sitting outside bars, drinking and reading Tuesday night’s Echo. They were mainly from the airborne battalions that’d been winging in all night and morning blowing little trumpets they’d bought at Speke airport for a quid. A total squadron of sixty-eight planes had touched down since the weekend – the biggest airborne assault on Europe since the battle of Arnhem. For 99 per cent of Red passengers it was their first-ever flight. Some loved it, some hated it and some were so arse-holed that they probably still don’t remember it. A gang of lads told us about a couple of stowaways who hid on their plane at Speke. They almost pulled it off but were smoked out after being sussed sneaking across the runway.
Fleets of orange trams kept passing with dozens of Reds hanging off them holding up fat green bottles of ale and singing the ‘Arrivederci, Roma’ song. It was only early, but already our heads were starting to get fuzzy. We wised up and decided to shoot back to the station for a swill, then try and see a few sights: Colosseum, Vatican, Trevi Fountain and all that lark.
I got some weird looks from locals in the station bogs when I started using the bandage on me hand as a toothbrush. The bandage was decomposing by the hour. It had ale and orange-juice stains on it and was coming in handy as a sweatband. There were about fifteen toilet cubicles in there. They were the first bogs we’d ever seen with just a hole in the floor. We couldn’t believe it. Jimmy was pushing doors open saying, ‘Where’s the pans?’ I wouldn’t have minded, but the holes in the floor were tiny. We just had to get on with it. Quite a few Scousers were dotted about in the other cubicles. There was loads of laughing and shouting going on. ‘This is like The Golden Shot’ got a laugh. Someone came back with ‘Y’mean The Golden Shit’. Wardy got a giggle with ‘I’ve just gone in off the post’. Jimmy’s voice was unmistakable: ‘I think I’ve just hit the fuckin’ corner flag.’ It was a good grin but without doubt the most awkward, uncomfortable Barry White I’ve ever taken, especially with my bandaged right hand out of use. I was like a fuckin’ contortionist.
The phone boxes only took special coins with grooves cut into them. Jimmy’s translation was quality: ‘All right, mate. Have y’got any of them phone coin things … lire for the blower?’ It descended into sign language, with Jimmy holding an imaginary phone to his ear saying, ‘Hello … hello.’ He got two coins, and we headed for a phone box. Jimmy put his in first and dialled just the normal seven digits, like you do at home. ‘It’s dead,’ he said.
I thought I knew the score and, like a tit, said, ‘You forgot to dial 051 from outside Liverpool.’ Jimmy lashed his coin up the street. I’ve still got mine.
By two o’clock the sun had hit gas mark ten. I was down to my T-shirt, with me jumper tied round me waist. Wardy had done the same, and Jimmy was down to his skin. We bumped into a gang of Netherton Reds who were swigging from impressive, big, vase-looking wine bottles with basket handles. Wardy inspected one closer. ‘Fuckin’ ell, is there a genie in this?’ he said. They told us the bottles only cost two thousand lires each (about one pound fifty). Our sightseeing plans were about to be vinoed into touch.
We wandered the streets with our genie bottles. Every swig took our eyes up the walls of tall, baroque buildings that lined the roads and piazzas. The whole city was like a 3000-year-old museum. We passed an old tramp sprawled in a doorway with a flea-bitten dog tied to his wrist with string. Some Scouser had obviously walked past him earlier, because there was a piece of cardboard hanging off the tramp’s neck with the words ‘Gordon Lee’ written on it. We buzzed and threw a few thousand lires in his begging bowl. Whoever did it didn’t realise that it’d earn the tramp a tidy few bob off every Red who went past.
One bar we passed looked like something from The Godfather. Around three of its tables Reds were sprawled on chairs, all asleep in different positions like they’d been sprayed in a drive-by shooting. There was a huge cheer when a Manweb van drove past with Liverpool flags hanging out the windows. Someone said that the two lads in it were on sick leave and had sneaked the van out of the yard in Bootle.
