Shevchenko Park: The party of Liverpool’s 2018 fan zone now replaced by air raid sirens

For a number of Liverpool supporters, the words “Shevchenko Park” will draw gleeful grins and happy memories.

Shevchenko Park in Kyiv, Ukraine was the place Liverpool fans gathered ahead of the Champions League final against Real Madrid in 2018. It was a day nobody in attendance will ever forget.

Once passage to the final was secure, the club worked with BOSS Night (who run gigs tailored for Liverpool fans) to help assemble the acts that would perform in the fan park on May 26.

A small stage was erected in the middle of the city centre park by UEFA, who also provided a number of facilities, tgrimblike toilets. It was up to Liverpool and BOSS Night to handpick a running order of speakers and musicians.

The Anfield Wrap, The Redmen TV, John Power, Peter Hooton, Kieran Molyneux and headline act Jamie Webster were all booked to take turns entertaining the masses.

It was a slight stage with an equally little PA system to go with it. Both were dwarfed by an almighty turnout. Thousands of supporters started showing up in the morning of the final with bags of cans and other provisions. They attached hand-painted banners to anywhere they could, they scaled trees, they lit red flares, they sang and rejoiced in their long-awaited return to Europe’s top table.

It was a day which, even given the 3-1 loss to Madrid, will go down in fan folklore. For many, it felt like the start of something.

It’s now May 2022 and the park is a much more eerie place.

The sun is shining still, the flowers are blossoming like they always do but Ukrainian people are no longer gathering like they once did. Now, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, they are a country under attack. What was once a fan zone is now a warzone.

The monument dedicated to Taras Shevchenko, the 18th-century poet the park is named after, is boarded up. Daily air raid sirens pierce the air alerting anyone outdoors to take shelter immediately. And even though the fighting on the outskirts of Kyiv has calmed since the outbreak of war, the threat of missiles or bombardment remains. Around the perimeter of the park, there are anti-tank barriers and sandbags to protect the city’s buildings and, most importantly, its people.

It is a far cry from that baking hot May day in 2018.

“Kyiv is a warzone nowadays and it is tragic. A lot of innocent people have died and it’s wrong. It shouldn’t happen anywhere in the world. The fact that it is happening somewhere we have all got such fond memories of makes it really upsetting,” Webster says.

The singer-songwriter headlined the fan event thanks to the work of one of BOSS Night’s founders Daniel Nicolson.

Nicolson had texted Tony Barrett, Liverpool’s head of supporter engagement, from Rome in the hours that followed the semi-final second leg against Roma on May 2. He suggested a starring role for Webster in whatever plans were to be made. “We’ll make it happen” was the response that pinged back.

“It was a few weeks of conversations and meetings about what we could bring together in Shevchenko Park,” Nicolson explains. “It would have been easy for the club to work with partners or sponsors and make it a horrendous corporate roadshow. I think many clubs would have gone down that route but Tom Cassidy, who was leading on this at the club, was really keen to make it grassroots and authentic. That is when BOSS Night stepped in. We made a roster how we usually would for our gigs, where everything leads up to Jamie, and went from there.”

Peter Hooton from The Farm was persuaded to join the line-up even though he had been resigned to not going to Ukraine at all. His band had been scheduled to play at a festival in London on May 27 — and he thought he would be unable to make it back in time.

“It was an opportunity I didn’t want to miss,” Hooton, who was flown out to Ukraine’s capital city by the club, says. “When we got to the park, me and John went to see it and it was a fairly small stage. It wasn’t an open field like we were expecting. It was surrounded by trees. But that made it even better because then it felt like an intimate gig.”

“We hadn’t been there in the build-up — we had only seen pictures and plans,” Nicolson says. “The first thing I thought was, ‘I’m not sure this is going to be big enough’. My second thought was, ‘What if people don’t turn up?’. But by 11am, people started arriving. It was getting fuller and fuller, and more and more people were showing up. There were fellas with their tops off high up in the trees and I am talking about flimsy trees here, not giant oak trees.”

