At some point on Sunday morning, a significant minority of supporters got dressed, left the house and resolved to sing songs about people dying at a football match. Some of them may have approached the same conclusion from a less developed angle – the hatred just bubbled up inside and frothed out of their mouths involuntarily – but these are merely superfluous details.
Leeds United fans chanted about the Munich air disaster. Manchester United fans chanted about Leeds fans being stabbed to death in Turkey. Nothing else really matters.
Tragedy chanting is a stain on English football. This is not about those two clubs or this weekend; to believe as much misses the point. It happens often, and once is too often. Supporters in this country get a rough deal at times: fleeced on tickets, television scheduling and public transport; over-policed and under-trusted; a tiny minority of incidents producing an unfair reputation. But on this issue, we have let ourselves down and, as such, provide critics with an arsenal with which to attack us.
This is not about rivalry. There is no honour here, no grudging respect. Rivalry has boundaries because without them, you are left with depravity. You can dislike another football club and you can demonstrate that dislike if you wish. But when you use the deaths of innocent people you long jump over the line of decency. We know this. We have danced this sorry dance many times before and we will dance it again.
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“It’s just a chant,” some will say. “You are over-analysing all this – it’s just words.” But that is like the comedian who punches down for the cheap laugh and offers no thought as to where and at whom they are swinging their fists. How do these people think that this makes those around them feel? Supporters on Sunday – in both ends – will have left Elland Road ashamed of their fellow supporters.
Leeds and Man Utd condemn chants
“Both clubs strongly condemn chanting from both sets of fans regarding historic tragedies at today’s game,” said Manchester United and Leeds United in a joint-statement on Sunday.
“Such behaviour is completely unacceptable and we will continue to work together with our respective fan groups and the Premier League and other authorities on eradicating it from football.”
The Premier League, meanwhile, has said it is treating the issue of tragedy chanting as “a matter of urgency”.
If supporting a football club has meaning beyond individual pleasure, it is to be part of a community. That community only exists if those within it, who love the club as much as you, do not feel alienated and appalled. And if you know all that and still don’t care, you don’t care about the club as much as you’d like others to believe. If the cruelty is depressing, it is the accompanied bravado that is most upsetting, the insinuation that you are somehow not a proper supporter unless you are prepared to go beyond the pale.
Perhaps there is something in that accusation of over-analysis. For all that Manchester United and Leeds United issued joint statements about eradicating the problem (which is to their credit), they are preaching to those who cannot be converted and aiming to educate those who refuse to hear or heed the lesson.
When all other avenues have been explored, and a problem continues to fester, the only option is to stop these people from attending matches. That will take people dropping the banner of club loyalty and reporting their own, which is not something many find comfortable. But what other option do we have? Allow depravity to run wild? Allow the dead to be devalued repeatedly under the pretence of banter? All meet again here in a month’s time to ask why nothing has been done?
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