By mid-afternoon the sun felt like it’d just been retubed. The official temp was 87°F, but in the suntrapped streets and piazzas it was easily around 100. In one street a Scouser dressed in a toga and wearing a blond Roman wig kept passing in a taxi … standing up in the sunroof waving to us like royalty. He went past about eight times shouting ‘Hail, Scousers’. We’d all shout it back, then bow.
The I-ties were all smiles and handshakes. In one hotel chefs and waiters waved down from windows. We waved our genie bottles back. Within seconds they were lowering bottles of wine and champagne down on long cords. Jimmy couldn’t stop blowing kisses up to them. Every I-tie who walked past was greeted with Red respect. The birds were stunners. There were a few bad attempts at chatting them up. The pick of the day was outside a packed bar, where Jimmy curtsied to a gorgeous brunette, held her hand and said, ‘D’yer take it up the Tex Ritter?’ I nearly choked. Boy was Rome the place to be that day.
By the time our genie bottles were empty, we were blowing bubbles. The train journey, the wine and the intense heat finally rugby tackled us. We crashed out in the shade of an ancient church and kipped on the pavement. In the hours that we slept, the siege of Rome continued. Every fountain and pool in the city had a pair of Scouse feet in it. One fountain we’d passed looked like Queens Drive baths. The elaborate Trevi was crawling with Reds. Though the bizzies weren’t keen on anyone bailing in, loads did. A few lads I knew from Gerard Gardens made the trip. One was Franny Carlyle, who was Scouse/I-tie so knew a bit about Rome. His mates didn’t have a clue. Shortly after they arrived, Franny said to them, ‘Listen, boys, we can’t leave Rome without goin’ the Colosseum.’ One of the lads genuinely and sincerely asked, ‘Is it a late bar?’
Thousands descended on that ancient old ruin, draping it with banners and playing footy outside. Others swarmed to gaffs like the Pantheon, St Peter’s Square and the Sistine Chapel – a place that me old buddies Stevie and Tony Riley described as ‘Nearly as beautiful as the Kop’. The day was a mixture of football fervour and cultural education. Everyday life for a lot of Reds was seeing graffiti-ridden walls and derelict flats on run-down estates, but here they were feasting their eyes on grandiose architecture, mosaic-covered courtyards and wall frescoes by fellas like Botticelli and Perugino. And let’s be honest, who could fail to be bowled over and gobsmacked by Michelangelo’s incredible ceiling! It definitely beat stipple or swirl Artex. For many this trip was where the first seeds of cultural awareness were planted. LFC weren’t just broadening our trophy cabinet; they were broadening our horizons and minds.
Wardy was grinning as usual when he woke us up at about five o’clock. I still owe him for that. Missing the FA Cup was a blessing, but if I’d have slept through the Rome game I’d have topped meself. Jimmy’s head was torched. He’d slid out of the shade and into the sun – his kite looked like it had been cheese-grated. We panicked and checked our pockets … it was all there. How the I-tie dippers didn’t have us off is a complete mystery.
We walked down a jigger into a proper back-street cafe. Wardy turned African again: ‘Food … spaghetti.’ When it came, it was full-on Italian. We stared at it, amazed at seeing white spaghetti.
‘What the fuck’s that?’ Jimmy said. ‘Ask them have they got any Heinz.’
It was our first hot meal in three days; we didn’t come up for air. I’ve been seriously hooked on bolognese ever since.
The match was kicking off at quarter past eight, which meant a taxi to the Olympic Stadium. On the way there the Colosseum flashed past the taxi window. By the time Jimmy said ‘Where?’ and turned round, it’d vanished. That was the sum total of our sightseeing, though we were in for a feast when we crossed the River Tiber near the ground. A tall, white stone obelisk graced the entrance to the Olympic Way. Behind it was a tree-lined stone avenue that led to the stadium. The sun was still laughing, making the avenue glow ultra-white
