Apologies to those with an easily triggered gag response, but I HAD to share this absolute gem from RAWK - it's a decade old, in their 'Scouse Not English' thread, but it absolutely defies belief...
This is only an excerpt, but it's enough... read it and weep / laugh hysterically (delete as appropriate)...
"As our group savoured pre-match beers and contemplated the 90 minutes ahead, we were approached and asked whether we were English. This wasn't Anfield, and it definitely wasn't Stoke.
"No mate," came the rapid response. "We're from Liverpool - we're Scouse."
The equally rapid nodding of heads and offers of handshakes by the FC Koln supporters showed they understood. Every football fan we met there understood.
We never anticipated being in the German city of Cologne for Liverpool's match at Stoke, let alone for their side's derby with Borussia Monchengladbach, but the fixture list and other journalistic obligations contrived to make it so.
We already felt at home before the Koln fans acknowledged us. Red shirts scattered everywhere with photographs of past glories dotted about - we could have easily have been in a pub on Walton Breck Road as opposed to a kneipe on the Rhine.
There was slight apprehension within our group as we set off for Cologne. We were, after all, foreign football fans with no particular affiliation towards FC Koln.
But that apprehension evaporated swiftly when we explained we were, in one word, Liverpool.
The attention and respect that one word garners is both empowering and humbling in equal measure.
Within those nine letters comes over a hundred years of history. That word represents Liddell, Hughes, Dalglish, Rush, Hansen, Gerrard and Torres; it's synonymous with 18 league titles, five European Cups, Rome, Dortmund, Istanbul and decades of forging friendships through our behaviour abroad.
Nothing betters going away to watch your football team play renowned European teams with illustrious histories and traditions, safe in the knowledge those sides are just as eager to play our legendary club.
Friendships are made and anecdotes are formed to be retold through the generations - it's the essence of Liverpool Football Club and its supporters.
With our original Koln acquaintances now doubling as both a tour guide and ringmaster through the streets near the RhineEnergieStadion, word spread of our heritage.
An inundation of requests to sing You'll Never Walk Alone soon followed, as did the offer to pose for photographs - photographs that would no doubt decorate a pub similar to the one we sat it.
It was at that point I realised just what a special entity supporters of Liverpool Football Club are. It was at also at that point I realised what a special city we are.
I said in a previous column how the city and the club are an organic process. Neither would have the reputation it does without the other.
It's a football club which has always tried its best to stand by Shankly's beliefs of socialism; it's a city which has always strived to help each other.
That's why it was poetic Shankly stood with his arms outstretched on St George's Hall in 1971, and not on the steps of Anfield. He wasn't embracing Liverpool Football Club alone - the show of strength before him was that of a city.
It's the reason why we have Spirit of Shankly, a supporters' union named after the great man himself - a union which has always acted with the fans and the city at heart; a union which does a lot of work for the local community, and a lot of work for the city.
It's the reason why hundreds of thousands welcomed the football club home after Rome, Wembley, Paris and Istanbul, proud of what they'd achieved as a city and for their city.
It's the reason why most fans we meet reserve that special respect for us. Language barriers are torn down to share our stories of following the Reds home and abroad.
And it's also the reason why we told those Koln supporters that we were Scouse, not English."
Words really do fail me sometimes...
