Title Parade Stirs Raw Memories in Merseyside | OneFootball

Memories Stirred by a Long-Awaited Celebration

There is jubilation in Liverpool — but not without a tremor of pain. As the red half of the city prepares to bask in another Premier League title and fill the streets with half a million voices, many others will stand silent, remembering those who didn’t live to see it.

Simon Hughes’ moving piece for The Athletic cuts through the roar of celebration, reminding us that football, as ever, is deeply entwined with real life — and in Liverpool’s case, with real loss.

“Liverpool’s Premier League win has been a source of jubilation in the red half of the city,” Hughes writes, “especially as the club’s previous title — secured a few months after Paul passed away, with the pandemic still raging — was played out to a backdrop of empty stadiums.”

For Marie and Megan Smith, Liverpool’s title is not just a footballing triumph. It’s a bittersweet reminder of Paul — a steward, a father, a lifelong Red — who succumbed to Covid-19 in April 2020. Megan’s words are a haunting echo of what could have been: “His flags would be out. A flag on the front door and a flag on the nearest lamppost. Instead, we’re planning on putting flags on his grave.”

When Celebration Meets Sorrow

Sunday’s trophy lift at Anfield, followed by Monday’s parade, promises a carnival atmosphere. But for families like the Smiths and the Mawsons, these scenes stir more than excitement.

“On Sunday, Anfield will salute its heroes,” Hughes notes, “and the following day, more than half a million fans are expected to throng the streets for a parade.”

But as Megan watches others rejoice, she’s overwhelmed by absence. “It just feels so unfair,” she says. “He’d want Liverpool fans to celebrate it properly… but then he’d also say, ‘Remember us, the ones who didn’t make it’.”

The pandemic robbed many fans of the moments they’d waited decades for — and Simon Hughes does not let us forget that. In the middle of Liverpool’s rise, there is a chasm of loss, echoing through households and stadium aisles alike.

Photo: IMAGO

Football, Family and a City Changed

Both Paul Smith and Richie Mawson were more than fans — they were part of Anfield’s living soul. Paul greeted guests at the stadium’s lounges; Richie followed the club since its Second Division days. They were, in their own ways, part of the club’s fabric.

“The geography is significant,” Hughes writes, “because the Anfield area of Merseyside became one of the key landing stages for Covid-19 in Britain,” a result of the decision to allow the Champions League clash against Atletico Madrid to proceed on 12 March 2020.

That game, watched by 52,000 including 3,000 travelling Spaniards, is widely believed to have worsened the outbreak in Liverpool. Paul Machin, of Redmen TV, remembers feeling unwell shortly afterwards. “He was 37 in 2020 and considers himself one of the lucky ones,” Hughes reports. Others weren’t.

Richie Mawson, who also attended, died a week before Paul. His son Jamie recalls watching football with his dad, sitting side-by-side at Anfield — a bond that died with Richie. “I just cannot for the life of me at this moment in time drag myself up the ground,” Jamie says. “Because I’m thinking, ‘Where is he?’.”

The Cost of Decisions and the Power of Remembering

There’s anger in the undercurrent, too. Liverpool’s metro mayor, Steve Rotheram, said authorities like his were “blindfolded” by the government’s pandemic response. The decision to let the Atletico match go ahead is one still steeped in controversy.

“Those significant decisions… had really terrible and disastrous consequences for some families,” Rotheram tells Hughes.

Paul and Richie’s families were among the 303 in Liverpool who lost someone to Covid-19 during the early stages of the pandemic. They are also part of the unspoken tribute line at every Liverpool victory. From steward jackets on the Kop to toasts of champagne in memory, their presence lingers, woven into the DNA of a club that never forgets.

Marie, a frontline NHS worker, was there when Paul first showed signs. Megan, diagnosed with PTSD, still wonders if she somehow passed it on. It’s the sort of cruel question that haunts families left behind by the randomness of Covid.

Yet in the echoes of Paul’s humour, in the way he would wind up Evertonians after a win, in Megan’s voice when she says “He was my shadow,” his love for the game — and for his club — lives on.