Hillsborough tragedy - the truth!

It‘s April 1989.

Liverpool FC is sitting at the top of the first division and in the FA Cup semi-final with a football team full of flair and brilliant passing. Attack is the name of the game, Barnes, Beardsley, Aldridge and Rush the main scorers in a free flowing team, probably one of the greatest team in the club’s amazing history.

The club itself recuperating following the Heysel-disaster and smiles on the faces of people connected with the football club.
On the horizon, a semi-final game against another football team dedicated to play the passing game. Nottingham Forest, managed by Brian Clough. In those days a top team and the FA cup was the only prize it‘s legendary manager had never won. The momentum for that match had been building for the game between these top teams.

The game was to be screened in Iceland and RUV (Iceland‘s answer to the BBC) which owned the broadcasting rights decided to send a reporter to commentate live from the stadium, Hillsborough in Sheffield. Something which showed how highly the game was rated on our island. Bjarni Fel (the Icelandic John Motson) was sent to Sheffield.

The semi-final games in the FA cup are played on a neutral ground and Hillsborough was a common venue for those games. In these years the stadiums didn‘t have large areas with seats, instead a lot of room was filled with stands, where people stood upright during the games. The stands were surrounded with high fencing, the stands themselves divided in to boxes with fences and bars.

The year before, 1988, the same teams played in the semi-final at that stadium and then there were a lot of problems at the gates into the stadium when fans, specially the Liverpool fans, were squeezing and pushing when getting to their stands. The club complained to the FA following that game and again when Hillsborough was again selected as a semi-final venue a year later, without success.

As mentioned before there was immense interest for the game. The weather on game day was brilliant and fans of both clubs flocked to Sheffield. In particular the Liverpool fans.

There were big traffic delays this day. The police had got clear messages on searching all cars going to the game, to stop alcohol or other unwanted things, from entering the stands. The Liverpool supporters were specially checked, all the buses stopped to thoroughly be searched. That led to big groups of fans arriving late at the stadium, just before kick-off.

Since the game was about to start the fans rushed to the gates, hurrying to get into the stadium. The turnstiles weren’t able to handle so many at a time so little by little people were waiting in thousands to get in, some have written up to 20 thousand fans standing outside the gates! Gradually the situation outside the gates was building up as a problem for the police, the match was about to start and people were pushing to get in. The worst problem was in the area outside the turnstiles entering the Leppings Lane end where the Liverpool supporters had been assigned a large number of tickets.

Some of the people had tickets for the Leppings Lane, others in the stand above it and some were without tickets, had travelled in the hope of obtaining tickets at the stadium and weren’t ready to leave unless they had no hope of entering the stadium.

Gradually the situation outside the Lepping Lane gate was becoming terrible. A lot of pushing and shoving, people being crushed against the fence around the stadium, thousands trying to get in before the game started. The policeman controlling the situation outside the stadium, mr. Marshall, later admitted that the organisation in the queues through the turnstiles and at the gates had been very poor, the main focus of the police that day was to observe and control the drinking and related behaviour and to be sure no things which were to be used as weapons should enter the stands. A policeman requested that the kick-off should be delayed, to try and calm fans who were desperate to be at the game from its’ start. The request was denied.

Since then, it has become a standard procedure to delay kick-off at games where there are delays at the turnstiles. A very simple solution really.

But not used that fateful day!

The main police officer, mr. Duckenfield had relatively little experience. He had never even been a member of an administrative team at a game of such importance. He was in control but was not situated near Leppings Lane. Around 2:50 PM mr. Marshall contacted Duckenfield and asked for the gates at Leppings Lane to be opened, because people’s lives were basically in danger. Duckenfield later revealed in interviews he had “frozen” for a moment, but then gave the order.

“Open the gates”. The public timing of the opening of the gates at Leppings Lane is 2:54 PM.

And in poured thousands of fans, no matter if they had tickets for that part of the stadium or even the game itself. Hurrying, because the game was about to start!

When inside the gates you had to go through narrow tunnels to enter the stand. There were three tunnels leading in to the Leppings Lane End of the stadium, but in all the havoc everyone rushed towards the same tunnel, the centre tunnel which was nearest the gate opened. Usually ground staff would close a tunnel leading into the pens when that were full and guiding people into other parts. It was not done on this day and the thousands squeezed into pens 3 and 4 at the Leppings Lane End.

