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Hillsborough anniversary

I've got it on DVD. It's really hard to watch, horrific in places, but it's a documentary everyone should see.
 
Im guessing Luton and Wimbledon would also have missed out due to this, as well as a very talented Everton side not getting to compete in the European Cup. (Did Wimbledon ever make it into UEFA Cup once the ban was lifted?).

Wimbledon played in the Intertoto but never the UEFA Cup. Coventry missed out on European football too; they should have played in the 1987/88 Cup Winner's Cup. That tournament was won by Belgian side KV Mechelen, so hardly a vintage renewal. Who knows how well Cov might have done?

In terms of Everton, a lot of their fans are very resentful towards Liverpool regarding the ban. The side that won the League Championship (and the Cup Winner's Cup) in 1985 was a very good one indeed, winning the League by 13 points. They surely would have acquitted themselves well in the 1985/86 European Cup.
 
20 years on and it still sends shivers down my spine. Can't remember exactly but I am pretty sure we played a game on the Friday night before, I know we played on the Tuesday afterwards when TV crews turned up filming us going into the game and we ended up for a few seconds on News at ten. Southends 4,000 crowds at the time were a far cry from what happened at Hillsborough. One of htose that were killed was a girl who used to be a Southend United steward.
Such a waste of lives and those responsible got away with it.
 
RIP the 96 will never been forgotten xx

This was taken from a Forest message board but i found it on the Englandfans site very moving and sad and thought id share it.

On this day twenty years ago, I stood with some friends on the Spion Kop at Hillsborough.

From a cold, misty start in Nottingham, it turned quickly into a beautiful day. A gorgeous, sunny, warm, blue sky day. After last season's disappointment, I looked forward to a positive result today.

Pretty much first into the Spion Kop when they opened the gates at 12. Noticed that when the 5 of us arrived we outnumbered the stewards by 4.

Gets to 2 o'clock, and it's getting busy in our end. 100 yards away, it appeared that most Liverpool fans hadn't arrived yet, since there was plenty of concrete visible in the left and right sections of the "away" end.

"International Rescue" by Fuzzbox played on the Tannoy. It got busier and tighter in our end. Liverpool fans were still to arrive by the looks of things.

I remember our fans - me and friends included - chanting "What's it like to have no fans" and similar...it was clear that few of the dedicated Scousers had arrived, such was the empty space visible either side of the goal at the other end.

But there comes a point when having stood in, and looked at terraces for many years before this day, you realise that the middle section opposite you is rather densely packed.
Meanwhile where you are, you're having trouble getting the Polo mints out of your pocket, owing to the press of people round you. Stood in FRONT of a crush barrier (thank you, Dad, for teaching me THAT one early in my terrace life), you're uncomfortably squashed.

The players emerge, the teams are announced over the Tannoy, and you're ready. I can barely move, such is the weight of people round me. At the other end, it's apparent that a large number of Liverpool fans are going to miss at least the start of the game cos there's still acres of terrace concrete visible from our end.

The game kicks off. Early chances cause the usual swaying on the terraces. The crush barriers divide the flowing waves of humanity into horizontal blocks. 'Twas ever thus.

Forest force two corners in the opening couple of minutes and the expectation grows, only for a Liverpool break to dampen the spirit. A shot from Liverpool's Peter Beardsley goes narrowly over the crossbar, and the usual surge behind the Scouse goal.

Only this one doesn't end horizontally. For a moment the people stop flowing forward, then the horizontal line breaks forward in a curve.

Around this time, we can see Liverpool fans in the upper tier seats reaching down and pulling fans up from the terrace below - presumably, we think, to afford them a better view.

"What a bunch of w*****s!!" cry 20,000 standing Forest fans.

A few Liverpool fans start climbing over the front fence of the terrace and jump on to the area behind the goal. "What a bunch on w*****s!!"

More fans lifted up, more fans over the fence.

A policeman runs onto the pitch and says a few words to the referee, who leads the players off the pitch.







*******************************************************

It is six minutes past three o'clock, on Saturday the 15th of April, 1989.


*******************************************************




In my pocket is a small transistor radio. I manage to get it out and turn it on to Peter Jones who's doing the commentary from this game on Radio 2 (is now Radio 5Live).

