A framework for subsequent chronological chapters on LFC from 1959 to 2024, Chapter 2 offers a fan-focused history of the place Liverpool supporters call home, Anfield. Going back to the ground’s opening in 1884, and LFC’s residency there from 1892, Chapter 2 examines Anfield’s evolution as a physical and emotional space, focusing in particular on the Spion Kop. The vast terrace, opened in 1906, became under Shankly the centrepoint of Anfield’s reputation, internationally renowned for its noise, humour, and sometimes rough camaraderie.

The final chapter turns its attention to considering how fantastic forms facilitate productive exchanges between creators and audiences. It contends that fantasies are made both in communities and for communities – sometimes as gifts, sometimes as challenges, but always with the idea of adding something new to a shared commons that can in its turn be taken up, valued and built upon. The chapter begins by discussing the importance of craft and exchange in Fantasy culture, considering how Fantasy diverges from conflictual models of influence articulated by critics like Harold Bloom and exploring how fantasies such as Jo Walton’s Among Others and Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story express a deep faith in the power of readers and reading. It then explores fan-cultural exchanges, touching on Critical Role, Archive of Our Own, A Very Potter Musical and the practice of modding video games. Finally, the chapter turns to questions of inclusion, discussing works by Patricia A. McKillip and Ursula K. Le Guin, the representation of race in genre fiction, and the changing ways that contemporary communities play Dungeons & Dragons.

As the twentieth century came to a close, America exhibited an insatiable appetite for all things Irish. Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization (1994) and Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes (1996) ascended the New York Times’ bestseller list. On Broadway, the decade of the 1990s was initiated by two extraordinary Irish plays: Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa, which moved to New York in 1991 and won a Tony for Best Play, and Frank McGuinness’s Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me (1992). In film, Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game (1992) and Jim Sheridan’s In the Name of the Father (1993) garnered distinguished nominations and awards. But, arguably, the biggest blockbuster of the decade was Riverdance and, along with one of its lead dancers Michael Flatley, the brightest star of the decade was Seamus Heaney, particularly after the October 1995 announcement of his receipt of the Nobel Prize. This essay explores connotations of the terms ‘blockbuster’ and ‘star’ in this context, while also probing the relationships between them and the fans who create them.