Liverpool fans finally get chance to paint town red

Supporters had waited 35 years for a title party after the 2020 lockdown nixed celebrations.

- Kieran Jackson

Until this moment, the end-of-season recurrence in Liverpool had come with an added jeopardy over the past decade. The pageant of the team bus crawling down Anfield Road ahead of their final home game, emerging gradually from the red mist, arrived alongside the war cry of thousands, scaling the trees and scaffolding to the side. The smell of pure sulphur, flares forming the richest of scarlet red air, came with an added whiff of worry. Fans congregating in the city drank lager and Guinness, stimulated perhaps more in hope than expectation.

Yet on this spring Sunday in 2025? Something new.

This time, there was no angst. No final-day jangling of nerves. No chaos or confusion on the terraces. The old-school radios and earphones were left in the junk box. Because this time, to those with an L postcode and the many flocking from beyond the borders, there was an inexorable party in town. And they were all here to attend, with or without an invite.

Yet perhaps most pivotally of all, there was no global pandemic. Five years on from the Premier League title celebration Liverpool fans were denied en masse – and 35 years or 12,783 days since their last top-flight title with spectators in the stands – a sea of red rejoiced and basked and drunk and laughed under the blue sky on this merriest of Merseyside occasions.

To understand the euphoric Anfield scenes at the climax of what was, ultimately and inevitably, an utterly dominant victory against a beleaguered Tottenham side, you have to take it back to two dates: 28 April 1990 and 25 June 2020.

The former: Alan Hansen is the captain as Liverpool claim their 18th first division title, their 10th in 15 years, after a 2-1 win against QPR. No need for elation or elaboration here: this was the norm.