
So here I was. I had newly arrived in Liverpool and was ready for my Liverpool University Life to begin. But first…
Saturday 1 October 1988
So much for Mr Independent, a.k.a., where’s Mr Grown Up gone?
In my diary, I make a most ungrateful moaning comment about Mum and Dad. Because today was the only day they had available to bring my stuff for me – all my clothes, my books, some records and tapes and my stereo – I was extremely tetchy with my comment, “Wanted to go to football but Mum and Dad came with clothes.”
When they were with me, I was rude and dismissive, so they didn’t hang around for very long. Who would want to spend time with such a teenage brat?!
And to top it all, I would not have enjoyed the football that I missed as Newcastle United enjoyed one of their rare Anfield victories through goals from John Hendrie and Mirandinha. Dave Beasant, newly signed from Cup Winners Wimbledon*, again thwarted Liverpool and the Geordies scored from both of their only forays into the Liverpool half.
*Remind me, who did they beat again?
Sunday 2 October 1988
Ever pithy, I recorded today’s activity with a one-word entry, “Slept.”
This probably meant that my new neighbour and I had been over to the Carnatic bar for a few pints of watered-down Tetley’s.

Monday 3 October 1988
Today was the big day – my first day at university. In my diary, I had previously written, “If accepted, first day at Liverpool Uni.”
In the event, things passed off OK with our first lecture, which was Maths, with “this Welsh guy – Doc Waters.” He freely admitted that our first foray into engineering degree level Maths would be a catch up on what many of us had done at A Level. This was due to the mixed nature of the cohort. Not only British A Level students, but BTEC students and of course the monied foreign students.
Anyway, that was that diary-wise until…
Friday 7 October 1988
Tonight was the first, CivEng Soc. pub crawl. We briefly made it off campus to a newly renamed pub. I may have this completely wrong, but I think it was the Caledonia, located on Catharine Street, which had previously been called the Nightingale. There is another candidate on Catharine Street, called the Blackburne Arms… who knows? Not me, obviously.
I recorded in my diary that I met a couple of fellow freshmen. (Now, you can stop that slide into Americanisms right now, Ed.) Sorry, I met a couple of fellow first-years. One of the lads was a curious sort who would go home at the weekend, ostensibly to play sport – be it football or cricket. But we all thought (i.e. were envious) that perhaps he had a woman.
He was also mad keen on his soaps – EastEnders and Coronation Street, plus Emmerdale. So much so that nothing could happen until after these shows had. Any evening events we had planned, they all had to wait.
Saturday 8 October 1988
Today’s only note was a derisory “Lost again v Bloody Luton 1-0.”
Monday 10 October 1988
Either at the pub crawl or today in university I also met a lad from Staffordshire, who I mistakenly enquired if he was from Birmingham and was shot down in flames. I presume that he forgave me as he became the third of my five second- and third-year housemates.
Wednesday 12 October 1988
Football results again, Liverpool defeated Walsall in the League Cup – “Rushy scored.” Other scorers in this 3-1 away victory were John Barnes and Jan Molby.
Saturday 22 October 1988
No further entries until today’s mention of a trip to Anfield with my two new mates from the pub crawl. This was an inauspicious start to my Anfield match-going career – a 0-0 draw with Coventry City.
Wednesday 26 October 1988
Another football match was recorded, another defeat for Liverpool. This time, away at Nottingham Forest. Ian Rush scored in the 2-1 defeat.
Saturday 29 October 1988
Welcome relief for Liverpool with a 2-0 win at the Boleyn Ground. Ian Rush and Peter Beardsley scored the goals.
Wednesday 2 November 1988
My first nighttime visit to Anfield. Sitting on the bus as it traversed the Shiel Road circular, my heart thumped with excitement. Blurry through the condensation from the breath of at least 80 people clouding the windows, the streetlights cast their eery orange glow as we inched our way closer to the hallowed area. Once inside, we walked up the steps to the top of the Kop thus revealing the floodlit pitch – a spectacle I can never forget. (Easy Tiger, Ed.)
As for the Littlewoods Cup tie versus Arsenal, I noted that Liverpool were outplayed but managed a 1-1 draw. John Barnes scored Liverpool’s goal.
Saturday 5 November 1988
My third trip to Anfield yielded a win, at last.

