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As a match-going Manchester City supporter I cannot recall first hearing the bastardised version of Liverpool’s ‘Allez Allez Allez’ song. Like most chants it seemed to appear from nowhere and quickly it became established as a firm favourite in the South Stand songbook. Personally I have never sung it – or at least not all of it – and there are two valid reasons for that. Where I sit in the Colin Bell it is not possible to even shout out generic encouragement to the lads without receiving a withering stare, as if you’re up to no good. And there is a line in the song that has never sat right with me.
That is not to say that I didn’t find – and still find – the overall sentiment to the song amusing. A ribbing of Reds once again getting all carried away and believing a major piece of silverware – in this instance the Champions League of last year – was their destiny. Ultimately they ended up empty-handed while Raheem Sterling – a player who the Anfield faithful boo and hate on remorselessly – won a double. What’s not to like about such schadenfreude? Well, there’s that line but we will come to that.
Before we do though perhaps it might be necessary to whizz through a quick potted history of how the song came to be. I’ll skim because most reading this will already be very familiar with what follows.
Antagonism between Liverpool and Manchester City first intensified from a historic dislike of one another grounded in geography when both clubs became embroiled in a fiercely contested title race back in 2013/14 and the fixture schedules demanded that City travelled to Anfield late in the season. The encounter coincided with the 25th anniversary of Hillsborough and City fans were impeccable that day. They respectfully mourned during the minute’s silence. They held aloft a large banner declaring their solidarity with Liverpool.
In return the Eccles supporter’s branch coach was vandalised with stones on route to the ground. Every touch from a City player was loudly booed throughout. A loud cheer went up when Yaya Toure went off injured.
All of which – particularly given the circumstances – sickened me then and sickens me now and the response (to the latter two examples, not the coach attack) from Reds afterwards was interesting to say the least. Man up. Whatever it takes to disrupt a rival and win a game of football is fair game. Right, okay.
At the end of that season Raheem Sterling swapped a red shirt for blue and the reaction from Liverpool the club and its fans made Figo’s move from Barcelona to Real Madrid appear positively harmonious. It’s a hysteria that has only recently abated. It’s a hysteria that indirectly led to a sustained media witch-hunt of a thoroughly decent kid.
Sometime later Sadio Mane was sent off at the Etihad after inadvertently kicking Ederson in the head. Clearly there was no intention behind the incident yet it was still a red card all day long which made Liverpool supporters’ reaction to it – as if it were the greatest injustice ever committed on a football pitch – somewhat bizarre. Ederson meanwhile became a boo-boy to them for that: for having his face smashed to smithereens by boot studs.
Late last season came the most fractious episode of all when Manchester City’s team coach was vandalised so badly outside Anfield ahead of a Champions League quarter final that it required a replacement vehicle to take them home. It was a hostile ‘welcome’ taken too far and it was one too that was planned publicly beforehand with online flyers doing the rounds on social media. The Merseyside police for their part helpfully informed Liverpool fans of a change of route thus – to this writer’s perception – facilitating the attack.
As for Reds they responded to the holy rumpus that followed with mockery and pride. It was their actions, they insisted that helped traumatise the players and bring about a 3-0 victory for the home side that evening. More so they also deemed to take offence in the ensuing fall-out. There is a Manchester Evening News journalist who still today receives all manner of grief for claiming stones were thrown at the bus whereas in fact it was bottles. The offence taken at this strangely equals that of City’s at having their players attacked simply for arriving at a football match.
Regardless, their progress past City pitted them against Roma and then it was onto the final in Ukraine and, as their continental adventure continued, so their ‘Allez Allez Allez’ song that celebrated their conquering of all of Europe got louder and louder to the point where it felt ubiquitous.
So perhaps in hindsight it was inevitable that, when it all fell apart so spectacularly in the final, defeated by Real Madrid and with Mo Salah injured, a corruption of that song by City fans was always going to be penned. The lyrics to City’s version, for point of reference are below.
All the way to Kiev,
To end up in defeat,
Crying in the stands,
And battered in the streets,
Ramos injured Salah,
Victims of it all,
Sterling won the double,
And the Scousers won f*** all,
Allez, Allez, Allez.
On Tuesday evening I was out having a meal with my wife. As someone who writes about football for a living the final week of the season is obviously a hectic time and I had been working pretty much non-stop. On top of this as a City fan the toxicity between my club and its title rivals had begun to consume me, eat me up. I was banned from saying the word ‘Liverpool’ in the house, put it that way.
This then was a symbolic evening: a chance to draw a line under it all and look forward to a summer concentrating on transfers. No-one sends me threats or tries to get me sacked when I write about transfers.
Only halfway through the meal my phone began chirping incessantly as Liverpool fans asked what I made of a leaked video that had come to light, a video that showed Manchester City players singing the corrupted ‘Allez’ song. Immediately I thought this: if what they’re claiming is correct then not only will Reds be justified in feeling extremely aggrieved at this but a lot will be made of it.
