Chrimbo Fever, and Trent

As you may find out yourself if and when I post more of these, stuff I write about sport is rarely about the games. So much of sport is contained in the stands and in culture and context that you will never be able to do justice to the significance of a sporting moment with a play-by-play elucidation of the event.

And so much of why I've always looked forward to Christmas is because of sport.

From a young age, I've long associated this time of the year with sport. For football, fixtures in the Premier League come thick and fast in mid-late December, leading up to the New Year. The action mostly culminates in the Boxing Day fixtures (which I absolutely love) and the New Year's Day games. It means that - thanks to the difference in time zones - my Boxing Day often lasts 8 hours longer. Following basketball slightly later on, the Christmas Day tip-offs became an actual thing in my family, living miles away from home then but finding warmth in huddling together before a television screen; the 2008 classic between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics was everything we needed (besides the turkey we eventually burnt).

The excitement is so feverish, the need to watch men kick and throw balls around so pressing it's as if all the sporting action could emancipate psyches and souls hardened by a year of tedious afternoons and numbing nights. On The Anfield Wrap, this award-winning podcast/blog managed by Liverpool supporters from the city itself, there's talk of Christmas in most pieces. This one - which I'd recommend to even those who don't watch football, since it's hardly about the match and all about the people - had me hooked. It ends movingly and rather poetically:

"Stand Reds. Stand tall. The bells are ringing out for us. Happy Christmas, Mike. Happy Christmas all."

There's this idea of sport as a mass of ruffians, men high on testosterone with their chests out and voices loud. That piece shows that, but it also shows men at their most sensitive, softest versions of themselves. It's from watching sport that I've seen men reduced to tears on hearing a song belted out, and it's from playing sport that I've seen teenage boys acting tough and all suddenly breaking down and banking on every little ounce of courage left in them. The piece handles it beautifully; one reader even compared it to Yeats.

"I like to think that in my darkest, most cowardly hour that night at Highbury that the boy/man to my left side, the first lad to link me, my Gabriel, was Michael. That we stumbled and rose together in that Red front. And that maybe in some way he kept me safe."

My friend Caleb and I have this inside joke that he's "Ben" (Benjamin Woodburn) and I'm "Trent" (Trent Alexander-Arnold). We are both Reds, and both the real life Ben and Trent have been at Liverpool since they were 6, and now, as 18 and 19 year-olds, they've enjoyed a great year with the first team thanks to opportunities that the manager has showered on youth. They also happen to be really good mates, and there's this instance in November 2016 after Woodburn scores his first ever senior goal for Liverpool when Alexander-Arnold comes up to him after the final whistle, puts his arm around him and altogether seems more excited than his friend about that immense personal breakthrough moment.

I'm writing this now also because Alexander-Arnold just scored his first Premier League goal for the club he's grown up playing for on Boxing Day a few days ago. It felt special when that ball was smashed in, not so much because I might have internalised being "Trent" a bit, but more so because there's always this indescribable feeling every time a local boy who's actually born and bred in Liverpool scores in front of The Kop (which is the section of the crowd at Anfield, Liverpool's home ground, where the most fanatical fans sit - or, for the most part, stand).

I'm relieved that we've known each other for four-five years but started this joke only six months ago or else I'd really have completely internalised being "Trent" by now...

After Woodburn's goal last year someone pieced together the graphic below, showing how the local boys always seem to celebrate the same, distinct way - regardless of what year they're playing in; maybe it's a tap on the crest over the heart, or maybe with a fist bump at the end, but always, always, running to the corner flag completely hysterical with arms outstretched and looking to the stands as if it means that something more to them, more than to any other player on the pitch. Because it does, I think, if you score for your city and your people.

From left to right: Ian Rush, Robbie Fowler, Steven Gerrard, and Benjamin Woodburn.

I did look out for Alexander-Arnold's celebration on Boxing Day. Uncanny, huh?

In an age when sport deals in ridiculous wads of cash and borders are blurred, few clubs in the Premier League have this - this thing that we're fortunate to see and hold, witnessing a young lad come through the ranks at the Academy and finally play on the big stage for us. I know Liverpool fans might sound a bit self-righteous when we talk about this but it's this club that's all about roots and history.

And we like it that way.