by johnbarnes » Wed Aug 05, 2015 4:15 pm
Just read this blog from LFC official website. Sums up what this game does for us all...
Here's to a new season and hopefully their will be more ups and than downs for us!
PS - It's nice to be back (but it was great to get away)
JB
Blog: My dad, Stoke City and me
When I was woken up by the 2am phone call from my Mum to let me know my Dad had been rushed to hospital after suffering a stroke my first half-awake thought was "I hope he's OK in time for the new season."
At the time I had no idea how bad things were. They turned out to be very bad. My Dad, Stuart, collapsed after what the doctors told us was a 'subarachnoid hemorrhage' in his brain. He underwent life-saving surgery which involved a chunk of his skull being cut out so they could stop the blood flooding his head and he has been in a coma since.
And I was worried about football.
Written down, it sounds ridiculous, but really it makes a twisted sort of sense. The Knowles family have never been particularly good communicators. Phone calls are an awkward necessity and conversations are as brief as they need to be. Without football we would probably go for weeks without seeing each other. With it we had a reason to be in the same place every other week.
We also always had something to talk about. Occasionally the conversation would stray to what we were doing with our lives but it never drifted too far from discussing whether Jonathan Walters was better deployed centrally or on the right of a forward three. Football is the universal language for blokes who find small talk a challenge.
This dialogue continued into the hospital wards. The doctors and nurses all seem to have different opinions on how much coma patients can hear and understand. What they do all agree on is that it's worth a try, right? So I'd stand at my Dad's bedside and look at all the tubes coming out of him and I'd tell him about how we've been linked with Xherdan Shaqiri and that Begovic was probably going to Chelsea, but it's OK because we never rated him anyway.
One time, when the critical care ward was quiet and I'd run out of things to say, I sang 'Oh When The Reds Come Marching In' to him. A nurse passed mid-song and smiled sympathetically at me. It was the saddest moment of my life, but afterwards, walking out of the ward, I smiled at how he'd react if he did hear it. He would ***** himself laughing at me, then he would join in.
That's what supporting Stoke City is all about. Passion and self-deprecation. Deep down, you know a grown man in a replica shirt is hilarious but you'll still put your arm around him and jump up and down when Crouch launches his lanky frame onto the end of a fizzing cross.
Looking back, I can map out my entire relationship with my Dad to our relationship with Stoke. Some of my earliest memories are of him forming a protective circle to stop me being crushed into the metal rail by the surging throng of Stoke fans charging down the Boothen End terrace at the Victoria Ground. We both watched in disbelief as the pitch was invaded when we won promotion to the Premier League and sung Delilah along with Dicko. When I stood on the steps at Wembley for Stoke's FA Cup Final game against Manchester City I shed a tear and my Dad put his arm around me without saying a word as we looked out onto the pitch. We both knew what that moment meant, we probably shared a similar one at the Autoglass Trophy Final in 1992.
So now when we are being told about rehabilitation and the potential damage that could have been done to his body and the time his recovery could take, I'm still worrying about him being OK in time for the new season. It could be a good one, I don't want him to miss it.
It won't be the same without him refusing to look when we have a penalty, without him defending Whelan every time the bloke a few rows back shouts about how **** he is, without his once-per-match rant at the referee for a decision that nobody else in the ground thought was wrong.
To try and help in some small way I'd love to be able to record a minute's applause for him on the 12th minute of the first game against Liverpool. So often I've taken part in them for people who are sadly gone, I think it would be good to have one for somebody who will be able to appreciate it when they come back to us.
I've always worried that if something happened to my Dad I would feel like I hadn't seen him enough, hadn't spent enough time with him. Now that time has come I'm relieved to discover I don't feel like that. We've hugged, we've screamed with joy in each other's faces, we've shed a tear.
And all that's down to football. With one week to go, Dad isn't going to be ok for the new season, but I'm sure he'll enjoy the in-depth match reports I'll be giving him every day until he wakes up.