20th Anniversary - Hillsborough Disaster 1989

[Joe King]

Since it will be the 20th anniversary to the tragedy, I have created this thread for everyone to share their stories of that horrific event and also hopefully like Scouser Tommy have done, we can get a fund set up for Hope for Hillsborough (http://www.hopeforhillsborough.org)

If you have any articles, post on here too as well as any videos, photos etc.

[Charlie_B]

I was only one, so I have no memories of it happening. I don't really remember being educated about it by my parents when I was very young. My dad stopped going to matches just before I was born. The whole thing is horrific; I read up about it myself, picked up stuff from forums and articles and television programs and the like.

It's one of the things that makes me so proud to be a Liverpool fan... the disaster is incorporated into our whole history, from the flames on the Club crest, to the mosaics and chants we've had in recent times.

It was a horrific day, and the atrocities didn't stop after that day either.

YNWA for the 96 and their families at this time.

[The Glove]

You created it? Im impressed.

Also see, www.hfdinfo.com - Read, learn, educate.

[jakle]

It still sends me cold to think 96 people died supporting their team. Thats 96 loved ones covering all walks of life that left home and never returned home, leaving untold families and friends devastated and forever haunted by their horrific death and compounded by the criminal coverup that followed.

The question we ask is 'when will there be justice for the 96'. With each passing year it does seem less likely but all we can do as supporters is to keep their memory alive and to ensure that nobody forgets what happened on that black april day almost 20 years ago.

RIP & God bless you and your families.

[Neil Young]

There was a lengthy and sympathetic item on Newsnight last night if anyone is interested.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...ht_30_03_2009/

It starts around 35'50" in.

[zimbo]

I always find it faintly depressing that any thread about Hillsborough is generally met with a lack of interest on this site. Why this is I'm not sure. Perhaps because a lot of members are relatively young and haven't experienced the trauma and its aftermath first-hand. Perhaps because there seems to be quite a high proportion of posters who do not hail from the Merseyside region as compared to other sites - that's not intended as an attack on OOTers by the way, more an acknowledgement that the impact of Hillsborough was felt most keenly within the city, where it was highly likely that you either knew someone who died that day or 'knew someone who knew someone' that perished. Either way, it's disappointing that the most significant event in this club's history seems to provoke little more than wearied apathy.

For what it's worth, my memories of April 15th 1989 remain vivid. I'd cut back on the number of games I attended during the 88/89 season, having been a regular since 81/82. This was partly due to moving away from Liverpool a couple of years earlier and also a result of having limited funds to support a full-time matchgoing existence. I also joined a team that lit up the less-than-prestigious Yorkshire Old Boys League, and spent most of my Saturday afternoons between the posts whilst being buffeted by Force 8 gales in the midst of some bleak Huddersfield wasteland.

My elder brother had acquired tickets for the semi-final, so I had a difficult decision to make. At the last minute, with thoughts of obligation and responsibility and other such gubbins foremost in my mind, I chose to help my team in its ultimately fruitless promotion push. It's a decision that I have come to be thankful for and yet, and for reasons that I can't fully explain nor am I completely comfortable with, one which part of me regrets.

I put it down to a mixture of guilt at not having suffered in the way so many people I'd stood alongside for years suffered; the feeling that I may have been able to do something to help, even in the smallest possible way, just one person - a futile, stupid and ultimately self-serving delusion; and some vague and weirdly shameful belief that this was an occasion of such life-changing magnitude that I should have been there standing shoulder to shoulder with my fellow Reds and taken whatever consequences would have followed, no matter how devastating.

As I say, I'm yet to fully come to terms with these feelings, and they're not ones that I've chosen to explore.

I spent the afternoon with a miniature radio in the back of my net, frantically clutching it to my ear as the full horror was played out across the nation's television screens. As my match ended (I have no idea to this day what the score was), I ran to the changing rooms and grabbed my stuff, just wanting to get away, to get somewhere, I didn't know where. I was aware that my brother was in the Leppings Lane end of the ground, but that was as much as I knew.

Before I left one of my team-mates starting giving out about 'Bloody Scousers at it again' and 'hooligans' - I had neither the stomach, nor it must be said the relevant information, to reply with anything other than a half-hearted 'F*ck off.'

After a few hours, and a number of calls to my Mum in Liverpool, we finally heard from my brother, who had been in the stand above the terrace and had escaped unscathed. I honestly didn't know what to do with myself that night. Without wanting to appear overly melodramatic, I was in something of a daze. It was when I saw the footage for the first time that it became painfully real. I cried and couldn't stop. I didn't understand why all around me people were continuing with their usual routine, going out, watching telly, laughing, scrapping, whilst people that I considered family (despite having met them only as part of Anfield's communal throb) were lying in a makeshift morgue in Sheffield.

