Columnist Ron Kantowski: Mates, that was brilliant

Thursday, May 26, 2005 | 9:39 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

Sometimes, the human drama of athletic competition, as they used to say on "Wide World of Sports," finds you. It might be in the cheap seats at the Thomas & Mack Center, at your kid's Little League game or even on your living room sofa. If you've ever flipped on the TV and stumbled onto Roger Clemens working on a no-hitter after seven innings you know what I'm talking about.

But other times, you have to find the human drama of athletic competition on your own.

It's really not that difficult if you know where to look.

On a sweltering late Wednesday morning in Las Vegas, it was at the Crown & Anchor Pub on East Tropicana, just around the corner from UNLV, where a huge throng of Liverpool Football Club supporters and one brave soul wearing an AC Milan jersey gathered to watch the Champions League final, a soccer match -- er, football game, for those following along on the other side of the pond -- that determines the best club team in all of Europe.

For those following along on this side of the pond, imagine if every state in the union, every province in Canada and every state in Mexico had its own baseball league, and then all of the best teams from all of those leagues got together to play a tournament while the regular season was being contested at the same time.

If you can envision a scenario like that and then multiply it by 3, you might get a rough idea of the significance of the Champions League or European Cup, as it used to be called, to the average soccer fan.

Only there was nothing average about the soccer fans who jammed into the Crown & Anchor hoping to see Liverpool cop the cup in Turkey. These were hard-core supporters, most wearing bright red football kits (uniforms) with "Carlsberg" (the Danish brewing giant that sponsors the Liverpool team) emblazoned on front and "GERRARD" (the name of the Liverpool captain and native son) on back. Many of them clutched a football scarf in one hand and a pint of Guinness in the other.

The ones who didn't have scarfs settled for clutching two pints of Guinness.

There was still foam on the top of the glass when Paolo Maldini, the Milan captain, scored off a free kick in the game's very first minute -- who said soccer lacks offense? -- to put the Italian side ahead.

"Don't worry luv," Allan Warner, a kitchen salesman and season-ticket holder from Liverpool here on vacation -- er, holiday -- told his wife, Susan. "As long as the lads are down just one, they'll be all right."

And they were -- for a half-hour, anyway. Just before halftime, AC Milan struck for two quick goals on the counterattack to make it 3-0, a lead that is considered so insurmountable that no team in the tournament's long and storied history had ever overcome one.

"This is embarrassing," Allan Warner said to a couple of bystanders.

But at halftime, nobody left the pub to go back to the swimming pool or back to work. These Scousers (which is what Liverpudlians call themselves), I thought, are just like Cubs fans. They actually think there might be a chance to come back.

And with Steve Bartman nowhere to be found in Istanbul, there was.

Liverpool came out for the second half as if the Milan players had insulted Her Royal Highness. They began to push forward and to bend it like Beckham.

In the 54th minute, Gerrard headed home a cross to make it 3-1, and the Liverpool fans finally had something to cheer about.

"At least it isn't embarrassing anymore," Allan Warner said.

"It's not over just yet," said the TV commentator.

In the 56th minute, Vladimir Smicer planted a well-aimed strike into the corner of the Milan net to trim the deficit to 3-2. This time, the Liverpool fans roared.

"Fantastic match, this," Allan Warner said.

"The impossible is becoming quite possible," said the TV commentator.

In the 60th minute, Gerrard broke in alone on goal and was pulled down from behind. Penalty! Dida, the renowned Brazilian goalkeeper, stopped Xabi Alonso's penalty shot, but Alonso pounced on the rebound and booted it into the roof of the net. 3-3! The Liverpool fans went absolutely crazy.

Allan Warner didn't say anything this time. But the tears that were welling in his eyes said it all.

"Astonishing stuff!" said the TV commentator.

"I taught it was over!" chimed his Irish sidekick.

It wouldn't be over for more than another hour. After the avalanche of goals, the teams snowplowed through the final 30 minutes of regulation time and 30 minutes of extra time, electing to take their chances with a series of penalty kicks that would decide the game.

Liverpool won it when the first of Milan's five shooters put his shot over the net and Jerzy Dudek, Liverpool's Polish goaltender, stoned two more. The second save, on Andrei Shevchenko, the European player of the year, set off a wild scene in the pub that resembled the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Forget John, Paul, George and Ringo. The new Liverpool Fab Four are Gerrard, Smicer, Xabi Alonso and Dudek.

"Liver-pool, Liver-pool, Liver-pool," sang fans who stood shoulder to shoulder in the main bar as a couple of musicians played "You'll Never Walk Alone," the team's famous anthem, on the bagpipes.

In the restaurant area, Guinness fell from the ceiling like rain as jubilant Liverpool fans hoisted themselves onto the shoulders of their mates and paraded around the room. One female fan, who said she was getting married at Caesars Palace, climbed onto the oars and rigging hanging from the rafters and proposed to Steven Gerrard instead.

"This is brilliant," Allan Warner said as he kissed his wife.

Above him, just below the big screen TV, four local casino employees by way of Bristol, Southend, Millwall and London, sipped champagne from a paper cup and toasted the new champions of European football.

Liverpool has now won the Cup five times, but this was its first title since 1984.

"Every time Prince Charles gets married, Liverpool wins," said a strapping young man wearing a Steven Gerrard jersey who would only identify himself as Mark, lest his supervisor find out he was playing hooky.

Mark, who plays goalie for Partick Thistle, a local facsimile of the Scottish soccer club that is sponsored by the Crown & Anchor, introduced one of his friends, a short man named Arnie who was clutching a Liverpool betting ticket worth about $650. He had purchased it just after halftime for the price of a couple of pints -- $6 -- from the only fan who had given up on the team.

"I think he was a Welshman," Arnie shouted over the racket.

Outside the pub, another man built like a center back handed his cell phone to an American fan wearing a Liverpool shirt.

"Say hello to my brother in the U.K.," rasped John Sharpe, a Liverpudlian who moved to Las Vegas 10 weeks ago to take a job at Desert Glass Processing, the firm that provided the inside glasswork for the new Wynn Las Vegas hotel-casino.

Sharpe, hoarse from cheering, called his brother Darrin, his father-in-law, whose name I didn't catch, and his best friend, a chap named Andrew Spencer with whom he used to watch Liverpool games at Anfield, the Reds' venerable home ground. To heck with the phone bill, he said. He had just witnessed history.

"I miss my family and I miss my friends," he said. "But this is the next-best thing."

Sharpe, who like many of the transplanted Liverpool fans was still celebrating the victory long after the last spilled pint of Guinness had been mopped up, was a steward (security guard) at Anfield. "It was the only way I could (afford) to see the games," he said.

"David James (a former Liverpool keeper) once gave me his gloves after the game. It was awesome."

Sharpe was impressed that I had heard of James, and when I invoked the names of Michael Owen and Robbie Fowler and Steve McManaman, other former Liverpool players, he began slapping me on the back.

It was as if we were mates, having succeeded in finding the drama of athletic competition in a quaint British pub just around the corner from UNLV.

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