BY JAKE LEWIS – FAN FUEL BLOGGER
This week a report came out documenting how 96 football fans died at a match in Sheffield England in 1989. Hillsborough, was a neutral ground, and the game was an FA Cup Semi-Final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. A crush at the Liverpool fans end of the ground was the cause of the deaths. The official and damning verdict that indicted Liverpool fans as the cause of this tragedy was overturned, and the truth that a conspiracy had occurred between the police, the judiciary and politicians was revealed. This is my personal story, as a native of Liverpool and a Liverpool fan.
The day of the game I was working. My father had two tickets which he came by as a result of being a season ticket holder at Anfield – he didn’t want to go because he didn’t like going to Hillsborough, he actually said he didn’t feel safe, but of course he didn’t mean life threatening safety. My two cousins, John and David, bought the tickets off him. They were in the Leppings Lane pens.
I was able to get out to my car to listen to the match on the radio, so I tuned in and for the first few minutes things seemed normal, then the commentator started talking about crowd problems. It was the 1980s and the first thought was fighting, which was depressingly familiar. After a few more minutes it was clear there was no fighting, it was a crush through overcrowding, and the game was stopped.
The commentary went onto describe the carnage, though with very little understanding of the cause, just the outcome. Bodies being dragged over fences, lifeless bodies laying on the field, while fans attended to them. Police it seemed, were more focused on clearing the field, and the lack of medical support was being highlighted, as the commentator described scenes of chaos.
Have your say: Do you have a great idea for a blog and want to write for Fan Fuel? Email us here. | Raonic powers Canada at Davis Cup/a>
My two cousins were in the area of the crush. They had become separated. John was able climb over the fence into an adjacent pen. David was hauled up by one arm by fans in the upper deck out of the crush. In the process his watch came off his wrist (more about this later).
I finished my shift and headed home. Details were slowly emerging of the death toll, climbing from the teens to the 30, 40, 50 range. I quickly had dinner and headed out to the pub where some friends were meeting. At the pub some fans who had been at the match arrived later on, after driving home from the game.
Of course they were the centre of attention as they re-told their stories to an enrapt crowd in the pub. What they described, is what thousands more would describe to friends and family throughout the city over the coming days – inability for ticketed fans to get at the ground because the police were herding them into designated areas, too slowly for them to get in before the match started. Eventually arriving at the end designated for Liverpool fans just minutes before the kick-off.
Tempers were frayed as it was clear that there was no way that they could get in and finds their seats or spots before the match started, naturally having paid to see a game, you expect to be allowed access. Then suddenly the crowd started to move faster toward the ground. The police had opened the gates normally used for exiting. Through the gates thousands poured, like a river with only two entrances into the stadium itself this river of fans poured down the tunnels into the Leppings Lane pens.
Once inside the pens they were pressed up against the fans already there, unable to turn back, as water cannot flow back upstream. Only minutes after the gates had been opened fans were screaming and shouting for people to stop pushing, and go back, but that was impossible. The pressure continued long after fans were being lifted over fences and laid out onto the field.
These returning fans had been part of the chaos, and were lucky to escape with their lives, onto the pitch. They tried to help wherever they could, but untrained they could do nothing of impact. On the pitch the police continued to react to the situation as if it was a riot, and wanted to herd fans off the field, paying little or no attention to the unfolding disaster. The only medical staff on the field, were St. Johns ambulance volunteers who are numbered in the teens, equipped and trained for much simpler issues.
Once outside the ground, the fans talked about discovering dozens of ambulances lined up, but the drivers and medics, still inside. They banged on doors and screamed at them to get into the ground and help. One of the fans said a medic opened his window and said “the police have told us to stay outside until all the trouble has been cleared, for our own safety.”
In the days and weeks after, the alternative story, a web of lies constructed by the South Yorkshire Police and the local Conservative MP. The fans were drunk, late and un-ticketed. The gates were rushed by the fans. Liverpool fans, looted the bodies of people who were dead, and pick pocketed other fans. One fan urinated on medics trying to help an injured fan. At one point there was a picture shown of a table with all kinds of personal belongings that the police said they had recovered from pick pockets. On the table was a watch. “That’s my watch,” David told us when he called after seeing the news shot of the “theft recoveries”.
In the city of Liverpool, there was disbelief, the truth was being buried and we were being buried with it. It was surreal. How could the truth be replaced by a complete fabrication despite so many witnesses, and so much evidence being available, even documented? Then came the Public Inquiry. Surely the truth would come out then? Amazingly the report verified the web of lies that had been constructed, and was now the new truth. So for years football fans of all colours that should have been furious about how their own had been treated, blamed Liverpool fans for the deaths of 96 of their own. I personally have had to endure the ignorant inferences from people who say “no smoke, without fire though eh? They were drunk and had no tickets, it was the other fans fault.”
This week the truth was finally told, and in part it was a sigh of relief because you start to wonder if everyone had gone mad. I had seriously begun to question my personal memories, and recollections, and wondered if I was part of some kind of group delusion. The relief I felt when the report was issued, cannot be fully described. The emotion? I cried like a baby for an hour. My wife, didn’t fully realize, I didn’t fully realize what this meant to me. Imagine how the families of those who lost their lives needlessly and criminally felt?
To the 96, Rest in Peace, justice is finally being served.
Related read:
More Soccer: Canada comes up short vs. Panama