Only in the days and weeks that followed did stories begin to filter out which made you start to ask questions.
Why were the side pens largely unoccupied?
Why was the kick-off not delayed?
Why did the police refuse to open fences that would have let people escape on to the pitch?
Why did they form a barrier across the half-way line when it was patently obvious that this had nothing to do with hooliganism?
Why was it left to our own supporters to ferry dead and injured people across the pitch on makeshift stretchers?
Why were 44 ambulances prevented from getting on to the pitch when people were crying out for medical attention?
Why, when CCTV cameras were trained on the Leppings Lane end, did nobody see what was happening? When people were dying were they stood?

The levels of incompetence, inaction and wilful negligence that surround the Hillsborough disaster are quite stunning to behold. It is the ultimate example of what can happen when crowd control is considered more of a priority than crowd safety. It is a damning indictment of those charged with executing these responsibilities that they failed, dismally and with unimaginable consequences, on both counts.

Anyone looking for cover-ups and conspiracies would find more to get their teeth into by examining the way the disaster was subsequently handled than they would in any number of JFKs or 9/11s. For my part, I will always feel that the tragedy of Hillsborough lies in just how avoidable it all was. And I will always know that it could easily have been me, my brother, you, anyone of us.

That's why I'll be at Anfield, with my 15 year old son, on the 15th April. Because we should never forget.

[BFG]

Top post and top man Zimbo.

As a relatively young supporter I often don't really know what to say on these threads. RIP or YNWA seems too little when you consider the magnitude of the event and how it's affected the family's of the victims, Liverpool supporters and indeed the entire city ever since. As Zimbo says we should never ever forget.

[southern red]

I was in Sportspages book shop in London when the first pictures came over on the TV. Nobody really knew what was going on, but we all knew that something was wrong. Everyone was quiet, we were all watcing the TV, deep in our own thoughts, but probably thinking that it could have happened to any of us.
I stayed in Central London that afternoon and the next time I saw the news was at about 6pm, news of the fatalities and injured was coming through. I found a phone box in Leicester Square and phoned my family in Liverpool to make sure that they all were home, or coming home. By about 8pm, the first editions of the Sunday papers were starting to come out and then the horror hit home.
It was a day I'll never ever forget.
I remember wearing my Liverpool scarf into work all of the following week, I didn't know any other way to show my feelings. People didn't understand what I was doing and were asking me why I had my scarf on, I tried to expalin but t was difficult because it wasn't their team, their fans. Finally, I had to contend with the S*n newspaper as the old hags in the office told me that they were now getting to see "the truth". I've never read a copy of the S*n since that day and I never ever will again.

[tsb]

I was 9 years old and watched it on the telly. I can vaguely remember Heysel and Maradona in 86 but Hillsbrough is etched in my memory. It didn't really sink in at the time what was happening. Looking at the faces of those dying against the fences I remember imagining the pain they were going through and asking my family why they weren't getting help.

There were real heroes that day, pulling people out of the crush and ferrying the wounded about on the advertising boards. The tragedy moved the club from a football team that everyone at school supported to something much more personal for me. People shouldn't die watching a football match, it grates me that justice is still awaited for the 96. YNWA

[RoadEnd]

It was the day of my 21st birthday. I had a ticket but had given it up at the last minute in exchange for the Arsenal game (when Michael Thomas was to nick the league title from us). I was in the car listening to Radio 2 commentary when the news started coming through, and the rest of the day is pretty much a blur. I had relatives at the game and it wasn't until later that evening we knew they were safe (no mobile phones in those days). I cancelled my 21st celebrations that evening for obvious reasons and just sat and watched the news with my family. My relatives that had been there, found it very hard to talk about for a long time. They had seen and experienced some shocking things that day. I was at Bradford Uni and travelled across the M62 a few days later to visit Anfield and pay my respects. It just felt that was the right thing to do. That was an incredibly emotional experience, seeing so many people laying flowers on the pitch, tying scarves, teddy bears and messages to the barriers on the Kop.
I can't imagine the grief, suffering and emotions of people who lost a loved one. 6 months later I had to take my girlfriend to Airedale Hospital in West Yorkshire. This was where Tony Bland was on a life support machine. His room was decked out with Liverpool scarves and shirts. Tony's parents eventually won the right to turn of his life support in March 1993 and he became the 96th victim of that awful day.

