Dean rarely read the papers.
Football-related papers especially as before Grandma’s collapse, he’d never once picked one up.
So, at Kirkby, he read everything he could get his hands on, constantly soaking up whatever football knowledge he could.
The Maily Dail’s second page carried a piece about the accelerating wave of foreign money moving into the Premier League.
With the new season underway, Aston Villa had just been bought out by the American businessman Randy Lerner, and West Ham United had been taken over by Icelandic financier Eggert Magnússon—foreign capital was moving into Premier League clubs faster than ever.
Counting Chelsea, Manchester United, and Portsmouth, all of which had already changed hands earlier.
A full quarter of the Premier League’s twenty clubs had now fallen into foreign ownership.
Foreign money flooding in, homegrown ownership stepping back—it had the whole of English football on edge.
Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger had spoken out publicly, arguing that this wave of foreign takeovers in the Premier League was anything but a good thing—that it would leave clubs completely stripped of their own agency, and unable to control their own destiny any longer.
“More and more foreign ownership taking over Premier League clubs isn’t a good thing—it leaves the club unable to control its own fate.
If one day all twenty clubs have foreign owners, English football will genuinely be in danger.
Traditionally, a club’s spirit starts with its owner—the owner is supposed to be the club’s number one supporter, its most passionate fan, first and foremost.
If the owner’s foreign, and the players are foreign, how are homegrown English players ever supposed to break through?
Managing at Arsenal, I feel its Englishness very deeply.”
This piece caught Dean’s eye, and it made him think of Liverpool too.
Supporters’ fears here were never coming out of nowhere—the privatization wave sweeping the Premier League had never let up.
Liverpool, right now, was deep in its own takeover turmoil.
The current chairman, Moores, had earlier approached Thai prime minister Thaksin about selling his stake in the club—those talks had ultimately broken down, with no deal reached.
Now, a large Dubai-based investment group was in serious talks with Moores, and Liverpool could end up changing hands into foreign ownership, at any time.
“It’s all a mess.
This crowd of foreign money’s going to wreck Liverpool eventually, and English football right along with it!”
Beside him, Anderson had noticed what Dean was reading, catching sight of the page about foreign takeovers.
The old-school supporter’s face darkened with irritation, looking thoroughly contemptuous, and genuinely angry.
He reached out, poking a finger at Wenger’s quoted remarks, and shot back without holding anything in.
“Wenger talks a good game, plays the most righteous one out of all of them!
Just wait and see—next week’s Champions League squad list for Arsenal, I’d put money on there not being a single homegrown English player in it!
He goes on about protecting homegrown football, and behind closed doors he favours foreign players every single time.
English academy kids get barely any pitch time under him—hardly any of them have made it through in years!”
Anderson, born back in the 1940s, had watched English football rise and fall with his own eyes.
He’d had it drilled into him from childhood that England was the birthplace of the modern game.
It was a source of enormous pride for him.
He wore being an England supporter, a Liverpool supporter, like a badge of honour.
And yet, watching homegrown football culture bleed away, bit by bit, homegrown investment pushed back, step by step, left him full of bitterness.
He’d watched the country’s broader decline unfold too, in every direction, with his own eyes which was exactly why he pushed back so hard against outside money, American money most of all.
“If the FA doesn’t get a handle on this soon, it won’t be many years before American owners have the whole Premier League completely locked up!”
Anderson was full of dread.
“They’ll lift the whole NBA playbook in wholesale—entertainment above everything, money above everything—and turn the pure game of football into nothing but a cash machine!
And when that happens, no faith left, no history left, no homegrown tradition left—real English football will be well and truly dead.”
Ethan let out an exaggerated shout of his own.
“It’s infuriating!
These FA officials don’t do a single thing—they must be getting paid off left and right behind the scenes!”
Anderson exploded even further.
“Bloody FA, all they’re good for is taking money, and that’s the truth!”
He was practically shaking with anger.
“You’re Hillsborough’s victims.
Everything you’ve been through—you know exactly what all this means.
I don’t know how much you two know about what the FA, what the government did to us in Liverpool.
But I need to tell you, all these years later, it still makes me shake with rage just thinking about it.
Start with Heysel.
That day, it wasn’t us, it wasn’t Liverpool supporters who started that—but do you know what Thatcher and her lot did?
Overnight, every English club got dragged down with us!
Five years!
A full five years banned from European competition!
And Liverpool got hit with an extra sentence on top—seven years!
Seven years!