They are as bewildered as we are. Overcrowding. Fighting. Pitch Invasion. They don't know.


Ten or fifteen minutes later, with seemingly hundreds or possibly thousands of people straning to listen to my radio's little speaker, somes the awful report that..."we have unconfirmed rumours that three people have been seriously hurt in a crush behind the Liverpool goal".

The chanting from the Forest end dies down, an ambulance appears from our right, and as the number of Liverpool supporters on the pitch grows, a line of policemen is deployed to separate 'them' from 'us'.

We watch helplessly as injured people are brought towards our end of the pitch by fans and police, and laid down in the penalty area in front of us to recover. We can barely move in our end. My friend next to me was a qualified First Aider - his parents both Doctors. Even if he'd been able to get to the front of our end, it was clear that no-one was being allowed out of our end for any reason.

On my radio, the awful news breaks that..."...perhaps one person may have been killed and several others injured in a crush...but these are unconfirmed reports".

We stand and watch as more and more injured fans are laid out to recover in the penalty area before us.


To my dying day I will remember a Liverpool fan in a white shirt being carried by 6 people, on a ripped-down yellow advertising hoarding. His black jacket was draped over him. As the carriers crossed the half-way line, the jacket slipped off and fell to the floor.

His bearers stopped, and carefully placed the "stretcher" on the ground. They picked up the coat, and with great dignity placed it carefully over the poor whoops's head.

He was then carefully and respectfully picked up and carried to the area in front of us, and carefully placed on the ground, his coat moved to cover his head.



I think it was at that point that the full enormity of the situation dawned on all of us.

That guy was dead.

Dead.

And he had been placed with the 40-50-60-or-so of the other "injured", "recovering" people.

They were dead too.

All of them.

Dead.

And there we were chanting abuse over their heads for the last half hour.

Dead.


All of them.


Meanwhile the radio kept on with the doom-laden reports of "perhaps three people have been killed...." For once in my life, I knew better than the radio.


Come 4.15 or so, finally, FINALLY the PA cracks into life. "This is Kenny Dalglish."

Fifty-five thousand people in the stadium. Apart from some distant cries from the other end, you could have heard a pin drop.

"This is Kenny Dalglish. Clearly a major disaster is happening here.... " The rest of the speech is immaterial. It was met with warm applause from all remaining fans. He asked us to be patient for a while as the emergency services dealt with the injured, and that shortly the exit gates would be opened, and would we all please make our way calmly out of the ground and go home.

The radio is still telling me that perhaps 3 people have been killed, but this isn't confirmed.


Half-past four, the exit gates are opened, and 20,000 shocked, stunned, quiet Forest fans make their sad, disbelieveing way to their cars, buses, vans.

On the radio, I think Peter Jones had realised what had happened. Barely able to restrain his own tears, he told a stunned nation that..."a young lad, about 9 years old has just come up to our commentary position, and asked if he can use our phone to call his mum, because he has lost his Dad.

Of course he can phone."


************************************************




"BBC Radio Sheffield, the news at Five O'Clock.

South Yorkshire Ambulance Service has confirmed that seventy-two football fans have been killed at this afternoon's..................................."









We were at the traffic lights, in front of probably ten thousand Forest fans, all going home. I think most of us had that radio station on.
I got out of the car, and tried desperately to breathe in fresh air.

As I looked down the road, I wasn't the only person throwing up.



Not quite sure how we got home that night, but I remain grateful to my friend Sunil for getting us home.

A bit of tea, and news and Match Of The Day on TV. No music, no fanfare. Just a dark screen, and a few still images:

Fans sitting, shell-shocked.
Ambulances.
People hugging.
People crying.

Metal fencing.



A crush barrier, broken, bent forward in a curve.




*******************************************************************************************




Ninety-five fans died that afternoon.
Fans like me.
In the ground early, in order to get a good place to stand.
Killed by the unrelenting weight of humanity crushing the life and breath out of them.

The ninety-sixth victim, Tony Bland, died about three years later when his life support machine was turned off.



*******************************************************************************************



In loving and eternal memory of 96 poor s*ds who went to a football match, and never came home.
 
It's hard to believe that 20 years ago going to a football match could seriously endanger your health.

