Reading this essay from early in 2020 feels like a dispatch from a lost civilization. This archive piece captures a trip to Liverpool, a few weeks before the world was rocked by the pandemic and I became a father for the first time. At the time, my biggest threats were a dead iPhone and a stubborn Airbnb lock. Re-reading it now, I’m struck by what I took for granted: the ease of travel, life without masks, protocols, or jabs, and not having to worry about baby formula supplies.
Before everything changed, I ran headfirst into Murphy’s Law. Here’s how it went down.
Travel often enough, and eventually you have one of those really shitty days where just about everything goes wrong.
Prime example, my friend travels to Disney World at least twice a year, so it shouldn’t be surprising that he once shit his pants while there on vacation during March Madness. The combo of being in the sun for hours and drinking copious amounts of adult beverages led to him putting way too much trust in a fart.
The point is that things go well until they don’t.
When they don’t, well, you end up at the Disney World gift shop buying new boxers, some Pepto Bismol, and two bottles of water. And according to my friend, it takes about 5 seconds for the cashier to do the math and give you that knowing look.
Sure, that’s all a bit dramatic, but when you’ve come head-on with Murphy’s Law while far away from home, it’s nothing short of drama.
Recently, I had my own run-in with a traveling nightmare. After a brief trip last May, I returned to Liverpool to catch a few soccer (ahem, football) matches during the Christmas holidays.
I flew out of Philadelphia on Christmas night, arrived early the next morning in Manchester, and caught the next bus to Liverpool.
It was raining cats and dogs when the bus dropped me off near the John Lewis department store in Liverpool’s city center. Luckily, my winter coat was waterproof.
I should have seen the rain as a sort of foreshadowing of what was to come. Unfortunately, I ignored the signs and chalked it up to England being England.
But, in the first few hours after arriving in Liverpool, I was soaked to the bone, had my bank card denied at five ATMs leaving me with zero cash, learned that most cabs in Liverpool dont take cards, had to make a hasty payment to the cabbie using PayPal on a dying Iphone, only to realize I forgot to pack my international outlet adapter.
Luckily, my Airbnb host reminded me there was a newsstand just up the block that would likely have one. At a minimum, I could charge my phone.
I had a tight schedule to keep, though. The first match of my trip, Everton v Burnley at Goodison Park, was later that afternoon, and I needed to juice up my phone enough so I could show the ticketing office my invoice, take some pictures during the match, and at least let my wife know I had made it, all while I was drying out from the earlier downpour.
Choosing to go to an Everton match was a simple calculus. I love the game, and the whole purpose of this trip was to catch as many matches as possible. Everton is planning to leave Goodison, so when I saw that they would be at home on Boxing Day and that tickets were both cheap (less than $40) and easy to access (Stubhub), it was a no-brainer.
Everton was having a terrible season caused by a combination of bad luck, mismanagement, and injuries. Just before I arrived, Marco Silva was fired. And in came Italian manager Carlo Ancelotti, former standout midfielder/defender for Roma and AC Milan, and journeyman manager of several great clubs in Western Europe (AC Milan, Napoli, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Juventus, PSG).
When I arrived, they were sitting in the bottom half close to the relegation zone. And now, in late February, Everton are five points from a spot in the Champions League. Carlo seems to have been the answer.
Based on the early part of the season, though, it would have been reasonable to expect something closer to despondency among the fans. But after firing Silva and before bringing in Ancelotti, Everton started to turn their season around. And when I arrived, soggy from my walk across Stanley Park and tired from a long day of traveling, in the area around Goodison for the Italian’s first match in charge, I was met with a palpable buzz of excitement. Fans were smiling, giddy, and engaged in friendly banter. Not the sort of environment of a club that spent the first half of the season worrying about relegation.
I queued for my tickets at the Stubhub counter nestled between the Park End Stand and Bullens Road in the Southeast corner of the ground. The line was long, but moved quickly. After I snapped a few pics outside the gate for my section, I headed into Goodison. Watching the warm-ups is an important part of the game experience for me, and I wanted to take in as much of the scene as possible.
One of the few remaining neighborhood grounds, it’s not like any of the modern stadiums being built nowadays. It’s more akin to Wrigley Field or Fenway Park. Nestled snugly within the confines of a tightly fitting neighborhood, space is definitely a scarce commodity. After your ticket is scanned, you walk up a narrow set of stairs to your section. But at the landing, you’re greeted by the concession area, which itself is equally lacking in space. The tight confines add to the charm, though. Fans accommodate each other and are gracious when shoulders and bodies inevitably collide. I was too tired for a beer, having been up for over 24 hours, and I knew I wouldn’t make it through the match if I had one.
