My fella's years off taking our lad to Anfield. So I put him there first.

My fella's Liverpool mad. Always has been. His dad took him when he was little, and he's been going ever since.

Our lad's four. Alfie's had the shirt since he could walk. He knows the badge, and he knows Saturdays are Dad's. But he's never been to a game, and he won't for a while yet. Four is too little for a full ground and a long day, and my fella knows it. "When he's older," he says. Every time.

The shirt fits. The match is years off.

So on matchday it goes like this. He's on the edge of the sofa. Alfie wanders in, watches for a minute, and wanders off again. Which is fair enough. There's nothing in it for him yet. It's a lot of grown men on a telly.

I'm not the football one. I never will be. But I know what it means to him, and I could see what he was waiting for. He wasn't waiting for Alfie to like Liverpool. He was waiting for it to be something they did together.

I looked for something. Another kit he'd grow out of by spring. A ball. A Liverpool teddy that would end up at the bottom of the toy box. None of it was for the two of them.

Then I found a book. A Liverpool book about a little boy's first match, and the little boy is your child. His name, his face, his first day at Anfield.

I made it on my phone one evening

You put his name in, and it's on the front cover. Then you build the boy in the story, so he's got Alfie's hair and his colouring. Then there's a page at the front that's yours to write. I wrote mine to both of them, and I put a line in about his dad. He hadn't seen it.

It shows you every page before you pay. There he was on the train with the fans, and in the crowd at Anfield with his flag.

What's actually in it

It's his first matchday, told from the morning. He wakes up with the date circled on the calendar and pulls the red shirt on in the mirror. He packs his bag, gets red stripes on his cheek and gets on the train with a carriage full of Reds.

Then Anfield. His seat, high up in the stand. A goal against them, which he takes badly, and the equaliser, which he takes very well. The winner right at the end. Everyone singing. The walk home in the dark, his ticket on the desk that night, and in the morning a photo of the whole day waiting for him on the dresser.

He's a fan in it, in the crowd. Not a player. That's the bit my fella liked most, because that's what going to the match actually is.

The night it came

It came a few days later, the same book as the preview. His name, his face, and my words printed in the front. I didn't say anything. I just left it on the sofa on a Saturday.

My fella picked it up first. He had Alfie in his lap before kick-off and started reading the first page out loud. He got to the line about himself and stopped. Alfie had to tell him to keep going.

That was a few weeks ago. Now it's Alfie who brings the book in when the match is on. He knows the page where they score. He does the jump.

My fella's still the one who made him a Red. He just hasn't got to take him yet. When he does, Alfie will already know the way.

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