If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably seen me tweet about it. If we’re Facebook friends, you might’ve caught my status updates. Many of my followers and my friends won’t know what ‘Justice for the 96’ means; they might have seen it and thought it is just a catch phrase, or ‘something to do with Liverpool Football Club’. In truth, it is so much more than that. It is something Liverpool FC has fought for ever since the day football as the world knew it was changed forever.
On April 15th, 1989, Liverpool travelled to Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield to play Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup semi-final. Thousands of fans made the trip on what should have been a day of pride and victory, and what instead turned out to be the darkest day in the club’s history. 96 of those fans never came home, and to this day their families, the incredible Hillsborough Family Support Group, and the Hillsborough Justice Campaign continue the fight for justice for their lost loved ones.
Despite Liverpool having more travelling fans than Forest, the LFC supporters were allocated the Leppings Lane End of the stadium. In the final minutes prior to kick-off, as thousands of fans who had been delayed on their way to the stadium rushed to the two turnstile-gates in an attempt to not miss the start of the match, police lost control of the crowds. They opened extra gates, which did not have turnstiles, in an attempt to ease the pressure that had built outside, but what resulted was an influx of fans into the stadium – in numbers far greater than the capacity of the steel-fenced pens.
As fans rushed through the gates at the rear and sides of the pen, unbeknownst to them, others at the front were being crushed against the fences by the weight of the crowd. As the game began, more and more fans entered, and the police failed to stop the flow of people, creating chaos. Fans started climbing the fences to escape the crush; some were lifted out by those on the terraces above. After six minutes, the referee was advised to stop the match, as fans escaping the pens flooded the pitch. It was only after the match was stopped, and the pitch filled with people fortunate enough to escape alive, and the bodies of those who were not so lucky, that the full scale of the disaster became apparent. Shockingly, though 44 ambulances arrived at the stadium to treat and transport the injured and dying, police prevented all but one of them from entering the stadium.
In the days following, disgusting and deceitful reports of how events had unfolded were published in a high profile newspaper, to the horror of the people of Liverpool and many employees of the paper. Under the headline, “The Truth”, The Sun and its reporter Kelvin MacKenzie claimed that Liverpool fans had stolen from the dead, and attacked police officers who were trying to help the injured, despite the whole disaster having been captured on video and broadcast live on television, and no such actions having been witnessed. To this day, many Liverpool supporters refuse to buy The Sun on a matter of principle, despite the paper having issued an apology stating that they were wrong for their initial headline. In 2005, the newspaper’s managing director admitted that their appalling coverage of Hillsborough was “the worst mistake in our history’, and that “what we did was a terrible mistake. It was a terrible, insensitive, horrible article, with a dreadful headline…” However, MacKenzie himself remains unremorseful, having offered an apology in 1993, only to retract it in 2006, claiming he was forced to apologise by the paper’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, and stating, “I was not sorry then and I’m not sorry now.”
The disaster, and the inquiry that followed, changed football forever. The Taylor Report declared that the official cause was not the behaviour of the fans, or even the design of the stadium, but the failure of police control. Since then, all new stadia built by Premier League clubs are all-seated, as are most in the Football League (The Championship, League One and League Two). Fences are no longer placed in front of fans, and most existing stadia with standing areas were converted to all-seated.
Every year on the 15th of April a memorial is held at Anfield, the home of Liverpool Football Club, and outside the stadium stands the Hillsborough Memorial with its eternal flame. As bright as the future of Liverpool FC may be, the Club’s darkest day will never be forgotten, and neither will the 96 fans who never came home that day.
Justice for the 96, may they rest in peace. You'll Never Walk Alone.
For more information, visit Liverpool Football Club's Official Hillsborough Page
I did not know about this. So sad.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post on what happened that day.
Though I'm not a soccer fan I remember that scene. The incident gave the sport a bad name and reputation and made me scared of going to big-scale events ever since. I still occasionally wonder what would happen if a crush was to happen at the games or a big concert. I hope and pray this kind of thing will never happen again. Let's hope those families will finally get their justice.
ReplyDeleteToday marks the 23rd anniversary of the tragedy, i was there that day and the scenes will linger with me until my dying day.other than the bodies strewn over the field one of the memories that will stick with me is the image of Bruce Groblaar trying to get the attention of the officials and stewards when he realised that there was something not quite right .My deepest sympathies go out to the families of the 96. I can't understand how the authorities messed up so badly and i sincerely hope that the families get the justice for their lost loved ones. YNWA
ReplyDelete