On 25 May, the day before the Liverpool Football Club victory parade, our regular pro-Palestine march through the city got unusually dangerous. A taxi, unhappy about the march delaying the traffic on Hanover Street, tried to force its way through the marchers, thankfully not at speed, so whilst I personally came into contact with the front of the taxi, I wasn’t injured, nor did it get through. The sound of an ambulance approaching provoked a very beefy Liverpool fan (definitely a scouser, unlike hundreds who had literally flown in from around the globe) to take matters into his hands and forcibly remove some of us from what he assumed would be the ambulance’s path. He clearly thought that these terrorist-supporters wouldn’t have the decency to make way themselves. Again, I came into contact with the man’s bulging muscles, but again I was unharmed. We carried on to our destination: Derby Square, chanted, and listened to speeches and announcements, including what was planned for the victory parade the following day.
I must confess that I was ambivalent and conflicted. I don’t
really like huge crowds. And I’m not that much a fan of premiership football,
what with the eye-watering amounts of money surrounding the game, generally
swimming out of ordinary fans’ pockets into millionaire players’, directors’
and billionaire owners’ pockets. I went, however, and got lost in the crowd , because
Liverpool Friends of Palestine had hit on the idea of spraying the LFC logo
onto Palestinian flags and waving them along the route, hoping to get them
noticed as much as possible. And they
succeeded. There are even some photos and footage of the star Mo Salah
acknowledging the flag and the activist. Result!
Apart from those images however, I don’t recall Salah or
anybody else in the squad saying anything about the genocide. I don’t recall
seeing any photos of Palestine flags flying during Liverpool home games in anywhere near the quantities seen at Celtic, up in Glasgow. That’s why I was
conflicted.
When, later, news came of a vehicle running down fans, I hoped the driver wasn’t Black, wasn’t Muslim, and wasn’t doing it as part of a misguided protest against British foreign policy. That would only provoke more race riots, of which there have been a few in and around Liverpool over the last few years.
We know now, of course, that the suspect is a 53-year-old white man. A businessman. A family man. So out of character. There is talk of drug abuse. There is talk of far-right allegiances. But no talk of riots. No talk of deaths. No talk of historic violence by white men across the globe. Life will go on, it seems, and the next football season will be upon us soon enough. As one of Liverpool’s most illustrious managers, Bill Shankly, said, “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.”
Needless to say, I don’t agree with that. But I am not the only one. On the day the Palestine supporters were being attacked in Liverpool, a cup final was taking place in London. It was not at Wembley or any of the Premier League grounds. Maidstone United’s Gallagher Stadium was the setting for the London & South East Regional Women’s Football League Trophy Final. 100%-fan-owned Clapton CFC Women’s First Team were leading Dulwich Hamlet Reserves by 2 – 0. Palestine flags were flying in the stands. One banner railed against the genocide in Palestine. Another called for the Filton 18 - Palestine supporters who had carried out direct action – to be freed from jail. The stadium’s officials asked for the flags and banners to be put away. The fans refused. The players refused to play behind closed doors. Eventually, the game was abandoned.
As far as those female players and their fans were concerned,
therefore, Palestinian life and death are very much more important than
football. That warms my heart, and I for one will happily
travel a few hundred miles to join the victory parade of the winning team, if the
match is replayed. If I don’t end up in jail for protesting a genocide.
