Liverpool and United must show some semblance of mutual respect on Sunday. Monday morning’s headlines seem depressingly easy to predict right now. Regardless of the on field action and subsequent result in Sunday’s match between Liverpool and Manchester United, it is more than likely that the focus will lie away from the two sets of players and settle on the two fan bases come the following morning.
This is after all, Liverpool’s first game at Anfield since the Hillsborough Independent Panel (HIP) released their damning dossier last Wednesday. United’s away following don’t usually mix well with their Scouse neighbours. Sadistic chants covering such topics as the Heysel Stadium disaster, the Munich air crash and the Hillsborough tragedy have been exchanged for decades. If this trend isn’t bucked on Sunday then forget about seeing Robin van Persie or Luis Suarez on the back pages the next day, the media fallout will focus almost entirely on the continuation of an atmosphere and a relationship between England’s two greatest footballing institutions that is currently beyond toxic.
In the aftermath of the HIP’s revelations, football fans the length and breadth of the country have come together and shared in a wide spectrum of emotions. Disgust, anger and disbelief as the appalling truths of Hillsborough were laid bare as well as admiration, joy and relief for those families, victims and survivors of the tragedy whose names were unequivocally cleared at long last. Football has been largely criticised for lacking the same kind of spirit that the Olympic games recently displayed to the world, but the sport has shown it’s best side in recent days.
Tributes have been paid from all over the world for the 96 brothers and sisters lost on April 15th 1989, clubs and their fans have shown their support to the people of Merseyside and the supporters of Liverpool Football Club. This was particularly evident with Everton’s own tribute to their local rivals on Monday night which was spine tingling, tear inducing and most importantly, sincere. In short, the awful truths of Hillsborough have helped unite football supporters and allowed them to show their solidarity on a grand scale.
Come Sunday though, this could all be undermined. Despite the calls for respect from Sir Alex Ferguson after the HIP report, a minority of Manchester United fans still sang the insulting, hurtful song that their club and manager had requested they didn’t last weekend. ‘Always the victims, it’s never your fault’ was heard at Old Trafford during United’s victory over Wigan. Regardless of any explanations to the contrary, the song is directed at Liverpool’s fans and makes obvious overtures to their reaction to the Hillsborough disaster.
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While tasteless and pathetic, it wasn’t wholly unexpected. There is always going to be a minority of morons in any public crowd and football fans are no different. Tribal loyalties between United and Liverpool run so deep that the notion of no idiots spoiling United’s otherwise impressive reaction to the HIP report was never realistic. The problem is though, that this minority threaten to spoil Sunday’s affair for the majority and a lot of good work will be undone.
If the ‘victims’ chant is heard at Anfield, everyone knows how some of the home fans will respond. Aeroplane mimes and songs referencing United’s Munich air disaster will be the retort from some Liverpool fans and from there things will only get worse. Such is the tit for tat ‘they started it’ nature of the Merseyside/Manchester conflict. Behaviour from both sets of fans has often been scandalous and each group use the others behaviour to justify their own.
When you throw in the fact that Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra will meet for the first time on a pitch since last years infamous ‘handshakegate’ and the surrounding furore regarding that particular topic, the possibility of the fixture descending into a cauldron of hate once again unfortunately seems likely.
For all the good that has come out of the HIP’s report in regards to fan behaviour recently, and all the goodwill gestures and public condemnations for the Hillsborough related chants that Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United have exhibited, is anyone really expecting Sunday to go off without a hitch? We can only hope, but the odds seem stacked against that happening.
It is a shame that two sets of fans whose clubs share such rich histories and a wonderful on pitch rivalry need to resort to the unpalatable actions that both groups have partaken in during recent times. Both clubs have met with triumph and disaster and both fan bases should be acutely aware of how hurtful and needless chants mocking Hillsborough and Munich are. Manchester United and Liverpool will never have a better opportunity to bury the hatchet than they will on Sunday. Both groups of supporters need to remember that while goading each others players, managers and supporters is part and parcel of their rivalry, mocking the dead shouldn’t be any more.
It’s time for Liverpool and Manchester United supporters to move on and grow up. Sunday is their chance. It should be a day of respect, partisanship and an exhibition of the best footballing rivalry this country has, it shouldn’t be about sick chants and a minority of idiots anymore.
