Imagine your child, parent, sibling or friend went to a football match and died. Crushed to death in the most horrific manner imaginable. Imagine that for years, the authorities made a huge and concerted effort to cover up the cause of their death, to blame your loved one and their fellow supporters. Imagine that, as is often the case, the truth eventually came out, entirely exonerating the dead and other supporters and exposing a cover-up and false narrative as scandalous as any in UK history. Imagine finding that they did not die by accident, but were unlawfully killed due to inept policing and planning.
Imagine going to a football match, or watching it on TV, and hearing supporters of other clubs singing songs taunting you about your grief, blaming your loved one and their fellow supporters in moronic and tribal denial of the facts. Imagine the choking gestures and the songs growing ever louder the better the team your loved one supported is doing.
Imagine that every time your loved one’s team wins a trophy or a big match, the tragedy in which they were involved trends on social media. Imagine the moral contortions of people claiming that the chants do not relate to the tragedy in which your loved one was unlawfully killed, but to another tragedy in which fans of another team were killed, for which your supporters were rightly blamed and prosecuted. Imagine people seeming not to understand the meaning of the word ‘always’ or the pain their grief taunting is causing. Imagine people justifying the chants on the basis that fans of the team your loved one supports have been guilty of vile tragedy chants of their own in the past.
Imagine the authorities finally start to act, arresting and charging some of the worst offenders picked up by TV cameras or CCTV. Imagine a handful of people are banned from grounds, while crowds of thousands seem to go unpunished. Imagine welcome punishments and crowd bans for clubs and countries whose fans are guilty of racism, while no sanction is made against those whose fanbases continue to taunt and revel in your grief.
Imagine our sanctimonious football authorities, self-righteous clubs and thick, tribal supporters all agreed enough was enough. Just imagine.
Picture: Nottingham Forest banner against tragedy chanting
Rory writes 