'Tragedy chanting' — anatomy of a concept
'Tragedy chanting' — anatomy of a concept
Lancashire's defeat of Nasty Britain
At English football matches, opposing fans will seek to wind each other up. Perhaps this could be criticised as juvenile, but it is a deeply entrenched element of football fandom in England, which — in contrast to, say, German football fandom — relies less upon well-organised spectacle (drums, pyrotechnics, elaborate banners, etc.), and more upon spontaneous and visceral reaction to what is happening on the pitch and in the other stands. It is a football fandom that is mostly leaderless: no football fan in Britain could take seriously the German man who declared himself the ‘leader of the SV Darmstadt fans’. This native culture of football fandom, one could argue, is part of what makes English football so great, and part of what makes it such a marketable product worldwide.
In Volume II (November 2023) of this very journal, my co-editor Scott Goetz published the excellent piece ‘Two-tier policing’, which details some of the bizarre rules put in place to specifically target English football fans, such as Football Banning Orders that force fans to hand in their passports when the England women’s national football team are playing abroad (‘a staggeringly authoritarian overreach given that nobody with an FBO has ever been to a women’s football match’, my co-editor observes). With regard to ‘free speech’ at football matches, Goetz writes:
Freedom of speech is a non-starter inside stadia. Recently, in the aftermath of the death of Bobby Charlton, an apey Manc 17-year-old decided to chant something offensive about him at Manchester City vs Manchester United. For the crime of being rude about a dead person, this teenager has been arrested and charged with a Public Order Offence. At Sheffield Wednesday vs Sunderland, a fan of Wednesday decided to wave a picture of a recently deceased Sunderland fan at the opposing fans. He was duly arrested the next day for outraging public decency. For decades, opposition fans have taken to shouting ‘Rent Boy’ at Chelsea fans, allegedly because a member of their hooligan firm was found in bed with one in the 1980s. This has been chanted on hundreds of occasions over decades resulting in zero outbursts of homophobic violence. Yet in 2022, the CPS decided that this was a homophobic slur, and fans are now being arrested for using it.
One important development not directly mentioned in this article was the issuance — little noticed at the time by most, but now noticeable to any and all football fans, and indeed even those who do not follow football at all, given the media attention — of new Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) guidance on ‘tragedy chanting’. As private entities, football clubs and the Premier League are quite free to decide who should or should not be allowed to attend their football matches. The involvement of the police for the saying of offensive words is, however, another matter — one of free speech. Although Public Order Offences are so broad as to have already allowed prosecutions of ‘tragedy chanting’ — as demonstrated by a number of prosecutions prior to the issuance of the guidance — the new guidance led to a media frenzy and a massive uptick in arrests for such chanting.
It has been popular for libertarians to compare all Western restrictions on free speech to ‘blasphemy laws’. Normally, this is somewhat misleading. Many restrictions on speech are at least partly intended as part of the state’s wider policy of managing inter-ethnic conflict after mass migration, and the speech restrictions are only partly motivated by the offensiveness of the speech in itself. If an insulting picture of Mohammed was published, or the Qu’ran burned, then Muslims might kick off and cause chaos. Although it is certainly true that the feeling of ‘offence’ in itself is still of importance, there are other factors at play in pushing through these restrictions.
It is difficult to interpret the criminalisation of ‘tragedy chanting’ through the same somewhat ‘pragmatic’ lens. ‘Tragedy chanting’ does not target a specific religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, and thus is somewhat atypical of speech restrictions in this country. Perhaps it could be argued that these chants rouse such deep feelings at a football match that they make football-related violence more likely to break out, but I have never really seen this argument deployed in support of a ban. Whatever the prosecution might claim at trial, the arguments in favour of criminalisation seemingly hinge entirely on the first-order effect of the chants causing ‘offence’, not on the second-order effect of Scousers or Mancunians or whoever committing violence or causing property damage due to said ‘offence’. Equally, I have never seen anyone suggest that ‘tragedy chanting’ at a football ground might cause periodic outbreaks of inter-regional violence unrelated to football in the streets of Liverpool, Manchester, and Leeds.
