The Fans Who Make Football: Liverpool FC

You’ll Never Walk Alone is Liverpool Football Club’s war cry for the underprivileged – a cry of unity against adversity and authoritarian rule – and it rings loud and in unison at every Liverpool match. For Liverpool fans, it is about more than football. It is a fight for equality, social justice and a voice for the United Kingdom’s working-class often ignored by a series of right-wing governments who neglected the country’s north.

Being a hotbed of left-wing socialism, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher set out to make an example of Liverpool city while it was enduring drastic economic decline after the UK joined the Common Market in 1973. Her crushing policies of “managed decline” left much of the population jobless. Thatcher expected the city’s people to buckle to her authority, but she did not realise she was also up against the power of the city’s football team, which brought strength and hope to its city. This film looks into how Liverpool FC became a symbol of defiance on top of its shining success.

Liverpool FC’s famous stadium sat within the working classes of the city and stood in the face of a government set on treating victims of poverty as collateral damage. And despite the money behind the multimillion-dollar game, Liverpool have remained a team that continues to put the people before profit.