It Was Twenty Years Ago Today
Your View, April 15th 2009, 9:33 am
This is guest post by Mike Audley
I knew three people who had gone to the match, so just hoped that they’d be ok. They were Rick Jones and his girlfriend Tracey, both of whom I’d been at Sheffield Uni with until the previous year, and one of my best friends, Fran McCallister, – a fireman and doorman…a colossus… me and Fran had hung out for days on end, smoking, listening to music (Cocteau Twins and Van Halen were his favourites, weirdly) and, well, just being scousers in Sheffield ie, taking the piss out of locals, getting drunk, having fun and being great…
At about 3 in the morning the first call came from my friend Kevin Fearon. he’d just identified Rick and Tracey’s bodies in a gym near to the ground. i was still sitting on the bottom step of the stairs at about 6 when he called back to tell me that he’d just identified Fran’s body as well.
My dad came down the stairs.. ‘any news son?’ he said
I told him the news.
He made me a cup of tea and then did something i’ll always be grateful for. without a word he climbed past me back up the stairs, packed me a bag, came back down, and pulled me up and got me into the car. ‘you need to be with your mates in Sheffield’. we drove in silence.
He dropped me off, putting a few tenners into my hand and left me to it.
Already the broomhill tavern, our local for so many happy years was open, despite it being early.
The next hours are hazy. people were coming into the pub having been wandering around for hours and hours, having been at the match, – with blood on their hands from the batons of South Yorkshire’s finest. struck down for trying to climb onto the pitch, – often begging the police to let them “I’M STANDING ON MY MATE”…. “shut your mouth you scouse *******” *THWACK*. it appears that people trying to get out were standing on the sensible ones, – the ones who hadn’t left it until the last minute, but had got to the game nice and early, to pick a spot. Like Rick, and Tracey.
Mates arrived. The landlord put a bottle of Jameson’s on our table and told us that whatever we needed, food, drink, money, transport to and from Liverpool, – anything, – would be provided. Amazing. And he was to prove as good as his word.
We walked to the ground wanting to be there 24 hours after this obscenity had occurred. The good people of Sheffield came out of their houses, giving us drinks and flowers to take to the ground.
We arrived and laid our flowers. We cried. Apparently we were on the news that night. Hugging and crying. The salvation army man was incredible. He gave me a cup of tea and told me that he wanted to share my grief. Please would I share it with him? It would help me, and would help him too. I was, and am, overwhelmed by this.
What followed was 3 funerals in 5 days and a shock that hasn’t gone away. Sometimes just hearing the word ‘Hillsborough’ is enough to make me burst into tears.
It turns out that Fran had got his mates out and then gone back in to try and help people. Typical. He was a fireman, – i think he’d even pulled people out of the Kings Cross Fire. His girlfriend Sam asked me to play at his funeral. I wrote a song and was proud to sing it, – it was called ‘the man that was larger than life’.
Justice For The 96.
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