The 80's was really bad for this, there was the straight up Munich chant and about 3 other songs that got aired a lot. I've mentioned them singing about Hillsborough to my wife and other Mancs and as they've said, we gave them loads about Munich down the years, what did we expect would happen? Not justifying it, but its the tit for tat mentality that carries the shite on. Football still has a lot of knuckle draggers going the game.
Yes, it was open season over Munich back then. Those were times when you genuinely took your life in your hands going to the match. They were quite brutal, unenlightened times with no quarter given or asked for.
I hope I've developed into a genuine and decent person, but I routinely sung Munich songs when I was younger. At the match, in pubs in town on nights out, in taxis with mates going for a night out. Munich 58 was graffitied all over the city and beyond. I once saw the entire lyric of a Munich song written out in marker pen on a shelter window at Bache railway station on the line to Chester. Grim stuff. We were just one of many too. Everton, Man City, Leeds and many, many more were notorious for routinely wheeling out Munich taunts. Everton were the only ones I ever saw unfurl a Munich 58 banner at OT though. We'd throw hundreds of paper aeroplanes at them from the scoreboard end though.
In return, they gleefully ran with Shankly 81 taunts, graffiti and banners after we lost the great man. Look at their banner in the Park End when we played United in the cup at Goodison in '85. I also saw Shankly 81 stuff sprayed on walls as far away from Manchester as Blackpool back then.
For some reason, at some point in time, it became somehow acceptable to taunt people over their grief. My dad always told me that United gained a lot of their wider support after and because of Munich. Back then, the country and the city of Liverpool alike stood with them and supported them. Many in the country adopted United there and then as their team. There was no glee over their tragic loss and their grief. I've no idea how or why that changed, but society shifted, and by the late 70s and especially the 80s it was open season, gloves off brutality, both verbal and physical. In my first game at Anfield in 1971 I was in the Anny Road End with loads of unsegregated Mancs around us. No apparent malice and no violence. Somehow, it went from that to people ending up with darts in their faces and taunts over tragedies in a relatively short span of years. I grew up through that, so saw what went on as normal. Few, if any, questioned it from what I remember. Football rivalry at the time became savage and brutal.
I think the Mancs were always going to seize on anything they could use against those who mocked them over Munich. Human nature sort of dictates this. Yes, they could have claimed the moral high ground over chanting songs revelling in death, but the temptation to reply in kind proved far too much for them.
The irony these days is that we live in far more enlightened times, and people know better, yet act just as stupidly. There is no excuse for that. Sadly, despite the far more enlightened times, there are still far too many knuckle-draggers in society who also follow football.
I'm now with those advocating standing our ground and singing our own songs about our fantastic club and its history in the face of the repugnant shite certain opposition morons indulge in. I know, it's easy to say this sat here while it's not ringing in my ears, but we can rise well above it.
I remember not too long after Hillsborough. A night match at Old Trafford. I was sat on a barrier right by the divide between us and them. They were singing " That day in Sheffield, you killed your own fans..." Honestly, I just looked at them and thought, you sad, sad bastards. They looked and sounded like vacant, brainless morons who know nothing and have lived all those years and learned nothing. They outed their own shortfalls and basic, human inadequacies.
I'm a lot older now. Hopefully wiser and more mature. Sometimes, I think it wise to just stand back at let others out themselves for what they are. There's no need to reply in kind. Just stand back, point at the fuckers, and let them disgrace themselves for all to see.
They want reaction. So don't give them the reaction they crave. Do what we do best. Sing our own songs about our own club and its glorious history. The reality is, these pricks cannot touch us. Their moronic behaviour outs only themselves for what they are. Just let them disgrace and shame themselves while we rise well above it and support this amazing club and fabulous manager.
