Fan Comment

Living with the Enemy

“What wall do you want?” He asks.

“That one.” I reply.

“Right, I’ll have those two walls then” he states firmly like that’s the end of that discussion.

“Hang on a minute” I say, before pointing to a tiny strip on the fourth wall of the bedroom, the wall almost covered by a double wardrobe. “Who’s getting that wall? And does that mean you get the doors as well?”

Discussions developed between me and my brother similar to two opposing countries at the United Nations. These discussions continued until an agreement and settlement was reached. These were the rules, they were set in stone and there was no room for manoeuvre.

That is until we both saw the benefits of each other’s wall space, or needed more room for another poster and decided, that a change was necessary, and the discussions started all over again.

When the discussions ended there was always a rush to see who could get their posters up the quickest. And the first poster to go up was always the team football poster. Whoever succeeded in getting their football poster up first could walk around with a smug face on for a week or so, it felt like a victory. In fact, if you only got that poster up, as long as it was the quickest and the team poster, you didn’t have to put any other posters up, the point had been made.

I suppose when I was growing up, if I wasn’t a mad Evertonian and my brother wasn’t a mad Liverpool supporter it wouldn’t have mattered. But when there’s only two of you, and one’s a blue and the other’s red, and you’re like chalk and cheese, every day could be a battleground between brotherly love.

After the first poster went up, it was a case of trying not to break a thumb getting the drawing pins into the rock-hard woodchip wallpaper. Was any poster worth the pain? Yes, the Everton team poster.

My brother filled his walls up with two types of poster; Liverpool Football Club and Madness. The rest of the walls were filled with the obligatory Liverpool scarf or an up to date flag celebrating another trophy to add to their tally. I, on the other hand, the younger and more sensible of the two, filled my walls with Everton posters, an Everton scarf, several Everton pendants, Bruce Lee posters, and Monster Mags.

Even though my brother’s Liverpool flag had list after list of trophies they’d won, the satisfaction I got updating my pendant in biro writing 1984 under the year 1966 in the FA Cup Winners section, after that glorious day, was unbridled joy. “Stick that up your European Cup Winners arse, sucker!”

Living with the enemy meant everything in our house was either blue or red. We didn’t have any other colours. At Christmas it couldn’t have been any easier for my mum to buy presents. A Liverpool jigsaw for my brother, an Everton one for me. A blue Adidas t-shirt for me, a red one for our kid. A red Liverpool pen for our kid, an Everton one for me. A Mick Lyons photograph from the Toffee shop for me, a Liverpool player picture for our kid. A blue scrap book for me, a red one for our kid. A red and white football for our kid, a blue and white one for me. Blue jimjams for me, red jimjams for him.

I even think my mum bought me a Mr Spock action figure because he wore a blue top. Then again, I can’t remember our kid getting a Scotty action figure.

Living with one enemy could have been bearable but I lived with two. My dad was the other, and the biggest Red I knew. We had the Liverpool crest made out of matchsticks over the mantlepiece. The amount of times I thought about throwing that work of art on the fire and coming up with a likely story was a weekly occurrence.

Luckily for me, even though my mum didn’t really care too much about football she came from a family of staunch Toffees. Every weekend my brother and I would go to my Nan’s and for the whole day talk of Everton was a moment away. When the football results came in there would be loud cheers or silent groans. There would be an update every time Everton scored. If on the odd occasion Liverpool were getting beat there would a whisper and a snigger from someone. No one ever crucified my brother when Liverpool lost. How could we, it was the seventies and early eighties and we had little to cheer about.

However, I do remember my dad being crucified by all my uncles and my granddad at a family party once in the mid-seventies. They ganged up on him for a derby result and gave him stick. I felt sorry for my dad. He was a mad red who went to every home game and a couple of the cup finals, he certainly wasn’t your average Kopite. He didn’t retaliate to the abuse, but how could he, everybody at the party was a Toffee except for him and my brother.

Living with the enemy gave me an insight into how their minds work. It was hard to work them out sometimes. For example, every so often my dad would come back home after the match, via the pub, after a match they’d won by a goal or two to nil, screaming and shouting, “We should have had a pen, the cheating fucking referee!”

“But dad you won, didn’t you?”

“Shut up, we still should have had a penalty regardless.”

Having a red brother made Subbuteo interesting. Especially if you accidentally wanted to give Jimmy Case a taste of his own medicine. Flicking Jimmy Case hard off the pitch was juvenile justice and pure enjoyment. Having a Liverpool supporter as a brother allowed me to beat Liverpool once in a while. The truth was it didn’t happen very often. But when it did, in my head I’d plan an open top bus victory parade around the streets of Liverpool.