This criminalisation has been spearheaded by the cries of Northern football clubs. Southern and Midlands football clubs, with their more affluent and (usually) more right-wing fanbases, have been rather less involved. It must be said that this is partly because of football-related ‘tragedies’ being disproportionately Northern: Hillsborough and Heysel (Liverpool), Istanbul (Leeds), Munich (Manchester United), the Bradford Fire (Bradford), and even Bradley Lowery (Sunderland). There are a few exceptions, of course — such as the Leicester helicopter crash (Leicester) and the death of Emiliano Sala (Cardiff) — but as the narrative outlined below will demonstrate, it is indisputable that the ban was pushed through by Northern activism. More specifically, every single flashpoint involved one or more of the following clubs: Liverpool, Manchester United, and Leeds.
Every child who has been teased knows that showing that you are upset is the best way to encourage them. Quite aside from the important ‘free speech’ issues at hand, the exact opposite approach has been taken by English football clubs with the phenomenon of ‘tragedy chanting’. By way of contrast, it is worth noting here the relative lack of attention paid by both Rangers and Celtic fans to the Ibrox Stadium Disaster of 1971, in which sixty-six Rangers fans died in a crush at an Old Firm match. Given the intensity of the rivalry between Rangers and Celtic, this seems unimaginable if it had occurred England, and yet it is so. The basic reason for this seems to be that, by and large, Rangers fans have moved on. The disaster is not brought up so much by Rangers, meaning it is not brought up so much by Celtic — partly because the disaster stings less for Rangers, and partly because fewer fans on either side of the rivalry think much about it full stop. Even more interesting, while fans of Northern football clubs have repeatedly demanded more and more restrictions on fan behaviour and speech, screeching for prosecutions for every offence they can think of (‘tragedy chanting’ or not), both Celtic and Rangers fans have combined to aggressively oppose the Scottish Government’s many attempts to impose similar restrictions in Glasgow, and their activities have made many of those restrictions that are in place unenforceable.
Leaving aside Hillsborough for now — which is much more recent, and involves legitimate Scouse grievances with the British media, police, and state — let us contrast this situation with the second favourite target of ‘tragedy chanting’: the Munich Air Disaster of 1958, in which eight Manchester United players died. This, of course, was indeed tragic: some of England’s best athletes had their lives cut short in their prime, not to mention the more than a dozen other victims. But there is no getting away from the basic fact that it occurred in 1958. Club history is important to any serious fan, but this was, to put it mildly, a very long time ago. Harold Macmillan had just become Prime Minister. Most of our colonies had not yet become independent. Just a few months before the disaster, great advances in ‘rocketry’ meant that the dog Laika was sent to space by the Soviet Union. The great majority of Manchester United fans were not even alive when this ‘tragedy’ occurred; even fewer can remember it.
Thinking outside of football, if we are being honest with ourselves, even Remembrance Sunday feels increasingly strange given how few soldiers who served in the Second World War — which, along with the First World War, is really what Remembrance Sunday is about (despite the nominal inclusion of other war dead) — are still around to remember their fallen comrades. It is partly for this reason that Remembrance Sunday has devolved into a mawkish mess, now better known to the mass of the population as ‘Poppy Day’ (a fittingly vile terminology). As such, despite being a staunch British patriot, I am very willing to entertain proposals that some elements of Remembrance Sunday should be gradually wound down over the next decade. Yet Remembrance Sunday remembers the 880,000 dead of the First World War and the 384,000 dead of the Second World War, not the twenty-three dead of 1958. If Remembrance Sunday can feel strange, what of the continuance of solemn annual memorials to Munich in perpetuity?
Unless you have a close personal connection to the disaster — and no, merely being a Manchester United fan does not count, especially if you were born so late you cannot remember it — we have to be honest that this amount of dedication to the ‘remembrance’ of various ‘tragedies’ and ‘disasters’ is somewhat unusual. It is especially strange to demand that people be sent to prison for making fun of these long-gone disasters. And yet this is treated as entirely normal in Modern Britain, not least by Woke football journalists, who have been amongst the most active in egging the police on in making arrests and prosecutions. It reflects a certain emotional disorder that is very common in Britain nowadays. And even aside from the emotions of it all, the English do seem to have an odd habit of never letting go: think of how English football teams continued taking the knee long after sportsmen in the United States stopped. We’re very diligent with our rituals; nothing can ever be allowed to fade from memory.
