So this is Christmas...

YES, that most extraordinary time of the year has arrived once again.

Twelve months on from Yuletide 2015 when a word like 'Brexit' wasn't in the lexicon and the mere thought of 'President Elect Trump' was simply too ridiculous to imagine, that's where we're at as 2016 enters its final few weeks.

Personally, I've never known a year quite like 2016.

I think it was someone on Twitter who said that things all started to go awry when the great David Bowie shuffled off his mortal coil before the New Year was barely a fortnight old.

Bowie, according to the Tweeter, was the glue that held the universe together. And since he wasn't around any more, well...

Now I'm not going to put everything down to the very sad passing of that remarkable musician, but that claim is tough to argue against.

And if you throw in the departures of such people as Prince, Muhammad Ali and Leonard Cohen to name just a legendary trio, it's been one hell of a 12 months witnessing the great and the good pass away.

Back in the summer, a week before the European Union Referendum, I wrote about how there was a war raging between Love and Hate: http://snowypadres.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/two-four-letter-words.html

Six months later, that conflict is still going on - and in many ways has really intensified in the period since I penned that blog.

Britain - or should I say, certain parts of Britain - voted, just, to leave the European Union while over in the United States, despite not winning the 'popular vote' by quite a fair number, the dreadful Donald Trump is set to become the 45th American President early in 2017.

Meanwhile, real war is still raging in Syria with a peace settlement to a conflict that has being going on for more years than the Second World War still a distant dream.

The rise of the extreme right-wing is absolutely upon us and our nearest European neighbour, France, may be a matter of months away from electing a fascist president in the shape of Marine Le Pen - truly unbelievable for a nation that fought and died battling such an odious regime in the 1940s.

For anyone who knows me, December has always been my most favourite month of the year.

I absolutely love all that goes with it - the overall chaos, the parties, the family get-togethers, the food, the drink, the presents, the music, the films, the television, the sport. Everything.

I also love hearing again at Mass at Christmas that special story of the very first Christmas, now more than 2,000 years old.

The tale is only told in two of the Gospels - Matthew and Luke. And both accounts were penned for different audiences.

In St Matthew's version, the focus is on the visit of the wise men from the East while St Luke homes in on the message of the angels to the poorest of all of Palestine's workers, the shepherds in the fields.

And it's Luke's Gospel that has been a constant with me over the years.

As wonderfully astute as the wise men undoubtedly were and as great a carol as We Three Kings really is, the first line in The First Nowell is just so incredibly powerful:

"The first Nowell the angels did say
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay."

In other words, the Son of God's priority was for the poorest of them all.

And it makes you wonder what He would think of our world right now nearly 2,017 years after He was living among the people in Roman-occupied Galilee and Judea.

There just seems to be hatred and heartlessness everywhere you turn, with the poorest and weakest amongst us suffering most of all. And as things stand, it's difficult to see things getting any better.

When the first chimes of the New Year ring in, universally we always hope for a better 12 months ahead than the one we've just experienced.

In lots of ways, that will be the case more than ever come the opening seconds of January 1, 2017.

Yes, I'd truly love to think 2017 actually will be a better one than the one that's gone before it, but the way things are I have serious doubts.

All I'm hoping for right now as I write this at the start of the final month of 2016 is that you all have a happy and peaceful end to the year and that Christmas is one to remember for all the good reasons that this great and wondrous season can bring to you and your families.

And when the calendar does flip over into 2017, we must all stand together, united against hatred and division and bitterness - and confront it whenever and wherever we see it.

I'd like to think we've come a long way since we lived in caves and went out in search of killing woolly mammoths for our evening meals.

But sometimes I truly wonder about that...

Two four-letter words

TWO four-letter words.

Each having a pair of vowels and two consonants.

But perhaps of all words in the English language they could not be more polarised.

I am writing, of course, of the words 'love' and 'hate'.

And right now, in our world, whether it's right here on the streets of the United Kingdom, in nightclubs in the United States of America or in the battle-scarred Middle East, those two small words are waging a war.

