THE FOOTBALL SUPPORTER by Whispering Jack

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I had the pleasure this week to attend the world premiere of "Songs from the Kop" written by Melbourne playwright Neil Cole. Through the eyes of Sharon, a devoted supporter and a "scouser", the play covers the rise of the Liverpool Football Club in the early 1960s under Bill Shankly to a sustained period of triumph over the ensuing decades under a succession of famous managers, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Kenny Dalglish, and to the tragedy of Hillsborough  when 96 spectators died and hundreds were injured in the crush of an overcrowded pen that was designated for Liverpool fans at the ground.

A subsequent coronial enquiry overlooked the incompetence of the police and suggested one of the main causes was the drunkenness of the Liverpool fans (even childrens' blood was tested for alcohol). The outcome angered a grieving population who fought for more than two decades for justice and to clear the reputations of the club's supporters - and in the end they were vindicated. In the main, the Liverpool Football Club has remained a power house in the sport.

The play is a tribute to the football supporter - the true lifeblood of the game. If you're not an avid supporter of a sporting club, then it might not be for you. Shankly is quoted in it as saying when he once picked up a lost scarf from the ground at Liverpool's Anfield Stadium that "this scarf represents someone's life."

The Kop was a terraced area at Anfield where the local fans would congregate. The 60s were an exciting time at Liverpool. They saw the enormous worldwide impact of the Merseybeat sound led by the Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Cilla Black and a great many others and also coincided with the ascent of the city's football team from Second Division to the FA Cup, the League Championship and the UEFA Cup before Shankly's retirement in 1974.

The Kop rang out with songs that often derided the opposition, praised their own players, greats like Steve Heighway, Dalglish and Ian Rush and lauded their home town. Life went on day after day, ferries crossed the Mersey River, "this land's the place I love and here I'll stay." and then came Hillsborough. By 1994, the Kop was closed in the name of ensuring safety standards at British football grounds.

I couldn't help thinking during the play about how the paths of the Liverpool Football Club and the Melbourne Football Club crossed and converged half a century ago. While the former languished in the 50s and the early part of the 60s, the Demons were supreme. In 1964 the Beatles came to Australia and hundreds of thousands of screaming fans congregated outside the Southern Cross Hotel where the Liverpudlians and their entourage were staying. That year Melbourne were premiers and Liverpool won their first League championship since 1946–47, thereby qualifying for participation in European competition for the first time. The following season, they won their first FA Cup.

But from that time, things remained rosy  for the Liverpool fan and downhill for the Melbourne supporter. We never had a tragedy of loss of life, family and friends like Hillsborough but as supporters we have lived in constant sorrow and in the expectation of a return to past glory for so long.

Cole's play got it right. It's all about the supporters and the solidarity with their team. Shankly once famously 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."

It certainly is for the true football supporter wherever you are and whatever your football team.

That reality came upon me as I drove out of the car park after "Songs from the Kop" and found myself at the lights on Bourke Street exactly opposite to where the Southern Cross Hotel once stood. This was the week before the start of another football season. The street was strangely deserted and eerily quiet but along with the ghosts of the crowd that once stood there in 1964, I couldn't help but start humming the tune of the Liverpool anthem, the song for all true believers in sport - for the football supporter who never walks alone,

The play is on at the Butterfly Club 5 Carson Place, Melbourne. Tonight is the last night but later in the year, it will be performed at the Edinburgh Festival.

 https://thebutterflyclub.com. 

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