Remembering Hillsborough

[Pinkjenny]

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. I know the grief is not confined to Liverpool, but as a scouser today, I want to share my memories of that day.

My dad is a staunch Liverpool FC supporter. He has held a home season ticket for as long as I can remember, but hardly ever goes to away games. I remember that day was unseasonably warm, I was 11 years old, and my dad was on his way to Sheffield for the game. I was with my mum and my grandparents, going to a market in Prescot as we always did on a Saturday.

We were in the car, and my grandad had the radio on. I remember hearing the reports on the radio, the commentator had total panic and hysteria in his voice, I don't really recall what was said, but I know the atmosphere in the car completely changed, and we headed for home, much earlier than usual. As far as we were aware, my dad was in the Leppings Lane terrace, and my mum must have been completely distraught. I know she held it together for me as I don't remember her weeping or wailing at all.

We got back to my grandparents house, and just as we were about to call the family and friends helpline, my dad rang. He had got a stand ticket about half an hour before the match, from a friend of a friend, and was safe and on his way home.

My mum and I went home, and I stayed outside, waiting for him to come home. When he finally pulled up, I asked him what had happened, and he merely shook his head and went inside the house. I remember he sat down, and didn't speak for about a week. It was awful, the tension was unbearable.

To this day, my dad has never spoken about what he saw, but in his more emotional moments, he has told me how he felt when he pulled up and saw me standing at the top of the road waiting for him to come home. He has never even looked at a copy of The Sun since.

One of my schoolfriends lost her dad, my dad lost one of his friends.

I just wanted to get all that out, and pay tribute to the families of the 96 people that weren't as lucky as we were on 15th April 1989.

He's lovely isnt he?

IIRC, his marriage broke up after the tragedy. Imagine losing both daughters. He is widely depicted in that Jimmy McGovern drama-documentary.

It doesnt bear thinking about. My life wouldnt be worth living.

This article by Mick Hume in Spiked is interesting. It puts it into a political context and I think it helps explain why the police acted as they did - they were so primed to expect crowd trouble that when it was clear there was something wrong, the possibility of it being something other than crowd trouble took a very long time to sink in.

The article also highlights the way policing and the alterations to the stadium (ie the pens and barriers) were all about crowd control rather than health and safety.

I remember their mum saying, 'I'm no longer a wife. I'm no longer a mother.' Imagine having your life just ripped away from you.

The Jimmy McGovern 'Hillsborough' is a fantastic piece of work- I thionk its Christopher Ecclestone who plays Trevor Hicks.
Im amazed that ITV are only showing it on ITV3- It should be on mainstream TV

I agree QM. It should be on mainstream TV, it is Christopher Ecclestone, with Robert Carlyse also. It is harrowing and heartbreaking.

Ricky Tomlinson too I think

The one from The Royle Family is in it also (jim royle??)

x-posts with gm

So sad, my cousin was there and he is still very very haunted and broken by what he saw.

My husband is a Wednesday supporter and his brother had bought me a Wednesday shirt with Mrs M on the back but DH vetoed it because my family are all staunch Liverpool supporters - and because of my cousin's experiences.

The whole thing was so avoidable and tragic.

"This article by Mick Hume in Spiked is interesting. It puts it into a political context and I think it helps explain why the police acted as they did - they were so primed to expect crowd trouble that when it was clear there was something wrong, the possibility of it being something other than crowd trouble took a very long time to sink in. "

yes and this is why the rose-tinted naustalgic romanticising of football hooliganism that has happened in the last 10 - 20 years is such utter bollox. while the police were in a very real way horribly at fault at hillsborough, you have to look past them also to get the full picture. what brought about the situation that football supporters accepted being put behind cages and being treated like animals? it was the significant minority who engaged in football hooliganism who also contributed. but are now made out to be mini-celebrities who's books and films are viewed by fans. but who like to look back whistfully and spout bullshit about never hurting "civilians" or anyone who wasn't connected with a firm.in my mind the blood of hillsborough and heysil are very much so on their hands as well as the police.

I dont think that there is a place for that on this thread Quimby, certainly not without backing up your allergations.

The fact remains that 96 people lost their lives that day 20 years ago, and many hudreds more lost their son/daughter/father/mother/brother/sister/uncle whatever

I am sorry I only vaguely knew of this tragedy as I am not from England and was quite young when this happened.

Could someone please explain to me how the police didnt help? What did they not do? And could someone link to the Observer article mentioned here?

I have been reading online about it today and been very tearful but still very confused as to what happened. I can see it was horrific and sends shivers down my spine.

I hated the Sun anyway, now I have another reason to.

i am not sure i get your point.

football hooligans created the situation of the fans being herded into pens and caged in? so really the police were unable to see the people being crushed and axpyxiated in front of them? because they were so primed for trouble?

what a way to pass the buck

fromheretowhere, there are two good links on this thread ,www.contrast.org/hillsborough/history/index.shtm this explains in detail what happened and the aftermath

a place for what? in criticising the football hooliganism that lead to deaths in heysil?
or that was a contributing factor to the circumstances in which hillsborough was dealt with because it was assumed automatically that the disturbance had to be crowd trouble and violence rather than over-crowding?

i'm well aware that 96 people died, i'm interested as to what you found offensive in my post as i certainly don't think i posted anything offensive or inflammatory.
i'm not spoiling for a fight, and i'm interested in what allegations you need backed up because i thought most of the things i posted were common knowledge.

make no mistake i am not trying to lay the blames of these deaths squarely at the feet of the fans.
the mistakes that lead to the deaths on that day lie with the police. my point was that such a disaster had become inevitable due to the way in which terracing and crowd trouble was dealt with at the time due to the prevelance of hooliganism.i.e. the fencing that surrounded the supporters to keep rival hooligans apart which meant that the supporters were hemmed in and suffocated.a similar incident nearly happened mere months before in the north bank at highbury but was narrowly avoided by the fans spilling onto the pitch.
thankfully these were removed and all-seater stadiums made cumpolsary by the taylor report.

thanks lulu

Tragedies like this have been happening for all time, because people are treated as cattle. The Titanic springs to mind. And countless other more modern tragedies in other countries. It is sickening and makes me never want to let my DS away.

