The Anfield Cat has turned up at an animal rescue shelter.
Shankly, as he has been renamed, is resting up after all the excitement of last week at Freshfields Animal Rescue Centre in Liverpool.
The poor cat is covered in bites and has a large abscess under his chin. He was picked up by one of the centre's ‘Cat Neutering Programme' co-ordinators.
Shankly will remain under the care of the Liverpool rescue for a few weeks and top of the agenda for him will be neutering, vaccinating and micro-chipping all things that any responsible pet owner would ensure happened anyway.
Then the shelter will be accepting applications for his adoption in three weeks time.
This is why I love cats - they always turn up at the most inopportune moments!
This little tabby cat delayed the Liverpool v Spurs game last night after running the length of the pitch and had to be shepherded towards a steward before he was scooped up and removed from the pitch.
Within minutes of him hitting the pitch @AnfieldCat had over 6,000 followers on Twitter, with over 30,000 at my last check. Check out the video below. Now the Liverpool Echo may have identified the cat, click here for the full story.
I've been on a sabbatical of late.
I've been very ill over Christmas and then my poor Charlie got ill.
I've been plucking up the courage to write this entry because I suppose after I've written it it means that it's all final and Charlie is gone forever.
I started writing this blog over two years ago when I first found Charlie and I never expected to be saying goodbye to him two years later.
He was such a handsome and charismatic feline.
As a kitten, he was fearless and cheeky, always on the attack in a playful way.
Over the last year he matured and became very laid back and affectionate.
We would have our daily rituals - some that I'm finding hard to break.
Even last night I had a glass of milk - and then thought to myself I would have to hide it from Charlie - he could sniff out a glass of milk a mile off!
I miss coming home to him at night. Sometimes he would wait in the window for me and when he saw my car pull up he would run down to greet me at the door.
Or if he could hear me talking downstairs in the living room, he would come marching in to see where I was.
But most of the time he would be napping on my bed and when I came in my room he would jump up and come straight over to me for a stroke and a hug.
He was my little baby and I'm going to miss him so much. The extent of his loss hasn't even hit me yet and sometimes I think people think I'm strange.
The fact of the matter is that bereavement of a pet is very real and sometimes even just as upsetting as losing a loved one.
Our pets become part of our lives and in my case Charlie became my best friend.
My fiance Mike and I had planned our lives with Charlie in it - we didn't want a house on a busy road and we wanted a large garden for Charlie to roam around in.
Around January 17, Charlie started to become withdrawn and very tired. He wouldn't go out which was unusual because he loved to hunt.
I thought that maybe he was feeling a bit down and tried to play with him, but he wasn't interested.
The last few times I thought Charlie was ill, I had taken him to the vets and found out that there was nothing majorly wrong with him.
After a week had passed I decided to take him to the vet. She told me that she thought he had a kidney infection and he would have to be kept in overnight.
The last time I held him, I kissed him and told him I loved him, he perked up ever so slightly and whipped his tail playfully.
The next morning on January 25, I received a phone call to say that Charlie had died in his sleep.
There is no word to describe the complete devastation I felt and still feel - there is a huge Charlie-sized hole in my heart.
The vet carried out a post-mortem and found that Charlie had a fatal and incurable illness Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP).
Once FIP develops from the coronavirus in a cat's body, it kills swiftly and mercilessly. A cat diagnosed with dry FIP can sometimes live for two or three months and wet FIP, where the abdomen or lungs fill with fluid, kills almost immediately.
There was nothing I could do, but I still fell like that I should have known something was wrong.
We buried Charlie in the garden and Mike made a lovely grave for him.
I'll always love Charlie - but for now I'm just trying to get over his death.
Shankly will remain under the care of the Liverpool rescue for a few weeks and top of the agenda for him will be neutering, vaccinating and micro-chipping all things that any responsible pet owner would ensure happened anyway.
