Campaigner calls for life bans for disaster chanting

Published on 25/09/2012 02:35

HILLSBOROUGH campaigner Margaret Aspinall has called for lifetime bans to anyone making offensive gestures or singing insulting chants about deaths in football tragedies.

Following the final whistle at Anfield on Sunday, two Liverpool supporters goaded the Manchester United fans with a Munich gesture in reference to the 1958 plane crash which killed eight United players and 15 others. In response, United fans chanted “Always the victims” and “Murderers” – reminders of the Merseyside club’s tragedies in Hillsborough and Heysel.

Aspinall, a member of the Hillsborough Families Support Group, said: “A couple of fans came up to me and said they hoped I hadn’t heard any of it, and I didn’t but a lot were upset by it. There were only a few morons. They are not winning. You have to look at the vast majority.

“I hope it never creeps back in again. Any form of chanting about any disaster is appalling and it makes you ashamed. If they get caught on CCTV they should not get a second chance. Ban them for life so they can never go to a match again.”