Celebrating Liverpool FC – In The Spirit Of Happy

I am still in my season of Happy, and hence will not allow anything to soil it.

I will even, in that spirit, still congratulate Liverpool Football Club (a club that I see as a big rival to my beloved one, a club I grew up being envious of because of their dominance at the time I was growing up, but which I gleefully and happily saw falter each of the last 30 years, as they kept trying to re-enact the dominance they showed prior to that) for winning the English Premier League title.

‘It’s ok’, I tell myself. ‘You and your beloved team still went on and had a good few years of dominance and control over the Red team, won a few titles along the way, and even played a part in ending their closest chance to getting their hands on it a few years ago, with that Stevie G slip!’. This is me consoling myself.

After all, as well, this Liverpool team also has four African players in it, and as a true advocate of African football, I should not but applaud the efforts of Sadio Mane, Mo Salah, Naby Keita and Joel Matip in this remarkable season.

I refuse to be unhappy, and will even applaud this team, because they did well – very well this season.

Is it not ironic, therefore, that it is during the penultimate game of the season against MY team, that this Liverpool team will be presented with their first Premier League trophy in 30 years, and it will be MY team – my boys in Blue – that will do a, honorary line up and applause to usher the Liverpool team on to the pitch – today?

But for the reasons stated above, I will ditch the envy, the jealousy and will still stay Happy. It is my happy week after all. And there is quite a lot to be happy about.

A good and worthy team won the Premier League title. A team that showed the example of how things should be.

My team has not done badly either this season (ok they probably need to reconsider and sign me as a centre back) – certainly not bad for a first season in charge as far as the manager goes.

That my team will be bearing witness to what is going to unfold – that trophy presentation – is good, a manifestation of what patience and dogged professionalism can do in anyone’s life.

One of the star players of this my Blue team – a really young but clearly intelligent boy (Mason Mount) said something that was quite moving to hear. And it is this spirit that I saw in the young 21-year old that capped my happiness at seeing Liverpool lift the trophy today.

Mason Mount said’ “I am a winner so I don’t like watching other people win, especially other teams. You want to win with your own team so it is definitely hard to watch someone else win but Liverpool have been brilliant this season and worthy winners.

“When you watch something like that, it gives you that extra motivation to want to win”, he said.

So I am happy. I am happy that even from within that team, a player as young as Mason Mount could see that another team lifting the trophy is not all negative or to be seen as a sign of failure of his team but rather as a sign of motivation for his team to do well next year.

This is where motivation is at its best. Two lessons are being learnt from this one day.

That Liverpool winning the trophy should be a thing that motivates Chelsea (I don’t care about others, I am sorry) to want to achieve the same in the not-too-distant future, which means that we can all, in our different and respective spheres of endeavour, always look at the successes and accomplishments of others and aim not to be envious or bitter, but as a point to motivate us into working hard to be like them.

Also, when you look at the way Liverpool went about its way to winning this title (for those who follow the game, you will understand – those who don’t, please don’t look away, it still is useful), the way the management stuck by, and patiently allowed the head coach to do his work and create, in his own time, a winning strategy, we will see what patience, perseverance and continuity can do in life.

We frown on how we tend to make hasty decisions, giving up before even trying, or letting go without allowing the seed we sow to blossom properly.

The way we fail to look inward and see where our frailties are, yet we aim to punch above our weight and want things to happen.

Much as I hate to admit it, Liverpool built a solid structure – a stable football club where winning trophies and titles became an inevitability. They hired a manager who believed in what he could do, and they stuck by him, thus embracing my saying that ‘continuity is the bedrock of stability’.

We can all build solid and stable structures around our lives once we find the right motivation, and the right mindset.

Applaud excellence and be driven by it, rather than be resentful of the achiever.

When I realised all this, and heard Mason Mount in that statement he gave, in the spirit of happy, I was happy, and I will stay happy even watching my rival club picking up that trophy later tonight, in the full glare of my beloved team.