The Interview: Red Letters Authors Michael MacCambridge and Neil Atkinson
Two friends of mine wrote a great new soccer book! Michael MacCambridge (who’s based in Austin) and Neil Atkinson (who’s based in Liverpool) exchanged letters throughout Liverpool’s Premier League title-winning 2019-20 season, and they’re all in their book Red Letters. I had a terrific conversation with them about it this past week.
Grant Wahl:
Our guests now are two good friends of mine and of each other. Michael MacCambridge is an Austin, Texas-based author of several books, including America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation. Neil Atkinson is a Liverpool-based writer, broadcaster and film producer who's well known for his work with the Anfield Wrap. They have co-authored a terrific new book of letters to each other during Liverpool's Premier League-winning 2019-20 season called Red Letters: Two Fervent Liverpool FC Supporters Correspond Through The Epic Season That Wouldn't End, for which I was lucky to write the foreword. Gentlemen, congratulations on the book, and thanks for coming on the show.
Neil Atkinson:
It's a pleasure.
Michael MacCambridge:
Thank you for having us, Grant.
Grant Wahl::
There's so much in this book that I love, including not just the sport of soccer/football, but also the lost art of letter-writing, you've got cultural commentary, you've got male friendship. Could you explain, just to start, how this book came together?
Neil Atkinson:
I was approached by the Liverpool Echo, who were starting a new segment, a bit of an offshoot of the Liverpool Echo, by a guy who works for Reach who oversees Liverpool sports and another guy who oversees sports full stop for Reach or did then. These guys were Kris Walsh and Jon Birchall, and they had the idea of me, because I'd never really written for The Echo or for Reach in any longform way, doing something a little bit different and taking the opportunity, not to just do immediate match reaction stuff, which is what a lot of my writing is for the Anfield Wrap, or even stuff that was authored. Instead, it was this idea of an exchange of ideas. And they said, "Would you like to do that?" And I said, "Well, yeah." And they said, "Well, do you know anyone?"
And I immediately threw Michael's name in the frame. And Kris had read America's Game like I had, and absolutely loved it. And Kris was stunned about the idea that Michael was possible in this. And then from there, then we approached Michael, and Kris and Michael hit it off, we all got to meet up in one of Liverpool's pre-season games and have a bit of a chat about it. But that was how we ended up deciding that this was a thing that we could collaborate on and committing to the idea that we were going to do a full season around this LFC stories idea.
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Grant Wahl::
And both of you are really good at toggling back and forth from the local angle on Liverpool FC to the global angle. Michael, what interests you the most about Neil's local angle? And then I'm going to ask Neil what interests him the most about Michael's global perspective from Texas?
Michael MacCambridge:
I think the first thing that jumps to mind is when you are on a different continent following Liverpool, it's easy to see all the games because here in America, as you've pointed out in your writing, Grant, it's easier to watch the Premier League in the United States of America than it is in England. But the other thing was Neil's experience, being right there in the stadium, was so unmediated. There were things he would see that I wouldn't, there were things that I would see because of television that he wouldn't. Early that season, the great flare up between Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané, and the drama, the telenovela that was going on over, "Oh, they're mad at each other." Neil, in the ground, wasn't even aware of it until after he left the ground and went to tape the show. So there is a little bit of that dichotomy going on, and that was interesting.
Neil Atkinson:
What I'm always interested in... So when we met Michael, it was actually at, it was a blisteringly hot day, and it was at a tailgate. And firstly, tailgating is not something that happens in Premier League football. The idea of tailgating a Burnley away in the driving rain in February does not appeal to anyone, in any way, shape, or form. But the other thing about this is, all overseas supporters, and Michael's uniquely placed, lots of people that Michael watches the games with become characters within the book, which I like a great deal.
Because I'm always intrigued by supporters clubs, and whenever we go elsewhere in the world, especially to the United States, because I think it's an interesting thing. I think it's in part, what people in the United States buy into when they buy into the Premier League up to a point, and most definitely with Liverpool, is they buy into this idea of being part of a collective, and that's football. And seeing soccer as being something that is hugely social and becomes things that people can have in common with one another and bond over, in a way that I think is missed.
And I think it doesn't happen in other sports in general. And I certainly don't think it happens in other sports to an extent in the United Kingdom or anything like that. I think you end up almost being part of a conspiracy, being part of a collaboration, as a supporters club. And for a long period of time, and Michael details it really well, as part of being a soccer fan in the United States, to be a soccer fan in the United States felt like you were part of a conspiracy. And I think that still stems into the way in which the supporters clubs view one another and view the time that they spend together.