I always try and observe a minutes silence at 3.06pm on the anniversary wherever I am. I think that it is important to remember not only the people who died, but all the people who were affected that day, especially the survivors and those "heroes" that saved lives and tried to save lives whilst the police and officials froze or did nothing.

[The Birdman]

I was 14, I vaguely remember Heysel because my dad made me go to cricket practise and I couldn't work out why the game was still on when I got back in.
Hillsborough I just remember watching the pictures on the tv not really comprehending or understanding fully what I was watching.
I remember crying watching the kop fill up with flowers and tributes also on the tv and remain disgusted that so many lives were lost without a proper enquiry

[Shaggy]

Great post zimbo. In fact great posts everyone.

re zimbo's comments...I do agree but I think, allied to the geographical reasons, people are reluctant to make what may seem glib remarks. BFG has it right...it's difficult to know what to say.

I was 11 at the time. My Dad had tickets for us - we went to Hillsborough every season along with other grounds local to us, such as Forest, Derby and Notts County. The tickets weren't for the Leppings Lane end, though. South or North stand...I can never remember which. North I think...near that little triangular corner that bridged the gap to the LL end.

About a week before I found out my old man's company were sponsoring the match ball in the Chesterfield v Port Vale Division 3 'clash' the very same day. I was gutted. Think I cried. In fact I know I did.

He had to go and obviously I had to go with him. He gave the tickets away to someone he knew. I chose the MOTM that day...gave it to Darren Beckford. I would normally have been very excited about that (a few years later I had the same honour and gave it to Doncaster Rovers' Eddie Gormley) but I'd listened to the appalling events unfold on a little radio and was bewildered and confused.

I too always observe a silence at 3.06pm on the anniversary. I don't want to sound like a superfan, but there are Reds in my office (one Scouse, others not) and I am the only one who does so. Last year, at about 3.04pm, I walked out of the office to go and stand outside. On my way I noticed my LFC mates....chattering and laughing as normal....completely oblivious. I sometimes feel a misguided sense of anger towards everybody else, all oblivious to the anniversary and happily getting on with their business. But I know that's unfair. However with these I felt sickened. It's not my place to tell them how to support the club, how to pay their respects and acknowledge the gravity of the time and the date, but I felt disgusted.

[dom9]

I always find it faintly depressing that any thread about Hillsborough is generally met with a lack of interest on this site. Why this is I'm not sure. Perhaps because a lot of members are relatively young and haven't experienced the trauma and its aftermath first-hand. Perhaps because there seems to be quite a high proportion of posters who do not hail from the Merseyside region as compared to other sites - that's not intended as an attack on OOTers by the way, more an acknowledgement that the impact of Hillsborough was felt most keenly within the city, where it was highly likely that you either knew someone who died that day or 'knew someone who knew someone' that perished. Either way, it's disappointing that the most significant event in this club's history seems to provoke little more than wearied apathy.

For what it's worth, my memories of April 15th 1989 remain vivid. I'd cut back on the number of games I attended during the 88/89 season, having been a regular since 81/82. This was partly due to moving away from Liverpool a couple of years earlier and also a result of having limited funds to support a full-time matchgoing existence. I also joined a team that lit up the less-than-prestigious Yorkshire Old Boys League, and spent most of my Saturday afternoons between the posts whilst being buffeted by Force 8 gales in the midst of some bleak Huddersfield wasteland.

My elder brother had acquired tickets for the semi-final, so I had a difficult decision to make. At the last minute, with thoughts of obligation and responsibility and other such gubbins foremost in my mind, I chose to help my team in its ultimately fruitless promotion push. It's a decision that I have come to be thankful for and yet, and for reasons that I can't fully explain nor am I completely comfortable with, one which part of me regrets.

I put it down to a mixture of guilt at not having suffered in the way so many people I'd stood alongside for years suffered; the feeling that I may have been able to do something to help, even in the smallest possible way, just one person - a futile, stupid and ultimately self-serving delusion; and some vague and weirdly shameful belief that this was an occasion of such life-changing magnitude that I should have been there standing shoulder to shoulder with my fellow Reds and taken whatever consequences would have followed, no matter how devastating.

As I say, I'm yet to fully come to terms with these feelings, and they're not ones that I've chosen to explore.