And it's affecting every single one of us.

The killing of MP Jo Cox has shocked the nation, a nadir I certainly didn't believe was possible to reach in our country.

Hate seems to be everywhere, and it's chilling me to the bone.

I truly cannot understand what is going on with the human race.

It seems you cannot go barely a couple of days before some horrendous hate-crime is committed somewhere in our world.

The brutal murder of dozens of people in a gay nightclub in downtown Orlando only last weekend was just one of an appalling series of attacks that has left the victims' families to mourn and countless numbers of decent people in the USA and beyond its shores to question yet again the absolutely insane gun 'laws' in that magnificent nation.

Right now, hate seems to have the upper hand.

But for the sake of the human race, it cannot and must not be allowed to win.

There's a wonderful quote in Charles Dickens's timeless tale A Christmas Carol that comes to mind when I think about how bad things are in the human race and how they might be improved for the good of all.

Early in the story, the heartless skinflint Scrooge is visited by his cheery nephew Fred on Christmas Eve afternoon.

Fred wants his uncle to join them the following day to celebrate Christmas, but the money-obsessed miser is having none of it.

Referencing to the season of the year, Fred remarks: "I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round - apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that - as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."

It's a brilliant summing up of the human race.

We are indeed all fellow-passengers to the grave, and it's while we're here for this oh so short space of time that I really believe we all have to play our part in being decent, helping others as best we can, and not closing our hearts and minds to them.

The European Union referendum vote has shone a very bright spotlight on what really comes down to selfishness on one side and benevolence on the other.

The Brexit side have certainly shown their absolute selfishness with their Little Englander rhetoric that simply sticks in the craw.

It's a love-in, or in this instance, a hate-in, of the right-wing - and it's been appalling to watch.

You only have to see the people leading their campaign and it tells you everything.

It's meanness and nastiness personified with an underlying agenda of hate that boils down to their masterplan to haul up the proverbial drawbridge should they win and sod the rest of the continent that we have been a geographical part of for millions of years and economically connected to for more than four decades.

There just seems to be no end to their message of hate.

But it cannot be allowed to be triumphant.

Just a couple of thousand years ago, a truly remarkable man told us to ''love your neighbour as yourself".

He preached love, not hate, and His powerful words still carry resonance today.

Reading the tributes to MP Jo Cox has been absolutely heartbreaking, but one really stood out from the rest.

It came from her grieving husband, Brendan, who wrote: "Today is the beginning of a new chapter in our lives. More difficult, more painful, less joyful, less full of love. I and Jo's friends and family are going to work every moment of our lives to love and nurture our kids and to fight against the hate that killed Jo Jo believed in a better world and she fought for it every day of her life with an energy, and a zest for life that would exhaust most people. She would have wanted two things above all else to happen now, one that our precious children are bathed in love and two, that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her. Hate doesn't have a creed, race or religion, it is poisonous."

And he is absolutely right.

I dread to think how the rest of this already awful year is going to pan out with the thought of Donald Trump winning the Presidency in November, something to truly terrify all right-thinking people in the four corners of this small planet we all share.

For now, I just hope and pray that we'll start to see more love around the world and not be so fearful of people who perhaps are "not like us" - whatever that means.

Indeed, as Dickens so eloquently put it, we really are all fellow-passengers to the grave and the human race needs to wise up and take that simple but true message on board.

I firmly believe that in the end, love will win the battle with hate.

Right now, though, we all just need to help it along.

Though Your Dreams Be Tossed And Blown...

SO I've now poured myself a large glass of red wine - not whine in case anyone thinks this is - and I'm reflecting on the past three hours or so in the history of Liverpool Football Club.

Well, at the end of everything, it just wasn't meant to be.

That wonderful victory over our bitterest domestic rivals, the unforgettable comeback against our present manager's former club and that magnificent success that punched our ticket for a trip to Switzerland all came to naught in the end.

What a run it was, only for it to end with something of a whimper which was the most disappointing feature of tonight's fourth defeat in a European final.

