People are rightly reflecting on the 2013-14 title race after Manchester City’s charges came back, but are those memories now meaningless?
I CAN’T stop thinking about the 2013-14 season.
Certain campaigns live longer in the memories than most. Anyone old enough to live through 2000-01 will think back to the week of finals; 2005 will always be Istanbul; and the majority of the Jürgen Klopp reign will inevitably raise a smile.
But 2013-14 came from nothing and almost ended in an impossible realisation. I love a surprise season.
Anyone at Cardiff away, Old Trafford, Upton Park, and Spurs home and away will testify that going to the match was not only a joy in itself again, but something that bled into the next week. I walked out of Old Trafford furious that I had to wait six days for Cardiff. Every day felt closer to the next glorious two Liverpool-fed hours.
True, the ending came with pathos, but we would have taken that given previous years. We hadn’t gone close since 2009, and I felt we wouldn’t have another go for years. No one saw that coming.
And now the drama and denouement of those heady weeks mean nothing. Liverpool didn’t win the Premier League. It turned out that in all probability no one won that league. In retrospect, the entire season was statistically meaningless as the Champions, of sorts, cheated.
The Lance Armstrong Tour de France years now read as No Winners. Similarly, no one won the leagues of those City victories. What a waste of time.
I doubt it’ll offer any solace to Steven Gerrard. Forever haunted by that Chelsea game, I doubt if he’ll be arsed by the null-and-void years. Chelsea fans will probably still sing a song about an incident they didn’t gain from. Now City haven’t gained from it either.
But they got the high. We too got the highs all through that season, followed by an unwanted character-building low, and you can’t backdate those. It renders the actual title meaningless.
The memories come first.
Anyone nudging me in the ribs after that Chelsea game as I walked out of the ground when City were ahead in their game before we made it to The Sandon, would have only had a grunt in reply had I been told that no one would win the league that year. Oh, I would have taken it, but it wouldn’t have changed the silence on the drive home.
Friday’s announcement can’t change the past. It merely spoils it a little. I feel like they’ve wasted everyone’s time.
In 2014, I left Upton Park shaking. We’d won 2-1, but I was in absolute bits. Nerves shot, wondering at what point this was supposed to be fun. This was elation transformed into anxiety, and I had nothing left. Up nights worried about something I couldn’t change.
I wish I could reach back and tell my younger self that those league games were just friendlies, really.
That said, I hope they don’t give us the leagues. I can’t go back to that Newcastle game, the last of that season, and see Jordan Henderson lift number 19. You can’t backdate that stuff. It just becomes statistics, and what’s the point of that?
I hate City for that. They cheated us all, their own fans included. They cheated the game.
I only hope the punishment fits the crime.
Oh, and Steven. The slip meant nothing after all. Sleep better.
