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Liverpool have always had a very nasty, vicious fan element that's never (Heysel aside) had the bad press it's deserved - which is why all this almost reverential media worship of "The Kop" never fails to grind my gears.

I used to be a regular follower of Sheffield Wednesday back in the '80s / '90s (not so much now I live abroad) and apart from once being hit by a coin at Man City (which was fucking painful), my only personal experience of "trouble" at an away game was at (surprise, surprise) Liverpool, when 3 lads off our coach alone got stanley-knived. And yet it warranted nary a mention on the news.

I also knew a lot of Scousers at university (in Manchester) - arrogant, aggressive tossers to a man. And Liverpool is also the only place where I've ever been challenged to a fight in the street for accidentally brushing against some bolshie Scouse twat on the pavement (I just walked on without making eye contact, and fortunately he left it at that).

Of course that's not to say that all the people of Liverpool are like that, but I dunno, that city seems to have a really dark, nasty side to it - far darker than most. All of it a million miles away from the Beatles and those cheery Carla Lane sitcoms.

- Eric

I live in Liverpool (born and bred) and most of the above is mostly true.
With regards to the two disasters; a few years ago a minutes silence for the victims of Hillsborough at an Everton Liverpool game was disrupted by an Everton fan shouting "What about Hysel?" This caused outrage from LFC fans and a fierce debate on local radio.
The thing that I remember most about the radio debate was that for all the lfc fans phoning in, none of them knew the date of Hysel or the number of victims.

The cause of 96 people dying at a football match was that fences were erected which prevented people getting away from the crush and onto the pitch. Imagine if fences had been erected at Bradford - how many more people would have been killed that day? The reason that fences were erected in the first place is the fault of every fucking moron who ever ran onto a football pitch to either attack rival fans, attack players, attack the referee, or simply to get their ugly fucking mug in the papers or on TV - These are the fuckers to blame for Hillsborough and the deaths of 96 people. This is why my blood boils when I see or hear attempts to glorify these so called 'Firms' in books and films nowadays. In reality they are soft, chickenhearted cunts who only ever wanted to 'fight' when the numbers were massively in their favour and when you fought back, the fuckers soon ran off. Cowardly cunts, and I've laid out a few of them in my time when they've tried to have a go at me.

Yeah I have often wondered about this also, seems that Liverpool just simply want to sweep Heysel under the carpet (as the forgotten "accident") and focus on the Hillsborough tragedy of course that does not exactly do them any favours when they are looking for "justice" now does it??

Was there not a case of fans rushing the gates at the European Cup Final a couple of years ago?

Considering as this is what caused Hillsborough it always stuck in my mind ( and my throat):(

A well thought out and fair post there, mate.

Can't argue with any of it.

Eric, it would have made sense to have gates that could be opened onto the pitch rather than these pens that people couldn't get out of. I'm not saying the Liverpool fans at Hillsborough on that fateful day behaved badly, but many fans had behaved badly over many years and that, like we have said, surely contributed to the 'pens' idea. Football crowds havent behaved badly in 20 years now, but they used to so much that I am not surprised that people like Margaret Thatcher regarded many of them as lowlife.

I think the people of Liverpool should remember Heysel just as much as Hillsborough. For them to be critical of the Police's handling of things at Hiilsborough yet say little of the appalling behaviour by many Liverpool fans at Heysel, which caused many deaths, is wrong.

Interesting points there Tony. I wonder if anyone on Merseyside feels bad about how it was Liverpool fans' behaviour at Heysel that not only caused many deaths, but got all English clubs banned from Europe for years. You don't get every club in your country banned from Europe unless you have done bad. They have something to be ashamed of but they don't seem to acknowledge that.