Nearly three hours after they’d first walked in, still spinning from everything they’d just witnessed.
Dean led Ethan out through Anfield with the flow of the crowd, the cold wind hit both their faces the moment they stepped clear of that scorching, boiling atmosphere.
Even so, Ethan still hadn’t managed to calm down, the words were tumbling out of him nonstop.
“That was unreal, genuinely brilliant to watch—that’s the Premier League, that’s what a match at Anfield actually is!”
His eyes still burned with that same scorching light.
“That’s the closest I’ll ever get to Gerrard and the rest of them, my whole life.”
“Dean, my legs are still shaking…”
Dean gave a small nod.
He felt exactly the same.
Watching a match live, for the first time, had shown him football’s real appeal.
After the final whistle, during the players’ lap of thanks, the whole Liverpool squad had circled the pitch—Gerrard, Alonso, and the rest was walking slowly past right beneath the Centenary Stand, waving to the crowd.
That moment had happened right in front of them.
And it was that one small wave that had pushed Ethan’s emotions all the way to their absolute peak, leaving him flushed and burning, unable to settle down for ages afterward.
Still, even with Ethan buzzing the entire time, endlessly replaying every highlight of the match, he never once said the words “I’d love to go again.”
He knew exactly what kind of situation he and Dean were in, knew exactly how precious this one hard-won chance to watch a match had been.
These two tickets Heighway had given them were a gift from fate itself, a stroke of luck neither of them had seen coming.
A memory Ethan knew he’d never forget for the rest of his life.
By now, it was only just past four in the afternoon—Liverpool’s sky was still bright.
Dean and Ethan didn’t head straight home.
Instead, they went to the Andersons’ place, just two streets over from their own house.
It was a typical old Liverpool terraced house, clean and tidy.
Anderson, sixty years old this year, lived there with his wife; their children and grandchildren didn’t live with them, and the house tended to feel a little quiet most days.
Ever since Ethan had come to stay, though, that quiet house had filled up with a lot more noise.
Ethan being Ethan was always chattering away about something.
The two of them knocked on the door.
A moment later, Mrs.
Anderson opened it, and the second she saw Ethan, her face broke into a smile.
“Ethan!
And this must be Dean.
Mrs.
Anderson led them both inside, calling toward the living room as she went—the kids are here!
Dean and Ethan exchanged greetings and walked into the living room.
Dean stepped forward first, thanking the couple properly.
“Thank you both for looking after Ethan.
I really appreciate it.”
The Andersons waved this off easily, warm and unbothered.
Learning that the two of them had also just come back from Anfield, Dean brought up the match himself, mentioning that his own ticket had come from his coach.
A win as satisfying as that one had put every Liverpool fan in a good mood.
The Andersons were no exception.
The already-friendly couple grew even warmer.
Sharing an experience like that, without even planning it, closed the distance between them instantly.
That was just what football did.
Mrs.
Anderson went off to get dinner started.
The three of them, meanwhile, settled into talking through the match that had just ended.
Anderson was an old-school Liverpool die-hard of several decades’ standing with real feeling for the club.
Ever since he’d started working, he’d barely missed a single home match.
“Gerrard’s still exactly what he always is—top level in both attack and defence, same as ever.
Having him out there really puts your mind at ease…”
Anderson moved on to the new signings.
“Kuyt’s movement today was so sharp—he’s settling in fast, you can tell.
That lad’s going to make himself right at home at Anfield before long.
Mark’s worth keeping an eye on too.
He’s not afraid to step up in the big moments—has exactly the kind of big-match temperament this team needs…”
Anderson went on to talk about plenty of players from years past, boys who’d faced doubt the moment they arrived at the club, only to end up legends by the time they left.
Of course, what Anderson really loved talking about were the truly gifted ones—Rush, Keegan, and others like them.
Dean mostly listened without saying much, he didn’t know enough about most of it.
Ethan, meanwhile, kept right along agreeing with everything Anderson said and got the old man laughing away happily.
Once they got onto the subject of Tottenham, the beaten side, Anderson laughed out loud.
“Tottenham, eh.
Year after year they talk themselves up for the title, year after year they go home with nothing.
It’s not that their players aren’t good enough—honestly, they’ve got some genuinely solid players.
It’s that the club’s soft, through and through.
There’s no real backbone when it matters, and it’s been that way for years.
Always looks lively enough, but they never quite get it done, in the end…”
Ethan kept right on pestering Anderson with questions, one after another.
The old man and the young boy chatted away, clearly enjoying themselves.
Anderson had genuinely taken a shine to this kid—someone who actually knew how to hold a conversation!
Dean sat off to the side, his gaze was drifting, without much thought, onto a newspaper lying on the coffee table.
It was the latest issue of the Maily Dails.
He picked it up idly to have a look, and the first thing that caught his eye was a piece reporting that Ashley Cole had come out publicly, saying, in no uncertain terms, that nearly everyone in English football suspected the current Premier League had been thoroughly tainted by corruption and one scandal after another.
The report said that in his new book, My Defence, Cole didn’t hold back at all, taking direct aim at the murky dealings and unhealthy culture running through English football’s transfer system, tearing open the dark underside beneath the Premier League’s glossy surface.
Dean’s forehead wrinkled.
This kind of thing was completely new to him.
He’d just seen the side of football that was full of magic.
Now he was looking straight at the darkness sitting behind it.
The report went on to say that the BBC’s investigation into the affair was still going deeper, with more and more well-known figures across English football getting pulled into the transfer scandal—according to the media’s own analysis, the investigation touched on at least fifty separate cases of irregular transfers within the Premier League.
Layer after layer of the cover-up was peeled back, leaving countless fans with no trust left at all in the fairness, the integrity, of the league.
The report also mentioned that Cole still clearly hadn’t gotten over the disciplinary punishment he’d personally received over the affair.
The last season, the FA had found that Chelsea manager Mourinho had broken the rules, making private contact with Cole who was still under contract elsewhere at the time during the transfer window, in breach of Premier League transfer regulations.
The final punishment: Cole was personally fined seventy-five thousand pounds, Chelsea Football Club was fined three hundred thousand pounds, and Cole’s agent, Barnett, had his license to practice suspended for eighteen months.
Barnett’s lawyers had duly filed an appeal.
Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan had publicly piled on, saying Barnett’s reputation in the industry was already thoroughly notorious, and hardly deserved any sympathy.
Compared to the outside criticism, Mourinho himself struck an entirely different tone.
He said plainly, in public, that in the Premier League transfer market, if you play it well, you win, and if you play it badly, you lose—your fate rests entirely in your own hands.
The report also gave an example:
Mourinho’s contact with major names like Lampard and Shevchenko had, in the end, achieved exactly what he’d set out to do, helping build Chelsea’s formidably strong squad.
Dean found himself genuinely absorbed in all of it.