Unfortunately it took Hillsbrough, Heysel, Bradford and all those tragic deaths and injuries to finally get football to sort it's act out. All avoidable accidents, and in my opinion largely driven by football fans being considered as second class citizens by the authorities - let them stew in their dangerous stadia, fenced in like animals.

Of course if you treat people like animals, they can act like animals: hooliganism, going to games without tickets etc etc.

We are lucky that football has moved on significantly in the UK. There's still work to do - racism, homophobia, "respect" but it's on the right track. I for one don't hark for the "good old days" of standing room only, rubbish food and sewers for toilets.

I had a good friend who was a Liverpool supporter who was at Hillsborough on that day and witnessed it all. Afterwards he couldn't go to a Liverpool game again, he got panic attacks at the mere thought of attending a match, so he became a Tranmere supporter and has never been back to Anfield. Really brought home the impact to me
 
That post by the Forest fan was an excellent and alternative view of the whole tragedy from the opposite end of the ground. The day is rarely recalled from a Forest point of view and understandably so, no Forest fans were killed at Hillsborough.

However they were a part of that day, they witnessed some of the horror. Not just from a pitch length away either, as this post tells us they stood crushed together themselves on a terrace while dead fans lay in front of them.

I of course can't imagine the grief the families are still suffering who lost loved ones. However I also find it hard to imagine how Forest fans who stood and watched it all unfold in front of them must have been feeling as they made their way home. I still recall seeing the referee die in front of us at Roots Hall that fateful day, it was horrible as the realisation set in that he wasn't going home to his family that evening. Imagine that multiplied by 96?
 
That was a very moving piece taken off the Forest website.

I would like to say that I thought some of the posts about Sheffield Wednesday were rather harsh bearing in mind they were only hosting the game as a neutral venue for the FA and weren't responsible for the ticketing and the policing of the game. They did hold a memorial service yesterday, and as others have pointed out, there is a plaque to the victims.

It would be fitting, IMO, that the FA should pay for the Leppings Lane end to be pulled down, rebuilt and renamed as a tribute to those that died that day under such tragic circumstances.
 
20 years on and it still sends shivers down my spine. Can't remember exactly but I am pretty sure we played a game on the Friday night before, I know we played on the Tuesday afterwards when TV crews turned up filming us going into the game and we ended up for a few seconds on News at ten. Southends 4,000 crowds at the time were a far cry from what happened at Hillsborough. One of htose that were killed was a girl who used to be a Southend United steward.
Such a waste of lives and those responsible got away with it.

Yeah we beat Reading 2-1 on the Friday (I could remember we won but had to check Robin's site to see who we played) and it was Brentford on the Tuesday 1-1 draw. That was the season we were unlucky to go down as we only lost 3 of our last 12 games.

With regards to Hillsborough one of the victims was Gerard Baron who was the brother of former Southend player Kevin Baron (150 games 46 goals 1954-58).
 
I would like to say that I thought some of the posts about Sheffield Wednesday were rather harsh bearing in mind they were only hosting the game as a neutral venue for the FA and weren't responsible for the ticketing and the policing of the game. They did hold a memorial service yesterday, and as others have pointed out, there is a plaque to the victims.

That was partly me...
I only ever remembered the families of the 96 being disgusted with SWFC for not honouring their loved ones by even having a plaque in their memory anywhere in Hillsborough. As other posted, this is now not the case and I was happy to stand corrected and accept things have moved on. Again, like I said on Tuesday, this must be a recent development as I don't think anything was there when we last played at Hillsborough in Feb 2007.
 
That was partly me...
I only ever remembered the families of the 96 being disgusted with SWFC for not honouring their loved ones by even having a plaque in their memory anywhere in Hillsborough. As other posted, this is now not the case and I was happy to stand corrected and accept things have moved on. Again, like I said on Tuesday, this must be a recent development as I don't think anything was there when we last played at Hillsborough in Feb 2007.

well said, to say the tragedy is a bit of a sore point up here would be an understatement. Plenty of Sheffield Wednesday (and United) fans were at the memorial yesterday at Hillsborough (here), however they have also had to deal with quite a lot of vitriol from Liverpool fans... a lot of it unfair in my view. It's important to remember that the tragedy had a massive impact on the local community in sheffield, many of the locals helping out on the day, offering care, support and shelter. Also the local police/paramedics were hugely affected, with many requiring psychiatric help and councilling. Whilst there were serious errors of judgement by the senior police at Hillsborough, many of the police/stewards/paramedics did everything they could to help in such dreadful circumstances.
 
