Liverpool

:(This article is about the football club supported by John Peel. For the English city of the same name, see Liverpool (city).)
"I believe in nothing really apart from Liverpool football club. It's a lot easier, I find."(John Peel, April 1986, Peel 034 (BFBS))
Liverpool Football Club are a Premier League football club based in Liverpool. The club have won more European trophies than any other English team with six European Cups, three UEFA Cups and four UEFA Super Cups, as well as one FIFA Club World Cup. They have also won nineteen League titles, seven FA Cups and a record eight League Cups.
Liverpool were founded in 1892 and joined the Football League the following year. They have played at Anfield since their formation. The most successful period in Liverpool's history was the 1970s and '80s when Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley led the club to eleven league titles and seven European trophies.
The club's supporters have been involved in two major tragedies. The first was the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985, during which charging Liverpool fans caused a crush that resulted in a wall collapsing and the death of 39 Juventus supporters, after which English clubs were banned from European competition for five years. In the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, 96 Liverpool supporters lost their lives in a crush against perimeter fencing. (Read more at Wikipedia.)
== Peel on LFC ==
(from Interview: On Liverpool FC, Heysel, Hillsborough)
"My affection for Liverpool – if you’re a real supporter it extends beyond the players and the ground to the city itself, and I was always very, very proud of being associated, in my own mind at least, with Liverpool... 
When I first met Sheila she was a Leeds United supporter, and Leeds at that time were actually the only team that actually posed any kind of threat to Liverpool’s domination. So there was quite clearly a bit of potential here for disaster. Sheila realized what she was up against when I went and sat in the middle of Regent’s Park when Liverpool lost and just cried and cried and cried – for about an hour, you know. And she suddenly thought obviously, “Here’s a greater force at work here than I first recognized.”
And so she became a sort of Liverpool supporter as well and put up with the fact that we had to have red cars and that all of our kitchen fittings had to be red as well and that all of the curtains and lampshades – the lampshades are all Liverpool lampshades. She put up with this over the years, and the fact that the children all had Liverpool associations in their names and so on."
== Other ==
"If somebody had come to me and said, when I was about fifteen, 'look, you can play for Liverpool but you've got to die when you're thirty' I would have said, 'fine! I'll take that, no trouble at all'." (04 August 1981)
*Asked which meant the most to him, Liverpool Football Club or The Fall, Peel chose his top team over his favourite band.You Ask The Questions: John Peel (The Independent, 6 Jan. 1999) 
*A long-standing idol from the team was Billy Liddell, whose portrait hung in the dining room at Peel Acres: an autograph signed on a newspaper flyer by the player was kept in his father's old desk and John referred to it as 'perhaps the most sacred item I own.'
*A photograph of the legendary manager Bill Shankly hung in the kitchen at Peel Acres. It was apparently the only photo allowed in that room: not even one of Mark E. Smith was permitted to join it. 11 November 2003
*His all-time Reds' favourite, however, was Scottish striker (and subsequent club manager) Kenny Dalglish. Peel admitted celebrating "Dalglishmas" on the birthday of the great man, who appeared by video link when the DJ was the subject of This Is Your Life.
*Sheila said was surprised when he said he would pick her up at 5 p.m. for their first date only after hearing the football results. Margrave Of The Marshes, p. 212.
*As further evidence of his devotion to Liverpool FC, John named his children Alexandra Mary Anfield; Florence Victoria Shankly; Thomas James Dalglish; and William Robert Anfield Ravenscroft.
*Sheila relates that when they first moved to Suffolk, John was a regular attendee at Liverpool's home ground of Anfield, until work commitments prevented him from doing so (although he made half-hearted attempts to get a season ticket when William was at university).
*They were both present at the Heysel stadium disaster on May 29, 1985 at which 39 people died.Margrave Of The Marshes, p. 396-8. He did not go to another match for several years as a result. He was also heavily affected by the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, when 96 Liverpool fans lost their lives.
*Eighties / Nineties striker Ian Rush was another of Peel's favourite players. "If any of you live long enough to actually have grand children and you go regularly to football matches, one of these days you're going to be very pleased to be able to tell your grand children that you saw Ian Rush play, because he's a great footballer." (18 November 1981)
*Terrace hero Robbie Fowler was latterly a great favourite in the Peel household, and John was outraged when the striker was sold to Leeds United in November 2001 for £11m. When the news of the transfer broke on 27 November, the Pig conspired with producer Louise by telephone to keep this from John until the end of his programme that night, fearing he would talk about it too much. Peel made his thoughts clear on the following night's show, 28 November 2001: "I've supported Liverpool for over 50 years and I don't think I've ever been as upset or outraged by anything that they did... In our family we're heartbroken by it."
