At the Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul before the Champions League final between Liverpool and Milan on May 25, 2005, I met a man who was carrying in a polythene bag, an artefact he said he had acquired exactly 28 years earlier, on May 25, 1977. On that day, Liverpool had beaten Borussia Mönchengladbach in their first European Cup final in Rome. The man I met in Istanbul ahead of Liverpool’s first European final in 20 years told a story about that day in Rome. At the Olympic Stadium, he had met Bill Shankly, no longer Liverpool’s manager, but there as…

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