Liverpool fans show Thatcher contempt
Liverpool fans firmly rejected calls for a minute's silence to mark Margaret Thatcher's death by celebrating the prime minister's passing in the stands this weekend.
Supporters at their away match in Reading unfurled banners making clear their views about the prime minister who helped protect the police in the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster, in which 96 people died.
'You didn't care when you lied, we don't care that you died,' one banner read. Another depicted Thatcher being hunted down by the Grim Reaper. A third simply stated: 'You picked on the wrong city.'
Reading's chairman, Sir John Madejski, had joined Wigan's chairman Dave Whelan in calling for a minute's silence to mark Thatcher's death across Saturday's Premier League games.
The idea was dismissed and Liverpool fans chose to express their views by chanting 'we're all doing the conga, Maggie is no longer' instead.
Last year's final report from the Hillsborough Independent Panel triggered intense controversy about the extent to which Thatcher's government was responsible for the injustices which stemmed from the official response to the disaster.
After the report's publication former home secretary Jack Straw accused Thatcher of creating a "partisan force" which operated with a "culture of impunity".
Meanwhile, in Trafalgar Square, an anti-Thatcher demonstration featuring around 3,000 people was reportedly disrupted by Millwall fans throwing bottles of urine at police officers.
Nine arrests were made by Metropolitan police officers for public order offences. The crowd repeatedly chanted 'Maggie Maggie Maggie, dead dead dead'.
"We owe her so much," the Freedom Association's director Simon Richards wrote in a newsletter to supporters.
"Please do not let her down at a time when her enemies are intent on demonstrating their hatred for her in the vilest of ways."
