Why Liverpool fans should Kop the flak for their tasteless Bucharest banner

By Simon Mullock

Published 10:00 12/02/10

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There was a banner on Liverpool’s Kop last Saturday that carried an illustration of the European Cup and read ‘Steaua Bucuresti 1986’.

It was there to goad Everton fans who, to this day, still believe that the team that lifted the championship in 1985 would have gone on to win the greatest club competition of them all had tragedy not intervened in a corner of a Belgian field.

Howard Kendall’s side were prevented from become our standard bearers because of a ban imposed on English clubs in the aftermath of a disaster that saw 39 supporters killed before Liverpool’s European Cup final against Juventus in the Heysel Stadium.

So on May 7, 1986, Steaua Bucharest became European champions by beating Terry Venables’ Barcelona on penalties in Seville after a mind-numbing goalless draw.

And Everton’s golden generation – they won the title again two years later – were denied the opportunity for real greatness.

Now football fans of all clubs have this uncanny knack of pinpointing the weakness of the opposition and ramming home any advantage.

That’s why Hull supporters who gave John Terry grief one evening last week saw Wayne Bridge as fair game three days later.

It’s why some Manchester City fans called Manchester United supporters ‘Munichs’ and United once sang about City ‘going down like a Russian submarine.’

And it has to be said that Everton’s followers are not above reproach.

Some of the things they spout about Steven Gerrard are as reprehensible as the ‘Murders’ chants they sang from the sanctuary of the Anfield Road Stand last weekend.

But Liverpool’s supporters were the last people I expected to make capital out of a tragedy that cost 39 fans their lives.

Hillsborough permeates everything at Anfield. From the Living Flame memorial outside the stadium to the continuing fight for justice for the 96 supporters who went to an FA Cup semi-final in Sheffield in 1989 and never came home.

The grief will never go away.

I am sure the Kop banner carrying the name of the 1986 European Cup winners was intended to jar the nerves of Evertonians rather than be an insult to Juventus.

But to any Liverpool fan who thinks all’s fair in love and war, just answer one question.

How do you think someone sitting in Turin watching the Merseyside derby on television last weekend would have felt had they realised the significance of ‘Steaua Bucuresti 1986’?

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