These developments in policing ultimately reflect the growth of an intolerably mawkish and authoritarian culture in Britain, once (perhaps) attributable more specifically to Lancashire, but now spreading elsewhere, especially in the provinces. Big blubbing bearded blokes with tattoos who talk about men’s mental health and the need to check each other’s prostates — we all know the type. A Mancunian friend of mine, disgusted by this culture, describes an addiction to what he calls ‘tacky Tiny Tim-esque tragedy’, usually featuring absurd gravestones with quotes from Disney movies, and funerals attended by men dressed up as Iron Man or wearing football shirts.1 The rise of this kind of emotional incontinence since 2010 could be interpreted as a reaction to the ‘Nasty Britain’ of the Blair years, an era in which even indisputably mainstream television seemed to revel in gratuitous cruelty. After a decade or more of bashing chavs, fat people, and welfare cheats, an austerity-minded Coalition came to power — and much of the general public abruptly went the other way.
As a specific term, ‘tragedy chanting’ — a somewhat absurd sounding terminology — appears to be very new indeed. Google Books ngram, which scans for words or phrases in virtually every book published in the English language between 1800 to 2019, returned zero results for the phrase. Google Trends shows a score of ‘zero’ from the beginning of records in January 2004 all the way up until March 2023. Interest then soon returned to ‘zero’ in May 2023, before spiking again, first in November 2023, and then massively in March 2024. Finding out about the origins of ‘tragedy chanting’ as a concept requires a considerable amount of detective work, wading through years of generic complaints about offensive chants at football matches. In fact, to track developments, we are far better off searching for mentions of (for instance) so-called ‘Hillsborough chants’, as it was only much later that this specific outrage morphed into the general offence of ‘tragedy chanting’.
That said, the general concept of grouping all football-related disasters together — Munich, Hillsborough, Heysel, et cetera — does seem to have been irresistible from very early on, even if it took time for the precise terminology to appear. The motive seems to have been not just a desire to ban rude opposition fans, but also to morally posture amongst your own fans. For instance, in January 2008, preening LFCReds forum user ‘Tayls’ replied to user ‘T-United-LFC’, who was asking about Liverpool and football hooliganism with the following:
Do you mean the Urchins [a famous Liverpool firm]? If that link is right and it was them who made fun of the Munich accident, then they're no worse than the tw*ts [sic] who sing Hillsborough chants and Heysel songs. It's not funny and its [sic] not clever when you sing about something where people died. Disgraceful....
User ‘T-United-LFC’, who clearly felt called out by ‘Tayls’ (and another user, ‘JD’), defended himself, replying that ‘I wasnt laughing at Munich, thats a childish thing to do… i dont find slating Munich 58 funny in the slightest’. Of course, what is somewhat amusing about this response is that, at least implicitly, smashing someone’s face in over a football match is okay — after all, why else start a thread about Liverpool football hooligans? — but saying mean words chants about your rivals is completely beyond the pale.
Despite decades of complaints about ‘Hillsborough chants’ (and to a lesser extent, ‘Munich chants’), the turning point seems to have been in 2011 — the early years of the Posh Turn, and the end of Nasty Britain. In an April 2011 article for The Times, Kevin Sampson, author of Awaydays, a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel about a Scouse football hooligan, was asked about supporters ‘singing songs about Munich… [and] Hillsborough’. His response is of interest:
As someone who has actively campaigned for justice for the 96 [and, moreover, was at the match itself], surely this is something Sampson looks… unfavourably upon? Should the Hillsborough chants lead to arrest? Surprisingly, Sampson thinks not.
“I’m going to put my head on the chopping block here and say that this part of fan culture, while regrettable, is understandable.
“It’s far too easy to become pious about what is, at its best, a passionate and volatile spectator sport. I don’t think Man United fans are celebrating the disaster in itself – it’s more a means of expressing their consummate loathing for all things Liverpool. It may be below the belt and below most peoples’ plimsol line for good taste, but I really don’t think it’s personal. It’s business.”
The fact that justice finally seems to be coming no doubt softens the blow of the [Hillsborough] chanting…
A very sensible answer, but the direction that discussion was going by 2011 is clear enough from the article. I cannot say for sure where the idea that those who engaged in ‘tragedy chanting’ should face arrest actually originally came from. However, that even The Times — which would clearly be more reticent about a ban than, say, the kitchen-sink-moralising Mirror — was clearly very surprised that Sampson didn’t support criminalising these chants suggests that Sampson’s ‘liberal’ views were probably no longer entirely mainstream; certainly, they were not mainstream.
