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It may not have been the warmest or the brightest of summers but for two weeks in May, it felt like the sun was truly shining on Liverpool. While we bask in unseasonal September warmth, cast your mind back four short months ago as the city welcomed the world with open arms for the . After a tussle with locations across the UK, Liverpool won the right to host the continental music event on behalf of Ukraine. It’s not up for debate that the event was a rip roaring success, with many dubbing it the best Eurovision ever. Crowds gathered, people danced and for two fantastic weeks, nothing else mattered. After debilitating lockdowns and political scandal dogging the city for the previous three years, Liverpool took a breath, puffed out its chest and announced it was back. We haven’t really looked over our shoulders since. It wasn’t always like this though. A decade and a half ago, Liverpool was on the verge of pulling itself back up again - not for the first time either. 2008 marked a sea change for the city, as Claire McColgan, ’s director of culture put it, at a time when Liverpool had “forgotten the way it was going.” Addressing a forum on the impact of regeneration in the city over the last 15 years, Ms McColgan, who was instrumental in delivering Eurovision earlier this year, said the European Capital of Culture status in 2008 gave Liverpool its confidence back after a bruising few years. She said: “Culture has been at the heart of Liverpool’s regeneration. A long term plan has to have personality which has got to come from the place itself. “Nobody else has put communities at the heart of that. In 2008, the city had lost its confidence. It had forgotten the way it was going.” On January 11, 2008, for a performance that would live long in the memory. Officially marking the start of the Capital of Culture celebrations, Ringo Starr topped the bill in a dazzling display of music and colour. Ms McColgan said the impact of 2008 did much to quell the “linear view” many held of Liverpool and was able to “bring the whole nation into the narrative” the city wanted to create. However, she said, it was the culmination of two decades of toil for the people of Liverpool and the beginning of what many had hoped would be a new dawn. She said: “Since that opening night in 2008, we haven’t looked back since but it took 20 years of social and emotional regeneration. During that time, Liverpool put its head and shoulders up.” 15 years on and in similar economic circumstances, who knows if another major European moment will give Liverpool such a boost again.