Through the Wind and the Rain Fanzine Archives

Our return to Sheffield Wednesday's ground in November was a fairly numbing occasion. The match has already been commented on, a strange affair where Liverpool looked like the bottom team and Wednesday the top of the table. The day before I'd been very ill, but whatever it was disappeared as quickly as it came. Driving to the game, my fellow travellers joked in Lancashire, became more solemn in the Pennines and were silent on the outskirts of Sheffield, slow realisation of just where we were headed.

It wasn't helped by new of the radio that the Police Federation had declared open season on Liverpool fans yet again. A coincidence of a desperate final attempt to get off the hook? No-one travelling east that night was fooled, but at the ground fans behaved with dignity which, excluding anguished cries just as the minute's silence began, was maintained throughout. Something that wasn't helped by Wednesday's announcer telling us that a floral tribute was to be laid on the terrace by Steve Nicol, who seemed to have grown 3 inches taller, put on two stone and now bore a remarkable resemblance to Alan Hansen. Just another little touch of care and compassion by such a sympathetic club.

The game provoked more anger in me than it should have done; there was no way that the players could face up to the full impact of returning here and pretend that it was business as usual. Dalien Atkinson, a more than impressive player, came up with the king of goal JB would have been proud of, (he'd been injured earlier and left the field, kinky black tights and all) yet Liverpudlians just wanted to know where the defence was. There are some habits that will never be broken, no matter what.

We'd parked near a public house, and had one (or two) for the road. Blue and Red mixed, talking football, when at one time fists, blood and snot would've been flying in all directions. This atmosphere was apparent on Boxing Day too, and was nice to see. We got back home, on a freezing cold November night, about one in the morning. Respects had been paid, flowers had been laid, but for those who'd travelled to try and exorcise their awful memories, the sad realisation that they hadn't gone away. And probably never would.