'2-0 to the Murderers'? Ouch

[Wozza]

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 “******”. 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.

...

 

[smudge]

Blimey, that is a good read.
Now I really do not like Palace, I mean I REALLY don't like them. But, if they were to suffer something like Hillsborough or Heysel, would I take the piss or sing about it?
I would like to think not, & I would hope the rest of our supporters wouldn't.

 

[The Spanish]

f*** them. Crush people to death to get into a football match, kill people at a final, support a bloke who killed some innocent geezer, then claim you are victims, you deserve everything you get.

victimpool. oh how my heart bleeds. dish it out cant take it. everyone knows that.

 

[Billy the Fish]

Blimey, that is a good read.
Now I really do not like Palace, I mean I REALLY don't like them. But, if they were to suffer something like Hillsborough or Heysel, would I take the piss or sing about it?
I would like to think not, & I would hope the rest of our supporters wouldn't.

A song does exsist though:

The wheels on the bus go round and round, over palace bastards.

 

[CHAPPERS]

Round round BUMP innit?

 

[Hannibal smith]

He doesn’t find chants about Harold Shipman acceptable? Come on. He is Britains top serial killer of all time. If its quantity you are after Shipmans your man. Surely this should be a source of local pride? He pisses over Fred West.

 

[Billy the Fish]

He doesn’t find chants about Harold Shipman acceptable? Come on. He is Britains top serial killer of all time. If its quantity you are after Shipmans your man. Surely this should be a source of local pride? He pisses over Fred West.

But what about sutcliffe? Perhaps a poll is needed