A childhood dream realised...

Growing up where and when I did, I was a Liverpool fan. It was a time of John Barnes and Peter Beardsley, when teams like QPR and Oxford were still fairly handy, and when Man Utd were just another first division team.

With all my primary school friends sporting Liverpool shirts, I was desperate to have one. Some friends of my parents were going shopping, and they said that they would buy the kit for me (shirt, shorts and socks). I couldn't wait... I remember the day clearly.. it was at the start of the 1989 season, and I was playing with my lego and watching Carry on Henry on TV. Towards the end of the film, my mum came in with a sports shop bag. I opened it and found...

My Liverpool strip! I was ecstatic. But... I had always loved the Crown Paints logo on the front, and unbeknownst to me, the sponsor had changed to Candy in the 1989 season. The strip was exactly the same, except the logo. I went on to wear the strip continuously, until I finally grew out of it about 2 or 3 years later. But still there was a niggling acorn of disappointment that I had missed the chance to get a Crown Paints shirt.

Well, skip forward 17 or so years, and by the grace of the internet I happened to be on ebay, and more out of curiosity than anything else, decided to see if they had the 1987/88 shirt. There was only one, and a fair few number of bids. I was about to close the window and go back to watching ridiculous Japanese TV, but something made me sign in and put a bid in. Before I knew what had happened I had become the high bidder, and was absolutely determined to claim the shirt that had eluded me all those years ago. Starting out at around 20 quid, three of us steadily raised the pot, until one dropped out when it got to 45.

I thought that I had it in the bag at 50, but a late flurry with only a few hours to go left me still as the high bidder, but the price had crept up to a dizzying 67 quid... I know what you're thinking. Two thirds of a ton for a 19 year old second hand shirt? You fool. Well yes, I am a fool... but it's more what the shirt represents than the shirt itself. It represents the best liverpool team that has ever been, it represents all those gloriously sunny saturday afternoons in the garden with my dad and brother, practicing John Barnes free kicks. It represents being 8 years old and in the glory of childhood.

The shirt arrived yesterday. I took it out of the plastic wrap, hung it up and just looked at it for a while. Then I put it on. Then I took it off and looked at it again. True, I could have put my 67 quid to a more constructive use, but the feeling of youth recaptured makes it money well spent...