Thursday 4 November 2010 15:42, UK
Young Guns' Ben Jolliffe reminisces with skysports.com over his earliest football memories.
I was very young and obviously when you're young you get easily influenced by who other people support. My family aren't a massive football family, they're a very musical family, but I always loved football as a kid and my uncle was a Liverpool fan. I remember he gave me a little book about the squad, and this was the Bruce Grobbelaar, Ian Rush years, and I remember cherishing it like a Bible. I took it with me wherever I went. From then onwards I became the biggest fan. I've got photos of my bedroom where everything, the wallpaper, the curtains, the lightshade - everything I owned, was Liverpool. A lot of my friends were Manchester United fans and my other uncle was a big United fan so the rivalry got me even more into Liverpool. Wycombe Wanderers were my second team but it's harder to a follow a team when they're a small team that aren't very good.
My Grandad was mad on football and he used to love Nottingham Forest. It was at Anfield but there was a big flaw because he was a Forest fan and he bought my ticket. I had to go on the Forest bus and sit in the Forest stands and because I was a kid and didn't really know about the intense rivalry, I turned up in my Liverpool kit. Then when Liverpool scored I was just celebrating like mad. Robbie Fowler scored two and Stan Collymore scored one and the other one was an own goal, because I remember finding it really funny. From that moment onwards, Fowler was the man. I missed the Collymore goal because I went to the toilet - I was a little bit annoyed.
When I was a lot younger Jamie Redknapp was always my favourite player and all my Liverpool shirts had Redknapp on the back. But he was only my favourite up until that Nottingham Forest game. Redknapp was a great player but he wasn't heroic in any way, he didn't do anything too spectacular. But obviously Fowler was scoring every goal in every game and when I saw him at Forest I just turned and I worshipped Fowler from then on. It was Fowler on the shirts after that.
Liverpool haven't had too many villains, I've always been quite fond of most of the players, but it's got to be Grobbelaar. I hated him for years because of it (the alleged match-fixing). I remember seeing a documentary about it a couple of years ago with him saying he wasn't actually guilty and I felt a bit bad. But from growing up I always hated him.
I remember at the time I couldn't watch it because I was playing a cricket match at my school but my friends were blowing a whistle to let me know the scores. I remember getting really confused with the whistles and I was a bit unsure about the result. Afterwards I went to go watch it with my uncle, the Manchester United fan, and when I got round there he was cheering in my face because United had won 1-0 and I just burst out crying. I cried my eyes out for about a day-and-a-half, it was absolutely heart-breaking, it was horrible. When you're that age it's all about football, it's like getting dumped.
I remember the little games we used to play when mums and dads used to come and watch and I used to get super-excited there was a crowd, even though there was only like 20 people. I think I was quite good, I was a striker and I used to score loads of goals. But then I went to Marlow and I had to go in goal for the first year, and I was like, 'this literally sucks'. So it all went downhill from there. I did that for a while then had training with an Arsenal squad, but frankly I don't think I'd have been good enough to have made it. Plus I hated Arsenal. If it had been Liverpool I'd have been fine.
It was the adidas one that had the stripes going up and obviously Carlsberg on the chest. I had Redknapp on the back, but on the next one I got Fowler. I actually wore it to bed, the whole thing. I had the shin-pads, the socks and the boots on in bed and my mum was like, 'please - can you just put your pyjamas on?' I had a kit every season from then onwards.
I was family friends with AC/DC since I was little so I grew up going to all their gigs. I was a massive fan anyway and used to get everything free, but I remember when Back In Black was in the shops I bought it. It's still to this day one of my favourite albums, it's absolutely flawless. I've always been into rock music and being able to go to their gigs at a young age was like the turning point when I realised music was what I wanted to do.
'Weight of the World', from the Young Guns' critically acclaimed debut album, 'All Our Kings Are Dead' is out now. Hear their music here: http://www.myspace.com/youngguns
Photos by Ashley Maile
