Why Liverpool and Manchester United fans must set rivalries aside to unite behind a common cause and fight together to protect fan culture…
AT the end of the 1973 season, Bill Shankly went to The Kop to celebrate his third and final league title.
As scarves flew over the hoardings, a policeman kicked one away. An astonished Shankly glared at him, picked it up and wrapped it around his sinewy neck. He told the man: “that’s someone’s life.”
Shankly believed in a relationship between club and fan, both representing the other.
Every club has its culture. These are not a group of predetermined edicts, or some wrenched-out marketing slogan, but something that evolves over time.
Liverpool fans act a certain way because of history, because of custom and because of an adherence to a perceived right way of doing things. The club should take a direction from that and never the other way around.
This is why so many mocked Chelsea’s club produced flags during their heyday. This was a club pushing a European-themed agenda onto a fan base who didn’t really do that sort of thing. They saw what flags did to Liverpool and continental sides and wanted a part of it.
It looked false and inauthentic. Plastic, even. It’s not their culture.
The game is made up of different principles and flavours, and I always enjoy hearing about what goes on among other terraces. We’re not the same but we still criss-cross the country in the name of support so that brings us together. I love talking to other away dayers regardless of club.
Of course there’s room for new fans, of course there’s room for change in outlook and of course this thing is a business, but generational fans set the course for how we support.
Their time spent in those seats, season after season, link us to the very thing we support in the first place. They shouldn’t be thrown out simply to make money. Fan culture has to be protected, otherwise we’re just cinema goers with no vested interest in the outcome. No sense of belonging.
On Sunday, a group of Manchester United fans staged a sit-in protest after their draw with City. They have many issues but this one stems from a group of about 500 fans who are about to be moved from the East Stand, where they’ve sat together for literally decades.
Last week, the club emailed them to encourage them to renew their season tickets and told them that they are moving in the name of ‘improving the match day experience’. In other words, they’re building a new area for more expensive seats, and they’ll have to move.
Full credit to Radio Five Live yesterday for broadcasting from the ground while the protest was going on. They even read out some of the slogans on those flags. One read: “my seat, your debt”. Quite.
This isn’t just happening at United. At Tottenham earlier this season, the club removed the discounts from their older supporters, a reduction that has been in place for years. They now have to pay full whack – 21st century prices on reduced income. If they don’t do as instructed, their tickets will be sold on at full price to others.
Thanks for your years of support, but unless you can pay more, you’re out.
They are right to protest and, for what little it’s worth, they have my support.
This is where things get complicated. Football culture is also partisan, political and prejudiced by nature, and if there’s one rivalry where hands are unlikely to be shaken it’s this one.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have an issue with the annihilation of Manchester United or their hardcore support and I’m sure the feeling is mutual, but not like this. I don’t want money men to destroy a culture and generations of support.
I used to love seeing Irish, Greek and Cypriot flags at Arsenal – a nod to the demographic of their home, but they’ve long since gone.
Would that happen to us? Well, there are 11,000 corporate and hospitality seats at Anfield. The only seats left after the Members’ sales go for around £750. That’s a ticket that can go to a young fan, someone who wants to see their team because they want to feel part of the match day, not just because they’ve got the cash to go, and it might be a nice day out.
I wonder what the final destination of this is, of the culture falling to the corporate sword. What happens when the club(s) launch a new marketing campaign concentrating on the flags and atmosphere when there’s nothing left of it.
No amusing songs, no songs for the players, a karaoke You’ll Never Walk Alone rather than a hair-raising belting out of the anthem, and flags replaced by half-and-half Standard Chartered scarves? The people who brought you your essence and uniqueness now sat in a pub or at home.
There’s at least a dialogue at Anfield. Thanks to discussion with Spirit of Shankly, the club have agreed to freeze prices for the coming season, though it shouldn’t take a fight to remain at an already hiked rate. We just want to be able to watch The Reds without being used as a cash cow.
This is happening at most Premier League clubs. If you love your club to the extent that it’s practically impossible to give them up, they’ll do all they can to put their hands in your pocket and will happily move you on to a higher bidder.
This has to be protected. Attritional rivalry must give way to fight this as it’s happening at every club now. Even Liverpool and United must join forces.
And the good news is that for the first time there’s something of a coordinated national movement against how football is run. Supporters of many clubs coming together to speak as one.
The Stop Exploiting Loyalty campaign sees genuine communication through fan culture. By protecting each other, we protect ourselves. Because if you can’t get to the game already, some day the only way you’re going to get a ticket is by doing it through your work.
It sounds odd, I know. A Liverpool fan supporting a group of older Man United fans who probably hate him, but I want our games and rivalry to be real. I’m choosy about my enemies and want to shout across the ground at genuine fans rather than the Head of Tesla UK. I like a proper rivalry, not an empty one.
Does this affect you? Well, according to the Football Supporters’ Association, in 2023-24, ticket prices rose by seven per cent but children, young adults and disabled categories went up by over 100 per cent in some areas.
Other clubs just removed the concessions completely. If you want to bring a child to the game, you’re going to have to pay. If you want to bring them regularly, you have a decision to make.
Expect more protests, expect a fight to protect our culture.
This affects us all. The FSA is free to join while it costs just a tenner a year to join the fight via Spirit of Shankly.
This deserves saving.
P.S. We lost the weekend by a point. We’ll be fine.
