Emotive words hurled from the lungs of the Kop ever since Margaret Thatcher's reign as Prime Minister started to take hold. The continued prevalence of these words has acted as a reminder of the strength of feeling against policies that affected a community and a football club.
Liverpool FC is no stranger to politics. The club has traditionally been a focal point for political outrage to be vented in public. During Thatcher's time, chants for the team would be supplemented with chants for solidarity against a government that was perceived to be victimising the city and therefore the fans too.
With a solid working class fan base, the club's identity became intertwined with left-wing politics reflecting those who attended on match day. Indeed, the club's domestic and European Championships captured throughout Margaret Thatcher's reign were advertisements for the Liverpool way in a social sense as well as a football one.
This hostility was fostered during the recession under the early years of Margaret Thatcher's supremacy, which had a profound effect on Liverpool. The docks had long provided a huge portion of jobs in the city but with the containerisation of Liverpool's waterfront, swathes of unemployment ensued making the recession even tougher to bear for those on Merseyside.
Resentment of the government increased and with Thatcher implementing new stop and search powers to the police, tensions continued to grow. The culmination was the Toxteth Riots which encouraged one of Margaret Thatcher's key allies, Sir Geoffrey Howe, to suggest that Liverpool should be placed into 'managed decline' rather than look to address the poverty issues facing the city.
This recent revelation came as no surprise to those in Liverpool who had always suspected that there was a negative agenda against a city once described as the 'New York of Europe'.
However, it was perhaps inevitable that Thatcher would clash with the city. One of Thatcher's most memorable quotes was when she opined "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families."
This perhaps demonstrates the contrast of her social politics in comparison to the prevailing feeling in Liverpool. Notoriously a proud city, the people of Liverpool have always felt a togetherness whether in adversity or in triumph. Margaret Thatcher's ideal of destroying community and replacing it with individual indulgence went against the grain in Merseyside and contributed to the revulsion she is afforded in the area.
While reforms from the Taylor report were introduced, there was no investigation into the police force, no criticism of the police force and no attempt to help any campaign for justice for those who lost their lives attending something so routine, as a football match.
In spite of Taylor's report pouring scorn onto the officers that were interviewed, there was no response from the government. Thatcher had already required the help of a bloated and mobilised police force to crack down on unions and 'the enemy within', it was therefore no surprise that she was reluctant to start a root and branch investigation into an organisation that had strengthened her position so valiantly. It has sadly taken years of campaigning and social strength for the truth to emerge.
There is an odd symmetry that Liverpool the city has never recovered from the years of Thatcher's premiership and Liverpool the football club has never recovered from the years post Hillsborough, both marked by the Iron Lady's time in power. The decline of club and city has almost certainly affected the resentment to the former Prime Minister.
It would perhaps be an overstatement to suggest that the greed within modern football was a direct result of Margaret Thatcher's model for Britain but she created a society in which the only thing that mattered was the power of the pound. So while leeches get fat from the proceeds of the game and corruption manages to permeate some of the highest levels of football, football clubs as an institution should always be remembered for what they are: a club, a group of people with a connection to a place, an idea and a team, not just a mechanism for monetising companies belonging to owners, or a status symbol for those looking to gain favour with western countries, governments and finances nor are they simply a means for entertainment.
Football clubs are a part of community, an idea that was stifled if not destroyed by Margaret Thatcher and it is no surprise that Lord Coe said that 'she never really understood sport'. Liverpool Football Club has always understood the significance of football and the community and of course it should do when the supporters of that club continue to harness the club as a vehicle to promote their interests and beliefs.
When the Kop recently unfurled an old 'Solidarnosc' banner, a reference to support for Polish workers, it re-affirmed that the political spirit of the club was not dead. And perhaps this is the greatest lesson that should be taken from the death of such a polarizing figure. Not that enjoyment should be had in her demise but that the Football Club continues to reflect those that truly own it, the fans and the community as long as it lasts.
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