THERE PROMISES TO be a special atmosphere before Borussia Dortmund’s Europa League quarter-final, first leg against Liverpool tomorrow night as fans of both clubs sing their adopted anthem ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp will be making an emotional return to Dortmund having only walked away last May after seven years at the Bundesliga club.
But there promises to be a stirring rendition of the anthem both clubs have adopted at Borussia’s Signal Iduna Park stadium with a sell-out crowd of 81,000 expected.
‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ is from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical ‘Carousel’, which was a hit on Broadway.
The 2014 documentary ‘Walk On’ traced how the song became a football anthem.
The song migrated over the Atlantic to Merseyside when Liverpudlian group Gerry and the Pacemakers made it a number-one hit in Britain in October 1963.
It became the signature tune of Liverpool FC around that time but was adopted by Glasgow Celtic and Borussia Dortmund after they met Liverpool in European competition.
Liverpool’s run to the 1965/66 European Cup Winners’ Cup final saw the song exported around Europe.
On a bitterly cold April night in 1966, Liverpool beat Celtic 2-0 at Anfield in the semi-finals.
But the travelling Scots fans took the song back to Glasgow with them and it soon became popular on the Celtic Park terraces.
When the final that May was played in Glasgow, Liverpool lost 2-1 to Dortmund after extra-time.
But the Scouse fans’ rendition of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ so impressed the German fans that the song found its way back to the Ruhr Valley.
Now the song is sung before every home game at Borussia’s Signal Iduna Park.
On March 13, both sets of supporters sang it as a mark of respect following the final whistle of Dortmund’s 2-0 win at home to Mainz after an elderly fan suffered a fatal heart attack during the league match.
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