Fans who spoiled Liverpool FC Hillsborough tribute brought shame to Man City

The modern-day rivalry between Manchester City and Liverpool has largely remained a healthy one. The mutual respect and admiration between the two managers, and two sets of players, has meant that games between the two have been played in a good spirit.

The vast majority of fans, on both sides, have also stayed in the right spirit, indulging in plenty of online fun and games, but rarely straying over the demarcation line between banter and bad taste. A minority of City fans crossed that line on Saturday by chanting through the proposed minute’s silence for the 97 victims of the Hillsborough disaster.

There have been suggestions that the chants came from the Wembley concourse, from supporters who were unaware that the remembrance of the victims of that terrible tragedy was taking place. Usually when that happens, word quickly passes back from those inside the ground, and with referee Michael Oliver cutting the tribute short as Liverpool fans responded by booing, it is difficult to determine whether it was from fans who were oblivious or not. City did the right thing by quickly apologising for the behaviour of the small number of fans.

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Whichever way you cut it, it was an embarrassment to the club and to the vast majority of decent City fans who observed the moment and paid their respects to loyal supporters who, like them, had gone to cheer on their team at an FA Cup semi-final, but never made it home again. The fact that the families of those victims had to wait for so long, and fight so hard, to get a degree of justice, in the face of police obfuscation and government disinterest, makes the observation of silence for the Hillsborough 97, and the many who survived it but