Maybe, just maybe, there is some hope in the world after all? It’s less that two weeks since Liverpool footballer Diogo Jota and his brother André Silva were killed in a car crash and the reaction from far beyond Liverpool has been massively uplifting. The whole world, it seems, as well as the football world, has come together in love and solidarity and today, did the impossible happen?
Yes, that’s Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim, along with club captain Bruno Fernandes and Diogo Dalot, who were at Anfield to pay tribute. Of course, I understand rivalry in sport in general and football in particular, and while I have become a bit of a woke snowflake in recent years, in terms of how I struggle to understand the pure hatred among some groups of supporters, I’d like to think we are learning to respect each other a bit better.
We have all heard supporters singing poisonous songs about the Munich Air Disaster and Hillsborough, as well as other events, some big, some small, and we think to ourselves, that’s just gone too far. The awful “Always the victims, it’s never your fault” chant from some United fans angers many Reds fans, but what happened today by Amorim and his players, and the tribute left by Manchester United which heads this blog reminds me that a better world is possible.
The endless culture wars, stoked mainly by the far right, which these days includes major elements of the Conservative party, seek to divide us, setting one person against another, often on the basis of some entirely bogus notion and yet today we have seen something far more heartening.
I will remember these pictures posted today on the Liverpool website, but when the two teams line-up against each other next season, I fully expect hostilities to resume. By hostilities, I do not mean hate and loathing, of bigotry and violence, but by piss-taking and banter, where possible with added humour. Usually, the players can play in a passionate local derby and afterwards meet for a beer in the opposition changing room or in a bar. Of course, sometimes the tensions can boil over and things happen that maybe shouldn’t but, frankly, that goes with the territory. Surely one’s love for your team is greater than your loathing of the opposition? If not, then what is the point?
The direction of football has concerned me for decades, from the creation of the Frankenstein’s monster that is the Premier League through to the expansionist tendencies of the deeply corrupt organisations that run the international game. I doubt that things will get better in the years to come, probably I fear they will get much worse. But at least the coaches and players still seem to have some values of kindness and decency and of love to one another. Love? Is that really why people are mourning Jota and his brother’s death? Absolutely, yes. In times like these, love is all we have.
