
Shameful songs of disaster Oct 25 2006
By Tony Barrett, Liverpool Echo
IT was the kind of welcome which showed not everyone was ready to make gestures of friendship.
"F***k off you murdering Scouse b*****ds" read one piece of graffiti daubed on a wall just yards from Old Trafford.
Following on from the now routine "Hillsborough 89" sprayed onto a motorway bridge this was a hearty "welcome" - Manchester style.
When Liverpool and Man United meet at either ground, hatred comes to town and whatever efforts the clubs go to there seems little chance of friendship or even a semblance of tolerance breaking out.
For all the swapping of pennants, half-time penalty shootouts and daft posters in away ends, this is the one fixture in the English football calendar in which you can actually guarantee trouble.
On Sunday, the Liverpool fans fell for the five-card trick. After years of refusing to respond to the United supporters chant of "Where's your famous Munich song?" they gave in and sang it.
There had been provocation. And plenty of it. Having abuse chanted at you about Michael Shields, Heysel, unemployment and even Hillsborough for almost an hour is never going to be pleasant.
But singing that particular song about an air disaster which happened almost 50 years ago was as soul destroying as it was sick.
Are we really into the realms of disaster oneupmanship?
There is a rawness about Hillsborough which Munich cannot match. You only have to think of the numbers involved and how comparatively recent it is to know that.
How many present day United fans lost friends and family at Munich? It can't be many.
Compare that with the fact that thousands upon thousands of Liverpool fans were, and still are, deeply affected by Hillsborough and it doesn't take any great intelligence to realise this is one battle that the Reds of Merseyside just shouldn't be involved in.
And that's without even using the argument of basic taste and decency which seems to go out of the window when these two particular tribes meet.
To be fair, there were those in the heavily policed Liverpool end who tried to drown out those who think it's clever to sing about death and disaster but they were outnumbered and their songs of support for their team (that is, after all, what we're there for) couldn't compete with the ditties of death.
It was only a couple of years ago that a section of Liverpool fans responded violently to songs about Hillsborough being sung at Millwall.
To be quite honest, I could understand their reaction even if I couldn't condone it.
But what happened at Old Trafford on Sunday was different. It was shameful and embarrassing in equal measure and it reduced the memory of the 96 people who died at Hillsborough to something which can be traded in terrace "banter".
So much for goodwill gestures.

dignity and humility will never be courted where it comes to MUFC. but tell us something we didnt know.