National Anthem Booed by Liverpool Supporters – Here’s Why

In the aftermath of the Community Shield, which saw Manchester City beat Liverpool on penalties after a 1-1 draw, the main talking point is not the match itself, but the events before kick-off.

As the players lined up facing the royal box, in front of Prince William, it was announced that the national anthem would be played. What followed really was a sight and sound to behold. The Liverpool end erupted into boos and whistles which carried on throughout the drowned-out rendition of ‘God Save the Queen’. Although I am yet to find TV footage of it, judging from reports from those watching at home, it was very audible.

This was one particular part of the day I was looking forward to as we headed off to Wembley on Sunday morning. For this is not the first time the Liverpool faithful has booed the national anthem.

The uproar over social media lambasting Liverpool fans for the boos, whistles and jeers has been combatted with replies explaining why this should not come as a shock.

For years the city of Liverpool has been treated with contempt by the rest of the country and has been vilified by Her Majesty’s governments of the past, as well as by the current Prime Minister.

In 2004, Boris Johnson wrote in The Spectator that Liverpudlians define themselves as ‘victims’ and that they ‘resent their victims status’ yet they ‘wallow in it’. He repeated Hillsborough lies by pointing out ‘the part played in the disaster by drunken fans at the back of the crowd who mindlessly tried to fight their way into the ground that Saturday afternoon’.

Seeing as though only within the last couple of weeks the Queen swore Boris Johnson in as the new Prime Minister of Her Majesty’s Government, this adds to the long list of justification to boo the national anthem.

The Queen, who has lived a cushy, privileged life, has never worked a day in her life, yet she sits on top of the pile, surrounded by her jewels. In the 1980s when the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, pushed to send Liverpool into a ‘managed decline’, unemployment was at a high (above 20%), factories were closing left right and centre, a drug epidemic swept through the city and on average 12,000 people were living the city to find work elsewhere. Amidst all this, the Queen was also still sat on top of the pile, surrounded by her jewels. She does not care about us, so why should anyone in society care enough to bellow that they hope God saves her?

A national anthem should be about something that a country has to be proud of. A lot of royalists and patriots love the rhetoric of Britannia ruling the waves but should Britain really proud of its history colonising countries in the name of the monarchy? And in the 21st century should a monarchy have a place in modern society and promotes nothing other than inequalities?

Is our city – which has to collect food before football games just to feed families across the city – expected to sing about saving the Queen, who tucks into lavish lunches and tea parties?

Why should Liverpool stand hand in hand with the rest of the country and rejoice in a verse hoping to ‘Send her Victorious, happy and glorious’, when the lies spun about Hillsborough has been believed and repeated by those who sing that anthem?

Her Majesty was not sent victorious, happy and glorious on Sunday afternoon. It was the Liverpool faithful who were victorious, albeit not on the pitch. But a bigger victory was earned off it, and that is that the country has been reminded once more of our individualism and our separatist mentality.

Liverpool has been very vocal in criticising social injustice, and the idea of having an unelected head of state is the mother of them all.