And they were filled quickly! When the referee blew the whistle to start the game it created a frenzy in the tunnels into pens 3 and 4, nobody wanted to miss a second of the game. The people kept pouring in, adding to the pressure pushing the crowd forward, with the burden pushed downwards onto the fencing. Or, to be correct, adding pressure to the persons standing at the bottom of the pen, by the fence. And the people kept coming into the pens.

The situation became horrible. The pens were overcrowded and people couldn’t move anywhere. I do not think you can find words fully describing the feeling of sadness and disgust I have felt hearing or reading about these minutes in pens 3 and 4 at the Leppings Lane End. The minutes from when people start to get injured or simply die and until the police realize what is really happening. They will never be put into perspective, the scenes simply too horrible.

Duckenfield’s first reaction was to move the full police force towards the fence behind Brucie’s goal, with dogs, as he assumed fights were ongoing!
But in pens 3 and 4 people were dying or already dead. Simply being crushed to death. Fighting for their lives, some successful, others not. The description of the deaths and the helplessness of relatives and friends having too look on still makes me speechless, to this day. To hear someone describing when he found out his friend was dead, choked, but still standing by his side as nobody could move an inch. Fathers watching their children dying without being able to do anything. Shouts from children trying to avoid death calling for their mothers, shouts for someone’s help, God’s or from simply anyone! So horrible things you can not find in your imagination.

Then the police realized and opened a way from the pens into the pitch. The game lasted six minutes and stopped at 3:06 PM. The players sent to the dressing rooms.

Then the next mistakes were made. There were very few paramedics at the ground, nearly now ambulances. The police had still not totally grasped the situation, Duckenfield wasn’t in the control booth and the next 15 – 20 minutes showed perplexed police officers trying in any way to handle various situations. Fans running around trying to help their friends or others, covering people already dead and running with injured people carried on advertising hoardings towards the ambulances situated at the opposite end of the pitch. They were not allowed onto the grass and towards the injured until about 3:25 PM! Regular people were trying to bring someone back to life in absence of paramedics.

All this was shown live on Icelandic TV. My birthday is the 14th of April and had been really looking forward to the game and the day itself.

Following the game I was to attend the annual show and dance in my college so I had the pay pencilled as a big day of joy. But instead... I will never forget Bjarni the commentator, half crying, trying to describe the horror that he was witnessing at the stadium and we were watching. The live feed was cut soon, but regularly transmitted again, telling the latest news as they happened, getting worse by the minute.

It is stupid to think about today, the first worries were if the game would not be able to finish. I stopped eating my birthday food early, I had a small part to play in the show, went and did that with tears in my eyes and went back home.

Next days arrived and the news came. 95 people died, 767 injured, of those 150 bearing serious injuries. The number became 96 when a life support machine was turned off. 89 men and 7 women. The youngest was 10 years old, the oldest 67 years old. Thousands were in mourning.

The Sun showed its’ disgusting face the following day and days, lying about the dead being robbed and their bodies disgraced on the Hillsborough turf by other Liverpool fans. Disgraceful if ever has been! Since then no Liverpool fan with self respect has ever read, never mention bought The Sun. It barely can be seen in the city of Liverpool!

Those who do not remember these days will hopefully have read about this before. Because we have to as they have marked our club permanently. Really they have marked English football in whole, leading to the end of stands and terraces at the stadiums in the English top division, they were slowly filled with seats.

But I am not sure everyone today realizes the situation at Liverpool Football Club following Hillsborough. Because for a while I was not sure if my club would simply fold. The days following the tragedy saw of course the main emphasis on the scene of the tragedy and to try and react by tearing down fences at the football stadiums. The making of the Taylor-group leading to the Taylor-report.

Meanwhile, everything at Liverpool Football Club everything was at standstill. The 16th of April the chairman of the club, Peter Robinson, decided to open the gates at Anfield, giving people a chance to pay their respects. Flowers, teddy bears, scarfs, hats and shirts covered the pitch and the Kop-stand.

Training was suspended, football was not on the agenda. Players turned up in church instead, Bruce Grobbelaar read from the Bible and the players decided, with their wives, to fully participate in the grief. The club really decided to show what really mattered to it. It’s people, their fans. Kenny Dalglish, the manager led the way. Anyone interested to learn about the clubs and players side of the tragedy should read about in king Kenny’s biography.

On Monday the 17th the players and coaching staff headed to Sheffield to visit hospitals. Talking to survivors and their relatives. Praying beside the beds of people still lying in a coma. Getting to know people having lost their loved ones, sharing their sorrow.

Later they attended funerals. The club made sure it had a representative at every funeral of the Hillsborough victims. Dalglish attended many of them. At most he attended four funerals in one day. The club tried to find out each victims favourite player and sending him to the funeral. Still no-one was thinking about football or training.

