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Tuesday, 18 September 2012

Hatred And Respect - Sing Your Hearts Out

 There has been plenty of talk on internet forums about the crowd behaviour at the upcoming Liverpool v Man Utd game, Liverpool fans annoyed by the Utd supporters ‘victim’ chants against Wigan and the Utd fans saying Liverpool supporters regularly sing about Munich. Utd fans have been saying they weren’t singing about Hillsborough when they sang ‘always the victims, it’s never your fault’ on Saturday and it’s misleading and incorrect press reports that are stoking up the tension ahead of Sundays game. I could be mistaken but is this not saying ‘we’ve done nothing wrong, we’re the innocent victims in all of this’? And isn’t that exactly what they’ve been accusing Liverpool fans of whinging about? A touch of irony here perhaps.

 As a Liverpool supporter I have to be honest, I’m not overly bothered if Man Utd fans sing about Hillsborough. They are our most hated rivals and there is a tradition of animosity between the two sets of fans, hearing them sing about our fans dying only helps to reinforce our belief that a percentage of their support is worth despising and it validates the rivalry. And it’s not something that everyone will readily admit but seeing your enemy attract negative headlines can be pleasurable. How many Man Utd fans do you think wanted Luis Suarez found not guilty of abusing Patrice Evra? The thought of Liverpool fans singing about the Munich air disaster offends me much more. I don’t want to be classed as part of a group of supporters who behave like this, it’s not something I would do and I, like most other reasonably minded people, find this sort of act highly distasteful.

 I’ve been going to Anfield for around 20 years and I’ve honestly never heard any songs about Munich, I don’t know any and have never been involved in any chanting of this sort. Does this mean I believe songs like this don’t exist amongst Liverpool fans? Of course not. I see people at the game who have that combination of anger and ignorance needed to indulge in that sort of thing and I’m sure in certain circumstances they would relish the opportunity to taunt their rivals over such a sensitive and emotive issue.

 My hope for Sunday is that if one set of fans crosses the line the other set don’t follow. I know this sounds childish but we learn at a very early age that two wrongs don’t make a right. I can envisage a scenario where one group of supporters sings about Hillsborough and the other sings about Munich and they both use the behaviour of the opposition fans to justify their own actions. Remember you’re representing your club, and all of it’s supporters around the world when you attend a football match, we all get tarred with the same brush and I don’t want anyone behaving in a way that reflects badly on the club I love or indeed the decent supporters I stand side by side with when I attend the games.

 As I’ve already mentioned, as a football fan I’m not too bothered about what hated rivals sing to each other, but as a parent I am bothered about bringing up a child in a society that is happy to take such pleasure in the deep pain of others. Songs about your oppositions past tragedies may be an easy way to wind up their fans, but there are people behind these tragedies who are no longer with us or who have left grieving relatives to suffer a lifetime of loss and these people should be respected. YNWA.

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