City supporters, or at least a proportion of them, simply use references to Munich to define United, and by extension themselves. Liverpool fans have often been the ones who have sought to goad United with aeroplane impressions and specific chants about 1958. It is a great story as well as a tragic one, but how were City supposed to react to it? What could the other club in Manchester do, short of packing up and going home in the knowledge they could never compete with such a powerful backstory, a mythology carefully layered into United's present-day omnipotence? Mancunians of either persuasion who lived through the tragedy and the 10-year aftermath culminating in the 1968 European Cup final appear to have coexisted with a dignified respect, though for subsequent generations of City fans the word Munich is little more than a historical signifier that denotes United. Reviewing the programme United in these pages on Monday, Richard Williams noted that the drama showed how the Old Trafford club came to acquire a special place in the hierarchy of football, and how a near-universal sympathy endured throughout the years in which Matt Busby and Jimmy Murphy led United back to success with a team that everyone could admire. Offending the other lot is what football rivals like to do, though it is debatable whether City fans are trying to offend United fans with the term "Munichs" as much as differentiate themselves from the event that defines the other half of Manchester. Not every Everton supporter actually feels that way, though some certainly do, yet "Bitter Blue" is a classic insult because it manages to offend everyone, which is why Liverpool fans are so fond of it. Bitter because Everton were deprived entry to the European Cup owing to the ban that Liverpool supporters brought about by their behaviour at Heysel, and have blamed their rivals ever since for the break-up of that title-winning side and the subsequent slide into mediocrity that may have been prevented had Everton been able to generate income and exposure in Europe for a few years in the way that Liverpool themselves pioneered. It would be easy to use Glasgow to illustrate the point, but as forces outside football are clearly at work there, and so much has been said on the subject in recent weeks, let's go to Merseyside instead.Įverton routinely call Liverpool "Red shite", while every Evertonian in Liverpool eyes is a "Bitter Blue". Rare is the football rivalry, for instance, where one side does not speak of the other in the most hurtful and disparaging way possible. Manchester City have ejected and banned people for doing that in the past, and are understandably worried that one or two idiots may take their hatred of United too far and tarnish the FA Cup final with similar behaviour, though asking supporters to find an alternative, less provocative nickname for their least favourite club would be a much taller order. Regrettable as that may be, and distasteful as the whole topic might appear to anyone with a normal sense of values, it is possibly worth saying that the use of a nickname is not quite as offensive as imitating aeroplanes and singing the infamous runway song. Obviously it would be preferable if City did not use the label "Munichs" as a derogatory term for their neighbours and rivals, but they do, and have been using it for many years. Callous insensitivity, or manufactured controversy? Probably somewhere in between. In case you are still in the dark, City fans now sing: "Who put the ball in the Munichs' net? Yaya, Yaya." Said colleague hadn't heard any anti-Munich chants either, but had been alerted to a situation via his Twitter feed where people were discussing the acceptability or otherwise of City's new song about Yaya Touré scoring the winner against United at Wembley a week previously. In the week when a dramatisation of the 1958 Manchester United air disaster was on television it seemed somehow inevitable that Manchester City fans would be accused of disrespectful Munich chants, though speaking as one who attended the game, the behaviour of the visiting supporters at Blackburn Rovers on Monday was not as bad as might be imagined from some of the more hysterical reports.Ĭall me dozy or unobservant if you like, but it was only in the press room afterwards when a colleague asked if I had heard anti-Munich chants from the City fans that I realised anything untoward may have taken place.
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