On the fifth anniversary of the Manchester Arena bombing, Manchester United have decided to print the Manchester Bee symbol on their jerseys – accompanied with the date 22.05.17 underneath – in order to honour the 22 victims of the tragedy.
As the squad travels to Selhurst Park for their final game of the 2021/22 season, the symbol plastered on the front of their away jersey represents a sentiment that transcends football.
The official club website states:
“The bee… will be prominently positioned next to the club badge on our away shirt, as United remembers all the victims of that heart-breaking night.
Manchester has been a united city in the hours, days, weeks, months and years since the attack and everyone impacted by that tragic evening at the Manchester Arena will be forever in the club’s thoughts.”
The ‘Workers Bee’ has been the emblem of Manchester for over 150 years, first denoting the hard-working nature of the population following the Industrial Revolution, and then the sense of unity in the city as a whole.
However, following the tragedy on 22 May 2017, this sense of unity was only intensified as the emblem came to act as symbol of defiance against the remorseless attack.
Most notably, this can seen in the fact that, by late June 2017, 10,000 people had received bee tattoos in support of the Manchester Tattoo Appeal, raising over £520,000 for the victims of the arena bombing.
Today, acts across the city will honour the victims of the tragedy, starting with 1-minute applauses being held at the start of each wave of runners taking part in the Great Manchester Run. In addition, the names of the 22 victims will be read aloud at Victoria Station in the city and at Manchester Cathedral; where the bells will toll at 22:31 to mark the moment of the attack.
These tributes all come together to highlight the firm belief that terrorism will never win on those fateful days, but rather bring communities together. Unbeaten. Unified. United.