Exactly, the ordinary people who did what they could, the unsung heroes if you like. They may have been just ordinary people doing their jobs, but they were human beings and would have encountered nothing like that before or since.
 
They'd have been 10! I remember it being on the tv, awful scenes.

Hillsborough is one of my earliest football memories, I was 5 at the time. Remember Italia 90 a lot more, England vs Cameroon for some reason, I don't think I watched the Germany Semi-final.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by TrueBlue
How do we know its not gods vengace for the wall in Heysel?!

knock it on the head mate

That is probably the most tasteless remark I have read on this site, ever, and does the poster no credit whatsoever - either for the quality or sentiment. Shame on you.

(I'm not into that sort of thing, but I'm reliably informed by those in the know that God doesn't do vengeance.)
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by TrueBlue
How do we know its not gods vengace for the wall in Heysel?!



That is probably the most tasteless remark I have read on this site, ever, and does the poster no credit whatsoever - either for the quality or sentiment. Shame on you.

(I'm not into that sort of thing, but I'm reliably informed by those in the know that God doesn't do vengeance.)

What are you talking about! how is it tasteless? for all you know it may be the truth! but the real truth is we do not know how the world works and some things can't be explained yes its a grave tragedy but if your of a say mystical nature then one would believe things like that! take for example allot of Indian people believed that Jade Goody paid the price for her apparent Racism now I think that's bollox and I think Gods Vengeance is bollox but all I am saying is HOW DO WE KNOW?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by TrueBlue
How do we know its not gods vengace for the wall in Heysel?!



That is probably the most tasteless remark I have read on this site, ever, and does the poster no credit whatsoever - either for the quality or sentiment. Shame on you.

(I'm not into that sort of thing, but I'm reliably informed by those in the know that God doesn't do vengeance.)

Also you think that I am that ****ing heartless

You disgust me
 
Also you think that I am that ****ing heartless

You disgust me

How do you know what I think; you are putting words into my mouth.

I don't know you and therefore don't have a view.

I do think that remark was tasteless, but it's all about opinion. I don't wish to supress your right to make comments but equally if I want to respond, that too is my right.

Nothing disgusting about a difference of opinion.
 
Hillsborough

ITV 3 9pm

Docu-drama, first shown in 1999, following three families through the catastrophe and subsequent legal struggles following the deaths of 96 people as a result of overcrowding on the terraces during the 1989 FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at the home ground of Sheffield Wednesday. Christopher Eccleston stars, with Ricky Tomlinson, Annabelle Apsion, Rachel Davies, Tracey Wilkinson and Mark Womack SUB

Did anybody else watch this?
It was fantastic, really told the story very factually and clearly. Fantastic performances from Christipher Eccleston and Ricky Tomlinson. Really worth watching very hard hitting
 
A day late, but I will write this anyway.

I remember going to Highbury to watch Liverpool play in the 1988 League Cup on a cold, wet November evening. I, along with 54000 others turned up, most of us without tickets having been thrilled by a brilliant game of football that the two teams had played the previous week.

When I got there about 7.15-ish, straight from work that evening, I faced a queue of 200 yards & thought I had no chance of getting in. Not Only did I get in, I ended up two thirds of the way down this big concrete walkway, where nobody was pack & no realise how justified I was being scared. Stood on a terrace I had no control when the crowd moved. Fortunatley, the game was of little incident & no goals, as on the few bits of excitement, the crowd moved & I had no control of my feet & was getting slightly squashed. I have never been so scared in all my life. The following April, 96 people died going to watch a game they love. To this day, I wonder what if & why if somebody like myself could notice the perils of these big terraces, why people more intelligent than myself didn't?

Think logically what could have happened in an all standing Shed End if it had been all terracing & Clarkey's goal went in? Yes, most of us don't like standing, but sensible capacities have probably saved lives. Those 96 lives may have saved numerous others, as the lessons of Ibrox or Bolton were never learnt until Hillsborough.

Next time you're in a huge crowd at a football match, think of those 96 who died, as their lives mean you go to a game a lot safer than they did & you will almost certainly go home afterwards.

RIP The 96.
 

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