I spent the afternoon with a miniature radio in the back of my net, frantically clutching it to my ear as the full horror was played out across the nation's television screens. As my match ended (I have no idea to this day what the score was), I ran to the changing rooms and grabbed my stuff, just wanting to get away, to get somewhere, I didn't know where. I was aware that my brother was in the Leppings Lane end of the ground, but that was as much as I knew.

Before I left one of my team-mates starting giving out about 'Bloody Scousers at it again' and 'hooligans' - I had neither the stomach, nor it must be said the relevant information, to reply with anything other than a half-hearted 'F*ck off.'

After a few hours, and a number of calls to my Mum in Liverpool, we finally heard from my brother, who had been in the stand above the terrace and had escaped unscathed. I honestly didn't know what to do with myself that night. Without wanting to appear overly melodramatic, I was in something of a daze. It was when I saw the footage for the first time that it became painfully real. I cried and couldn't stop. I didn't understand why all around me people were continuing with their usual routine, going out, watching telly, laughing, scrapping, whilst people that I considered family (despite having met them only as part of Anfield's communal throb) were lying in a makeshift morgue in Sheffield.

Only in the days and weeks that followed did stories begin to filter out which made you start to ask questions.
Why were the side pens largely unoccupied?
Why was the kick-off not delayed?
Why did the police refuse to open fences that would have let people escape on to the pitch?
Why did they form a barrier across the half-way line when it was patently obvious that this had nothing to do with hooliganism?
Why was it left to our own supporters to ferry dead and injured people across the pitch on makeshift stretchers?
Why were 44 ambulances prevented from getting on to the pitch when people were crying out for medical attention?
Why, when CCTV cameras were trained on the Leppings Lane end, did nobody see what was happening? When people were dying were they stood?

The levels of incompetence, inaction and wilful negligence that surround the Hillsborough disaster are quite stunning to behold. It is the ultimate example of what can happen when crowd control is considered more of a priority than crowd safety. It is a damning indictment of those charged with executing these responsibilities that they failed, dismally and with unimaginable consequences, on both counts.

Anyone looking for cover-ups and conspiracies would find more to get their teeth into by examining the way the disaster was subsequently handled than they would in any number of JFKs or 9/11s. For my part, I will always feel that the tragedy of Hillsborough lies in just how avoidable it all was. And I will always know that it could easily have been me, my brother, you, anyone of us.

That's why I'll be at Anfield, with my 15 year old son, on the 15th April. Because we should never forget.

That is probably the most affecting post I've ever read on the internet.

I grew up in London and the disaster happened 3 days before my 14th birthday. I listened to it at home on Radio 2, then watched the horror unfold live on the telly during Grandstand.

It was harrowing a time, but given the distance I grew up from Liverpool and those that were affected, and also given my age at the time, I just simply feel that I don't have anything to add that hasn't been said many times before by people who are affected by this at first hand.

I wasn't there, I wasn't personally affected. Zimbo, and countless others were.

I just wish it was handled better by the police at the time, and that it was handled better in all that has gone on since. That is unforgivable.

And of course, everybody that has been affected has my deepest sympathies.

[Liverpool]

I too always observe a silence at 3.06pm on the anniversary. I don't want to sound like a superfan, but there are Reds in my office (one Scouse, others not) and I am the only one who does so. Last year, at about 3.04pm, I walked out of the office to go and stand outside. On my way I noticed my LFC mates....chattering and laughing as normal....completely oblivious. I sometimes feel a misguided sense of anger towards everybody else, all oblivious to the anniversary and happily getting on with their business. But I know that's unfair. However with these I felt sickened. It's not my place to tell them how to support the club, how to pay their respects and acknowledge the gravity of the time and the date, but I felt disgusted.

Not enough people know Hillsborough and what actually happened. I know lots of people who havent a clue and where brought up in Liverpool.

[Tee]

I always find it faintly depressing that any thread about Hillsborough is generally met with a lack of interest on this site. Why this is I'm not sure. Perhaps because a lot of members are relatively young and haven't experienced the trauma and its aftermath first-hand. Perhaps because there seems to be quite a high proportion of posters who do not hail from the Merseyside region as compared to other sites - that's not intended as an attack on OOTers by the way, more an acknowledgement that the impact of Hillsborough was felt most keenly within the city, where it was highly likely that you either knew someone who died that day or 'knew someone who knew someone' that perished. Either way, it's disappointing that the most significant event in this club's history seems to provoke little more than wearied apathy.

