In my Liverpool Home
Football clubs across Britain staged their tributes on Saturday to the late George Best, who passed away aged 59.Manchester United and Northern Ireland legend Best died in a London hospital on Friday after weeks of ill health.
The Premier League asked referees to conduct a minute's silence before all games this weekend, including United's trip to West Ham on Sunday.
But a minority of Liverpool and Leeds fans failed to observe the silence and the tribute had to be cut short.
At the City of Manchester Stadium in the game between Liverpool and Manchester City both sets of fans applauded as Best's name was read out.
But some fans of United's bitter rivals Liverpool disturbed the minute's silence, which did not last the full 60 seconds.
Referee Alan Wiley followed Premier League instruction in cutting the silence down to barely 20 seconds once it became obvious a minority of the visiting supporters were not going to respect it.
The conduct of some of their fans earned jeers from the City fans and their manager Rafael Benitez admitted it was disappointing.
"It is a pity," said Benitez. "It was only a few people and most of them did applaud but it is a pity, you can't say anything else."
City boss Stuart Pearce added: "I have no idea which group of supporters it was but the vast majority paid tribute to a legend of the game who gave a lot of pleasure to a lot of people and that is the important thing.
George Best's imprint on our national game will never fade Football Association chief executive Brian Barwick:
"You have to look at the positives rather than dwell of the actions of a handful of people in a crowd of 47,000."
It was a similar scene at Millwall's New Den where a section of the Leeds fans also led to the tribute being cut short.
I was there and I heard and I saw. A man has died for Christ's sake. Regardless of his allegience and/or the club he played for, are football fans not able to see through the nonsense of club loyalty? Players play here and then play elsewhere. It's bigger than football. Manchester CITY fans applauded the man and tried to observe a minute's silence for a superb footballer and, I have to admit, I thought it would be the City fans that would cause the problems today (only a few nutters though).
Unfortunately some probably (or hopefully) pissed up brain-deads thought it was the perfect opportunity to make their voices heard. I used to quite like Liverpool, but after today I am very, very disappointed.
Great support for your team today but, seriously, no class whatsoever. No class at all.
I watched George Best many times in the late 60s early 70s and, although it breaks my heart to say it, he was a complete footballer. It's a man's life and it's been reduced to the pathetic tribalism of football supporting.
Most of those arseholes booing George Best today have never seen him play - and that's what annoys me more than anything. Wankers. Brain dead.
That "minute's silence" lasted 20 seconds.
A shame.
5 comments:
In Liverpool's defence, weren't we playing them at Anfield when the Matt Busby minutes silence was held? That time it was the City fans who disgraced themselves by booing. I think it tends to be the away fans of a club who let down the rest of us in these instances.
And it was only a tiny minority of Liverpool fans who didn't obey the silence. I wish they had done the full minute though (rather than this "moments silence" that has creeped into the announcers vocabulary); I felt short changed when the ref blew the whistle to end the silence, and a full minute gives the booing morons enough rope.
I doesn't surprise me one little bit. For some reason a small minority of people in teams' fan base can't help making twats of themselves. Unfortuantely it reflects badly on those who have a real sense of what is right. The media tarred everyone in the City of Manchester Stadium with the same brush. You're right Steve, they have no class. Unfortunately some bloggers decided to wait till the day Bestie died to air their views about his problems. I have been a critic of the man in the past, but that wasn't the day to air those views, and that "minutes" silence wasn't the time to be a complete twat.
Sad to say, but why was I not surprised at the behaviour of the Leeds and Liverpool fans.
You know what annoys me more is when hacks with agendas report the facts as Manchester City and - elsewhere - Leeds fans causing the trouble - as was the case this morning in The Independent (independent? My arse!).
It was a group of Liverpol supporters who started chanting, then a lot of people started booing the disrespectful supporters. This has now been interpreted as City fans booing the silence. Well there you go, in years to come, this lie will be trotted out by the Red-obsessed 'sports reporters' of the London-based media.
I'll say it again, I was surprised at the behaviour of the City fans because I thought that they would cause problems.
On a related note I'm sick to the fuckin' back teeth of minute's silences, shrines and all the rest off the Diana-inspired displays of public grief. It's getting almost as though we have a silence at every home match - and some of them are truly removed from football. The Queen Mother for Christ's sake? I rest my case.
I was at Villa Park when they held a minutes silence for their forgotten manager Tony Barton, who was the boss when they won the European cup, who had died earlier in the week. Villa were playing Man Utd and the minutes silence was disrupted by chants from the Man Utd end of " who the fucking hell was he.."
It doesn't condone what Liverpool and Leeds supporters did over the weekend, but Man Utd fans are always quick to cry wolf.
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