Many years ago when I was just 19 years old. I was working with an insurance company in North Wales. As part of my training, I was told that I had to go to Head Office in Liverpool.

I was young and naive and tried my best to get out of it. A Mancunian in Liverpool just didn’t sound healthy to me.

I arrived on the train and put my head down as I walked through the streets, head down,  towards my destination as fast as my legs could carry me. That is when I heard running footsteps behind me.

“Hey!”, came a call.

It can’t be me. No one knows me here. How can anyone be calling me? I don’t have Manchester United tattooed on my forehead.

But the footsteps got closer. “Hey you!”

Eventually and to my sheer horror, a hand clamped on my shoulder. Was it the police? Do they behead wandering Mancunians in Liverpool? Is he going to ask me for money to fund his drug habit and pummel me to death with a lifesize bronze bust of John Lennon if I refuse?

It was a middle aged man and he was holding out a five pound note.

“You dropped this up there”, he nodded his head in the direction I had come from as he offered it to me.

I was dumbstruck. I managed to say “thank you” and then proceeded to feel extremely ashamed of myself.

That was my first impression of Liverpool and it has stuck with me ever since.

As a result of me going there, I struck up a friendship with a lad there called Steve who was as big a Liverpool supporter as I have ever met. It was an unlikely friendship but he was posted in the same North Wales branch as me shortly afterwards and I was about the only guy he knew in the area, we started to hang out a bit.

I was living in a beautiful Welsh village called Benllech at the time which is directly beside the seaside. One night, after a few too many drinks, Steve asked on our way home if we could walk down to the sea as he had something he had to do.

We walked down to the sea and he waded into it, shoes, trousers and all and began singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” at the top of his voice. I can’t remember now but I think I joined him. Partly because I was drunk and partly because I didn’t know what else to do.

He told me that he had a friend who had died in the Heysel Stadium disaster and that they had come to Benllech Beach as kids and he wanted to do it to remember his lost friend.

Steve once asked me to go to Liverpool with him and he showed me around the town one night. He took me to some cracking pubs, live music and plenty of banter. As the “Novelty Manc” I was the butt of many jokes but it was all friendly enough and on the way back to his parent’s house (where we were crashing for the night) he took me to an Indian takeaway and we enjoyed Onion Bhaji’s and Donner Kebabs (classy stuff). It was the first time I had ever been in an Indian Takeaway (I must admit, the look of them always scared me before that) but there has rarely been a week since that I have not had an Indian Takeaway. I love the stuff!

He was eventually promoted and moved away from his post in Wales and I got a new job and we just sort of lost contact but I always think about him and those Liverpudlians I met all those years ago whenever Liverpool get a great result.

Sometimes, like tonight, I wonder just how low he is feeling as he sees his beloved Liverpool humbled by Wigan.

Liverpool now find themselves losing sight of that coveted fourth spot. They could still do it but there are teams above and just below them who have played less games and have as much if not more chance of clinching it.

Rafa has let the Liverpool fans down badly this season. He can point to the injuries of Torres and Gerrard all he likes but it isn’t like they came out of the blue. The pair of them (especially Torres) have been seemingly injury prone for the last three years and that Rafa didn’t invest in a top class striker in the summer and let one of their best midfielders (Alonso) go is bad management, pure and simple.

It’s not supposed to be that a Manchester United fan should feel anything but delight at their predicament but this little Red Devil is feeling a bit sad tonight. My mate Steve and that chap who chased me 100 yards to return my fiver deserve better than this.