To Liverpool, with love from this Chelsea fan,

Since 2005 I have had a personal vendetta with Liverpool – that’s 5 Champion’s Leagues ago when a Luis Garcia shot didn’t make it over the line but was awarded as a goal and knocked us out of the tournament in the semi-finals. They knocked us out fairly the next year. A few years later they ended our 86-game unbeaten streak at Stamford Bridge, and in amongst all this, Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez and Chelsea’s Jose Mourinho had words on numerous occasions. There has been no team, nor manager, that has been able to get on my tits more than Liverpool and its (now ex) amigo in the last five or six seasons.

For hours around the braai I would rant about that Garcia goal, about Agger’s goal which went under our jumping defence’s stuffing feet the following year. I would pretend to understand Steven Gerrard’s Scouser accent just so I could bitch about and disagree with what I thought he was saying. A glinty smile crossed my lips every time they lost to inferior (or superior, actually) opposition and would always help assuage my venomous aggression when Chelsea had dropped any sort of points.

Liverpool were the Australia to my South Africa, the Kevin Pietersen to my Graeme Smith, the Newcastle to my Sunderland, the West Ham to my Millwall, the Rugby World Cup to my New Zealand...

For years I have been celebrating their every loss or draw and have been lamenting the club’s every victory. It has inspired the worst kind of passionate swearing in Liverpool-Chelsea clashes, as well as triumphant arrogance in the fixtures we’ve won.

Now, Liverpool have become the Cullinan to my Warne, the Roddick to my Federer, the Stuart Broad to my Yuvraj Singh, the Russians to my local runners in the Comrades Marathon.

Please god, get things back on track. Football misses a strong Liverpool. I miss a strong Liverpool – my sporting life is emptier without the passionate red annoyance provided by you (Arsenal and Manchester United just don’t cut it).

However you need to do it, please just get back up into the top four where you belong.
Accept the Bostonian’s offer if you must, but be weary of people who seem to come in to “save” the club. You are one of the great sporting institutions in the history of sport and can’t continue to flaccidly limp down the Premier League table.

Because all of us, full of love and loathing, miss you.

Love (or loathing, actually) from a Chelsea fan,
Simon.