Cover star

At the start of the season it's fairly certain that 16-year-old Elizabeth Holt, a Reds fan from North Yorkshire, wasn't expecting to see her own work of art on the front cover of the Liverpool FC matchday programme. But she's an LFC Official Teen Member and she entered one of our exclusive competitions – and she's only gone and won!

Towards the end of last year we invited Junior Members to submit designs for the matchday programme cover for the Premier League fixture against Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield on Saturday 11 February 2017, with the chance to win two tickets for the game and a framed copy of the cover signed by manager Jürgen Klopp. And here Elizabeth, or Bessie as she's usually called, takes up the story…

“I've had a lot of practice recently,” she says modestly. “Over the last year I've been painting quite a lot, mostly portraits in watercolours. I chose the manager as my subject because I love his passion for the club, and also my nan is a big fan of Jürgen Klopp. So I thought, even if I didn't win, it would make a nice Christmas present for her. Now she's not only very happy, she's proud of me too!”

It took Bessie around three hours, over a couple of days, to complete her design. Then a few weeks later there was a phone-call to her home. “I got in from school and there was a message on our answerphone from a lady at the club asking me if I could please call her back.

“At first I thought it was maybe something to do with my Membership renewal, then when we rang back and she told us, I was speechless. I was at home with my mum and younger sister Tilly and we rang my dad who was just about to leave work – he was fairly speechless too! I texted my close friends and the next day at school assembly they were really happy for me, even those not into football.”

Bessie duly took her dad Dominic, whose family are all Liverpool FC fans, to the Spurs game, and will be Melwood-bound during February half-term to meet the manager in person and receive her signed print of the programme cover. “It still doesn't seem real!” she says. “I felt incredibly proud when I first saw the 'real' cover.

“I'm an Official Junior Member – Teen Red now – and have been for around five years. I've entered a couple of draws before but nothing like this. I'd urge every Liverpool FC fan my age to become a Member. You get loads of great stuff and the chance to enter competitions and win something like this – your own design on the LFC matchday programme cover for thousands and thousands of people to see. It's been absolutely amazing.”