And as someone who fundamentally thinks football, and the COVID aspect of the book really drew this out in the end, football really only makes sense as a social pursuit. It only really makes sense as something that's shared and something that people can come together around, that you're not too far away from, as with all sports, but I think especially football. Being able to reduce it to 22 humans running around after a ball, you need the other things to give it context and how that happens across the globe.
But as I say, I think there is something relatively specific, to an extent, to the United States supporters clubs because of the perception of soccer. It's not quite the same for the Madrid Reds. The Madrid Reds are a conspiracy against the fact that they're in the same city as Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid, and they love Liverpool. Whereas this has been about a whole sport, and I think it's absolutely fascinating how all of that interplays and all of that interacts and where the differences are and where the similarities are and what people actually want to get from this.
Grant Wahl::
Michael, you like me, are also a lifelong fan of the Kansas City Chiefs NFL team. And it just so happened that your teams, Liverpool and the Chiefs, both won league titles for the first time in decades in the same year. How did winning those titles feel similar for you as a fan? And how did they feel different from each other?
Michael MacCambridge:
It felt like, in the writing, in this exchange of letters, Neil and I were both on this epic quest. I can remember when the Chiefs won the Super Bowl, I was trying to write about how that felt while also making it somehow pertinent to the people who were reading it, who did not care at all about the Kansas City Chiefs and the Vince Lombardi trophy. And the thing I just seized on was, it's worth it. There is a sense, and I think Neil felt this way too, that when you finally reach the peak that all of those times, in Neil's case the 0-0 bore fests away at Wolves, or in the case of Chiefs fans years where Tyler Thigpen or Brodie Croyle or Damon Huard is your quarterback, and you're looking at the screen or you're at the stadium, wondering why do we do this to ourselves?
And the answer is, those moments of boredom and sluggishness and despair and outright heartbreak, to hang in there as a fan and lean into those and experience those, makes the moments like the fightback against Barcelona, the Champions League season, and finally winning the Premier League, it finally redeems everything else that came before it. And the pleasure is greater because you've spent so much of your adult life obsessing over it and being disappointed. Is that fair, Neil?
Neil Atkinson:
I think it is. I think the idea of the quest, I think, matters. I think there's a couple of things that are really important around Liverpool winning the league that I think do mark it out a teeny bit differently from the Chiefs, and it's the existence of cups and European competitions. I've never liked the framing of Liverpool winning the league in that England supporter line of 30 years of hurt, never liked it at all. The reason why is solely because it really didn't hurt.
Let's be crystal clear about this, there were some fantastic times watching Liverpool, up to and including by that point two European Cups and two other European Cup finals. Which, and again, the other thing that matters in amongst this, there are very few football clubs in the world, but especially in England, who have the opportunity to even get near anything like that. And on top of that, there's numerous domestic cups and numerous runners-up places for Liverpool in the title. And while the runners-up places hurt, you still get the adventure. You still get the going to the games, you still get what it all feels like.
So I think that that's a slightly important difference in that. That's not to say that there aren't adventures around the NFL, but there is this one overwhelming focus.
Michael MacCambridge:
Yeah, that's a good point.
Neil Atkinson:
That drags everything along with it all the way. I think the other key thing that I took as Michael was absolutely enjoying that is very clear, the idea of you will not be disappointed when you get there.
Now, I never thought I would be, but some people began to wonder if they would, not least because of the distance Liverpool were clear at the top of the title race. Liverpool supporters, I think, all had their moments where they went from feeling like everything was the most intense version of Jeopardy you've ever lived through in your life, and then almost as in a digital way, almost like switching it off with the way in which that title race went, you realize this is done and dusted. And normally that happens as a gradual process, and for most teams that happens as a gradual process.
But with Liverpool's history, people were saying to themselves, "I cannot think they've won this league, I cannot think they've won this league." And then suddenly, one thing would happen, whether it's Salah scoring against Manchester United, Liverpool winning 4-0 against Leicester, whichever moment everyone's got their own individual one, although a lot of them are obviously shared, but there's a moment where everyone goes, this league is won, and there's no space between the two. Normally that's a spectrum, and there is no spectrum here effectively, everyone went from, "I cannot believe it's going to be true." To saying "This has happened."
