This has just been posted as a comment on my blog by an Evertonian called Greg Murphy.
To be honest, it is far, far too good to be a simple comment and I think it deserves a thread of its own because the more people who read it the better.
Here you go:
Well done, Tony: not only for last night’s Z Cars tribute being chiefly down to your efforts (yes, it was) but for also putting this link up.
If there’s any silver lining to come from this whole tragic affair, it may be that it starts to dilute the poison that’s infiltrated cross-park (soon to be cross boundary, ahem) relations, which, IMO, is chiefly down to two similarly ignorant camps that exist on both sides of the divide: 1) those too young to remember the period between March 24th 1984 (first Milk Cup Final) and the 1989 FA Cup Final; and 2) those whose recollective abilities have either conveniently faded to suit their own agenda or perhaps never kicked-in to begin with.

Of course, bang in the middle of the 84-89 period was Heysel (let’s face it, that’s the nub here) and I believe it’s been a distortion of how either set of fans has perceived the other fans to feel about that event that forms the root of the current bile which has prevailed now for far too long.
But it makes non-chronoLOGICAL sense for this to be so.
For, it’s a well forgotten fact that the very first derby after Heysel was on August 12th 1985, at Anfield, for the Phil Neal testimonial. Coming in the week immediately prior to the start of the season, it was treated as a full-blown pre-season friendly and, as such, it drew a healthy crowd and I recall being stood in a packed Blues section on the Anny Road. Not an ounce of trouble (this only 12 weeks after Heysel) and the fact that Phil Neal felt he could even ask Everton shows there simply was no sensitivity at the time.
I recall the second derby after Heysel being at Goodison on September 21st 1985, when Dalglish put LFC ahead after 0.00001 seconds and the Reds raced into a 3.0 half-time lead aided by a certain Steve McMahon (of all people, for god’s sake - was it his debut?) and although the Blues rallied (notwithstanding the string of sitters Dalglish missed) to finish at 3.2 (never seen that game from that day to this - wasn’t on TV, I recall?) there was still no trouble.
The third PH derby was the following February at Anfield when Grobbelaar assisted Everton to a 2.0 victory and I recall loads of Blues on the Kop (and, yeah, one or two on the pitch mobbing Lineker at the Kop end after his goal) but still there was no argy (yeah, yeah, there had always been mini-handbags here and there, but I’m speaking in the main).
Of course the next derby was at Wembley in May 1986 and while I don’t wish to recall the result, I’d urge anyone who wasn’t born, was too young, or has simply forgotten, to watch the pre-match footage from when Des handed over to Motty at roughly 2.40pm until the teams emerged, to see just how mingled the sides (and indeed much of the ends) were that day. Totally trouble free. The further context of that game is that not only was it the second Cup Final Everton had lost to Liverpool in two years, not only was it just a year after Heysel, but we’d also somehow contrived to lose both the league and cup to you in the space of a week. Yet there was still no trouble either that day or indeed 24 hours later as both sets of fans lined the city streets to welcome home two buses: a Blue one minus any trophies (and Peter Reid, for which he was labelled bitter) and a Red one at the rear with the domestic double silverware aboard. That was one hard Sunday, that, I can tell you.
Further, in the build-up to that Wembley final there had been the vignette that was the famous twin team photo, when the Reds pitched up at Bellefield and NEC shirts lined up alongside Crown Paint logos with far too much big hair on show.
Later that summer we had another trouble-free Mersey Wembley fest in the shape of the 1.1 Charity Shield encounter. And, as well as the two league derbies in 86-87, we also had three extra trouble-free clashes that season, with the (Jim Beglin) League Cup tie at Goodison, in January 87, being preceded, in September 1986, by the two-legged final of the Screen Sport Super Cup.
In fact, if any derby was going to bring to the fore any simmering hostility over Heysel then surely it was the farcical competition that was designed to replace European games. But again, there were no kick-offs. And I recall us getting a right spanking off Rush over both legs.
Similarly, 87/88 had an extra two derbies in the shape of the Anfield League Cup tie in October (Gary Stevens) and the Goodison FA Cup tie in the February (Ray Houghton) but again there was no widespread animosity and, if you were an away fan at either ground, you could still sit or stand peaceably in the home sections (something I was still doing right up to November 95 when I witnessed the Kanchelskis derby from Anfield’s Main Stand - and yeah, I celebrated, course I did).
Which brings us to 88/89 and obviously, as well as the two league derbies (the Goodison one actually being Liverpool’s first game after Hillsborough) we had the unforgettable FA Cup Final, again with both sets of fans mixed in, as your link shows. Everything about the day is etched into my memory (not least for it still being the most intense and longest I’d ever celebrated a goal - McCall’s first - but to no ultimate purpose!) but for everything that went with it.
Evertonians did indeed jointly sing YNWA that day (we don’t really do scarf lifting or big poetry banners) and again, as if there would have been anyway, there was no kickin-off (I was in a mixed Transit anyhow) even though Blues were devastated at losing a third major Cup Final to Liverpool in five years.
Just how we’ve reached this stage where the cross-park football scene feeds itself on a poisonous diet of “ifithadnavbinfer”, “bitter blues”, “red sh***”, and “39 Italians can’t be wrong” is both beyond me and probably the subject of an intense sociological study. But I lament that the hard work of those (like me) who were around at the time of 85-89, to try and avoid such poison, has unravelled so spectacularly.
I expect much of this is down to those under 25 (maybe even under 30) on both sides of the park. Those who just can’t or don’t want to remember, not only how much solidarity there was circa Hillsborough but also (as I’ve hopefully shown - long-windedly, though necessarily, I’d say) concerning the undeniable non-rush to hostility concerning Heysel.
I’d like to think I’ve smashed a few myths here for both Blues and Reds, or perhaps jogged a few memories, of exactly how it was (and how it wasn’t) post-Heysel. There were 17 derbies between Heysel and the Hillsborough Cup FInal (starting with Phil Neal’s testimonial) which is an average of one every three months. And yet there was no trouble at any. Younger Blues and Reds - with more than a smattering of Alpine Hatted Noggadogz and Croccy Crew lamebrains in both ranks - would do well to learn that.
And perhaps, in the shape of Anfield playing “Z Cars” last night (just stunning) which has brought us full-circle from Everton fans at Wembley singing YNWA (the only time I ever have - even though my wife’s a Red and she’s tried to get me to join in on many an occasion!), we can maybe, for the sake of the Jones family, the 96 who lost their lives due to (sic) Hillsborough and the 39 Heysel victims whose dignity and memory has been so wantonly exploited, restore some of the unique competitive amity with which we once policed ourselves. Starting on October 20th at Goodison.

• Post to:
•  del.icio.us
•  Digg
•  Newsvine
•  Nowpublic
•  Reddit