The worst Subbuteo moment was when my dad came home once after a Liverpool match where they’d been beaten. I didn’t say anything to him when he walked in except, “Good game?”

He lashed out at the tiny plastic Subbuteo footballers, said something nasty ending in “off” and the game was abandoned. “Put that away now.” My mum said.

Some people might think that this was an over-reaction by my dad but I didn’t think so. I thought it was funny. My cheekiness had got the reaction I was looking for without telling him directly that they’d lost.

On another occasion, once again after the match and after too many beers, he was brushing his teeth and I was taking the piss out of Liverpool and gloating about Everton winning, whilst looking through my Everton scrapbook. My dad snatched it off me and decided to brush Andy Kings teeth for him. He ruined the picture.

I think I cried and my mum gave my dad down the banks and told him to grow up. It was only years later I realised why he did what he did; it hurt him that much that Andy King scored ‘that’ goal in ‘that’ game. I laugh at it now but like a holocaust denier my dad denies it ever happened – “Yeah, Mr Geobbels”.

Another thing he did which I did consider nasty, was using my video cassette to tape over the highlights of Everton beating Liverpool 2-0, which I’d taped off Match of the Day. This was a special game for me because it was my first derby at Mordor, I mean Anfield.

He said it was his video cassette, and no matter how much I protested, because I knew it was mine he just wouldn’t listen to my defence.

“Dad, it is my video. I know exactly what’s on that tape.” I begged him.

“No, you don’t.” He said defiantly.

“It’s got the film Slapshot on it. That’s one of my favourite films and you don’t like it that much. If you’re not a fan of that film why would you tape it?” I protested.

“You’re only saying it’s got Slapshot on it because it’s written on side of the video.”

“Yeah, but I taped it. It’s my film, my tape.” I looked at my mum for some support. My mum’s eyes looked up the sky. She was fed up with these games.

“No, it isn’t.” He said and snatched the video off me.

“Dad, it is my video!” I screamed in one last attempt for him not to use the tape.

“How can you prove it?” He asked.

“Look, it says ‘Mark’s Video’ on it.”

It didn’t matter, he still used it, and taped over Everton beating Liverpool and Slapshot, possibly the greatest ever sports film of all time.

Yes, living with the enemy gave you a real insight into them. Sometimes I felt like a spy, a Blue James Bond, spying for my blue brethren.

When I joined up with my blue mates I often started the conversation with, “You’ll never guess what, have you heard the latest from them?”

I had inside information, inside knowledge. I knew what was going on at their club. To win arguments with Liverpool fans at school all I had to say was, “Yeah, well our kid said he’s shit. And our kid goes the match. How many games have you been to this season?”

If someone tried to come back at me with a clever retort I could knock them back with some interesting little fact I’d picked up from listening to my dad or our kid. It was a brilliant strategy. And all I had to do was keep my ears open at home.

Apart from getting the inside knowledge on all things red, the best thing about living with the enemy was you could say anything you wanted to about their team, their players and their supporters, and there was no chance any harm was going to come your way. They might disagree with you, call you bad names but there was no way it was going to end in violence.

If I had a derogatory thing to say about anything Liverpool Football Club related, I could freely say it with no fear of being castigated or chastised. It was superb.

When things got too heated and I’d over stepped the mark, my dad would say simply and calmly, “Go away, Mark.”

And that was the end of that. All I had to do was walk out the room with a smirk on my face for a few minutes, return and not mention the thing I’d said to upset them for a week or two, and then try it again.

Fellow Toffees might read this who come from a family full of Blues and think that when I was growing up, because I lived with a red dad and a red brother, that I didn’t hate Liverpool as much as they did, but they’d be wrong. I hated Liverpool Football Club as much as the next Toffee. I went to school with ‘red necks’ and they’d only talk about the match if they’d won. But the thing was they wouldn’t know who they’d beat or who scored for them.

The only Liverpool fans I ever got on with were the ones who weren’t glory hunters, red family members, and the lads we used to knock about with in the street to play footy with. The paradox was, I hated Liverpool Football Club, for everything it stood for, but loved my brother and my dad, the two biggest reds I knew. I lived with the enemy and I loved the enemy.

When I think back to growing up, and my life living with the enemy, I smile. It was great living with them, I wouldn’t have changed it for all the world.

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