Liverpool are champions & how they made it known: Everywhere here was sea of red

It hit you as soon as you stepped out of Liverpool Lime Street railway station about midday. The sky was blue but the rest of the city was red. Very red.

Captain Virgil van Dijk, an honorary Scouser to use his own words, had called on fans to come out in their colours. And how they responded.

Everywhere you looked, this football-mad city was a sea of red.

This day was an attack on all the senses.

The smell of pyrotechnic flares and smoke bombs stalked the air and clung on to clothes. The sound of fireworks was non-stop… bang, bang, bang.

Liverpool are Premier League champions and how they made it known. On the walk back into town after the game, fans were everywhere. One small patch of grass was on fire and the night sky illuminated by red smoke.

They stood on top of bus stops and somehow managed to balance atop lamp posts and trees. They held pyros aloft, swung scarves around their heads and sat on pals’ shoulders.

These are the days fans will never forget. These were the moments that, when the kids of today are old and grey, they will bore their grandchildren by banging on about.

This felt like a mass outpouring of relief and ecstasy, these supporters losing control for a day and letting their inner child come out. Grown adults were in tears, some screaming like young children.

The bus greeting in itself was an event. Thousands of fans lined the streets to greet the squad and players are said to have been truly inspired by that.

Arne Slot himself said it was at that point he knew that Liverpool simply would not lose.

Inside the stadium, the atmosphere was deafening and left your eardrums ringing long into the night.

There was one episode in the first half when Andy Robertson tried to speak to Dominik Szoboszlai five yards away, but the Hungarian ignored him. Not because he was being rude but because he could not hear. It was that loud.

The decibels hit their highest level, though, at 6.24pm. This fabled stadium has seen plenty of raucous days and nights but that moment may top the lot as Anfield got a party started which was 35 years in the waiting.

Each and every player had their moment in the sun with the Kop going through its whole songbook.

Slot got the biggest cheers from the stands and on the pitch, with players soaking him in champagne and giving him hugs.

Any footballer around the world would have been watching these scenes before, during and after the game and may have had a hint of jealousy. This day confirmed Liverpool as the place to be.

As for Trent Alexander-Arnold and his mooted move to Real Madrid, how could anyone want to walk away from this?