Alongside the losses to Borussia Dortmund (1966), Juventus (1985) and AC Milan (2007) you can now add the name of Sevilla.

With a one-goal advantage in the bag at the break and looking on top of things, along with every other Liverpool Football Club supporter I had high hopes we'd build on that in the second half.

But the game changed within seconds of the restart and that would prove to be that.

Yes, manager Jurgen Klopp made all the necessary changes he had to during that second 45 minutes to attempt to try and turn things around, but it wasn't our night.

Yet. given everything that's happened to Liverpool FC this season, it wouldn't swap it for anything.

It's said that in sports - like life - you learn more from disappointments than you do from triumphs.

There's no doubt in my mind that when Klopp comes to analyse what went wrong tonight on the biggest of stages, he will see the faults - and more importantly do something about them.

I am so glad Klopp is our boss. His man-management skills are unquestioned while the belief he has instilled in the fans is quite simply priceless.

The number of late goals his team netted this season bears testament to that - not least the leveller scored by Christian Benteke at Anfield in the Reds' final home game of the season against Chelsea.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the team under Klopp is going places - positive places.

Yes, it's been gut-wrenching to lose two cup finals in the same season. As a Liverpool supporter of more than 40 years I'm feeling the pain just the same as those who've been following the club for only a fraction of that time, not least my eldest son who is simply devastated.

But believe me, the future truly is bright under this incredible German. He knows the score, he 'gets' Liverpool and we WILL be back.

Next season, without the distraction of European football, the club's primary aim should be to secure our 19th top flight title.

Of course it will be tough, but under this unique manager I have never felt as confident of achieving that goal in many a long year.

We win together; we draw together; we lose together.

We are Liverpool Football Club.

And we will be back, have no doubt about that.

YNWA

I Was Just One Of The Lucky Ones

THE simple fact is I was just one of the lucky ones.

From the mid-1980s I began to follow Liverpool Football Club with an almost religious-like zeal.

I never missed a home game for season after season and began travelling to many grounds around the country to watch the Reds play - London, Derby, Nottingham, Norwich and Birmingham were among the cities I visited.

I also went to Sheffield.

My first visits there were both in the spring of 1988 as Liverpool first booked a place in that year's FA Cup Final with a semi-final success over Nottingham Forest. Later, with my sister to accompany me high up in the West Stand, we enjoyed watching Kenny Dalglish's all-conquering club inflicted a 5-1 hammering of Sheffield Wednesday in a First Division match.

Hillsborough was the venue for both games and in April, 1989, I returned to that same ground.

For that first semi-final in 1988, I found myself directly behind the goal on the Leppings Lane terrace. It was a jam-packed area with little, if any, room for manoeuvre once you were in-situ. I'd had similar experiences on other terraces at away grounds, but during that semi-final match, I distinctly remember feeling things were getting somewhat tighter than normal.

In the end, though, that was put to the back of my mind as the Reds won the game booking a place at Wembley, and as a 20-year-old student, it was the least of my worries at the time.

Sometime in late March or very early April the following year, my Dad drove me up to Anfield where I'd gone to purchase my ticket for that year's FA Cup semi-final, which, for the third successive season, was to be staged at Hillsborough.

And I can distinctly recall looking at the ticket and being dismayed to discover that like the previous year, Liverpool had been allocated the smaller Leppings Lane End and not the much bigger Spion Kop End for all of their standing supporters.

Those thoughts of the small, packed terrace 12 months earlier came back to me, but when Saturday, April 15, 1989 dawned fresh and bright, all I could think about was going back to the South Yorkshire ground to give my support to my team and hopefully see them reach another Wembley final.

I can't recall that much about the coach journey to Sheffield that sunny morning, except to say it seemed to take longer than the previous year's one, and we eventually parked up at I guess around 1.30pm.

A short walk later without mishap and with very little queuing for the turnstiles at the Leppings Lane End, I was in the ground behind the terracing.

This was my third visit to Hillsborough and I knew pretty well the layout of things. So when I saw that the tunnel that led down to the terracing right behind the goal was already looking to be filling up or maybe even full, my mind flashed back to the previous year's experience.

