The smile which could not be wiped off his face yesterday — again that is Liverpool as well.
A supporter of the English football team for near on 60 years, Dunedin’s Larry Markham was a happy man yesterday as the side he supported won the English Premier League for the first time in 30 years.
Markham (71) first watched them with his father when he was a youngster.
Tommy Lawrence was the goalkeeper for that first Liverpool side he watched on black and white television and that is about all he can remember about it.
Since then, plenty of players have come and gone in the red shirt and there were a bucketful of league titles in the 1970s and 1980s.
But the last was won in 1990 and there had been a long drought as arch nemesis Manchester United grabbed the glory. But a loss by Manchester City yesterday gave the premier league title to Liverpool.
Markham said it had been a long time between drinks.
"I thought we would go close this year and we were almost there before the lockdown," he said yesterday.
"When the lockdown went on and kept going I thought, is this going to happen? But they came back and did the business."
A life member of Roslyn Wakari and also the club’s patron, he was sure to have a few celebration drinks at the Roslyn Wakari clubrooms tonight.
Markham said it was hard to tell who was the better team — the current one or the side which won so much all those years ago.
A personal all time favourite player was Kenny Dalglish, while he admired Sadio Mane in the current team.
