23 signs you’re a real Liverpool fan

1. You’ve absolutely no idea what ‘Operation Anfield Exercise’ is and no-one you've ever been to a match with knows either.

2. The years 1977, 1978, 1981, 1984 and 2005 written in a list is a thing of beauty.

3. You’ve debated whether it’s ‘Arabian’ or ‘Libyan’ and ‘We had Heighway’ or ‘Stevie Heighway’ on the wing.

4. You’re still not over the end to the 2013/14 season - and probably never will be.

5. You secretly still love Fernando Torres and have dreamt about a Torres-Suarez front two.

6. You really miss the Torres bounce song. And the Suarez ‘just can’t get enough’. 

7. You’ve had nightmares about Eidur Gudjohnsen’s shot in in the 2005 Champions League semi-final going in.

8. You convinced yourself that Neil Mellor, Adam Morgan, Kristian Nemeth and Dani Pacheco would be the next goalscoring hero to come through from the academy.

9. You hate the scoreboard, especially since it went all modern.

10. You know that the Bill Shankly quote about ‘not supporting us when we lose’ is completely made up.

11. You can just about deal with Mighty Red prancing about on the touchline, but if they ever replace George on the tannoy, all hell will break lose.

12. You secretly hated watching Wes Morgan lifting the Premier League trophy, unable to work out how he did it but Steven Gerrard never did.

13. You’ve watched this more than once, and made family/friends/girlfriends watch it too.

14. You bemoan YNWA now being played after the players emerge, and hate those who clap too early during it.

15. “John Terry slipped and cost Chelsea the Champions League."

16. You’ll never understand why Gerard Houllier signed El-Hadji Diouf instead of Nicolas Anelka. 17. You’ve debated whether Gerrard or Kenny Dalglish is the club’s greatest ever player and are able to see both sides of the argument.

18. You were convinced that Stan Collymore was the ‘final piece of the jigsaw.’ Just like Paul Ince was. And Harry Kewell. And Robbie Keane. And Fernando Morientes.

19. You love the sound of a man shouting ‘hat, scarf or a badge' and 'Red all over the Land, Liverpool fanzine, only two pounds.’

20. You see someone holding their hand out showing all five fingers and wonder if they’re signalling ‘Five Times.’

21. You still love Rafa.

22. “We need to sign a left-back,” has been your catchphrase for the last 20 years.

23. You constantly remind people football wasn’t invented in 1992.

New features you'd love on FourFourTwo.com

Matt Ladson is the co-founder and editor of This Is Anfield, the independent Liverpool news and comment website, and covers all areas of the Reds for FourFourTwo – including transfer analysis, interviews, title wins and European trophies. As well as writing about Liverpool for FourFourTwo he also contributes to other titles including Yahoo and Bleacher Report. He is a lifelong fan of the Reds.