And again, that doesn't quite happen in the same way. So this idea of, when you do finally get there and the mathematics means that it's done, will it therefore then feel different, feel less special, because it's not a one off game, in quite the same way. But Michael was adamant, it will feel the same, it will feel like the thing has finally been done. And he was absolutely right.
Michael MacCambridge:
Just to add one point to that. I think this process that you go through in experiencing a season, each year is distinctive, each season is distinctive. But what Neil and I were talking about, as this remarkable season goes on, was the specifics of Liverpool, but the other things we were grappling with were, what's it like to be a fan? Why do you give so much emotional psychic energy to the process of following a team? Whether the team is Liverpool, the Kansas City Chiefs or the Harlem Globetrotters, whatever the case may be.
But the thing for me that made it more interesting is when the games stop, when the pandemic takes over, and then there is, in the midst of this dream campaign, literally nothing. And we don't know what's going to happen. Then we are forced to ask completely different questions, which is not why do we do this? But, what happens when we can't do this? How does that feel? What happens to the season that we're experiencing? What do we do with our lives? Is there anything else that provides the same combination of urgency and excitement and belonging and quest, as sports?
And I think, my experience and Neil's as well, was there were certainly plenty of things to do. We were happy to read books and rewatch episodes of Mad Men and things like that. But there was nothing that really substituted for 1 pm on a Saturday or 3 pm on a Sunday and the game being played.
Grant Wahl::
Yeah, I totally feel you on that. Some of my favorite parts of the book actually are the pandemic letters. And I wonder, do each of you actually write letters much in real life? And how did you approach this lost art of writing letters to each other?
Neil Atkinson:
I mean, I don't write letters. I will occasionally keep in touch with people through what we can frame as relatively long emails, people I've known from years back, not in a round robbinish way.
It's a strange thing in that, I see the match reviews that I do around Liverpool, actually, it's been a little bit informed by this, but then this was a little bit informed by them. Where I try to keep them as directly personal as possible. I'm very much writing to someone, sometimes I know who that someone is, occasionally, it's actually Michael. Sometimes I'm writing them and I've got a sense of who that person is, there's a group of people I know of whom I might be directing it at. But trying to personalize that is something I've been trying to do within the writing around football for a while, almost since I started doing it in 2014. Trying to have that, we're sharing a world here, moment is something that I've been trying to do with that.
Ultimately, match report writing, in the classic sense, is redundant and difficult in an era where, effectively, everyone broadly can have watched the match immediately, so everyone can see the game now. Every now and again for an away game, if you're at it, you'll notice certain things that are important, I like to bring them through, but on the whole, everyone not just has seen the incidents that you're talking about, but have seen them from 20 different angles if they need to. I might, as per the Salah and Mane thing from earlier on, might quite literally be better informed than you are. So if someone is quite literally better informed than you are, then don't try and inform them again, give them something else and something new and something different.
So that's been something that's been in there for a while, this really gave me an opportunity to bring it out, but then also bring out longer form conversation. The idea that we could investigate something to an extent in one letter, Michael can acknowledge it and say, "I'm going to come back to you a week later on that one." Was something which I think is really rather different, in that it's not just as simple as a linear exchange of views, at times there's rolling themes that get picked back up 2, 3, 4 times over the course of the year-long correspondence in different ways, and then get approached from different angles.
And to me, that was a really interesting thing to get the freedom to be able to do. But you don't really, first and foremost, even as a weekly columnist, you wouldn't have the freedom to do that. You don't get to do it with match reviews. But also the idea that it's an exchange of information. And I like writing to find out what I think about the world, but it's not just, here are my views, reader: absorb them. It's that you get to see that exchange and that back and forth. And I think it's a really interesting thing.
Grant Wahl::
Michael, how did you approach writing letters?
Michael MacCambridge:
Well, part of it was liberating because the books I normally write are very research intensive. I got up this morning and I've got 90 library books on this next book I'm researching, and it's just overwhelming. And this was an opportunity, I'd already done the research, I went to the pub, I watched the game, I agonized over it. Okay, now I can sit down and write. So there was a freeing quality of that, but there was also, to Neil's point about writing personally, I think for me sports often gets mixed up with music and movies and books.
I will sometimes make these associations that to people who aren't sports fans, if you were to say something such as, "Oh, this Leonard Cohen novel reminded me of how Liverpool's season is going right now." They would look at you as though you were probably insane. But one of the great freedoms about this was, Neil understood and picked up on it and knew exactly what I was talking about. And that was, for me, one of the most satisfying things about this correspondence.