The irony, of course, was that ‘justice… coming’ for Hillsborough’s victims, far from ‘soften[ing] the blow’, in fact very directly provided the impetus for a twelve-year long campaign to crack down on ‘tragedy chanting’ — first through ejections and match bans, and eventually, from 2023 onwards, through prosecutions. For it is no coincidence that this followed on from the October 2011 decision of Conservative Home Secretary, Theresa May, to release hundreds of thousands of documents relating to Hillsborough in response to a petition. In that debate, Conservative MP Thérèse Coffey, a Merseyside native, argued that ‘the time has come to end the vile chanting about Hillsborough… I call on Premier League clubs to show those chants are treated as if they are racist chants’, referencing a letter from Sir Alec Ferguson to Manchester United fans in October 2011, which requested that they stop singing about the Hillsborough disaster. Treating ‘Hillsborough chanting’ like ‘racist chanting’ was, of course, exactly what would happen twelve years later, in 2023.
The article in The Guardian that reported on Ferguson’s letter also mentioned that this came after a Leeds v Manchester United match the previous month that was ‘marred by chants about the 1958 Munich air disaster, in which 11 United players and staff were killed, and Leeds’s game at Galatasaray in 2000 when two of the Yorkshire club's supporters were stabbed to death’, thus tying together three football-related ‘tragedies’ in a single article: Hillsborough, Munich, and Istanbul.
The connection between the criminalisation of ‘tragedy chanting’ and the Hillsborough Inquest is even more obvious from Sir Alex Ferguson’s letter to Manchester United supporters ahead of another match against Liverpool, eleven months later in September 2012, which specifically mentions the inquest:
But today [Sunday] is about much more than not blocking gangways. Today is about thinking hard about what makes United the best club in the world…
Just 10 days ago, we heard the terrible, damning truth about the deaths of 96 fans who went to watch their team try and reach the FA Cup final and never came back. What happened to them should wake the conscience of everyone connected with the game.
Our great club stands with our great neighbours Liverpool today to remember that loss and pay tribute to their campaign for justice. I know I can count on you to stand with us in the best traditions of the best fans in the game.
This time, Ferguson did not directly reference chants about Hillsborough, but the message was clear enough. The events of ‘just 10 days ago’ was, of course, the publication of the Hillsborough Inquest, which ruled that ‘no Liverpool fans were responsible in any way for the disaster’. As such, the frequent ‘murderers’ and ‘always the victims’ chants — quite aside from those chants that directly mocked the disaster — from Manchester United fans became akin to ‘Hillsborough Denial’.
A few days later, the Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST) published a statement backing Ferguson’s letter:
Fans will also be aware that there has been significant interest in the media about offensive chanting and gestures in reference to the Hillsborough and Munich disasters that befell the two clubs…
It is not the role of MUST to tell any United supporter how to support their club but we do wish to reiterate the position of our organisation.
We agree 100 per cent with the statement made by Sir Alex Ferguson and wish to leave no room for doubt – we unequivocally condemn chants mocking the Munich air crash, Hillsborough and indeed any other human tragedy.
This letter seems to propose that, in exchange for ending ‘Hillsborough Denial’, there should also be a ban on ‘chants mocking the Munich air crash… and indeed any other human tragedy’ — a total end to ‘tragedy chanting’ writ large. The statement from MUST also noted that ‘Merseyside police and Liverpool stewards will be looking to take action against any individuals identified as engaging in this type of behaviour’. However, despite the reference to the ‘Merseyside police’, the risk at this point seemed contained to ‘ejection and banning from other games’, as of course any owner of a stadium is entirely within their rights to do.
In response to Manchester United condemning their own fans for singing ‘always the victims’ (though some supporters denied this was to do with Hillsborough), Brighton fansight North Stand Chat discussed the issue of ‘tragedy chanting’, with user ‘El Presidente’ (‘The ONLY Gay in Brighton’) wondering whether this was ‘a fair condemnation or further evidence of the sanitisation of the game and the Dianafication of hand wringers who think they know what is “best” for us’. This prompted twelve pages of heated discussion in which many, while not necessarily actually opposing a ‘ban’ on these chants, took the view that Hillsborough was being ‘milked’ by Liverpool fans and that they were ‘hypocrites’ due to their chants about Munich. Once again, the compromise position in response to Scousers upset about ‘Hillsborough chanting’ was a total end to all ‘tragedy chanting’.
By 2017, it appears that fans were being semi-regularly ejected from matches for references to football tragedies; for instance, Twitter account ‘Match Goer’ stated that ‘a City fan was ejected for a Munich gesture on Sunday’. Nonetheless, this was a decision by a private entity, and is very different from actually prosecuting those who engage in so-called ‘tragedy chanting’. It was not until 2023 that things really started moving in this direction.
