A day in the life of… Liverpool’s Ian Ayre

7:30am: Ian Ayre started the day as he had started every Saturday of the last four years. First, he caught up with his two favourite Harley Davidson podcasts. When he met up with fellow bike enthusiasts, and especially for Harleys - as the people in the know call them - there was nothing like a shared appreciation for an institution, and the company in turned treated them kindly, knowing they made it more than the sum of its parts. A cultural icon that could be both profitable, self-sustaining and able to give joy.

8:23am: Next up, he watched the latest Ted Talk, if there was one available (there was today), to help educate his mind and soul. It was Brendan who’d turned him onto those, and like Liverpool’s former manager, he too was waiting to be invited to give his own. He’d contacted them many times, sending a copy of Being:Liverpool, but with no success yet.

10:30am: Ayre jumped on his ‘hog’, and stuck on the latest Brand New Heavies on his iPod, and made his way to Anfield for the match against Sunderland.

12:45pm: Ayre arrived in the box for senior board members and - with John Henry in Boston, overseeing the running of the Red Sox and the Globe - Ayre realised that he was the most important man in England, when it came to the running of Liverpool Football Club.

As a result, he’d come attired in one of his finest suits. It was difficult for him to choose just which one to take, having amassed quite a collection over his professional career. Having been chief executive of Pace TV, and Total Sports Asia, he had come to intuitively understand the needs of fans in and of Liverpool. That’s why having raised the ticket prices at Anfield, including a ticket that cost £77 to see just a single match, and introduced a season ticket that cost over £1,000 a season, he knew the fans would eventually trust him.

He’d said in an interview that the fans just needed to, ‘look at the facts,’ when it came to the price rises, and he trusted as a result that there would be no real walkout in the 77th minute.

4:35pm: Ayre watched the crowd diminish as the protest went on despite him. He could not believe it.

6:30pm: Ayre was rattled, and needed to find somewhere to stay calm, keep his head and rethink his strategy. He couldn’t tarnish the excellent consumer brand he had built, almost single-handedly, for Fenway Sports Group. Mainly, he felt betrayed that Liverpool fans had decided to ignore his advice on the ticket protest, and made him look like he was out of touch with them. Nothing could be further from the truth, he thought, as he decided to order a seven pound glass of wine in his favourite Cheshire bar. It was here that he would gather his thoughts.

The bar was unusually full, and with a weird, new clientele. At the bar were 20 or so tourists, most of them in half-and-half scarves. They must have been on a trip to watch the game earlier.

He waved at the bar staff, but nobody was free to help him. He saw that the fans didn’t really know how ordering drinks in England worked, so they queued up to order a drink each, instead of doing rounds. They weren’t bad or rude people, they just understood drinking culture differently from how it was done.

6:45pm: Ayre was frustrated, and started to lose his temper with the staff. He knew they’d recognised him from his previous visits, and they’d always got on. He was a loyal customer and thought he should be treated with a bit more respect, but they made him wait his turn, keeping him waiting for 20 minutes. When he complained to the manager, all he could do was say to Ayre, ‘but if they’re willing to pay, then we can’t give you special treatment, can we?’

Infuriated, Ayre spoke at length about the problems with treating customers like this, and that loyalty and respect were necessary for the people who’d keep coming back to hand over their money. He thought, too, that he’d got a kind of friendship with everyone at the bar, and that he could expect to be treated accordingly. The penny didn’t drop at any point, and on his ride home on his Harley, he knew he’d never be going back.