LFC in Boston - maximilano's Blog

maximilano's Blog

LFC in Boston

Posted on July 29, 2012 at 02:54 PM.

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Over the past two weeks, Liverpool Football Club have called Boston their home, training at Harvard for their US tour. The first or second day they were here, on a Tuesday two weeks ago, I knew they were training at Harvard but I did not know when, or if the sessions were open to the public. I work full time, so I wasn't holding out for anything, but I was checking twitter and saw a Raheem Sterling tweet around noon 'just finished the first training session, another one in 4 hours'. I usually get out at four so I was excited, but I still did not know if they were open to the public. Later I saw a tweet from Lucas to answer my lingering question. He was replying to a fan tweet, in Portuguese mind you, "'moro em boston, os treinos sao aberto ap publico?!' pode assistir sim." The question I could understand, "is training open to the public", but the answer I did not know. I copied and pasted it into google translator on my phone and got "yes you can watch". At this point it was 3:30, and I asked my boss if I could go home early, making up some excuse. I sprinted home on my bike, dropped off my bag and sprinted to Harvard. I will never forget riding down Harvard Ave, by the stadium seeing the neon bibs running about in a game of five-aside, my first ever glimpse of LFC. The session went on for an hour, and afterwards the players were signing autographs. In my hysteria and eagerness to get to the training session, I brought nothing but my bike with me. I went home, with a big dumb grin on my face. Talking to others at the session, I found out that they should be there everyday. The next day I went to work, was let out early and I bike over to Harvard, but no one was there. I half expected this because rain was in the forecast. Thursday I was let out after lunch, and my boss said, we don't have any work for you to do tomorrow, so you can have a three day weekend. So now I went home and was able to prepare for the LFC training. I brought with me a sharpie and my 'This is Anfield' poster, hoping to get it signed. I did. On the first day, I got Danny Agger, Jay Spearing, Martin Skrtel, Jose Enrique, Dani Pacheco, Charlie Adam, Lucas, John Henry, and Brendan Rodgers. I only said two things to the players, for I was starstruck. To Daniel Agger, I said, "Good show at EUROs" to which he smiled. I can only assume the smile meant he appreciated it because he never smiles. When Brendan Rodgers came to me, he said "This is a great poster" I said "Good luck on the European draw" he replied "Thanks" he also smiled.

The weekend came and LFC left for Toronto to play TFC at the Rogers Centre. They returned to training in Boston on Monday. I had taken the week off, my friend was supposed to come up, but he had to work, so my father came up for the LFC v Roma game Wednesday at Fenway Park. Monday, I went to the morning session. I was more excited than usual, the boys from the England EURO squad were supposed to return to training. I quickly learned from talking to people that they were flying in in the evening and training Tuesday morning. The morning sessions were two hours, as opposed to the one hour evening sessions. Training ended and me and a friend I had made (Daw (?) from Galway) walked over to the gate to meet the players. The young boys usually left first, for no one really knew who they were nor did they want their autographs. But me and Daw chanted , "Adam Morgan, Can't stop scoring!" He smiled and gave us a thumbs up. At this point I had most of the teams signatures, but the one I coveted was Jamie Carragher. I finally got his autograph, and I went home, excited for tomorrow. Steven Gerrard was coming to town. Tuesday 10am came and I made my way to Harvard. A crowd of maybe 150 people had gathered. They were at the far side of the field, but most of the LFC team were warming up on the near side, this could only mean one thing: Stevie was here, and he was. There with Andy Carroll, Jordan Henderson, Glen Johnson, Stewart Downing, Martin Kelly and new signing Fabio Borini. I watched Steven for the duration of the training session. People had lined the gate of the training field for a hour preceding the projected end of the session, doing the same thing I was doing, waiting for Gerrard. I waited across the street, close to their dressing room, but ushered away, the person saying they were late, for what? I ran to the entrance of the dressing room where a crowd had gathered hoping to get autographs before the players entered, and this is were I got Steven Gerrard's autograph. I didn't even say thank you I was so speechless. I walked over to a ledge to sit down, Daw spotted me and laughed, "Boy, you're shaking!" and he started fanning me. I laughed, and said, "I finally met Him".

My dad arrived Wednesday afternoon around 2 o'clock. We got lunch at Tasty Burger by Fenway, and then walked around Fenway to see what was up before it got crowded. They had a replica of the Shankly gates at either side of Yawkey Way, and a big, two-story 'This is Fenway' sign. We went back to my apartment to don our LFC garb and to get the camera. We had plenty of time so we went to the JFK house. The neat thing here is that my dad had just gotten back from Dallas, where he visited the Book Depository, full circle. We walked to Fenway from there and passed An Tua Nua, a bar where the LFC Boston Supporters Club had gathered pregame. They were shouting 'Fields of Anfield Row', it was quite a site. We entered Fenway on Yawkey way, and walked around till we found our seats. We sat, taking in the sites, and were commenting on the jerseys we saw. For me the highlights were a pair of Macca shirts and a Hyypia jersey. With about a half hour left till kick off, the teams entered the field to warm up. I started to get goose bumps. They went back their dressing rooms and then the full squads came out. Before they played the anthem, they played 'You'll Never Walk Alone' it was quite a sight, seeing and hearing the whole stadium sing YNWA. The game itself was uninspiring, although I was happy to see American Michael Bradley score.

Thus ended my week and a half with LFC, an experience I will keep with me forever.

YNWA