For what it's worth, my memories of April 15th 1989 remain vivid. I'd cut back on the number of games I attended during the 88/89 season, having been a regular since 81/82. This was partly due to moving away from Liverpool a couple of years earlier and also a result of having limited funds to support a full-time matchgoing existence. I also joined a team that lit up the less-than-prestigious Yorkshire Old Boys League, and spent most of my Saturday afternoons between the posts whilst being buffeted by Force 8 gales in the midst of some bleak Huddersfield wasteland.

My elder brother had acquired tickets for the semi-final, so I had a difficult decision to make. At the last minute, with thoughts of obligation and responsibility and other such gubbins foremost in my mind, I chose to help my team in its ultimately fruitless promotion push. It's a decision that I have come to be thankful for and yet, and for reasons that I can't fully explain nor am I completely comfortable with, one which part of me regrets.

I put it down to a mixture of guilt at not having suffered in the way so many people I'd stood alongside for years suffered; the feeling that I may have been able to do something to help, even in the smallest possible way, just one person - a futile, stupid and ultimately self-serving delusion; and some vague and weirdly shameful belief that this was an occasion of such life-changing magnitude that I should have been there standing shoulder to shoulder with my fellow Reds and taken whatever consequences would have followed, no matter how devastating.

As I say, I'm yet to fully come to terms with these feelings, and they're not ones that I've chosen to explore.

I spent the afternoon with a miniature radio in the back of my net, frantically clutching it to my ear as the full horror was played out across the nation's television screens. As my match ended (I have no idea to this day what the score was), I ran to the changing rooms and grabbed my stuff, just wanting to get away, to get somewhere, I didn't know where. I was aware that my brother was in the Leppings Lane end of the ground, but that was as much as I knew.

Before I left one of my team-mates starting giving out about 'Bloody Scousers at it again' and 'hooligans' - I had neither the stomach, nor it must be said the relevant information, to reply with anything other than a half-hearted 'F*ck off.'

After a few hours, and a number of calls to my Mum in Liverpool, we finally heard from my brother, who had been in the stand above the terrace and had escaped unscathed. I honestly didn't know what to do with myself that night. Without wanting to appear overly melodramatic, I was in something of a daze. It was when I saw the footage for the first time that it became painfully real. I cried and couldn't stop. I didn't understand why all around me people were continuing with their usual routine, going out, watching telly, laughing, scrapping, whilst people that I considered family (despite having met them only as part of Anfield's communal throb) were lying in a makeshift morgue in Sheffield.

Only in the days and weeks that followed did stories begin to filter out which made you start to ask questions.
Why were the side pens largely unoccupied?
Why was the kick-off not delayed?
Why did the police refuse to open fences that would have let people escape on to the pitch?
Why did they form a barrier across the half-way line when it was patently obvious that this had nothing to do with hooliganism?
Why was it left to our own supporters to ferry dead and injured people across the pitch on makeshift stretchers?
Why were 44 ambulances prevented from getting on to the pitch when people were crying out for medical attention?
Why, when CCTV cameras were trained on the Leppings Lane end, did nobody see what was happening? When people were dying were they stood?

The levels of incompetence, inaction and wilful negligence that surround the Hillsborough disaster are quite stunning to behold. It is the ultimate example of what can happen when crowd control is considered more of a priority than crowd safety. It is a damning indictment of those charged with executing these responsibilities that they failed, dismally and with unimaginable consequences, on both counts.

Anyone looking for cover-ups and conspiracies would find more to get their teeth into by examining the way the disaster was subsequently handled than they would in any number of JFKs or 9/11s. For my part, I will always feel that the tragedy of Hillsborough lies in just how avoidable it all was. And I will always know that it could easily have been me, my brother, you, anyone of us.

That's why I'll be at Anfield, with my 15 year old son, on the 15th April. Because we should never forget.

Amazing post.

If this makes any sense at all that post conjured memories and emotions at that time. I was a 16 year old who was losing interest in football and thinking about other things.

The events that unfolded that day made me feel awful about not caring as much for Liverpool. It brought me back in, big time. Seeing the scenes unfold live on Grandstand IIRC was shocking and truly horrifying, worse than Heysel from what I remember but that could be because I was older and could understand it more.

At first I blamed the fans.... who else could I blame I thought? But then the truth unfolded and it saddens me greatly that the families have still not had closure on losing ther loved ones on that tragic day; a day that should have ended as another routine passage to another annual Wembley pilgrimage ended as no other day ever could in anyones worst nightmare.

Personally I do not respond too much to these type of threads because I am never sure of what to say, so if I have said anything inappropriate I apologise.

I will be thinking of the 96 and their families - praying they get the justice they deserve one day.

RIP the 96.