Over 10,000 fans headed to the park.

“They were all crammed into this tiny park in 30-degree heat. It was unbelievable,” Webster reflects. “We didn’t win the game but that day can never be taken away from us. From start to finish there was euphoria in the air. We lost the game but something special happened that day. We all realised this is only the beginning. It felt like the supporters and the club had forged a new relationship. They had endorsed someone like me — a local fan — who has got a passion for Liverpool FC and for music. They put me out there and gave supporters a place to go to be together and have that show of strength and solidarity.

“I had never experienced anything like that before in my life. I just remember doing a 360 when I was on the stage and I couldn’t see the end of the people. All I could see was limbs and pints. When I hear the words Shevchenko Park I think of Liverpool being back in Europe, being back among the elite,” Webster adds. “And the pride we had as supporters; Liverpool were back where we felt they belonged.”

“Shevchenko Park was the realisation for Liverpool fans something special was happening under Jurgen Klopp,” Hooton adds, touching on a similar theme. “It was significant because I think there had been a change in attitude at the club on being less corporate. I think Shevchenko Park was the beginning of that. There was no corporate hospitality; it was all backstage with cans of lager. That added to the atmosphere.”

Among the red swarm of fans was Yusuf Areff from South Africa. He had won tickets to the final via a Burger King competition and travelled from Johannesburg with his cousin Zaid Bhyat.

“The day before the final we headed to the city centre and took a look around the park. It didn’t look all that big or busy and then the next day it was a different story,” he says. “We got there early and it was already full. There were people all over the place, even on top of generators. They tried to move them and the chant that came back was, ‘We shall not, we shall not be moved’.”

Areff also remembers a speech made by Neil Atkinson from The Anfield Wrap which opened the show. “He was talking about how, as long as you have the spirit of Liverpool in you, you’re a Liverpudlian and that for me was just amazing. I loved that.”

Just before 3pm, the cousins from South Africa made it near to the front of the stage.

“Time didn’t exist,” Areff says. “It was just one long party. It was magical and there’s no other words to describe it. It was bedlam and the most incredible day of my life. When I got back home — and still to this day people ask me what was it like — I say it was the best party I’ve ever been to.”

Donna Scully from Dublin feels the same.

“I’m laughing here just thinking of it,” Scully, who now resides on the Wirral, says. “It was brilliant because we had our own place where we all congregated together. And Liverpool fans just kept arriving and kept arriving in their red. We were all waiting for Jamie Webster because Allez Allez Allez was the song of the moment.”

Nicolson remembers there was half an hour between Power and Hooton leaving the stage to when Webster stepped on.

“We played tunes in that time and everyone was singing every single word back to an empty stage,” he recalls. “Everyone was waiting for Jamie and when he came out he gave the most emotional ‘Come onnnn!’. It was almost like he knew this was his moment too. He’d done the hard yards playing the small bars and pubs after the match but it was all tiny compared to getting up on this stage in Ukraine and belting out Liverpool songs.”

Scully was attending the game with a group that included her twin sons Sean and Patrick.

“When Jamie came on and sang, everyone went absolutely mad,” she says. “We were all dancing and singing. It was a great atmosphere — everyone was really happy. I look back on that trip as one of the best trips I’ve been on — and we lost. The day up to that point was probably one of the best days of my life. We should look back and hate that day because we lost, and we lost horribly. But I don’t think of that, I think of that park.”

Scully also thinks of those she met on her travels, like Alexander Ivaschenko, the man who chauffeured her family around the city.

“You just wonder how are they? Where are they? Are they alive?”

Jordan, a Liverpool fan from Kyiv, was among the Ukrainian contingent in the park that day.

“It was crazy,” he remembers. “I haven’t had the chance to visit a BOSS Night yet, but it was like a BOSS Night in Kyiv. Liverpool are different from other clubs. It is not only about football, you know? It was like a festival. I remember I met other supporters from New Zealand, South Africa, North America. The whole globe was in Shevchenko Park.”

