Well I must say it was nice to see Liverpool wallop the MANCS yesterday, I guess their parachute payment at the end of the season will come in handy to tempt Bobby Charlton out of retirement. It is strange how the rivalry in Liverpool between Liverpool and Everton has now swung to the Liverpool United match. It is a shame though that what used to be good old rivalry has now turned to hatred amongst a few.

When I was at the blind school in Liverpool, every year we played Henshaws blind school from Manchester at crab football. This game was played in a gym. You scooted round in the crab position with your hands behind your back on the floor. The crab football was two huge waste paper baskets, filled with polish tins and then joined together and covered in canvas. We played several of the local sighted schools in Liverpool, Yewtree comp, Blackmore Drive, Halt comp and Cardinal Allen grammar school. We always beat these schools as they didn’t know how to play the game and were for the most part bloody terrified of the ball. Once a year though St. Vincent’s School for the blind in Liverpool would meet Henshaws blind school from Manchester. This was not just a grudge match, it was filled with vile and hatred. There were only 6 of us in the crab football team and if we returned to Liverpool having been beaten by Henshaws, life would not be worth living for the following year. For a start we were Catholics and they were pagans. Well at least prods. Tension would start to mount several weeks before the match took place. Two blind schools that hated each others guts. Actually I was the only blind kid on both sides. The rest were what we used to call partly sighted. I remember lining up for one match in Manchester. There was a deadly silence just before the match commenced. Their striker called me a catholic rat. I responded, “You’re nothing but a proddy dog?” Someone else fired another insult, and then someone threw a punch. Next we were all in there, smacking hell out of each other. Who needs a ball? Teachers waded in from both sides. My dad received the bill for my teacher’s glasses which I smashed. Order was eventually restored but the teachers from both sides decided that enough was enough and we were hauled away and sent back to Liverpool in disgrace. The 6 members of the team were publicly ridiculed the following morning in assembly, having brought shame on the school. However, in the playground we were nothing but heroes. Other kids would come up to me asking who did I belt and who won the fight. Looking back now, I think I would have found it absolutely hilarious watching 12 blind kids swinging punches, even if you belted one or two of your own players.

I woke up this morning at 5.15. My favourite part of any day is the point at which I wake up. To wake up at 5.15 or 6 or whatever the case maybe is just such a fantastic feeling. It doesn’t matter what the weather is like, you simply go and make your mug of tea, turn on the wireless and relax. You are now at the very start of a brand new day. The whole day lies ahead of you. I am grateful and lucky to have woken at all. Everything was so peaceful and it seems there is only you awake. Even the rain this morning pelting down on our bedroom window did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for this brand new day stretching out before me.

I hear on the news that yet another bank has gone to the wall. There are predictions of doom and gloom all over the place. But guess what, we will get over it, we always do. Just think of all the terrible things that have already happened to you. People you love that are sick, loved ones that have died, job losses and marriage brakeups. All these things you have coped with, so who gives a stuff about a few banks and airlines going to the wall.

Of course our investments are up the creek, but everyone is in the same boat. So, we will all go to Blackpool for our hols and have fishfingers for tea on Friday night for a treat.

Until the next time then, this is Tom Glassey on the banks of the Silverburn.