Growing up in Baltimore, I was a Colts fan. You had to be or you’d be shunned from everything including family, church, and crab feasts. When I was sixteen, the Colts beat the New York Giants in what was called ‘The Greatest Football Game Ever Played’. I don’t know about that but it was an exciting time to be a Baltimorean.
        

         I moved to New York City in 1965 and was glued to the television in ‘69 when the Colts played the Jets in Super Bowl III. The Colts lost. And I did too and basically lost interest in football until 1981, while an undergrad at the University of Mississippi when I volunteered to shoot Ole Miss Football games by manning the sideline camera.
        

         And so I got hooked on Southeastern Conference Football.

         I worked my way up in the Ole Miss crew to become Field Director (a three camera live production) and Unit Manager (responsible for all the right gadjets being in the production truck that would be needed for ‘away’ games). When I moved to Tuscaloosa I worked for a season on the Ray Perkins’ Coach’s Show for a local commercial station, a job that showed me how much I never wanted to work in commercial television.
        

         Over the years my athletic interests were soothed by taking the kids to Crimson Tide football games, twenty years of morning runs, and helping the coach for my children’s soccer games. The kids are grown now, I no longer can do morning running as my body has turned on me, and while my passion for Alabama football has grown stronger over the Nick Saban years, there was still something missing. An empty place inside that needed ‘Rah-Rah’ fulfillment.
        

          Maybe five years ago on a Saturday morning, I found myself - as usual – awake with the sun and as is my habit, I turned the TV on and cruised through the channels until I came upon an English soccer match. Excuse me . . . an English Premier League FOOTBALL match. It was fast-moving, skillful, physical, there were no timeouts, no commercial breaks, and the fans were raving maniacs. It was love at first sight. A magical moment. Time out of time. I was mesmerized. Ecstatic. Overjoyed. I realized, as many other English football fans have realized, that what I was watching was indeed, The Beautiful Game.
        

         And so I became a Liverpool Football Club fan and have been on the European Football Wagon ever since.

         

         Why Liverpool? I heard someone ask. Why not Chelsea, or Manchester United, or Newcastle, or Brighton? Was it because The Beatles were born in Liverpool? Or Banastre Tarleton? (OK . . . he was that really vicious British General who was Mel Gibson’s nemesis in ‘The Patriot’ ) or even Roger Bennett? You can Google him.

         

         Since the only Brit I ever knew in real life was a rather nerdy fellow from Manchester who collected antique typewriters, I might have become a United or City fan. And since some of me ancestors came from Ayrshire in Scotland I might have become a Scottish Premier League fan. And since I have some friends in Tuscaloosa who are from Bremen, Germany, I might have thrown my lot in with The Bundesliga.
        

         But the real reason I became a Liverpool fan is because in 1916, my grandfather sailed into Liverpool from New York to supervise the installation of canning machinery at the Chivers & Sons jelly and jam factory in Cambridge and I figured if it was good enough for George Washington Ellsworth Brooks . . . it was good enough for me.

         

         Liverpool is the Baltimore of England. Both cities made their municipal bones on heavy industry and harbors, trade from around the world, and a dialect that’s barely understandable. In Baltimore it’s ‘ Balmorese’ and in Liverpool it’s ‘Scouse’. During a Baltimore Colts game you’d hear, “Ah shore cood yews anuther cold wun, Hon.” While watching a Liverpool match you’d hear, “Get the ale in lad, I'm dyin’ for a bevvie”.    
                 
         It’s the ‘Off-Season’ now for English Premier League footie. The Mighty Reds of Liverpool are in training camp in Austria and won’t be back until August 14th to open the season at Carrow Road against Norwich City in Norwich. On August 14th, my ankles will be taped, my boots will be shined, cleats polished . . . I’ll be wearing my ‘Away’ jersey, and I’ll have me head fully in The Beautiful Game.

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          Play on, Lads . . .