Liverpool fans in Singapore head to Anfield in hopes of catching Reds’ coronation
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Liverpool fan Wesley Wee in one of his previous four visits to Anfield. He will be making his fifth trip to watch the Tottenham match on April 27.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF WESLEY WEE
SINGAPORE – In 2020, Liverpool fan Wesley Wee had plans to catch the Reds’ Premier League coronation in person, but that was scuppered as the league was suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 44-year-old operations control manager is hoping to make up for it this time around.
On April 26, he flew to England for the Reds’ Premier League match against Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield, where Arne Slot’s men will clinch a record-equalling 20th English top-flight title as long as they avoid defeat.
This will be the fifth trip to Anfield for this Liverpool fan of 35 years.
He recalled: “We had tickets for the Palace game in (March) 2020 and it was supposed to be like the coronation game. Then the pandemic hit, they shut down the games and everybody got quarantined.”
The EPL resumed behind closed doors in June, when the Reds finally sealed their first English top-tier title in 30 years after Manchester City lost 2-1 at Chelsea.
Wee’s trip this time came about by a stroke of luck.
Fellow Reds fan Lim Peng Hong, 65, had secured hospitality tickets for his friend Emily Tan and another close friend. But Tan could not make the trip and asked if Wee wanted to go. It was an opportunity he could not turn down.
Wee noted that Liverpool home tickets are getting harder to come by even though Anfield’s capacity was expanded by 7,000 to 61,000 last season.
Lim and Wee had met in Kiev for the 2018 Champions League final, where Liverpool lost 3-1 to Real Madrid. They have remained close friends since.
(From left) Liverpool fan Wesley Wee with friends Clive Quek and Mark Chew outside the Estadio Metropolitano in Madrid for the 2019 Champions League final.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF WESLEY WEE
Wee also made it to the Champions League final in Madrid the following year with some companions, though they could not get tickets to watch the Reds’ 2-0 win over Tottenham.
But on April 27, he will be soaking in the atmosphere at Anfield as Liverpool, who are on 79 points after 33 games, need just a draw against Spurs to be crowned league champions.
“Cross my fingers, hopefully we will be able to watch them win this Sunday,” said Lim, who has supported the club since the 1970s.
Both Wee and Lim felt that the club’s fortunes mirror their own lives in certain ways and that their loyalty has been rewarded with the club’s recent success.
“It’s something that kept my interest in football as I’ve been following the games for the last 40 years,” said Lim, an engineer.
“We went through the successes in the 70s and early 80s and we suffered for 30 years without a league championship.”
Wee added: “I don’t want to say that I’m such a die-hard fan… I don’t have a (Liverpool) man cave in my house with every piece of memorabilia.
“We were league champions when I started supporting them (in 1990), and they never won it for 30 years after that, sometimes you ask yourself, ‘Are you the jinx?’.
“But it has been a part of my life for 35 years. The highs and lows mirror your own life and you celebrate the little wins. It builds resilience in you.”
Melvyn Teoh is a sports journalist at The Straits Times.