*Among the tributes to Peel after his death, Brighton & Hove Albion fan Attila The Stockbroker fondly recalled the side twice unexpectedly knocking LFC out of the FA Cup in the 1980s and the DJ beginning his next show with the soothing sound of seagulls (the team's nickname), followed by a burst of machine-gun fire.
== Plays ==
:(See also You'll Never Walk Alone, Barmy Army)
*30 April 1969: Stan Kelly: Liverpool We Love You (LP - O Liverpool We Love You) Xtra
;Team
*20 May 1977: We Can Do It (7") State
*05 May 1986: Sitting On Top Of The World (7") Columbia
*04 May 1996: Pass & Move (It's The Liverpool Groove) (7") Telstar with the Boot Room Boyz
*10 May 1986 (BFBS): Sitting On Top Of The World (7") Columbia DB 9116
*11 May 1996 (BFBS): 'Pass & Move (It's The Liverpool Groove) (7") Telstar with the Boot Room Boyz
:(JP: 'Best football record in the history of the world ever? Very possibly: certainly the best since the last one that John Barnes made, anyway....Don't be surprised if you hear that again at some stage on these programmes.')
;Players, etc
*05 September 1979: Kenny Dalglish (& Sandy Jardine with The Firm): Each Saturday (7") DJM
*11 December 1989: Harry Roden: He's A Canny Wie Lad (With A Toothless Grin) (tribute to Peter Beardsley)
*21 March 1993 (BFBS): Harry Roden: He's A Canny Wie Lad (With A toothless Grin) (tribute to Peter Beardsley)
*09 May 1990: New Order: World In Motion... (single) Factory FAC 293 (features John Barnes rapping)
*15 May 1990: New Order: World In Motion... (single) Factory FAC 293 (features John Barnes rapping)
*13 December 1990 (Radio Mafia): Thirty Five Summers: Come Together (Shankly Mix) (12") Planet (features sample of Bill Shankly speaking)
*03 September 1994: Zion Train: Dalglish Dub Symphony: Rousillon Inna No.7 Style (session) 
*18 February 1995: Zion Train: Dalglish Dub Symphony: Rousillon Inna No.7 Style (session) 
;Crowd
*05 September 1979: ‎Teenage Filmstars: (There's A) Cloud Over Liverpool (7 inch) Clockwork (features sample of Anfield crowd)
*08 September 1979 (BFBS): ‎Teenage Filmstars: (There's A) Cloud Over Liverpool (7 inch) Clockwork (features sample of Anfield crowd)
*18 September 1979: ‎Teenage Filmstars: (There's A) Cloud Over Liverpool (7 inch) Clockwork (features sample of Anfield crowd)
*08 January 1993: Anfield Kop 1964: She Loves You / Anyone Who Had A Heart (album - Bend It! 1992: Exotica Presents … Football À La Carte) Exotica
*11 December 1993: ‎Teenage Filmstars: (There's A) Cloud Over Liverpool (7 inch) Clockwork (features sample of Anfield crowd)
;Match commentary
*25 February 1980: BBC Records And Radio Merseyside: Kenny Dalglish goal (LP - The 1978 European Cup) Quality
*12 September 1981: BBC football commentator Bryon Butler describes Alan Kennedy's goal for Liverpool against Real Madrid in the 1981 European Cup Final (JP: "the greatest day of my life").
*19 April 2001: BBC Records And Radio Merseyside: Kenny Dalglish goal (LP - The 1978 European Cup) Quality
*04 March 2003: Radio 5 commentary of Liverpool's brace of goals in their Worthington Cup victory over Manchester United at the weekend.
;Hillsborough benefit
(See also Football Compilations)
*14 August 1997: Scousemartins Featuring Terry Edwards: Head Up High (7" with LFC303 - Head Up High / Commence Operation Anfield Exercise) Flighted Miskick FLICK 003
== See Also ==
*1978 Top Twenty Albums: Topped by 1978 European Cup LP from BBC Records And Radio Merseyside.
* When Liverpool Ruled The World
*Interview: On Liverpool FC, Heysel, Hillsborough
*You'll Never Walk Alone
*Chain Reaction: John Peel Interviews Ian Rush (Transcript)
*Football
*Football (Matches Mentioned)
*Football (Known Matches Attended)
*Ipswich Town
*Sounds Playlist
*Portrait Of The Artist As A Consumer
*Disc & Music Echo: Peel Columns
*Sounds
==External Links==
*Liverpool F.C. Wiki
*Robbie Fowler's Page on the Liverpool F.C. Wiki
*Hillsborough Page
== References ==
Category:Football