Liverpool FC Forum

by **Ciggy** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 2:18 pm

The part in bold I am speechless.

Merseyside vitriol:

Oliver Kay responds

It seems like I opened a can of words with a piece yesterday about certain things that were chanted at the Merseyside derby at Goodison Park. Some have accused me of failing to understand the context in which “2-0 to the Murderers” was sung by a number of Liverpool supporters, so here goes...

Sorry to disappoint you, but I do fully understand the context. I’m not exactly a novice when it comes to Merseyside football. But, from where I’m sitting, that context – Everton and Manchester United supporters gleefully chanting “murderers” for years without, it seems, the slightest clue about what happened at Heysel in 1985 – does not excuse what was sung. It doesn’t make the chant funny, clever or brilliant, as some seem to think. The chant sucks, as do the ones that provoked it in the first place.

Some considered it genius because it silenced the Everton taunts (“You should have seen their faces …”) and because it meant that Liverpool fans have “reclaimed” – or at least taken ownership of – the “murderers” tag, much like the gay community has with the word “queer” or the black community has with the word “nigger”. Some have likened it to Tottenham's "yid" chants or Robbie Fowler’s “reclaiming” of the drug-abuse rumours back in 1999 with his infamous cocaine-snorting celebration. I take the point. I just don’t agree with it.

The difference here is that we are talking about a disaster in which 39 people died. And yes I know it was a disaster that could have unfolded at just about any European match involving just about any English club over a period from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s and that it took a particular set of circumstances – not least inadequate security arrangements and a crumbling abomination of a stadium, which Uefa should never forgive themselves for selecting – for it to happen when it did. Believe me, I know all that and I have frequently found myself trying to explain these things to people who think they know better.

I also know that a disturbing large proportion of Everton and United supporters take undue pleasure in singing about Heysel in order to score points. I just did not really think that Liverpool fans, of all fans, would try to score points by turning the tables and singing it back in a way that made a joke (whether you like it or not) of a disaster that claimed the lives of 39 innocent football supporters.

Someone called my reaction “fake moral outrage”. There’s nothing fake about it and I wasn’t outraged, just surprised and, yes, disappointed. I could have chosen to ignore the atmosphere on Saturday and particularly the "2-0 to the Murderers" chant, but I felt and still feel very strongly about it - just as I do the United fans whom I have condemned in the past for chanting despicable things about Hillsborough and for making light of their own disaster in the interests of point-scoring. I have often wondered what Sir Bobby Charlton thinks when he hears United fans at Anfield asking “Where’s your famous Munich song?”

It just comes down to what you find acceptable. I don’t find the "murderers” chant acceptable. I don’t find “Without killing anyone, we’ve won it three times” acceptable (and that, unlikely as it may sound, was actually sung by the United players on the pitch at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow in May).

I don’t find “Where’s your famous Munich song?” acceptable. I don’t find “2-0 to the Murderers” acceptable. I don’t find chants about Michael Shields or Harold Shipman acceptable. I find the chants about Steven Gerrard’s family utterly despicable, as I do the Evertonian “joke” of covering your face with your hand as if to signify someone being crushed at Hillsborough. I actually feel sickened as I write this.

Maybe all of this makes me someone who has spent so long in the press box that he has lost touch with the tribal nature of football’s rivalries. Maybe, but I don’t think so. Maybe it is also possible to get so wound up in that tribal warfare that you lose sight of where the boundaries of taste lie. Some will not care, but, for me, the “2-0 to the Murderers chant” was a long way over that boundary. I know full well what the explanation is. I just don’t think that it constitutes any kind of excuse.

by **Number 9** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 2:23 pm

He'd have been better advised to say nothing!
Sounds more like sh'it stirring than an explanation!@rsehole! :no

To much cr@p dragged up in that article by him,totally uncalled for!

by **andy_g** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 2:25 pm

its a good article with good points well made. and it just goes to prove even further what mindless, stupid idiots a large number of professional millionaire footballers are.

by **Ciggy** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 2:32 pm

Why didn't Kay write a full article about that when it happened? Imagine Gerrard or Carra singing about Munich or Harold Shipman. Its been swept under the carpet because of the Man U love in, in the media and at the F.A.
One rule for us, one rule for everyone else.