Do you have any idea what that meant?
A dynasty of a team that had swept across Europe, strangled dead in its tracks, just like that.
They talked about cleaning up football—what they actually did was make us the scapegoat, throw an entire city’s supporters under the bus to save face for the whole British political class!
I swear to God, fuck Thatcher!
I hope she rots in hell!”
Anderson couldn’t hold it in any longer.
Mrs.
Anderson called out loudly from the kitchen.
“They’re just kids!
What are you going on about!”
Hearing his wife, Anderson ducked his head a little.
He gave the two boys a shrug, then carried on regardless.
“And then?
Before we could even catch our breath, Hillsborough happened…
So many people still don’t know the truth of what happened that day.
Our children, our fathers, our brothers—ninety-six living people, crushed against the fences, faces gone purple, ribs crushed flat in their chests.
And what did the police say?
They said we’d got ourselves drunk, robbed the dead, attacked the police!
And the FA backed them up!
That official report—it was nothing but rubbish, every single piece of testimony that made the police look bad was cut clean out!
And then The Sun—God, that rag of a paper!
They smeared our dead as thugs, thieves, people who pissed on the dying!
Do you have any idea what it did to the families who’d just lost someone, seeing headlines like that?
It was worse than death itself.
And you know what the worst part is?
Those people knew the truth the whole time, and they sat on it, kept it covered up for nearly twenty years now and still won’t clear our name.
Why?
Because from the very start, all they cared about was keeping their own jobs—and they were willing to trample ninety-six lives underfoot to do it.
So every time I sing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone,’ I have to scream it.
Every time I see one of those suit-wearing politicians walk into Anfield, I want to be sick.
Both of those debts are still unpaid.
After Heysel, they cut our European dream out from under us.
After Hillsborough, they killed our own family and then spat on the grave.
After venting it all out, brutally, without holding back.
Only then did Anderson finally let go of all that pent-up fury.
Dean and Ethan didn’t interrupt at any point.
They understood exactly what these two disasters meant to Liverpool.
Just as Anderson had said.
They themselves were living, right now, with the consequences Hillsborough had left behind.
Then, as though something had just occurred to him, Anderson said, “Dean, if you ever run into reporters once you’re playing—give them hell, and you’d be right to.
Not one of that lot’s innocent.
For a bit of buzz, they’ll make up anything, sell out anyone.
Give them even a whiff of a story, and they’ll spin you and the bloke next door into a twenty-episode drama series if they think it’ll get them clicks.”
Ethan couldn’t help laughing.
“They really do have a way with words, don’t they~”
Dean laughed too, looking at Anderson and nodding.
“If I ever get the chance, I’ll give them hell.”
Anderson didn’t take it seriously, just chuckled.
“Especially that lot at The Sun.
Absolute sons of bitches.”
After dinner, Dean and Ethan said their sincere goodbyes to the Andersons and walked back to their own house through the familiar streets.
The next day.
Ethan headed out somewhere; Dean didn’t know where, and didn’t ask.
Dean himself put on his Liverpool training kit and headed out for training.
Unlike his usual runs.
This time, he brought a ball, keeping it up in the air the whole way as he walked.
A light flick of the toes, a soft cushion off the top of the foot, over and over, keeping the ball moving forward with him.
The pavement wasn’t especially wide, and every so often a pedestrian would pass by, so Dean adjusted his rhythm accordingly, keeping the ball under his control the whole time, sharpening his feel for it, working toward making the ball a genuine extension of his own body.
Keeping the ball up the entire way, without a single misstep, without ever letting it drop.
Before he knew it, he’d covered several streets this way.
He passed a newsstand.
The owner glanced up and caught sight of the boy walking by in a Liverpool kit, juggling a ball as he went, and immediately perked up with interest.
He called out loudly, “Oi!
Lad in the Liverpool kit!
Hold up a second!
Grab a paper before you go!”
Dean didn’t break his run, just glanced over toward the stand and shook his head signalling he wasn’t buying.
The owner waved the fresh sports paper in his hand and called out again.
“Come on, you’ll want this one!
England’s U17s have made it through to the World Youth Championship finals for the first time in history!
First time it’s ever happened!
You’re not even going to look?
At your age, keep training properly—who knows, maybe you’ll get your own shot at the World Youth Championship next year!”
Dean wasn’t interested.
He kept walking with ball still bouncing along in front of him.
The owner didn’t think much of it—one look told him the kid was skint, couldn’t even afford a single paper.