Liverpool thrashed Middlesboro 3-0 with Ian Rush opening the scoring at the Kop end, just before halftime. The second and third goals came from John Aldridge and Peter Beardsley respectively.
Wednesday 9 November 1988
In their Littlewoods Cup third-round replay, Liverpool travelled to Highbury where they played out a goalless draw with Arsenal. A second replay was quickly pencilled in for Wednesday 23 November at Villa Park.
Saturday 12 November 1988
Another visit to Anfield for the visit of newly promoted Millwall. If memory serves (I didn’t write it down) this may also have been the first trip there with the lad who was to become another of my five housemates and to this day, my usual matchday partner at Anfield. We were both each other’s Best Man; God Father to each other’s firstborn and so on.
Anyway, back to the football. Millwall were well worth their 1-1 draw; Liverpool did not play very well with Steve Nicol’s goal rescuing a point.
Saturday 19 November 1988
An away win for Liverpool today, with John Aldridge’s goal being enough to grab the 3 points versus QPR.
Wednesday 23 November 1988
The theme of my diary continues with another record of football scores but not much else. No mention of how well, or not, I was getting on living away from home. No discussion of how my studying was going. I can only conclude that I was having a great time.
In the event, my new friend, who incidentally, had a Kop season ticket, went down to Birmingham to watch Liverpool defeat Arsenal 2-1 in their second replay at Villa Park. Paul Merson scored first for Arsenal before Steve McMahon’s equaliser and the winner from John Aldridge.
Saturday 26 November 1988
Off to Anfield again. My new friend, he with the season ticket, was concerned that I might not get into the ground. Consequently, he insisted that we got there we get there at around 12 o’clock for a 3 o’clock kick-off.
Today’s game was against our FA Cup vanquishers, Wimbledon. It was, as I put it, “an unbelievably bad performance.” The Dons, with their heavily depleted side, were more than happy to nick a point. Almost embarrassed to be ahead through Ray Houghton’s sixty-third-minute goal, Steve Nicol poked the ball into his own net with just 2 minutes on the clock.
Wednesday 30 November 1988
Things went from bad to worse on the pitch as, “Oh woe,” West Ham stuck 4 past us with just one goal in reply. The Littlewoods Cup would not be coming to Anfield this season.
Sunday 4 December 1988
As the end of term approached, Mum and Dad came to pick my stuff up. This was to enable me to travel light on the train next weekend, returning home for Christmas. Now, if you recall, I was a complete spoilt brat when they had brought my stuff to me in October, so I hope that I was better behaved this time.
I didn’t let football get in the way this time, although I did attend the communal TV room to watch Arsenal versus Liverpool from Highbury. In the first of their four-year, £44m exclusive contract, ITV showed the match with its bizarre kick-off time of 3:09 pm. Just showing us who’s boss, methinks.
Anyway, in what was already their fifth meeting of the season, Liverpool took the lead through John Barnes just after halftime. Then, scored on 70 minutes, Alan Smith’s one hundredth league goal ensured the points would be shared.
Thursday 8 December 1988
‘At last,’ I hear you cry, some evidence of student life. This being the last week before we broke up for our 4-week Christmas holiday we were obviously on a glide path to earth. Drink would have been taken and this evening, it got out of hand.
One of our acquaintances was a fiercely patriotic, pro-Independence Scots lad. In his case, on this evening, drink certainly had been taken, and the upshot of that was that he took a swing at one of the porters on the Carnatic site. His problem was that he was a) a callow youth and b) so drunk that his huge lunge merely toppled him off balance. The porter did the rest and our friend was seen safely to his bed with no more said about the incident.
Friday 9 December 1988
Three of us, probably the last of our little gang had, by now, had enough partying so we settled in to watch a Burth Reynolds film. I didn’t record which particular film it was, but we were happy enough in each other’s company just with a cup of tea.
Saturday 10 December 1988
It was a good job that tea was as strong as it had got last night – this morning, I was up early to get to Lime Street to get my train home to Shrewsbury. I was met by a fine old welcome party (Dad and my brother) just around lunchtime. I bumped into a chum from sixth form on the way from the station to the carpark, which was nice.
Sunday 11 December 1988
Football on the telly again and one which I was annoyed not to have been able to attend. It was the Anfield derby, and it would have been my first experience of it. As it was, goals were traded between Ray Houghton and Wayne Clarke, so the points were shared.
Tuesday 13 December 1988
What was normally an occasion for celebration was this year, “the worst birthday I’ve ever had!”
Now, the issues I had experienced at sixth form with being excluded had been forgotten during those first few weeks away at university. But here I was, at home once again and all of my new mates were also back at home all around the country. So, presumably, my birthday was as bad as I had recorded because I couldn’t celebrate with the people I really wanted to – i.e., my new mates.
My list of mates had never been a very long one and those to whom I was perhaps closest were all working men now. That said, if I had bothered to make the effort to pick up the phone, I am sure I could have gone out in the evening for a couple of beers. I was very good at making myself out to be the victim.
Saturday 17 December 1988
But maybe people hadn’t returned from university themselves? Tonight, I was out in Shrewsbury with a few people from sixth form. The only name I recorded was one of the few new friends I had made there. He was not one of the group of secondary school lads I went to sixth form with. They were out, because I noted that I had seen them.
Sunday 18 December 1988
Anyway. Enough crying already. Today, I mostly slept. Oh, and recorded that Liverpool had lost at home. Yesterday. To Norwich.
Saturday 24 December 1988
Tonight, my dad drove my brother and me up to Minsterley so he and I could have a few Christmas Eve drinks. We drank in the Crown and Sceptre. At the time, the Crown was one of three pubs located in the middle of the village. The other two, the Bath Arms and the Bridge have long ceased to exist as pubs – in the case of the Bath Arms, even as a building.

Anyway, I rather spoilt the vibe, by writing in my diary that I had, “got pissed up.” Which I doubt very much in just a couple of hours.
Sunday 25 December 1988 Christmas Day
So, the big day arrived. No mention of a hangover or sleeping, so I presume that I did not really, “get pissed up,” the night before. Oh, the bravado of youth; a.k.a., knobhead posturing.
Christmases were always a family event growing up and this year would have been no different. My great-grandmother was still around, she died in 1990, so she would have been sitting around the table. So too would have been my dad’s mum and more than likely, my mum’s mum and dad.
And then, later, in the evening, we would have been joined by some of Mum’s extended family – two cousins and their mum, her aunt. This year, we were surprised when Mum’s cousin from Canada accompanied them. He and his wife had been in the UK the previous Christmas, so we were genuinely surprised.
Monday 26 December 1988 Boxing Day
And finally, I drew the whole edifice to a close with yet another pithy football comment, “Liverpool won at Derby, 1-0, Ian Rush (is back!)”