The thing with Liverpool is there is always a reference point between present and past. So on this spring day, with emotions heightened and the sense of nostalgia hang heavily in the air as goodbyes were prepared to be said, your mind drifted back to a similar occasion in 1994.
It doesn’t seem that long but it’s 29 years now, another generation ago. That was the final season when the Kop was a standing terrace and the last dance in front of it was a home game against Norwich City. The expectation, of course, that the visitors would be swept aside.
Everything was set up for a party: a capacity crowd, the return of legends who had set the standards for an emotional precursor, flags and banners unfurled in every part of the stadium. The party turned into the biggest damp squib of all time, however, as a dreadful Liverpool team wilted.
Norwich, who that season had been mixing it with Bayern Munich and Inter Milan in the UEFA Cup, won 1-0 – Jeremy Goss created a little bit of history by becoming the last man to score in front of The Kop – and the fairytale finale failed to materialise.
For long periods, that is precisely how it felt things would turn out on this occasion. Roberto Firmino and James Milner, along with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Naby Keita, were saying goodbye closing the chapter on a wonderful era
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