What struck me the most when I finally walked up the last bit of stairs to see the pitch from my section wasn’t the pillars holding up the roof and blocking part of my view. It was the wooden stands and tightly spaced plastic folding seats. The sturdy planks holding the section together have been a part of the stadium’s charm since the beginning, though. (Note: the Upper Bullens area where I sat was added about 30 years after Goodison was originally completed in 1892.)
As I found my seat, walking down the narrow rows, I was reminded of the close quarters of Penn State’s Beaver Stadium. If you’re tall or have long legs, like in Happy Valley, you’ll find yourself kneeing the fans in front of you or having to sit with your legs askew to avoid it from happening.
The Magic of Goodison wasn’t what I just described about the ground itself, although that helped. It was the fans in my section. As an outsider, what I observed was that everyone in my section knew each other. Everyone shared their snuck-in flasks of single malt, taking sips periodically as the wind picked up or as Everton’s attack petered out. They greeted each other like long-lost friends, shaking hands and asking about children, grandchildren, or elderly parents.
It wasn’t corporate, even though I did purchase my tickets through Stubhub. There were no fancy gimmicks or concessions. Only meat pies, hot dogs, beer, and tea.
The fans in my section knew the game, too. It was like going to Rupp Arena and sitting in a section of grannies breaking down the game like they were genetically invested (those grannies are genetically invested, in case you were wondering). Blues fans in my section called out missed passes, missed defensive assignments, and talked tactics better than some of the American pundits we have to listen to in the States. It was a refreshing reprieve from watching with American fans. That stuff’s embedded in the culture there, like basketball in the Bluegrass.
By the end of the match, fatigue was catching up with me. And despite being impressed with this new, Italian-inspired Everton, I was fading through the second half. Dominic Clavert-Lewin’s near-impossible diving header in the 80th minute put Everton up 1-0 and gave me what I estimated was my 8th wind.
As I left, the rain had started to come back, but not as hard as before. And I should have taken that as a sign that I was about to run into some more shit.
Exhausted by the time I reached my lodging, I nearly lost it when my key wouldn’t work. The lock was tricky, but with 30 or so hours without sleep and being rain-soaked for the 2nd time that day, finding a solution was exceedingly difficult. Realizing that my phone was nearly dead, I set about finding a pub with enough heart to let me use a charger. The thought was that my host, who lived off-site, would be able to tell me the trick to unlock the door.
For what felt like two hours, but was probably closer to forty-five minutes, I tried the lock three or four more times, had two pubs tell me they didn’t have an iPhone charger, and one refused to serve me a pint after they said my credit card required a pin (it doesn’t have one). I ended up having to buy a new charger and adapter from a nearby gas station run by a Pakistani guy who had taken pity on me.
After spending some time thawing out at the gas station while I waited for a reply from my host and had my phone charged, I had a moment of clarity. Maybe it was being forced to take a few deep breaths, maybe it was being allowed to warm up in the small gas station, I don’t know. Whatever it was, the trick to opening the lock had come back to me.
Thanking the Pakistani petrol station owner for helping a brother out, I marched the three blocks back to my AirBnB and opened the door with ease. It was a subtle trick, one I remembered from earlier in the day when I tried the key for the first time. But after the Everton match, in my exhaustion, I had completely forgotten.
Now that I was back inside, I was ready for a shower and a warm meal, all while trying not to fall asleep watching the Liverpool match later that evening.
I may not have shit my pants like my friend, and I may not have had everything go wrong, but I nonetheless ran headfirst into a fucking meat grinder on my first day in Liverpool. All of which gave me some valuable experience in overcoming obstacles while abroad. And that’s something to be thankful for.
Since I wrote this, Everton has officially moved to the sleek Bramley-Moore Dock, leaving behind the wooden seats and the stadium that breathed into the playground of the Gwladys Street Primary School and the back gardens of the terraced housing along Muriel and Diana Street. Carlo Ancelotti eventually succumbed to the siren of the Bernabeu, leaving the Blues to navigate several more relegation battles before finding their footing.
Looking back, that “shitty day” was a gift, a vivid memory of a legendary ground, and the perseverance to get through what was to come.
We all have those “shitty days” that eventually turn into our favorite stories.
If this reminded you of your own run-in with Murphy’s Law, feel free to share this piece with your favorite travel partner.
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