Grandmother Jane Hardwick says she was left seeing red after reading a letter in a newspaper which said the song, made famous by Gerry and the Pacemakers, was first belted out on the terraces of Anfield. Jane, 61, was a teenage opera singer when many of her footballing heroes were killed in the tragic Munich air crash in 1958. And as her own special tribute to the Busby Babes, heartbroken Jane convinced her friends from New Mills Operatic Society in Derbyshire to join her in a rousing rendition of the song at one of the games following the tragedy. The tune was written for the 1945 musical Carousel, which Jane and her friends were rehearsing at the time.
"It has annoyed me so much that people think the song was first sung by the Liverpool fans. The Munich crash was so horrible and everyone was feeling down and despondent and it just seemed an appropriate song to sing. It was an emotional time and I managed to persuade my friends to join in with me.
Soon the whole ground was singing it and many people, including me, were in tears. I never dreamed it would become the anthem of our old rivals but I wanted to put the record straight about where the song originated from on the terraces."
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