My accompanying thought was of Manchester United’s Europa League win in 2016, a game that took place just two days after the Manchester bombing. That night Manchester City fans congratulated United on social media. The club did likewise and furthermore put up a tweet declaring that the city was united. Jesse Lingard meanwhile in the dressing room celebrations orchestrated a song that included the line: why don’t City f*** off home.
The sheer idiocy of this floored me.
At the earliest opportunity I watched the video and even after a few times it is unclear which players are involved, if any at all (incidentally how can an employee of Manchester City have such a rubbish phone?). That is by the by though. A group of people in the employment of City are shown singing a song that solely belongs on the terraces and even that is questionable.
The furore was swift and predominantly concentrated on two lines, the first of which is the one I’ve always had a problem with: victims of it all.
Within the context of the song the disparaging noun is quite obviously referring to Salah’s injury and the ludicrous petition that started up soon after demanding that Sergio Ramos be banned. Indeed it directly follows it in the song – Ramos injured Salah, victims of it all. In a broader sense it evokes Heysel and the sustained failure of Liverpool fans to take any responsibility for what occurred that awful evening. There are also examples given above of Liverpool fans’ propensity to react to any wrongdoing by projecting grievances of their own.
Yet here’s the thing – the only thing that matters really. When Liverpool supporters hear the word ‘victim’ they think of Hillsborough.
And how can they not when you consider the utterly egregious and drawn out fight they were forced to undertake to right the wrongful perceptions put about by the media and establishment concerning that awful day. The manner in which blame was attached to grieving innocent fans is something that will stain society for a long time to come and that was compounded when those that doubted the miscarriage of justice cast them as ‘victims’. Again that’s a stain that we would do well to not forget.
So what we have here then, should we press pause for a moment is a misunderstanding; an unsavoury one certainly but a crossing of messages nonetheless. One side means one thing. The other side interprets it another way.
Yet should we play on, the dynamic of this misunderstanding changes considerably. Because it only takes a momentary dropping of bias and the grasping of common sense to acknowledge that most people – by which I mean supporters of every denomination – are perfectly aware that using the word ‘victim’ is interpreted by Liverpool supporters to be a dog-whistle for Hillsborough.
If that is accepted what is the using of that word – along with the phrase it has a direct lineage to: always the victims, never your fault – for if not to have the ‘best of both worlds’. By this I mean the chance to sing about a trait of a rival fan-base that you feel legitimately warrants criticism or mockery, while additionally knowing deep down that they are receiving it very differently and feeling deeply offended and hurt as a consequence. If so, what kind of sick ‘bonus’ is that?
The second line that has become a serious bone of contention also concerns crossed purposes. The ‘battered in the streets’ line refers to Ukrainian ultras fighting with Liverpool supporters ahead of last season’s final. Again the context is clear from the song: Crying in the stand, battered in the streets.
Reds ,however, insist it is about the horrendous and brutal attack on Sean Cox by a Roma supporter outside Anfield thirteen months ago that resulted in the 53-year-old spending a long period in a neurological unit.
It’s not. It’s really not and City fans have told and told and told Liverpool supporters this with such regularity and vehemence that you suspect there is a contrivance to project extra, intensified offence at something where offence is justified anyway (it is after all still a celebration of their own getting beaten up).
It is hoped that Reds will perhaps question why City supporters insist on correcting this misunderstanding in such numbers. Is it because they are shamed by it being about Sean Cox? If so surely they would not sing the song in the first place (and it is worth remembering at this juncture that it is not a hardcore minority who sing the song but a large and wide demographic). Is it a ‘trick’ then, with Blues laughing away in private after convincing Reds otherwise? Again, a nonsensical suggestion because football fans don’t work in this way. We have learned from Liverpool in 2014 and through a heavily vandalised coach that the rule is whatever it takes to disrupt a rival right?
More so, City have had to take on board their own suffering when a Blue was induced into a coma after being assaulted at Schalke this season. Lastly – and this cannot be put across strongly enough – City supporters are not depraved psychopaths who laugh at individuals in comas.
Still though, as just stated, the line does refer to supporters being beaten up in Ukraine and this brings us back to the video and Manchester City players and staff singing about this. That’s not a good look. Nor is their scoffing at a fellow professional in Mo Salah getting injured.
That ultimately is my take on this regrettable incident. It’s not a good look and Liverpool fans have every right to be incensed by it.
So where does this leave us? It leaves us with a rivalry that was already toxic now worsening to a dangerous level that requires calmer and cleverer heads than my own to step in and subdue the ill-feeling.
As for me, I am looking forward to the summer now more than ever. For a chance to have a pint or three with Liverpool supporting mates without our teams encroaching into the conversation. A chance to be civilised without twenty-two men kicking around a ball making us display the very worst of our nature.