Then the question was asked. Will Liverpool Football Club ever play a football game again? Today this leaves people maybe shaking their heads but back then this was a real possibility. The city of Liverpool was simply paralyzed and Dalglish has described that often during these grief filled days the players, coaches and other members of staff often wondered what to do, keep on playing or if Liverpool Football Club should simply close down as a matter of respect for the people who died.

Meanwhile, the 1st division kept on, Everton reaching the FA cup final. Liverpool’s games were postponed, one by one. In Iceland it was really hard to find out what was happening. This was before internet and Sky News, instead I waited on the weekly editions of Shoot! and Match, trying desperately to learn what was going on. But then it was announced that the club had decided to play a match, with all the profits from it going to the families affected. That was to mark the return of the club on the football stage. The opponent was our friends, Glasgow Celtic.

Fifteen days from the Hillsborough tragedy, on the 30th of April the teams played, the Reds back in action at Celtic Park. The people attending the game have described the incredible sound of “You’ll never walk alone” that day with the whole of the stadium joining in, but also the general feeling of sorrow and sadness. That day Celtic became many peoples’ club in Scotland. It became mine.

The first official game was a Merseyside derby, again the whole stadium sang our anthem and during halftime the fans of Liverpool Football Club carried a banner thanking the Everton fans for their support during these troubled days.

And we started again, winning the FA cup final against Everton, something that was always meant to be. We lost the title by a certain Michael Thomas goal at Anfield. The following year we won the title, our last for a while. Dalglish resigned in 1991, mostly because he had never fully recovered from the aftermath of Hillsborough, couldn’t go on and needed a rest.

In May 1989 a support group was formed for the families that were affected by Hillsborough, still active today. The Hillsborough Family Support Group. At first they were helping the families to live on through the sorrow but later on they have been fighting for justice for the victims and demanding for “The Truth” to be told about the events on the 15th of April 1989. For the mistakes to be accepted and the right people be held responsible and punished. A lot has gone on, but in spite of small victories along the way the group is still very much helping the families to fight the injustice that has been brought to them, having to fight tooth and nail to clear their relatives’ names or finding out what happened to them.

It is this group that is responsible for a memorial service to be held at Anfield on the 15th of April each year. That service is in my opinion a breathtaking service and something every supporter should try and attend. It is short, and full of respect, a two minute silence starting at 3:06 PM and ended by singing the anthem every Liverpool supporter knows. I attended the ceremony in 2001 and was deeply touched by respect the memory of the 96 is given.

The HFSG-group is not the only group demanding fairness and justice for the victims and the families. In February 1998 another group was formed, a group that has been very visible, and has an office near Anfield, at 178 Walton Breck Road. That group has the name Hillsborough Justice Campaign and soon started to use the words “Justice for the 96” as their slogan. Members of this group have been dedicated to hold aloft the names of the 96 and to seek justice for their relatives. When going to games at Anfield you are bound to meet their representatives distributing the latest news on their ongoing fight for justice. We regularly hear their slogan “Justice for the 96” sang at our games, most memorably probably in January 2007 when it was song for six minutes straight during a match against Arsenal. I was lucky enough to be able to participate, tears flowing all those minutes.

The club itself has also taken its´ steps to permanently hold aloft the memories of the 96. Besides the “Shankly Gates” a magnificent memorial was erected. On it engraved in gold the names of all the people lost at Hillsborough and the age they were that dreadful day. In the midst of it a flame from a candle burning all the time, “the eternal flame”. A “must visit” place for all fans going to Anfield.

The club’s logo was changed in 1992, adding “You’ll never walk alone” above the Liver Bird to commemorate the tragedy, and later putting two torches burning the eternal flame on each side of the Liver Bird. These torches have now really become a special logo for the tragedy and the fight for justice, often called “The Justice Flames”.

And today marks the 20th birthday of the tragedy. Today we can focus on the performance on the football field, by the team or individual players. We will sometimes be happy and sometimes angry.

But today we have to know the meaning of Hillsborough and the event which have followed. That day changed my opinion on my club forever, from passionate following to respectful love. No matter the titles and silverware, the tragedy showed the world the real “People’s club” when it mattered most, in face of incredible trauma and grief.

So today we should all sit down, and think about that fateful day when thousands of Liverpool fans left their homes to attend a match involving their beloved club. Of which 96 never returned to their loved ones.

They must never be forgotten!

In April 2009 – Magnus Thor Jonsson.