Our fans sang one chant on saturday, whilst the bitters & mancs sing vitriol every fuckin week not a word mentioned.

When our fans retaliate its in the national press.

by **maguskwt** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 2:33 pm

hi guys, I'm a foreign supporter so I might not be sensitive regarding these matters... but what's wrong with his explanations care to explain more?

by **red37** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 3:17 pm

Ciggy wrote:Why didn't Kay write a full article about that when it happened? Imagine Gerrard or Carra singing about Munich or Harold Shipman. Its been swept under the carpet because of the Man U love in, in the media and at the F.A.
One rule for us, one rule for everyone else.

Our fans sang one chant on saturday, whilst the bitters & mancs sing vitriol every fuckin week not a word mentioned.

When our fans retaliate its in the national press.

Amen to that

by **RUSHIE#9** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 3:26 pm

There is one simple answer to this argument/subject.

Everyone that has ever sung any of these despicable chants is in the wrong. Simple as.

Oliver Kay is also in the wrong for bringing these mindless idiots into the spotlight of the national media.

As for the bit CIGGY highlighted I just find astonishing. I don't know what's more astounding, the fact that he alleges the Manc shite players actually sang such a vile song, or the fact that he just seems to gloss over it as an aside. He's not only dragged a very distasteful subject into the public domain but he's opened himself up to some very awkward questions regarding the manc players behaviour.

by **kopite_1232002** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 3:30 pm

THE DIRTY

MANK C U N T :censored:

, WHATS THE POINT OF HAVING FIFA UAFA IF THERE LETTING PLAYERS JUMP AROUND SINGING THAT, AS FAR AS IM CONCERND THATS AS BAD AS MAKIN MONKY SOUNDS TOWARDS A BLACK PERSON OR EVEN WORSE...

ONE WORD C U N T S

am sorry for the bad language, i never post on this forum i just read the posts and have done since may 2005 but i had to log in today and somethin

by **Effes** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 6:02 pm

Well, that's the first Ive heard re. Man U players signing after the Champs League Final.

These things are best not highlighted by the Press - but when have they ever acted responsibly?

After we got beat by Man U at home last season, the Times article ended with..

"The Manchester players arguably committed daylight robbery, but then again Merseyside
has seen enough of that" Or to that affect.
Even the broadsheets print totally unnessecary sh!te ! :angry:

by **heimdall** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 6:46 pm

I thought that was a totally fair article by My Kay. The chant was probably meant in jest but that kind of humour is way too dark and hurtfull and the people doing it need to engage their brains.

by **Number 9** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 6:48 pm

heimdall wrote:I thought that was a totally fair article by My Kay. The chant was probably meant in jest but that kind of humour is way too dark and hurtfull and the people doing it need to engage their brains.

Not as dark and hurtful as most of your posts!

by **LegBarnes** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 6:51 pm

Are you suprised by all this I am not alot of nasty bas.tards do follow football and sh.it like this will be said I guess unless you ain't making people feel like cr.ap at games you just not a hardcore suporter any more eh ? :angry:

by **J*o*n*D*o*e** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:39 pm

you know what that does not surprise me one bit and i bet you fooking neville and rio started it, i can only hope in life i never come within two feet of either of them.

does anybody know if this was reported at the time or only come out now because this is the first ive heard of any of this.

if its only just come out there lucky the munure home game is already out of the way, well for this season anyway, they better hope we dont get them in the cup

by **bigmick** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:46 pm

Well I'm going to swim against the tide a bit and say that if that's what the Liverpool fans were singing, I think they let themselves down a fraction. Using other fans behaviour to justify our own (or other peoples behaviour in life in general) is a slippery slope. You do pretty much in life what you think is right, in your heart. I think the lads who sang that probably called it wrong at the time, and hopefully they'll not go there again.

by **Effes** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:49 pm

bigmick wrote:Well I'm going to swim against the tide a bit and say that if that's what the Liverpool fans were singing, I think they let themselves down a fraction. Using other fans behaviour to justify our own (or other peoples behaviour in life in general) is a slippery slope. You do pretty much in life what you think is right, in your heart. I think the lads who sang that probably called it wrong at the time, and hopefully they'll not go there again.

They will Mick - going by their posts on RAWK.

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