Football Culture (Dave Kirky)

Football culture, what does it mean?
In this amazing city where we lay our scene
If culture means drama, then we've seen it all
But our main performers...entertain with a ball.

And if culture means knowledge and a love of the arts
Then Liverpool fans are a law apart
Because football's an art form on which we were reared
While knowledge was gained by travelling for years.

I went the match with me dad when I was a kid
He took me on the kop...just like his father did
Then as I got older I went with me mates
It was our only release from the council estates.

During the week we'd hang round in gangs
Standing in doorways drinking from cans
But then came Saturday afternoon
And suddenly...life played a different tune.

We'd make our way to the football ground
To an ocean of colour with waves of sound
We knew that we belonged in there
It represented who we were.

Twenty six thousand amassed on the kop
You didn't want that day to stop
You'd sing and sway as banners unfurled
It took you to another world.

And then King Kenny would score a goal
And just for one moment...you weren't on the dole
You weren't traipsing round on a building site
Or a government statistic being treated like shite

Football could take you far away
make you feel like somebody...just for the day
Working class kids nothing else in our lives
found a way of being identified.

From hanging around on the streets back home
We found ourselves in places like Paris and Rome
skipping on ferries and bunking on trains
Conquering Europe...again and again.

I try to tell people just how that feels
The pride and the passion is almost surreal
some say..."It's men just kicking a ball"
But believe me now...they know fuck all.

Others say culture is much more profound
It doesn't exist at a football ground
But where were those deluded voices that week
When nearly a million were lining these streets?

Creativity evolves on the kop
I know poets who work down the dock
They're not arsed about Wordsworth or Keats
Their inspiration is Rush and Dalglish.

Even Shakespeare's dramas seem a bit dull
Compared to what happened in Istanbul
Put it this way...no drama could ever get near
To what happened over in Turkey that year.

So you see...football's not just a game
It stirs-up emotions that you can't explain
a major victory brings ecstasy...and tears
for fathers and friends who are no longer here.

That's what football culture means
It isn't just a stadium and a football team
It's a lifetime of drama played scene-by-scene
Capital of memories...capital of dreams.