Source: FOOTYMAD
Toon Fans Get Stick For Moat Chant!
The Sun (of all newspapers) has had a dig at Toon fans for a singing 'there's only one Raoul Moat' during Newcastle United's 3-0 win at Carlisle on Saturday. The Sun ... as we all know has sales of about 3 copies a day on Merseyside for accusing the Scousers of "robbing the dead" at the Hillsborough disaster. Something that continues to leave a bitter taste. A certain section of Newcastle's away support sang 'there's only one Raoul Moat' and copying a 1960s terrace song about Harry Roberts ... the fans added 'Raoul Moat, he's our friend, he shoots coppers' The Sun reports: "The family of Samantha Stobbart, the 22-year-old ex-girlfriend of Moat, have criticised the fans for their terrace songs. "Stobbart's grandmother Ann Hornsby, 69, told the Sun 'It is absolutely disgusting. These people didn't know Raoul like I did. You can't go around killing and maiming people and end up being a hero. It's not right.' 27-year-old sister Kelly added 'It's sick'." It's certainly nothing new ... I've known anti-police chants at St James' Park and Toon away games all my life. I'm not saying it's RIGHT ... I'm just saying these things have been going on for decades. Songs about Liddle Towers, Harry Roberts, and I even remember the Leazes singing "The Ripper is a Geordie" around 1980. But that changed when a police expert suggested Peter Sutcliffe (or his impersonator) came from Castleside, Sunderland (and he was proven to be right 30 years later). HARRY ROBERTS Harry Maurice Roberts was a career criminal who instigated the Massacre of Braybrook Street that resulted in the murder of three policemen in 1966. The killings happened after the car in which Roberts, and two other criminals, were travelling was pulled over by an unmarked police vehicle. Roberts opened fire on the officers when he feared they were about to find guns his gang had used in an armed robbery. He shot dead two policemen while one of his accomplices gunned down the third police officer. Roberts remains one of the UK's longest-serving prisoners. In 2001, he was moved to an open prison. However, Roberts was returned to a closed prison within months after allegations that he was involved in drug dealing and contraband smuggling. PETER SUTCLIFFE Peter William Sutcliffe (born 2 June 1946) is an English serial killer who was dubbed The Yorkshire Ripper. In 1981 Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attacking several others. He is currently serving life imprisonment in Broadmoor Hospital. After conviction, Sutcliffe began using his mother's maiden surname and became known as Peter William Coonan. LIDDLE TOWERS Liddle Towers (died 9 February 1976) was a 39 year old electrician and amateur boxer from Chester-le-Street Co. Durham, England, who died following a spell in police custody in 1976. Towers was arrested outside the Key Club in Birtley on 16 January 1976 by PC Goodner. After a struggle he was put into a dog van by six policemen and taken to Gateshead police station. Later, at 4 am, he was taken from the station to Queen Elizabeth Hospital because he complained of not feeling well, and, after an examination which apparently revealed no injury and nothing wrong with him, he was taken back to the cells. He was discharged later that same morning at 10 o'clock[. Both the taxi driver who took Towers home and his local GP, Dr. Alan Powney, who saw him later that day at 2 o'clock, gave evidence that was consistent with Towers' own account of having been assaulted in the cells. Towers told his friend: 'They gave us a bloody good kicking outside the Key Club, but that was nowt to what I got when I got inside'. Towers died on 9 February 1976 at Dryburn Hospital, County Durham from injuries received at the hands of the police during the night of 15-16 January. On 8 October 1976, an inquest into the death of Towers returned a verdict of 'justifiable homicide'. The verdict was widely criticised. Punk band the Angelic Upstarts released a single entitled 'The Murder of Liddle Towers' in 1978. Sex Pistols producer Dave Goodman released a record called 'Justifiable Homicide'. The Tom Robinson Band dedicated their 1979 album, TRB Two to Mrs. Mary Towers, the mother of Liddle Towers. The song Blue Murder on this album relates to the death of Towers. In 1977, the mod band The Jam were critical of the police in their song "Time for Truth" which contains the lyric " Bring forward the six pigs, We wanna see them swing so high, Liddle Towers!"
