Brian Reade: One year on...

So there I was, a year ago, watching televised events unfold outside London's High Court, with my jaw on the front-room carpet, when the phone rang.

"Someone's got to write a book on this," said the London publishing agent.

"No, it's a play. A Shakespearian tragedy, a black farce, a Rocky Horror show, a dark, depressing, one-act wrist-slasher, but it's not a book, because no Liverpool fan will want to read it," I replied.

"I'm telling you it's a book and someone's going to write it, only it's got to be done quickly."

Part of me knew he was right. The harrowing series of events which took Liverpool FC to within hours of administration on Friday, October 15^th 2010, needed to be chronicled before it became some blurred, distant nightmare.

Future generations needed to be told how the most clannish of football clubs fell into a fierce civil war, which ripped it apart, and had the most loyal of fans marching on the ground with fury in their hearts.

But who would want to be reminded of the pain so soon, apart from sado-masochists? 

The next day I spoke to someone from the club who had been involved in the night of the long knives when, following the most astonishing transatlantic phone conversation, control of LFC appeared to have passed into new hands against the will of the former owners.

He convinced me it had been the most dramatic 24 hours in Liverpool's history.

And I realised the book did need writing. But it couldn't just be my take as a fan and a journalist, it needed the people on the inside describing how Tom Hicks's and George Gillett's 44-month reign impacted on them. Much to my surprise virtually everyone I contacted wanted to co-operate. 

When I spoke to them, I realised why. There was an air of a confessional about the interviews. They had endured the most wretched times, and when it was over it felt like a dam had broken and they could finally unleash their pent-up emotions.

Writing An Epic Swindle was a bit like self-flagellation. Whipping myself with a cat o' nine tails at 6am every morning, for two months, in the harshest of winters. But I'm glad I heeded that agent's advice and wrote it, because every Liverpudlian needs reminding how low we fell and how we must never go there again.

I know I do. In fact I've needed reminding on a regular basis since the start of this season on hearing fellow fans moan about too much being spent on Player A, why on earth we bought Player B, and what a disgrace that we missed out on Player C.

And I don't know whether to laugh, cry or get myself up on an assault charge.

We didn't get Player C because he preferred a move to Man United, who are not only League Champions but Champions League regulars. Liverpool haven't been in the Champions League for two seasons because we spent four consecutive transfer windows under the previous owners suffering negative spends.

We bought Player B because Kenny Dalglish rates him and the owners backed him. And any fan seriously moaning about spending too much on Player A should recall Rafa Benitez's bi-annual pleading for funds to plug gaps in his squad which were met with orders to focus on training and coaching those he already had.

In other words, remember where we were a year ago this month: 19^th in the League, the Kop having sit-ins, losing £100,000-a-day on debt interest, 14,000 fans engaged in an internet war with the RBS, restraining orders being issued by a Dallas court on board members, a Hollywood producer coaxing luvvies into a protest video, a top QC accusing the owners of presenting "a grotesque parody" of the club's reality, the best foreign players wanting out and a manager and his signings the fans could never love.

Then ask yourself how ridiculous it sounds hearing moans about Dalglish being given too much money to spend in an attempt to push us into next year's Champions League.

After suffering the former owners I don't want to tempt a dirty big omelette crashing into my face by praising the current ones, but Liverpool FC is in an infinitely better place than it was a year ago. Not that fifth in the league is a place we will accept for too long.

It's hard enough living with the reality that we are outside the European elite but knowing we're outside our own country's top tier is as painful as it is unacceptable.

Yet Rome ('77 and '84) wasn't built in a day. It takes time, especially when the financial juggernauts down the M62 and the Fulham Road, show no sign of slowing up. Mistakes will be made by football novices who, until a year ago, didn't know their Arsenal from their elbow. But these owners seem to grasp that taking  LFC back to where it belongs requires hard investment, hard work, patience, planning and above all, understanding what this club and its fans are about.

I was interested to read in Pepe Reina's autobiography (a story superbly told by Tony Barrett) of his initial meeting with John Henry.

He'd gone in expecting to ask lots of questions about Henry's plans, demanding to be sold his vision. Instead, Henry asked Pepe the questions. He wanted to learn where the club was going wrong before moving it forward.

Contrast that with Hicks and Gillett meeting Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard as they completed the take-over in 2007.

According to Jamie: "We all just told each other what we wanted to hear. We told them it would be great if they could do this and that and they said it will be great when we do this and that. It was all 'everything is going to be great.'"

Spot the difference. If you genuinely want to do well with a failing business you ask why it isn't working and how you can fix it. Then get on with fixing it.

If you want to keep people sweet while you make a quick buck, you give them candy-coated words and promise them the earth.

As someone who has followed Liverpool for 46 years I can say with some certainty that, Hillsborough and Heysel apart, the early months of last season were my darkest days as a fan.

But the darkest hour always comes before the dawn. And to be a Liverpudlian is to be an eternal seeker of light.

So who's to say that, one year on from near-Armageddon, a golden sky and the sweet silver song of a lark is not around the corner?