Liverpool Football Club will honour the memory of the 39 victims of Heysel with a number of commemorative gestures in the lead-up to Tuesday night's Champions League tie with Juventus.
This first meeting of the Reds and Juve since that tragic night in Brussels 20 years ago is sure to be an emotive one for all concerned and Liverpoolfc.tv can reveal that after consultation with supporters the following has been arranged with the spirit of friendship and understanding in mind...
A Friendship match between the Liverpool and Juventus fans that will take place at the Academy on Tuesday kicking off at 1.30pm.
A Kop Mosaic featuring the word Amicizia (friendship) alongside a Liver Bird and the respective club colours. This will be displayed in conjunction with a one minute silence prior to kick-off on Tuesday.
Every visiting fan will receive a free four-page brochure in Italian aimed at promoting friendship and understanding between the supporters. The front cover will carry the club crests and words of welcome. Inside there'll be a personal message to the Juve fans from Ian Rush and the split image picture showing him in Liverpool and Juventus kits. On the back will be the words for: We Are Sorry. You'll Never Walk Alone.
Every visiting fan will also receive special wristband in red, white and black with the inscription friendship in both Italian/English.
Commemorative Juve/Liverpool FC scarves and t-shirts are being produced.
The matchday programme is also to be completely re-designed to pick up on the friendship theme. The cover will carry the hand of friendship logo used on the scarf. The teams will be removed from the back page and replaced by an image of the Memoria e Amacizia banner (see below).
A banner carrying the themed In Memoria e Amicizia (In Memory and
Friendship) message will be carried by fans from the Kop to the Juve end prior to kick-off. Phil Neal, Liverpool captain at Heysel in 1985, will help perform this ceremony. The banner will carry the Christian names of the 39 Heysel victims and the symbolic union of the Liverpool Liver Bird and the Juve Zebra.
The Memoria e Amacizia banner was first was first seen at Anfield prior to the Liverpool v Blackburn match in May 1995 (on the 10th anniversary of Heysel) and more recently paraded in front of the Kop during half-time at the derby to a warm round of applause.
The original inspiration for the banner was two Liverpool youth workers, the late Janet Murphy from The Marybone centre, and the late Alf Langley, a founder member of the Football Arts Initiative, who took a youth group to Turin in a non-football related exchange of friendship in the summer of 1989.
It was created to commemorate the tenth anniversary by Peter Carney and fellow members of the FAI, a Merseyside organisation that came together with the Sport Against Racism group in the wake of Hillsborough, and had already been on their own bridge building mission to Turin with the blessing of Liverpool Football Club in 1990.
At the time a lot of people in this city just wanted to reach out and genuinely do what they could to renew friendships, said Peter, an Anfield season-ticket holder and founder member of the Hillsborough Justice campaign.
It's the same sentiment now. Liverpool Football Club just want to extend a warm welcome to Juventus fans, offer their hand in friendship and recognise the hurt.
an excellent initiative by LFC, very repectful and let's hopr that this sort of feeling of frindship cna carry over to Turin and in to the future.
