Football - and more important things

Well, it's a big day for football - in serious as well as lighthearted ways. Firstly, Liverpool are playing Blackburn on the nearest day to the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster: poor stadium design coupled with aggressive, thoughtless policing led to the deaths of 94 people. The BBC broadcast a rightfully passionate, pointed program this morning which moved me to tears. It ended with a radio broadcaster (I didn't catch his name) ending his analysis later on that day with 'The gymnasium is today being used as a mortuary. And the sun shines'. That's top quality broadcasting.

The other wonderful part of the show was the section which reminded us why Rupert Murdoch, News International and The Sun are so utterly evil. While others mourned, the paper's front-page stories accused Liverpool fans of urinating on the police and robbing the bodies of the fans - complete lies from start to finish, but great for newspaper sales. It took 20 years to admit that the stories were untrue, and to this day Liverpudlians who support any of the local teams won't buy The Sun. I urge you to join in. It's too late for some of those fans, but the business model continues. Lies, slander and poison are the meat and drink of tabloid journalism, and none are quite so greedy as The Sun and its Sunday version, The News of the World. Liverpudlians are accused of being over-sentimental (they are a mix of Welsh and Irish), but in this case, staying bitter is absolutely the right thing to do. A proper inquiry was never held into Hillsborough and The Sun remains evil.

It reminded me of a period in which football was a matter of huge, mass emotion - sometimes violent, sometimes sentimental. Footage of the Liverpool team of the time reminded me of how much we've missed - so many Liverpool players spoke with Liverpool accents, shared surnames with the victims and some lost neighbours and friends - how many of the current Premiership players live anywhere near the average fan (who is more likely to be a middle-class high-earner anyway)? Hearing John Aldridge describe attending the funerals of fathers and their sons, of two sisters, was heartbreaking. On another level, these men remind me of a vanished (and probably quite unpleasant) time in other ways. Many of them speak the language of the fans, they don't have advisers, agents, lawyers and PR employees polishing every word, weighing every statement, looking out for themselves, or beating people up in nightclubs. These men were fans and from the people. On the other hand, safe stadia require massive amounts of money, and ticket prices are going to do it, so perhaps hugely expensive days out are the price we have to pay for safety.

On a lighter note, Stoke has the chance to strike a blow for honest football and the past today, by beating the arrogant, pseudo-galactico chancers of Newcastle United. If only it were MUFC we were sending down (as we did once in the 1970s), but anyone will do. One more win - or even a couple of draws - will do nicely.