So... what else? Here's a short history of Liverpool... I'm sure there are lots of people who are proud of where they come from, I'm one of them. Liverpool. I'm a Liverpudlian, or a Scouser.
After the Romans left the British Isles a bunch of stuff happened in the North West of England where Liverpool is, which I know next to nothing about. At some point, I believe during the potato famine, boatloads of Irish people starting shipping out all over the world. I'm pretty sure this is why you will find an Irish pub in pretty much any city, any country, anywhere in the world. Some of the more adventurous Irish folk went to New York and the new world. Some even more adventurous folk made it to Africa (I've personally drank in an Irish pub in the middle of bumble-f*ck nowhere in Mapumalanga, South Africa, 3 hours east of JoBurg). The less adventurous Irish went to the UK though. They landed on the North West coast of England and dispersed all over the UK, some even making it over to continental Europe. Note: Brussels? Dozens of Irish pubs.
BUT the least adventurous ones made it to the NW coast of England and... they stayed there. They landed, they brought their Guiness, they camped out and they've been sat in a wealth of different pubs all over Liverpool and the Merseyside area ever since. Hundreds of years of former-Irish folk sitting in pubs, drinking, fighting, watching football, gambling on the horses. That's us! We're the Irish too lazy to do anything else. Starving in Ireland? Booooo!! Land? Woohoo!! *drink*. (You could argue that the even less adventurous Irish settled on the Isle of Mann - in the middle of the sea between Ireland and Liverpool England, but they probably thought that this little island was England... bless 'em).
Ship building, merchant trading and dock working was what made Liverpool's economy boom over the 1800 and early 1900s. Dockers went home to their wives who, because most working class people were poor as hell, made cheap Irish stew with whatever they could get their hands on. This stew is called Scouse and today people from Liverpool are known as Scousers.
Anyway, since landing in Liverpool and staying there we Liverpudians have had some special things to be proud of and celebrate over recent decades. In the 60s and 70s the little band called the Beatles made it big! Ever heard of them? In the 70s and 80s Liverpool Football Club was pretty much the most successful club in England and Europe.
Then the 80s stuck... Maggie Thatcher, Poll Tax, unemployment. The booming docking town of Liverpool started to decline and the former-Irish did what they do best... Drink! Drinking led to fighting, stealing even rioting in the case of the anti-Poll Tax demonstrations. Today scousers are known for these things... Car crime, stealing anything that isn't nailed down, playing football (in the 80s our footballers rocked perms with big moustaches), fighting anyone who fancies a go or just fighting anyone who is in swinging distance after a few beers, whether the other person in swinging distance fancies it or not!! Haha.
We Scousers laugh this off though and roll with the punches (literally!). We wear our history like a badge with pride. The city has turned around and is an awesome place to visit these days and I loved growing up there. Here's a commercial that Reebok ran to advertise the new yellow Liverpool Football Club team shirts, plastered all over Liverpool and the country. Hilarious, right?
Most recently, Liverpool shot into comedic celebrity fame when a London TV comic and his friends put on a weekly sketch called, The Scousers, about the antics of Baz (Barry), Ga (Gary) and Teh (Terry)... Absolutely hilarious and they still make me and I'm sure every other Scouser alive laugh out loud....!
So there you have it. The abridged, probably highly inaccurate but hilarious history of my home town.
Eh fella! A'right?! As we say in Liverpool for just about everything.
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