He also blames it on the crumbling stadium - which is a fair point as at one stage they appear to be throwing part of it down onto the Juve fans below. This from a man who touts himself as a serious journalist.
Earlier this year I re-posted something on this subject that I had originally written just over 4 years ago.
Given the current discussion on various journalists' outputs, including the ridiculous Tony Evans, I think (I hope?) it's worth posting yet again, especially as it was contemporaneous with Heysel and its aftermath. It was also penned by one of our most respected sports journalists* ever, Brian Glanville. (* and that's not a phrase I use all that often these days!)
Perhaps Evans et al might want to do a bit of research before sounding off with their blinkered opinions and attempts to present a revisionist narrative on events that those of us who were also around at the time remember very, very well indeed..
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"For your interest, herewith Brian Glanville's take on the matters of behaviours evidenced by Liverpool supporters and the media. This reflects the article you quote by Tony Evans (no relation!) and is taken from Glanville's book 'Champions of Europe; The History, Romance and Intrigue of the European Cup' (1991), some six and two years respectively after Heysel and Hillsborough. Glanville writes:
"As a club, Liverpool, alas, were not remotely matched by their notorious supporters.
Among these there was beyond doubt a core of decent, largely middle-aged, peaceful, pleasant fans, who would share the mature, sensible attitudes of the club itself.
There were also, as fans from other clubs all over the country knew all too well, thousands of brutalised, violent toughs, whose excesses had been known for many years.
When the detested Manchester United went to Anfield shortly before Heysel the city had seemed awash with hatred. Coaches and trains of United’s supporters were stoned. Mechanics would run out of garages to scream abuse at the coaches as they went by. When United, just a few weeks later, came once more to Merseyside to play Liverpool, this time in the FA Cup semi-final at Goodison Park, Liverpool’s supporters were firing flares into the Manchester fans’ sections.
Quite where Liverpool’s following had gained its spurious reputation for good conduct with a blinkered press was obscure.
But then, journalists see little or nothing from the Press Box, nothing of what goes on, often sinister and violent, in the surrounding streets and alleys, at railway stations. Unless they are privy to good, first-hand information, journalists accept the public, distorted image; in this case, a misleadingly benign one.
Nor would it be enough to say that violence among Liverpool fans could be explained by unemployment, the crumbling and deliquescence of a doomed city given the behaviour of Everton’s fans, in Rotterdam for the Cup Winners’ Cup Final two weeks before, which had been exemplary."
