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.