Since the end of Lockdown, there has been a real or alleged uptick in football-related violence and disorder across the continent, sparking a minor moral panic in Britain, France, and (especially) the Netherlands. This disorder has mostly been blamed on younger fans, often under the influence of cocaine. In response, politicians have been more determined than ever to force through bizarre and repressive measures targeting football fans specifically, many of which have already been described in our previous article, ‘Two-tier policing’. While proposals to ban ‘tragedy chanting’ were bubbling beneath the surface for over decade, this crackdown seems to have finally provided the opportunity to actually implement and enforce a ban.
Strangely enough, the very first mention of ‘tragedy chanting’ that I was able to verify — which seems to have been little noticed at the time — did not involve Liverpool. Instead, it seems to have followed Manchester United v Leeds on 11 February 2023, when ‘shortly before half-time, chants about the Munich Air Disaster and the murders in 2000 of two Leeds fans in Istanbul were traded between the rival fans’. These were condemned by both clubs as ‘completely unacceptable’. The Premier League itself commented that
…the league is treating the issue of tragedy chanting as a priority and as a matter of urgency.
Why exactly tackling ‘tragedy chanting’ — seemingly a new coinage — was all of a sudden a ‘matter of urgency’ and a ‘priority’ is unclear. Most likely it managed to find its way onto the agenda as a result of the more general moral panic around football since the end of Lockdown. It was, after all, in January 2022 when the Crown Prosecution Service suddenly decided that ‘rent boy’ chants directed at Chelsea were homophobic, and therefore a hate crime.
From this point, it seems to have been frequently alleged in the media that ‘tragedy chanting’ had dramatically increased versus what it had been a few years ago. This seems unlikely, and no evidence for this claim is ever provided — indeed, given that ‘tragedy chanting’ is a newly invented category, it would not be possible to find out. It seems unlikely that chanting about Hillsborough was any more frequent in 2023 than in 2003; if anything, given the steady embourgeoisement and Madrification of football fandom since the ’90s, it might well be the opposite. It would be easy to claim that ‘tragedy chanting’ had increased based on media reporting alone, but to take this at face value would be absurd. More likely, reporting on offensive chants at football matches increased because public interest in offensive chants at football matches increased.
On 7 August, partly in response to this moral panic, the CPS finally issued new guidance on ‘tragedy chanting’. With the examples of ‘references to the Hillsborough Disaster, Munich Air Crash, Bradford Fire, Leeds fans killed in Istanbul, or the death of Emiliano Sala in a plane crash’, the CPS stated that they were pursuing this course of action because ‘tragedy-related abuse… can have a devastating impact on the bereaved and their communities’ — that is to say, they were purely pursuing this due to the ‘offence’ caused, not because of the risk of violence or property damage. The precise guidance reads as follows:
Such conduct may amount to an offence under the Public Order Act 1986, notably under section 5 (harassment, alarm or distress) or section 4A (intentional harassment, alarm or distress)…
A football banning order may be available for such offences… and should be sought where available.
When such abuse takes place online, it may constitute an offence under section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 (sending a letter, electronic communication or article with intent to cause distress or anxiety) or section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 (improper use of public electronic communications network).
It was generally possible to prosecute people for ‘tragedy chanting’ even before this guidance was issued. For instance, on June 3, Manchester United fan James White wore a shirt with the number ‘97’, with the text above it reading ‘Not Enough’ to the FA Cup final. He was prosecuted for ‘displaying threatening or abusive writing likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress’, found guilty, fined £1000, and given a four-year Football Banning Order. The CPS commented that they would ‘continue to work with the police in cases involving tragedy chanting, and people who behave in this way will be brought to justice and will be banned from matches’ — all of this prior to the release of the new guidance. The CPS also gave two other examples of prosecutions for ‘tragedy chanting’ prior to the release of the new guidance: one man was given a suspended prison sentence in June 2023 for offensive tweets about Hillsborough and Jews in April 2020; and, also in June, a Spurs fan was fined and given a FBO for mocking Hillsborough in April 2023.
As the CPS itself noted in its 7 August press release, the new guidance merely ‘reconfirm[ed]’ that it was possible to prosecute those who engaged in ‘tragedy chanting’. However, as we shall see, it signalled a dramatic change in focus and approach, even if it did not mean a change to the law.