Grant Wahl::
Have you two had a chance to see each other in person at all since that tailgate at Notre Dame?
Neil Atkinson:
No.
Michael MacCambridge:
No.
Neil Atkinson:
No, not since then, and not since Liverpool have won the league. This has been one of my things all the way through this season, the one that were currently living through now, and in general, every single time you go to Anfield and it'll be the same for a lot of sports grounds around the world. But every single time you go to Anfield, it's someone's first game back. We were hoping to get over to the United States during the season as part of the Anfield Wrap stuff, and I think Liverpool may well tour the United States next summer, I'm basing that on no information at all, other than my own guess. But it wouldn't surprise me if they chose to do that, so that might be an opportunity to see Michael and to see other people, but it's always someone's first game back at the minute.
And even now, obviously with the shift again around the virus and the pandemic and what actually means what, and where are we up to, and what's the science saying? There should still be, and there should still be perceived to be, a wondrousness to them, a specialness, something that was lost and is being found again. And amongst a lot of that there's friends of mine who were, quite literally, just over in Dublin, who unfortunately I was away a couple of weeks ago when they were over for a game and I didn't get to see them then. And I still haven't seen them.
We remain somewhat scattered, a little bit more than I think we would've liked to have been, and so the idea of, and it's why it's very kind of you to have us on, Grant, the idea for instance we'd have loved to have done a remarkably self important trans-Atlantic book tour, the type of thing that you very rarely get to do, where Michael comes over and we do Liverpool and London and Dublin and Edinburgh, and we go and see all these people and we have this fantastic time. And then a couple of weeks later, I pop over and we do Austin and we do Boston and we do New York. That would've been absolutely perfect, but just even planning, still, events like that is fraught.
Michael MacCambridge:
Right.
Neil Atkinson:
And obviously on the shoestring of what our budget would be, it's even more fraught, and that's most definitely not a criticism of the very generous publishers at the University of Nebraska. It's just the reality of where the world is.
Michael MacCambridge:
Yep.
Grant Wahl::
Their book is Red Letters, you should definitely check it out. Couple more questions for you. How are you feeling about Liverpool this season?
Michael MacCambridge:
I think that this is one of the best Liverpool teams I've ever seen. One of the best soccer teams I've ever seen, and certainly one of the most entertaining and enjoyable to watch Liverpool teams ever. There is a sense that, offensively, this side is hitting all the gears. What I haven't sensed yet, is that defensive solidity that Liverpool had in the 2019-20 season. There was a point there, I think it was November or December, when I wrote to Neil, "How many games can you win 2-1? How many one-goal wins can you possibly have during a season?" And I think one of the great things about this season's Liverpool is they've won quite a lot of games going away, which is one of the reasons that Saturday's winner in Origi-time against Qolves was particularly satisfying.
But I'm very bullish about this year's Liverpool side. Even more than I was two years ago, because I was still terrified that something was going to go wrong and Neil was out front in that, and knew how good that team was. At the same time, this is a three-team race, not a two-team race. And I don't think it's going to get settled anytime soon, it's not going to be done and dusted in February or March.
Neil Atkinson:
Yeah, it's not going to be done and dusted in February or March. I'm still a slight skeptic that it will prove to be by February and March, by February, a three-team race. I think it's between the two Northwest sides. And I think there's a couple of reasons for that, I think that Chelsea can still grow and they can still prove me wrong, to be clear, but I think they're the ones who clearly have the most to work on. I think it's quite a marked thing. I think even with much talk of the defensive solidity, what we've actually been talking about at times is phenomenal goal-keeping performances. And then at the weekend, you just got to see what that looks like when it's inverted, to be honest with you. And from there then, Chelsea did not look anywhere near the force that they have done, but even the best sides can lose 3-2 at West Ham.
There is for me, this side's just remarkable and electrifying to watch. It feels like a side built for a group of people who never got to watch football in person for 12 months. It really does. It feels as though, it feels a little bit like, to use a reference that Michael will absolutely love, Springsteen coming back and doing stadiums after having toured The Ghost Of Tom Joad. It feels really like this is, let's go out there and be as crowd-pleasing as we possibly can, be the best thing we could be, because it was horrible when we didn't have crowds.
