Nottingham Forest head coach Steve Cooper expects Forest fans to be respectful when his side travel to Liverpool on Saturday and confirmed the club intend to lay a wreath at Anfield ahead of the Premier League fixture.
Saturday’s match is Forest’s first trip to Anfield in over 24 years. Supporters are planning to hold a 30ft banner aloft in the away end which reads: “Respect the 97. Solidarity with Survivors. No to Tragedy Chanting”. Forest’s club badge is in one corner of the banner and the Hillsborough memorial symbol is in the other.
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97 Liverpool supporters died as a result of the Hillsborough disaster during the 1989 FA Cup semi-final against Forest.
“The club are rightly planning to lay a wreath at Anfield before the game,” Cooper said.
“We will always respect that as a club and do right by what will always be seen as a really horrible situation. I know the football club will always show the right respect. We are planning to do that this weekend.”
The prevalence of tragedy chanting towards Liverpool supporters this season prompted Charlotte Hennessey, whose father James was one of the 97 Liverpool fans who died as a result of the tragedy, to set up an online petition earlier this month calling on the UK government to make chanting about tragedies at football matches a criminal offence.
When asked if he expected the respect shown from the club to extend to Forest fans, Cooper replied: “Yes, it goes without saying that nothing was good about that day and hopefully everybody in the stadium will respect that.”
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Why Forest fans are taking a 30ft 'no tragedy chanting' banner to Anfield
(Photo: Getty Images)