Like many Liverpool fans, witnessing the Reds win the league and then parade it around the city is a lifelong dream and something that hasn’t been seen since 1990, due to Covid restrictions cancelling the trophy celebrations in 2020. I’ve dreamt of celebrating it with my brother, friends and hundreds of thousands of fans all my life. I never imagined I’d see what I saw and that this event would be overshadowed by one person’s disgusting actions.
On Sunday, I travelled across on the train from Leeds ahead of the final game of the season, in disbelief that it was finally the day I would see Liverpool win the league in person. As we arrived in Liverpool, we were greeted by a sea of red outside Lime Street station, with red smoke and flags as far as the eye could see.
The day was everything I could’ve ever dreamt of. In truth it felt like a fever dream being beside my brother (who got me into supporting Liverpool) to see Virgil Van Dijk lift our 20th league title. The atmosphere in the city centre that night was the definition of pure joy, with people from all walks of life out in the streets celebrating in unison – with Monday’s much anticipated parade just one sleep away.
Liverpool parade celebrations
The grim weather was certainly not a reflection of the atmosphere of the people in the city, as even from midday the city centre was packed with smiling faces, singing songs of the players who made us league champions. And this was despite it being five hours before the Liverpool players were due to go through The Strand with the Premier League trophy.
I made my way towards The Strand in my group of nine, including my brother and our girlfriends. We squeezed through the crowd looking for a good spot, not knowing that where we decided to stand could have had unthinkable repercussions later in the day. We soaked up the atmosphere opposite the Liver Building, just in front of Water Street, with everyone in euphoric spirits, waiting to see their heroes parade a league trophy for the first time in 35 years.
At approximately 5.40pm, players finally made their way across The Strand and were met with an unquantifiable number of beaming faces and clouds of red smoke. As You’ll Never Walk Alone was belted out by the fans and players together to celebrate the historic dream season, we were yet to know that the anthem of unity would resonate more powerfully than ever that evening.
The crowds gradually dispersed following the moment we’d waited our whole lives for, and we headed towards the city centre to celebrate. We walked up Water Street and our group split into three smaller groups as we tried to navigate our way through the busy crowds, with the intention of meeting up further down the road.
This led to myself, my brother and both of our girlfriends witnessing the beginning of an incident we will never forget for the rest of our lives.
Eyewitness to the Liverpool parade horror
As we entered the top of Dale Street, we saw a car on the opposite side of the pavement about five metres away from where we were standing. The driver was clearly having some type of altercation with the crowd – which was surprising, because at the time it seemed way too busy to have a car in the vicinity.
The driver seemed have aggravated people in the crowd, and I saw a couple of pedestrians hit his vehicle. This seemed like retaliation for something he’d done, which I assumed at the time was dangerous driving. Alarm bells started ringing when he quickly reversed his car backwards into what seemed to be half a dozen people, with others just walking straight past, not knowing how this would escalate.
The mood instantly turned from cheerful to distressed as he began to reverse his car, seemingly trying to knock pedestrians down – though I was unable to see if he made contact, with the crowd obscuring my view. I heard screams and took a couple of steps back as I saw a woman hastily rush her children into the reception corridor of the JD gym on the adjacent pavement to the car. We followed them there shortly after.
Many people were confused as to what was happening. The pedestrians cleared a path in front of the car for it to drive into, which the driver then went towards. But at the same time, more people began hitting his car in anger. He then drove forwards, into the crowd.
Thankfully by this time my view was blocked by the inside wall of the JD gym and I didn’t see what happened next. We thought it had ended with him driving away, so we walked out of the reception and away towards town, oblivious as to how the incident was developing. What we’d witnessed was shocking enough, but we were not caught up in the full extent of the trauma this selfish man inflicted on so many lives and the city.
Online reaction to the parade incident
As we made it past Lime Street, we were shaken by what had happened. We realised that in that moment, the man could have driven into anyone. But we didn’t start to grasp the full horror of the incident until we’d regrouped with the rest of our mates and my brother received a call checking if he was OK. This confused us, as we didn’t think it had been serious from what we saw at the start – until we checked social media.
The first thing I saw online was the distressing video of the car being driven through the crowd. It felt surreal, as the footage showed the street we’d been on, sheltering inside the JD gym reception. The first comment I saw on the video said something along the lines of “This is why we need to stop the boats”, hinting that an asylum seeker or ‘illegal immigrant’ had caused the incident for some reason.
This was far from what I saw. Having witnessed it, I could see clearly that the driver was a white man who looked to be over 40, and who looked angry. There was no reason to assume he wasn’t local to the area. Yet already it felt like people were pushing their own racially motivated agenda and politicising what had happened, even while people were suffering on the streets.
You’ll Never Walk Alone
We arrived back at my brother’s girlfriend’s house in a moment that should’ve been full of pure joy and celebration. Instead, all we felt was an overwhelming sense of pure shock. We were metres away from the man who caused so much pain, fear and distress, and there were so many unanswered questions. Why did he do it? Was it planned? And most importantly – did everyone survive?
One of my mates came back from the shops later and said something that summed up the situation:
“Everyone in the shops dressed in full red with scarves for their biggest day of the year, and no one was smiling”
The day was meant to be a city-wide celebration full of smiles that were wiped away by one selfish man. Still in shock, we tuned in to the Merseyside Police’s press conference, in which they announced there had been “no fatalities”. And despite Liverpool winning the league, this was the best result we’d had all season.