So absolutely, let's play the hits. Let's go 100 miles an hour, let's play them fast and get out and make as many people go as bezerk as we possibly can. And that's what they've done so far this season. I think they've got a great chance of winning the big two. I think they've got a great chance of doing either of them. I think they've got a pretty solid chance of doing both of them. The season 18/19, the one that proceeds the book, is a campaign where Liverpool get 97 points and win a Champions League. It's really important, they play all the games, if you know what I mean, and they play them at a level that's high enough at that level of excellence. And I think this side’s capable of doing that from now until the end of the season. Postmatch against Wolves after the Origi winner, you got Salah tweeting "It's in our hands." Which is hysterically funny because it's true, but that's the sort of thing you say when it's seven points ahead with three games to go. It's not the sort of thing that often gets said at this point.
But then I remember in 18/19, when we went to Wolves, the manager came out and said, "We might need 106 points to win this league and we're capable of getting them." And I think that's where... I feel like Liverpool and City are capable, from now until the end of the campaign, of hitting that rarified air that City hit between 2017 and 2019 and Liverpool hit between 2018 and 2020, and it feels to me like they're both capable of going into that stratosphere, and I don't quite think Chelsea are. So I'm feeling great about Liverpool, and it's just phenomenal to get to go and watch them. And the one thing that is different between now and then is that Liverpool have the best player in the world. So when you get to go and watch Liverpool, you are watching the best current footballer on the planet, the best one.
And that is something that's relatively rare in my Liverpool supporting life. You can have a conversation around John Barnes up until when I was about nine or 10, you can have a conversation about [Kenny] Dalglish, you can have a conversation about [Graeme] Souness, and maybe to a slight extent, it's a bit of a funnier period, you can have a conversation about [Steven] Gerrard. Gerrard and [Fernando] Torres were electrifying to watch, but the idea that I think it is widely accepted, that right now, and by right now we mean the whole of this season, this fella's the best player in the world. And he's there.
Grant Wahl::
Last question for you both. When you look back at this experience of writing letters to each other, when you hold that book in your hand, what stands out to you the most?
Neil Atkinson:
For me, it's the grappling with the clambering of the hill. And what I said before about that shift of what I love about the book is, it's a real reminder. Everyone, not everyone, there's a lot of Liverpool supporters who for a variety of reasons have acted in the aftermath of this league win as though that league win was always inevitable. And what I love about the book is it makes crystal clear, through mine and Michael's different forms of anxiety shared to one another, just how many times this thing was genuinely on a knife edge.
And when you beat Bournemouth in March, just before the pandemic, to go 26 points clear I think it was. The next day, Manchester City lose to a 40-yard Scott McTominay shot the day after we beat Bournemouth, at that point it feels like, well, it could never have been on a knife edge, that doesn't make any sense, but it was, and it was in those early early weeks. And it was on a knife edge because what Liverpool were doing was going at a pace that I think really rattled Manchester City and made them uncomfortable and made it harder for them to play football. Liverpool go to Leicester and win 4-0. And the next night Manchester City go to Wolves, go 2-0 up, get a man sent off and get beat 3-2. This is the idea, they were all watching the Liverpool game last night after they come back from Qatar thinking, oh, now they might be weak. And then they go to the third-best team in the country at that point, Leicester, and win 4-0.
But we all came back from Qatar and no one knows what's going to happen next, there was jeopardy and there was a knife edge. And this book is about that. And I'm really pleased it exists for that reason, that there were no fait accomplis here, what happens in 19/20 was not inevitable. Liverpool had to be brilliant and had to show real courage to get it done.
Michael MacCambridge:
I think for me, it is so much about sports is, to go back to Neil's point earlier about that sense of community, that social aspect of it. But if sports is, or if your love for a team is this inoperable tumor that it is for Neil and I, if it's just something that is part of you, there is such a great sense of being able to share not just the disappointment and the excitement, but just the weekly sense of wonder, and to see Mohamed Salah do what he does, to see James Milner, who has been around so long I think of him as my age, and I'm 58, to see James Milner launch himself into the goal mouth for this magnificent clearance off the line, to be able to then come back and say to Neil in writing at 2,000 or 3,000 words, did you freaking see that? Was one of the great joys of this process. And I'm glad it found its way between hard covers.
Grant Wahl::
Michael MacCambridge and Neil Atkinson are the authors of Red Letters: Two Fervent Liverpool FC Supporters Correspond Through The Epic Season That Wouldn't End. Congratulations, and thanks to you both for coming on the show.
Neil Atkinson:
Thanks for having us, Grant. It was a pleasure
Michael MacCambridge:
Thank you, sir. And thanks for writing the foreword.