The 33-year-old product manager is now a volunteer member of Ukraine’s territorial defence.

“I couldn’t have imagined this war would happen, but it happened. It’s scary for any person and I wish people never have to experience what we have,” he tells The Athletic. “There have been some very scary moments, like rockets flying over your head or anti-missile systems going off. We had heavy fighting maybe 10 kilometres from us. Luckily, they didn’t come into our sector but they were close by.”

Jordan has recently returned from the south of Ukraine with his defence unit. Earlier in the week, they had travelled east to deliver equipment, medical supplies and food to aid civilians as well as those fighting in the war.

He lives alone, with his family having fled to Belgium soon after the outbreak of war. “They want to come back,” he says. “They keep asking me ‘Is it safe?’. They want to come home. But I have told them to wait — it is still not safe.”

The name “Jordan” is an alias, a codename given to him by his commander to protect his real identity. The nickname gently hints at which football team he supports. And if that is not enough to go off, then a tattoo on his leg of Jordan Henderson holding the Champions League trophy is a clear indication. They are two things he says help bring him comfort when he is on duty.

Four years on from May 26, 2018 and so much has changed for Jordan and his compatriots.

“Kyiv is much calmer now than it was but still, every day there’s the risk of attack. We have the air raid sirens screaming around the city. They mean an air strike is possible so you have to get back to safety,” says Anatolii Vorona, a sixth-year medical student who works in a nearby hospital. “The park looks completely different now. There are no people. There are checkpoints in place and in the streets surrounding the park, there are anti-tank barriers and sandbags. All of the monuments in Kyiv are still boarded up in order to secure them from the shelling. We not only have to protect our people but our heritage and culture.

“My city, my people, my heart,” he says quoting a lyric from Webster’s song This Place.

Vorona has spent a lot of time living in the hospital where he works and describes the first days of the war as the most terrifying.

“The first days of the invasion were completely surreal. And even now, when you’re just walking through Shevchenko Park and you hear the sirens — or explosions and shootings as it used to be in the first month of the war — it is surreal,” he says. “All of our lives have changed because every single one of us here in our Liverpool supporters’ club, we all know someone who is fighting in the east at the moment. And unfortunately, we all know someone who didn’t make it. That’s hard.”

Ehor Kuklev is thought to be among those to have lost his life.

Vorona tells The Athletic that Kuklev, a close friend who worked as a waiter in the supporters’ club bar, was at Retroville shopping mall at the time a Russian shelling attack destroyed it on March 21. The 24-year-old’s body has not yet been located.

“You can see there are lots of very sad stories and pretty much every Ukrainian has one to tell,” Vorona sighs.

Andrii Mokriakov also has a sad story to share. His friend Alexander, who he met at university, tragically died in Mariupol earlier this month.

“It is a difficult time. A lot of people have lost someone,” Mokriakov, whose father is fighting in the war, says.

“There are no active battles where my father is at the moment but of course I am scared,” the 29-year-old business consultant says. “But I feel confident that he will be fine. You can’t think too much about the bad things that could happen.”

Kyiv’s supporters club has over 200 members. They are a close-knit group and are helping to support each other through the war. None of them will forget the day Liverpool came to town.

“It was one of the best days ever. Despite the result, the atmosphere was great. It was the first time I realised how close all the supporters are and to feel it in our city where we live… It was amazing.”

Mokriakov, who lives alone with his rescue cat, Kasha, who he took in when its owners fled the country, says before that day in 2018 the park was just a regular place to him.

“A couple of years ago when we were in lockdown, I managed to get to Shevchenko Park when there were just a couple of people there. I played some videos from the Champions League final on my phone and looked at photos. Walking around there, I remembered all the emotions that I felt. I remembered the people, the atmosphere, the unity.”

The hope now for Jordan, Anatolii, Andrii and so many other Ukrainians is that days like May 26 will come again. Right now, though, those days feel far off.

(Top image: Sam Richardson for The Athletic)