Did I really want a repeat of all that again? No chance, I said to myself.

It was a decision that saved my life.

I then happened to see a steward chatting to someone, and I asked directions to the side area of the terrace, and he pointed me towards the right. I then walked around the outside of the stand before entering the clearly far less crowded pen on the side of the ground where the main TV camera gantry on the South Stand was situated.

Save for a handful of fellow Reds supporters, the terrace was empty. There was plenty of room to sit on the concrete steps and have a read of the matchday programme. It was now gone 2.30pm, and as I glanced around I wondered to myself where the rest of our fans where - this, after all, was an FA Cup semi-final.

A further look to my left told me everything I needed to know - and fear.

The middle area was packed, dangerously packed. Almost 30 years later now, I can still see a man aged in his 50s or even 60s perhaps, wearing a long coat, deciding he didn't fancy it any more and being helped over the metal fencing that separated the individual pens into which supporters were, literally, herded.

Almost certainly that man's decision to get out then saved his life too.

It was now getting on for 2.50pm, and still the terracing I was now stood up in wasn't full by any stretch of the imagination. But as I glanced again to my left, it seemed to be getting worse by the minute.

What happened after that period has, of course, been well documented.

Despite everything, the match kicked-off on time.

Six minutes later it stopped.

Scores of supporters were fatally injured with hundreds more badly hurt.

Those that survived that day all suffered in one way or another.

Some time around 4pm, I think, fans were told to leave the ground and return to their transport.

Of course, those were the days when mobile phones resembled house-bricks and cost a fortune so everyone headed for public telephone boxes and houses around the ground to ask if they could make a call home.

I joined a big queue outside a house in Leppings Lane itself and eventually got a message through to someone, although not my parents. I was desperate to speak to them and it was not until our coach stopped at a service station on the way back to Liverpool that I was able to get through to them.

Those hours for my Mum and Dad must have been sheer hell. They had gone shopping in Liverpool that afternoon, returned to their car, put the radio on and heard the grim news from Hillsborough knowing full well that was the part of the ground I was due to be in.

To this day, nearly three decades later, it is a subject that they understandably find too distressing to talk to me about. As a parent now myself, I know exactly why.

So I returned to Liverpool that Saturday night around 8pm, shaken and upset, but luckily alive.

The rest of that evening was spent on the phone with schoolmates who hadn't managed to get a ticket for the game but knew I'd be there, while one made a special trip to see me in the house.

I can remember scribbling on a piece of scrap paper how I had seen the tragedy unfold and how it could have been prevented. It was pretty much how those with far more knowledge than me on such matters were to sum it all up.

Twenty-seven April 15ths have happened since that fateful one in 1989.

And now, at long, long last, justice has won the day.

The real truth of what happened, always known by the people of the city I'm proud to call home, has now been shown to the whole world.

The families' fight for justice has been won, and I am both so thrilled and relieved for them.

It's been a hell of a long time coming and they have experienced hell to get there.

But thank God they have triumphed in the end.

I will never forget April 15, 1989 for its horrors.

But I will always remember April 26, 2016 for the day that justice finally prevailed.

God bless those magnificent Hillsborough Families and God bless those 96 Angels.

Every single one of them, truly, has never walked alone. And never, ever will.

Capital Pains - Before The Gains

SO now we all know how the supporters of AS Roma, Birmingham City, AC Milan, West Ham United and Cardiff City felt.

Watching your team taking party in a penalty shootout for the chance to lift a piece of silverware - and losing it - is not one of the best experiences you'll have as a football fan.

Well, on Sunday it was the turn of us Liverpool Football Club supporters who have seen our club win two European Cups, two League Cups and one FA Cup in that very way in our illustrious history, to go through the pain endured by the likes of the five aforementioned teams.

This was a new one for all Reds fans - and, by God, did it hurt.

I guess it's nothing with what Italian or French players and supporters felt when they lost shootouts in World Cup finals, but all the same, it still was a hard punch to the guts.

