Everyone who visits Liverpool needs to make a trip to the Liverpool Football Club. As those fans might say, there are only two good football teams, Liverpool and Liverpool reserves (I never got that joke until I found out that Everton was just a stone’s throw from the Liverpool stadium). Strangely I ended up with an Everton supporting cabbie who took me out of the city to where the football stadium was.

The tour lasts about an hour and departs every fifteen minutes. I didn’t think that there would have been so much demand for the tour, yet given the size of the group I went with (about 25) and the fact plenty more people queued to order tickets for the next tour, I shouldn’t have been surprised as much.

The tour takes you around the historical Liverpool stadium starting where the press room is with cardboard cut outs of Gerrard and Torres. As pointed out by the tour guide, the press room is surprisingly plain – in fact the entire place is surprisingly plain and that’s because they like to keep everything traditional.

They took us to the changing rooms (just as plain and traditional as everything else) although they pointed out that the shower rooms were locked because too many fans wanted to spent time in it (how weird!). We got to amble around the other rooms for a while including a number of other press rooms and the visiting team’s changing room apparently bigger because they need to bring many of their own staff.

We also got pointed to the famous, “This is Anfield” sign hanging on the walkway that apparently is really lucky if you touch it. I’m surprised more people didn’t give it a go like I did. Apparently the reminder does plenty to shake a visiting team off their game.

Our next stop was the stadium itself, and whilst it’s not the biggest stadium, apparently it’s popular enough that there is a 20, 000 person waiting list to get tickets. As a result, we were told a new stadium (just down the road) is being built and that a shopping centre would be built on the grounds – except for the pitch were many a fan asked their cremated ashes to be scattered. This will eventually be turned into a garden path leading to the new stadium.

The Kop is well known in this club and despite a terrible history where 96 fans lost their lives in a landslide crush, is still a popular seating area today. Even with the tiny little chairs, I was honestly shocked to hear they used to fit four times as many people into such the tiny little area. Today, the row of seats is apparently the longest, unrestricted view of the football stadium.

Next time I visit Liverpool, I’ll do the decent thing and try the Everton tour (if they have one) but I definitely enjoyed the passion that all of the Liverpool guides brought as well as the lively set of fans.