European Champions` League Trophy a record number of times.
Chris Lampie and his friends always sat in a section of the ground known as the famous `Kop`, to watch their beloved Liverpool play. The Spion Kop, after which the stand is named, is a hill in Natal, and it was the site of a battle in the second Boer War. During the battle over three hundred men of the Lancashire Regiment were killed, many of them were Liverpool fans.
Kick off at the game today was scheduled for 3pm. Chris Lampie stood at The Sandon door waiting for it to open, he looked at his watch and it was 10.55am. He would have to wait just five minutes until the pub opened its doors. Chris leaned his back against the wall of the pub and looked down Breck Road toward the city centre. He could see the Liverbirds perched on top of the Liver buildings next to the river. They were the emblem of LFC and he thought it would bring him luck to see them towering in the hazy distance before the game started. As he looked back toward the stadium itself he noticed a slim, Asian looking man climbing some basement steps up to the street. The rest of the old Victorian terrace looked derelict which wasn’t unusual for this area. A strange shiver ran down his spine as he watched the little Asian man climb into an ice-cream van and drive away.
CHAPTER 51