Conor Kenny
Staff Writer
As I write this, I’m looking out over the persistently dispiriting concrete landscape of Manchester City Centre through the grimy windows of a Northern Rail train carriage. These trains aren’t at all like Irish Rail, with their plush interior design and snappy wifi. They’re dirty, cramped carriages that wouldn’t look out of place in 1930s Kansas. I don’t particularly like Manchester, but as a born and bred Liverpudlian I had a certain obligation to be in the region yesterday. I spent some time here as a teenager, but having taken my first steps about thirty-five miles down the East Lancs road, I have always been somewhat genetically predispositioned to dislike everything about this place. That’s why it’s even harder to be writing this article. As a season ticket holder and loyal supporter of Liverpool Football Club, I was at both the home game against Man United back in October, and the game at Old Trafford yesterday, so I feel as though I have something of a duty to share my perspective on the Luis Suarez incident.
It feels almost patronizing of me to have to say this, and not particularly necessary either, but nontheless the following statement is helpful to set the tone of this argument – Liverpudlians are not racist. Like migrants and other ethnic minorities, we know full well how it feels to be on the receiving end of vitriolic and disgusting slurs from far right tabloids like The Sun. Liverpudlians have one of the highest migrant populations of any city in Britain, and L.F.C provided a home for one of the first black footballers to play for England in John Barnes at a time when opposition fans were still throwing bananas at him. All of which makes the events of this season all the more surreal.
It was difficult from where I was sitting on both occasions to observe the controversial incidents of both league games between the two teams this season, and yesterday, as in October, I only discovered the exact details of what had occurred after I had left the ground. It seems an appropriate point in this piece for me to state that I believe Luis Suarez acted disreputably on both occasions. The official FA report on the initial incident has been released, and the behavior of Liverpool’s number seven yesterday was broadcast for all the world to see, painting him in a no more favorable picture. As a staunch Kopite, if you don’t accept the neutrality of an independent panel, then at least at the handling of the aftermath could scarcely have been any more disastrous. Dalglish’s decision to publicly back the striker in the days following the verdict was clearly intended as a show of public support for the striker, but it couldn’t have looked more like an implication that Suarez had done nothing wrong. This sentiment added to fuel to the fire for the fans, and inadvertently encouraged those idiots at the Oldham match, and the monkey imitating Welshman at the FA cup clash with United. It also encouraged the booing all around the ground of Evra in that particular match, which only culminated in Suarez having built up enough of a victim complex to conduct himself like he did yesterday. It should, however, be noted that Evra is not whiter than white in this feud, if you’ll pardon the pun. He, with the confirmation of Dirk Kuyt and Ryan Giggs, admitted that he had called Suarez a “dirty South American”, a remark that only went unpunished because of the stupidity of the Uraguayan in failing to get his bullshit story straight.
But if all of that was shameful, it was nothing compared to the abuse being hurled yesterday by both sets of fans.
After a deafening chorus of “murderers” from the Stretford End, one lone scally behind me began screaming “Munich” at the Mancunians over to the right.
He was promptly told by my friend next to me to shut up, but this didn’t prevent a whole chorus of “who’s that dying on the runway” being belted out after we went 2-0 down. “I know where you’re coming from mate”, the perpetrator explained, “but they’re singin’ ‘murderers’ over there, you can’t let that go unanswered”. Incidentally, it should be noted that the United fans did indeed iniciate the inappropriate chants on this occasion, but stooping to their level only provoked the chant of “without killing anyone, we won it 3 times”, a song which always makes me feel physically sick to the pit of my stomach. If we as adults are reduced to the “he started it” logic in an area this important and sensitive, then I really do despair.
It’s first hand experiences like this which made one realize that Dalglish’s implied defence of Suarez mightn’t even have been the stupidest thing the King said yesterday. The description of this kind of fan interaction as ‘banter’ is not only laughably incorrect, but obscene. To add injury to insult, a woman was taken away from our row after the final whistle with what must have been an excruciating head injury, after being pelted from below with a coin thrown by a young United supporter. Thankfully the little thug responsible was soon caught by the stewards, but this was little consolation to the rest of the woman’s shell-shocked family. If this is ‘banter’, then I’d hate to see Kenny’s version of hooliganism.
It always makes me want to bang my head very loudly against the back of The Kop when I see the defence of issues bigger than football for the sake of one’s club being “right”. One-up manship of this variety is as embarrassing as it is dangerous. Being a true supporter means to care about how your club conducts itself, and if that sentiment still rings hollow with you after you’ve read this, then the real fans of the game really have been lost forever.
