The red smoke of a thousand flares rolled in across Anfield Road, engulfing the disciples in a garish haze of rapture. Liverpool had witnessed its share of giddy communions but perhaps never one as intoxicating as this, where even the arrival of the team bus was heralded by a man-made fog so thick it briefly blocked out the sun. “This means more”: it is a slogan that frequently antagonises rival fans, with its suggestion that whatever this club accomplishes must somehow be imbued with a deeper significance than you would find anywhere else. And yet this was one occasion where you could hardly fail to be swept up in the self-mythology, in the sense of one half of a singular city surrendering to a party 35 years in the making.
On an auspicious, balmy spring afternoon, most were in the mood to make up for lost time. An entire generation had passed since they had last savoured a coronation at home, with the class of 1990 sealing a 10th title in 14 seasons. But No 20 arrived against a profoundly different backdrop, with a decade of living in Manchester City’s shadow fuelling a moment of magnificent catharsis. If the euphoria of Jürgen Klopp’s solitary league triumph in 2020 had been cruelly muffled by draconian pandemic rules, these supporters made sure that Arne Slot’s encore would resound at maximum volume.
Amid the mayhem around Anfield, nowhere felt such a natural focal point as The Sandon. “It all began here,” declared the mural honouring John Houlding, the 19th-century businessman who founded the club and counted this as one of his pubs. Not even overnight vandalism of some “20” artwork on the wall could disfigure the revelries. A big-screen frenzy in the beer garden reached such a pitch that at one stage, fans clambered on top of a nearby Greggs van for a better view. “Everyone has the same mentality,” said manager Danny Claeys. “The love of football and the love of Liverpool.”
Even the Esso forecourt adjoining the stadium became an unlikely hub for celebrating al fresco, with hundreds purging decades of pent-up frustration in pyrotechnic style. There was, admittedly, one memorable stroke of Everton-engineered mischief, as some discovered to their horror that their flares were blue. “My mate bought 10,000 blue flares and spent the last four weeks taking the blue labels off and putting red labels on,” said an Everton fan giving his name only as ‘Tony Blueblood’. “I hope he sells the lot.”
Old enmities die hard. Despite a rogue tinge of blue, you could see the rising cloud of red from the city centre, from Albert Dock, from the air. On this cloudless day, a vast throng let loose under a crimson sky. While there were 60,000 inside the stadium, twice as many had converged on the surrounding area to join the carousing. In the bleakness of national lockdown five years earlier, few had been quite sure how to mark winning the league after a 30-year wait. Some walked from their front rooms to the Shankly Gates, just to see a friendly face, while one feckless teenager hurled a firework at the Liver Building. This time, though, there was a collective resolve – a plan to ignore all the warnings about Monday morning sick leave with a Sunday night they would never forget.
Local schools had warned parents that children would be expected in class as usual. Some hope, judging by the youth of the crowd here, with boys borne aloft on their fathers’ shoulders at the final whistle to a chorus of firecrackers. You sensed, acutely, a merging of Liverpool’s past, present and future. Where some fans began their day in the bar of the Glenbuck Hotel, named after the Scottish mining village where Bill Shankly was born, they ended it in absolute gratitude to Slot, the sage of Bergentheim, once little-known outside the Netherlands but now an object of reverence in the streets of L4.
For once, the merchandise-sellers had not gone too early. The “back on our perch” memorabilia was everywhere you looked, the ultimate rebuke to Sir Alex Ferguson’s infamous taunt. “Most successful club in Europe” declared one scarf: a claim at which Real Madrid, with 15 continental triumphs to Liverpool’s six, might bristle. Other items showed greater perspective, not least a pennant with the message: “Success has many fathers.” Of all Slot’s distinguished forebears, it was tempting to associate him most with Bob Paisley, who achieved the same seamless transition after Shankly’s departure that the Dutchman has managed post-Klopp.
All through the city, the favourite hymns were reeled off, with a homage to Virgil van Dijk set to the melody of Dirty Old Town, a song made famous by the Pogues. True, a song about Salford, and a band formed in London. But you could forgive the cultural appropriation when you saw the fervour with which it was performed – not least at Pogue Mahone, the Irish bar on Seel Street gearing up for a roister until dawn. Pubs were conjuring every means possible to bring ticketless customers closer to their idols, with fans at Dicey Reilly’s in Wolstenhome Square treated to lifesize cardboard cut-outs of Mo Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold. It was a global congregation of the faithful, with 61-year-old Karen McKenzie explaining she had travelled from Canada simply to “take it all in”.
Only within a mile of Anfield, though, could the exhilaration be seen at its most visceral. Fans hauled themselves up lampposts and on to the nearest roofs for the chance to survey a scene of exquisite pandemonium. In 2020, gatherings of this nature were officially outlawed. In 2025, they marked the fulfilment of a basic human impulse. Liverpool is a place of much complexity: sometimes contrary, sometimes confrontational, but always unashamedly authentic, with an abundance of soul. This was a day that revealed the city and the club at its finest, encapsulating the deep emotional connection that Shankly and Klopp channelled so powerfully. Without restraint or restriction, the true believers could finally lose their minds.