Since then, there has been a feeding frenzy whereby clubs, media, and police work together to manufacture outrage — despite, in many cases, very few fans being aware of the ‘tragedy chanting’ at the time, a classic example of the Streisand Effect, especially relevant given that the alleged reason for prosecuting was the upset caused — and use the stadium panopticon to pursue prosecutions against apey fans making offensive gestures, holding offensive banners or pictures, or singing offensive chants. These, of course, are only those cases that I have been able to find. If you are aware of others, please send them in via a DM on X.com, or by leaving a comment.
For those who have not read ‘Two-tier policing’, it is important to note that a ‘Football Banning Order’ is a criminal matter, imposed by the police — not by the FA, the Premier League, or an individual club — and that it involves much more than merely preventing a fan from attending matches, such as the handing in of one’s passport whenever England play abroad, and being at risk of arrest if you enter an (absurdly large) exclusion zone around a stadium on a match day.
Things seem to have kicked off on 14 August, when a Chelsea fan was arrested for ‘tragedy chanting’ after a match against Liverpool; Liverpool fans, according to the Daily Mail, ‘blast[ed]’ the police for making ‘only ONE arrest’, rather than very many more. Next, on 1 October, two Sheffield Wednesday fans were arrested after mocking the death of Bradley Lowery by holding up a picture of him and laughing in a match against Sunderland. Perhaps most absurdly of all, on 2 October, it was reported that a Plymouth fan had been fined £750(!) for tweeting that his own club’s striker was ‘on fire just like Mick Philpott’s house’ after a match against Derby (Philpott, who was from Derby, murdered his family by arson). On 6 November, Luton fans were condemned for ‘Hillsborough chants’ in their match against Liverpool; although police were clearly angling for arrests, it is unclear if anything actually happened. On 17 December, three Manchester United fans (two from Somerset, one from Gloucestershire) were arrested for ‘tragedy chanting’ outside of Anfield.
Even more fans have landed themselves in trouble with the law over offensive words this year. On 4 January, a Newcastle fan unsuccessfully challenged a Football Banning Order — costing him £1180 (a £400 fine, £620 costs, and a £160 surcharge) — imposed against him for offensive comments about Munich outside the stadium that were published on YouTube in September 2023. On 23 February, two Millwall fans were given FBOs after making helicopter gestures and pointing at a helicopter during a game against Leicester City. On 4 March, a Manchester City fan was arrested for mocking the Munich Air Disaster. On 18 March, one man was charged with ‘tragedy chanting’ after eight arrests at Liverpool v Manchester United. On 27 March, two Stoke fans were given FBOs for mocking the murders of two Leeds fans in Istanbul in 2000. On 10 April, an Everton fan was successfully prosecuted and handed a FBO for the same reason. And, most recently, on 28 April, a Burnley fan was charged under the Public Order Act for mocking the Munich Air Disaster.
With proper legal representation, how many of these fans would have been punished less harshly, or even let off entirely? It’s hard to say. While activist lawyers will rush in to defend asylum seekers at risk of deportation for violent rape and paedophilia pro bono, issuing appeal after appeal, few are at all interested in standing up for these football fans. On the whole, these fans are not the most sympathetic of cases, not being able to play any politically useful or relevant cards in their favour: understandably, most of the general public dislikes people who (for instance) make fun of children who have died of cancer, not least when such people are overwhelmingly white men, usually gainfully employed. A stadium owner is, of course, completely within his rights to deny entry to such people. But to repeat ourselves, this does not mean that they should be prosecuted.
Politicians, lawyers, and the media march hand in hand as they erode the fundamental liberties of the English people. Football fans are generally prosecuted so aggressively that it is unlikely that a better lawyer would have done much good in many of these cases. As such, the important work needs to be done on the political level. Football fans interested in standing up for English liberties need to make it better known that self-appointed ‘fan representatives’ and Woke football journalists are often not wholly representative of either football fans or broader public opinion in this country. But given the current political atmosphere in Britain, and the impending election of Keir Starmer? Don’t hold your breath.
To be clear, the main tragedies of ‘tragedy chanting’ do not fall under this ‘tacky Tiny Tim’ category: this is a comment on the broader culture of the region, and increasingly Britain as a whole.
My favourite such case is the Lucy Letby chant https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/appalling-lucy-letby-chant-heard-27674695 I wonder if the police managed to’hunt down the culprits’.