I don't think Hume is blaming the football hooligans - he interprets the existence of pens etc as political overreaction to fear of the mob, rather than as the thing that was necessary to contain violence.
In the aftermath of the Bradford fire for instance it was recommended that there should not be barriers to stop people getting onto the pitch, because of the health and safety risk, but that was ignored at Hillsborough.

no i'm not trying to pass the buck for the police, they have to shoulder the vast majority of the blame.
but to overlook the actions of a minority of fans who turned attending football games during the 80's into a dangerous past-time is just as myopic. and my main point was that the veneration of such hooligans now a days through books and movies as just a bunch of liekly lads out for a fight and a beer is repulsive and over-looks the through extent of the fall out of their actions.

it's similar to those who look at heysel and try to blame only uefa and a crumbling stadium for the deaths that day.

i've always condemned the police for their actions that day and their attempted cover-ups which followed.

i agree that football hooliganism was and to an extent still is a big problem. the issue was that the majority of law abiding supporters were thrown into the mix as worthless scum and died for it. it was a good soapbox and headline grabber for the politicians , to speak out against yobs and hooligans.

I remember that day very clearly, I was only 8. Everything stopped that afternoon. Everyone glued to the TV, people frantically trying to find relatives. It was horrific. My best friend at the time lost her dad. I can remember thanking god that despite being a big reds fan my dad didn't go to many matches.
Such a waste of life, so avoidable.
And still no justice.

I couldn't get to anfield this afternoon, but I was sat outside when the churches started ringing out 96 tolls after the silence. It's been a very emotional day for everyone in this city.

PJ - thanks for your post - brought tears to my eyes. I am a scouser.

I remember the day very clearly. I was 11 and playing at a friends house - I remember how warm it was too. We walked to the corner shop and the women in the shop told us there was a problem at the match. We came home and asked her mum to turn the tv on. I remember the horror unfolding in front of us on the TV.

We had friends from school at the match all of whom were thankfully ok, but did tell us in detail how awful it was there.

Agree with UTBW - so avoidable and still no justice. I would never buy the Sun.

I was there. I was 17 and had gone with my Dad and we had taken two school friends of mine over to Sheffield as it was a hard place to get to. I don't talk about it in real life, if you met me after then, you don't know I was there - apart from DH.

When we got there, it was madness outside - we'd split up with my friends and arranged to meet at a B and Q at the end of the match to go back to the care together. A policeman on a horse said to my Dad "I wouldn't take my missus into that mate" referring to the absolute mass of people outside the ground. So one policeman saved someone - us, because I'm pretty sure that that must have been the mass of people let into Leppings Lane, and we could have been carried along in that.

We had Stand tickets and by the time we got into our seats, the game had been stopped, and at first I was really pissed off, I thought that there had been a pitch invasion, it was like that, you couldn't tell what was happenning, it was only as time progressed that you realised that people were being hurt and injured, and make shift stretchers were being made out of advertising hoardings. I won't go into the details, but you can imagine my horror when I spotted someone being given mouth to mouth - and then worse, someone whose face had been covered over because they were dead. That's when it really hit me what was happening. A really nice lady gave me some coffee out of her flask - I will always be grateful to her.

We didn't stay too long - we went back to the arranged meeting place to wait for my friends. It was the longest wait ever. We tried to ring my mum but she must have been out when we first got through, after that lines out of Sheffield were blocked and it took a long time to get in touch with her.

We waited and waited and eventually thank God my friends arrived. I have never seen my DAd so relived in all his life - he ran and hugged and hugged them, and he had never met them before that day. He hadn't said anything to me, but he must have feared the worst.

We left as soon as we could, listening to the radio. We had to stop for one of my friends to vomit at the side of the road. At some point I think clinical shock must have set in, because all I could think about and say was "I'm really thirsty Daddy ( I was 17 I hadn't called him Daddy for years) I need a drink" We ended up stopping at a pub on the Snake pass for cokes, we went in and the pub was in absolute silence, with everyone just watching the television. The barman knew from the state of us we had been there and didn't charge for the cokes.

We managed to call my mum from there and she got in touch with the boys' parents. We got home and I had brandy and went to bed - I did not sleep a wink.

We were lucky - we only saw things develop, we weren't "in there". But I never, ever will forget it ever - I have been randomly bursting into tears all week. I took DS1 to the cinema today because I wanted to be out of it all, I'm still not sure if I will watch the news today, although I have read the BBC's site. I texted my Dad, to say I was thinking of him and he replied "me too, and of the 96 who didn't come home with us"and it made me cry in the cinema.

Sorry this has turned into an epic - I don't often bare my soul on Mumsnet, but I don't think I'll be talking about it out loud anywhere today. It's a time when anonymity suits.

How horrendous for you InTheseShoes. It's bad enought seeing the images and hearing about it, but to be there, OMG, I just can't imagine how awful it must have been for you to be caught up in it!! It's something that you will never forget. I bet you thank God you weren't in the crush and came home alive.