Sickening tragedy chanting has tarnished a great win for Man Utd over Liverpool - and fans who got involved are the ones to blame

Tragedy chanting is not new and Sunday was far from the first incident of it. Sections of Liverpool's support have been guilty of it too, referencing the Munich air disaster in which eight United players were killed in 1958. Even established supporters clubs have been caught up in it, such as the Spirit of Shankly pressure group, who had to apologise after fans were filmed chanting 'Munich' during an event in 2009.

Whenever United fans are called out on social media for tragedy chanting, they tend to respond by giving examples of Munich chants, and what should be a serious discussion tends to descend into a childish tit-for-tat debate. It is time both sets of supporters rose above whatever has been chanted in the past and set a positive example for the next generation.

"When I started going to the games against United, you'd hear the horrible songs that were sung about Munich and [the late Liverpool manager Bill] Shankly. Those songs, that animosity, that hatred was always there," former Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy said in the book Red on Red: Liverpool, Manchester United and the fiercest rivalry in world football, by Phil McNulty and Jim White.

Gary Neville also told the authors: "It just felt that my whole childhood was ruined by Liverpool, consumed by Liverpool. Liverpool won everything. You become quite bitter. You'd have thoughts which are nasty and beyond what you should have."

Mutual disdain underpins every great footballing rivalry, from United-Liverpool to River Plate-Boca Juniors and Barcelona-Real Madrid. But when football becomes the vehicle to start mocking people who have died in tragic circumstances, it is time to take a long, hard look at yourself.

And using the fact that some Liverpool fans have mocked the Munich disaster in the past as a justification for singing about Hillsborough is petty in the extreme, and no way to honour the victims of that terrible accident, which ripped the soul out of the greatest English football team of the day.

United fans hold memorial services outside Old Trafford to mark each anniversary of the Munich disaster, while hundreds of supporters fly over to Germany annually for a service at the site of the crash. GOAL attended the service at Old Trafford this year and it was touching to see fans, senior club figures and academy players turn out to remember the victims.

Liverpool have honoured the victims of the Hillsborough tragedy each year at Anfield with spine-tingling tributes, while the families affected by the disaster have fought a 35-year battle for justice for the victims, taking on the British establishment, including the police and the government.

The city of Liverpool, including Everton fans, has adopted a long-standing boycott of The Sun newspaper, which made false and damaging allegations about fan behaviour on the day of the disaster. And yet some United fans decided to sing on Sunday: 'The Sun were right, you're murderers'.

The Hillsborough campaigners were also referenced in another reprehensible chant on Sunday which goes: 'Always the victims, it's never your fault'. United fans are right to be outraged when they hear mocking of the Munich air disaster, but they must resist engaging in a race to the bottom of morals.

Many supporters were disgusted when a fan attended the 2023 FA Cup final wearing a shirt mocking the Hillsborough tragedy and United acted swiftly to ban him from matches. But Sunday's chants show that there are many more who are willing to stoop to the same level in the name of rivalry.

While some fans no doubt see the chants as part and parcel of football rivalry and believe they should not be taken too seriously, their words have lasting effects on the families of the victims.

"I want people to be educated that it’s not right to sing about disasters — about Hillsborough or Munich — all fans," Steve Kelly, who lost his brother Michael at Hillsborough, told The Athletic. "Those opposition fans, including Liverpool fans, who sang about Munich were equally misguided."

Kelly, who was commended by Sir Bobby Charlton and Sir Alex Ferguson for his campaigning on Hillsborough, can no longer bear to watch football out of fear of hearing those awful chants. "I just want to go to the match and not hear these songs," he said. "I don’t go to the match now or listen on the radio or watch on TV. You can hear the chants there. I’ve lost my love for it and that’s sad because those chanters have done that — the majority were probably not even born when Hillsborough happened."

The irony of United fans chanting about Hillsborough is that the disaster could easily have happened to them. In the 1970s and 1980s, football crowds were routinely mistreated and pushed into unsafe areas of stadiums.

The 1985 Heysel disaster should have been a wake-up call, but instead the dire conditions fans were subjected to were allowed to continue, and four years later Hillsborough occurred.

It is far safer to go to a football match now than it was then. Atmospheres are generally more pleasant too, although Sunday's unsavoury chanting illustrated how much more progress needs to be made. Before last year's fixture at Anfield, United and Liverpool made appeals to supporters to end tragedy chanting.

"We all love the passion of the fans when our teams meet, but there are lines that should not be crossed," Erik ten Hag said last year. "It is unacceptable to use the loss of life — in relation to any tragedy — to score points, and it is time for it to stop. Those responsible tarnish not only the reputation of our clubs but also, importantly, the reputation of themselves, the fans, and our great cities."

Unfortunately, one year on, many fans ignored the United manager's words. And while Ten Hag and his players did the supporters proud, many did not return the gesture. Liverpool return to Old Trafford next month in the Premier League and it's up to everyone with a ticket to ensure that people are only talking about the events that unfold on the pitch, and not more deplorable chants in the stands.