YNWA

"When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
There's a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark

Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone"

Our passion, our pride, our glory.

I remember a couple of years ago, I was working at a small private company and they had a courier who was basically running the errands of the executives of the small company. He mostly went to banks and cashed checks and etc. He was too old for that job. He claimed to be a football player in the past (and probably he was, maybe a B or C player) and knew many of the players and managers...the celebrities of those days! You could easily see that he suffered from severe chronic depression, for example, I remember the day that his first child was born, a huge day in every man's life, he was trying really hard to look happy but one could see that he was deeply depressed to the bone. When I started to work there, he was very distant and kept his business to himself, arguing with his bosses every now and then (who didn't treat him with courtesy at times and he was genuinely very proud so the frictions were inevitable) and didn't mind others, specially me. Little by little, he got closer to me to a point that I felt like I was his best and the only friend in the world. I, however, tried to maintain a constant distance at all times for my own sake. He was talking to me and only me during his breaks, bad mouthing his bosses, his former pals who have let him down many times, his life, his failures...everything. But he was a THE biggest LFC fan that I have ever seen. Back in those days that getting the results of European leagues was not as easy as it is today as there were no internet or anything, people were still relying on newspapers and TV for the latest news, he used to follow every single league game and discuss them afterward with me. Now, I was a red fan from before, but definitely not in his scale (hell no one could ever match his devotion). I remember that one sad Friday afternoon in the fall, my father took me to the oldest stadium in town to see the reds of the capital thrashing their opponent 3-0, that was the first time that I watched football in a stadium and I will never ever forget that day. I fell deeply in love with the game at the age of 7-8 and I became, and still am proudly, a die hard red fan ever since. Looking for role models in football when the domestic front was failing or felt too boring, all the red fans around were turning to Man U and I somehow for some unknown reason, never liked them despite this turn was very natural, so I fell for the next red thing and that was obviously LFC. During the years that I was physically and mentally away from football, I still kept this childhood love in the back of my heart and it did not surface for long until a miracle occurred in Istanbul in 2005 (what a unforgettable night!). Back to my buddy, I remember he was very much at odds with then manager Hollier (1998-2004) and didn't approve of his style. Those days were not exactly the best days of LFC neither, swinging from a mediocre to contender spot in the table. His disappointment and sadness, on top of his depression!, were immense when a loss came up. His passion and dedication to LFC, for a guy of his caliber who has never even been to LFC game or any where near it, always watching it from TV from thousands of miles away was a great inspiration for me to follow this passion more consistently. He possessed the kind of affection that fueled the likes of Bill Shankly and Paisley and etc. A true devotee to "The spirit of Shankly"* indeed he was. I don't know anything about his whereabouts now nor I remember his name correctly. I just hope that he doing fine or at least much better than those days wherever he is now...if he is still alive. It would have a great shame for our world without a great fan like him.

The sound of the Kop singing YNWA, even though that I have never been there but I would very much like to, always gives me goose bumps, makes me feel big, huge, indefinite...like the ocean, like the sky, like universe. An inexplicable feeling, which is very important because as it was said before, "It's more important to feel strong rather being strong!"

I'd like finish for the time being with a famous story from the great Shankly to pay homage to all the fellow follower of his great spirit. This is also known as the scarf incident: one of the most iconic images of all was caught on television, when a Liverpool scarf which had been thrown at Shankly during a lap of honor was flung to one side by a policeman, in April 1973, when he and the team were showing off the League Championship trophy to the Kop. Shankly pounced on the scarf and reprimanded the copper, uttering the immortal words "Don't do that. This might be someone's life."

Source: www.wikipedia.org

* Spirit of Shankly: Liverpool Suppoters' Union