Booing at the Aviva Stadium during England’s national anthem. Really?
For proper, invested booing, try checking out Liverpool fans reacting to their national anthem at Anfield on the day of King Charles III’s coronation last year.
The anthem was entirely drowned out with heckling and whistling before the club’s Premier League match against Brentford and just hours after Charles became king.
A Guardian report at the time in May 2023, highlighted David Maddock, the Daily Mirror’s northern football correspondent, who posted on X that the booing from around “the entire ground” was so loud he did not know the anthem had started.
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The club said it was asked to play God Save the King by the Premier League to mark the events of the day, despite strong opposition. Liverpool then explained that the spectators’ reaction to the anthem was a personal choice.
In Ireland people also have personal choice – with courtesies optional.
Article 40.6. 1(i) of the Irish Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression “subject to public order and morality”. Irish football fans exercised that freedom at the Aviva just as rugby fans at Croke Park did in remaining silent and respectful during God Save the Queen in the 2007 Six Nations Championship.
A digression. On the strength of those different reactions, an old culture war between the two codes was reheated on social media. Soccer bad, rugby good. Soccer no manners, rugby cultured fellows. Soccer rules, rugby laws. The whole demographic smorgasbord was flung against the walls of Facebook and X.
Still, Irish fans booing during God Save the King drew censure from Tánaiste Micheál Martin, who ventured that it showed a lack of respect. And it did. That was the whole point. The fans did it to be disrespectful. England fans will repay in kind when the teams meet again in Wembley Stadium on November 17th.
It should not come as a surprise. For many years football grounds have increasingly become a pulpit for political and social expression, while politics, in terms of respect for differing views, has moved downwards and towards extremes.
Sports grounds around the world are now almost as much forums for mass expression on social and political causes as they are theatres of emotion and passion for favourite football teams.
Last year a group of Celtic fans called the Green Brigade defied a club appeal and waved Palestinian flags before a Champions League match against Spanish side Atletico Madrid.
The club asked that banners, flags and symbols relating to the Israel-Hamas war should not be displayed. In response, the north curve of Celtic Park was festooned in green, white, black and orange, the Green Brigade reiterating its “unshakeable belief” that football supporters have the right to express political beliefs.
There are obvious concerns and, as the Aviva Stadium found out, there are consequences. The booing was instantly divisive. It separated the three sets of fans, the booers, the non-booers and the England fans, which created an atmosphere that was less than festive.
Insulting one group of fans, stirring a hostile mood and wounding national pride has always been the perfect recipe for tension, the guess being that Taoiseach Simon Harris up in the VIP seats alongside British PM Keir Starmer was also twitching with embarrassment throughout the tirade of many, but not all, of the fans.
The problem arises because the idea of playing an anthem before a football match is itself a political act designed to remind fans of certain traditions, histories, and beliefs of the nation and its people.
It is taken seriously, with the tone of the English media attack on former Republic of Ireland player and England interim manager Lee Carsley one of fuming, patriotic outrage after he said he would not be singing God Save the King.
The Daily Mail said Carsley made a fool of himself with Jeff Powell MBE calling for him to be sacked ahead of his first match. It may well have been the trigger in Dublin. Some commentators do outright disgust and pompous entitlement ever so well.
Doubtlessly, those same people would bridle at Bohemians, who have made support for an array of causes a crucial part of the club identity. Che Guevara, the Palestinian colours and Refugees Welcome T-shirts have deliberately knitted the sport and the politics into the same fabric.
Anthems try to do that too. They try to become part of the fabric, add a ceremonial tone to the day’s entertainment. But too often there is politics swirling around and an anthem becomes an opportunity to offend.
God Save the King was fully exposed in a stadium where empowered fans felt and understood it is the only platform they have to discourteously express opinion.
The easiest resolution, given that disrespecting anthems is so frequent and causes such offence, is to scrap anthems from football, remove them from the stage entirely. Then, who would be offended? The political dignitaries?
For as long as they pay to watch, fans know they own the terrace and are free to bring their grievances. They will sing what they like and boo God Save the King if they wish. When told not to, they will boo louder and longer.
That is within their gift. It is a reality that football has created, and no amount of wishing will make it go away.
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