Perhaps it hurt more because we'd witnessed a true, valiant effort from the team to hang in there against Manchester City.

Trailing to a 47th minute strike from Fernandinho, the City midfielder taking advantage of Liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet failing to keep the garden gate shut, the Reds dug deep.

And their efforts were rewarded seven minutes from time when the brilliantly-gifted Brazilian Philippe Coutinho rammed the ball home from inside the 18-yard area after an effort from teammate Adam Lallana had struck an upright.

It might have been fortuitous the way the ball fell to him, but neither Coutinho nor the tens of thousands of Reds fans in West End of Wembley Stadium gave a care.

The Liverpool No10 raced away with unbridled joy to celebrate with the supporters.

It was another example, as if anyone was in any doubt, how manager Jurgen Klopp has re-forged a bond between the fans and the players which began with a 2-2 draw against West Bromwich Albion in the Premier League back in December.

It was a wonderful sight to behold and for a fleeting moment it reminded me of when the great Kenny Dalglish netted what would prove to be the match-winner in the 1978 European Cup Final over Bruges. After clipping the ball home, Liverpool's greatest-ever player went on a mad dash over the advertising hoardings towards the massed ranks of Reds fans to celebrate the moment with them.

Sadly, for Coutinho and Liverpool's supporters, the 2016 League Cup Final was not going to have the same joyous, silver-lined conclusion as that Wednesday evening in May almost four decades ago now.

The final would go to penalties, and despite being in front after the first pair of spot-kicks, the Reds were unable to take advantage.

This was to be Manchester City's second-choice goalkeeper Willy Caballero's moment to remember, one to tell his grandchildren. Three outstanding saves from the Argentinean to deny the imperious Lucas Leiva, goalscoring hero Coutinho and the mercurial Lallana set the stage for Yaya Toure to apply the coup de grace.

Klopp, frank as ever in his post-match media conference, summed up how he felt - and doubtless the feelings of all Liverpool supporters: "Shit".

It was exactly that, but although all Reds fans are feeling dispirited - myself included - perhaps we shouldn't be too downhearted. Yes, of course losing in a final is awful, but when you consider everything, the team has done remarkably well to be within a whisker of winning a record ninth League Cup.

The team that took Manchester City to a lottery decided from 12 yards is by no means Klopp's. He has hardly dipped into the transfer market at all and it will be more than interesting to see what happens on that front during the summer months.

That's all for the longer-term. In the short-term, I'd love the 2015-16 campaign to be a repeat of what happened in 2004-05.

That season, the Reds, under a newly-appointed manager, were beaten by Chelsea in the League Cup Final at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium only to go on to glory in Europe when the Champions League was won in remarkable circumstances against AC Milan - on penalties, of course.

With progress made in the Europa League to the last 16 stage, there's still a chance that European success could be achieved again this season. Yes, it may be wishful thinking, but why not go all out and try and achieve that aim?

Klopp has really impressed me. We all know he's a lively character to say the least and his media conferences are something to behold. But behind that extrovert exterior, he's clearly an outstanding, thoughtful coach who has gone a long way already in that part of his professional football career which began the year Liverpool famously secured five pieces of silverware in 2001.

And I am absolutely convinced that with him at the helm directing matters, Liverpool Football Club is going to be just fine.

In the short-term, I believe Klopp will pick the players up and will go all out to ensure 2016 ends with a bang and not a whimper. I don't think he would allow that to happen.

And once the new campaign kick-off again in August, I'm certain we'll really see his brand of football come through to hopefully sustain efforts to improve the club's standing in the Premier League as well as on the two domestic cup fronts.

And should the team succeed this season in the Europa League and lift the trophy in Basel in May, that would also mean a chance to compete in the Champions League too.

Now that really would be a sight to behold watching Klopp leading the Reds against the cream of Europe with a team moulded in his image.

It's been a final to forget, yes, but Liverpool fans the world over should be excited about the future under the 48-year-old German.

There's much to be hopeful for and after the Capital pains, I am positive the gains will follow.