The Hillsborough Disaster

On 15th April 1989, a FA cup semi-final clash between two of England’s former Champions League winners, Liverpool FC and Nottingham forest, took a turn which no-one could have foreseen. The match at Hillsborough, home of Sheffield United, was the venue to decide one of the finalists for the FA cup. Instead the match had to be stopped at 3:06 PM, just 6 minutes after it had begun.

 

The abandonment of the match was due to the disaster which struck the Leppings Lane end of the stadium which contained a large number of Liverpool supporters. 96 people died that day, which included men, women and children. The youngest victim was 10 year old Jon-Paul Gilhooley, current Liverpool FC captain Steven Gerrard’s cousin. The eldest was Gerard Baron, 67. Another 766 people were injured at Hillsborough.

 

The Leppings Lane end had a capacity of 14,600 fans. The Liverpool fans which entered that stand exceeded the limit, approximately 3000 supporters over the “safety limit”, due to poor crowd control by the police and the club stewards. This caused a huge crush like situation at the front of the stand where people were being pushed into the fencing by the large numbers of crowd behind them. As there were no police or stewards at the entry of the stand directing people to the side areas, which is usually the case if the stand gets full, Liverpool supporters entered the stand unaware of the problems at the front.

 

Supporters at the front tried to climb the fence to get to safety, while others were pulled to safety by the upper tiers. When the police noticed the situation, the referee, Ray Lewis, was ordered to stop the game. Firefighters with cutting gear and many ambulances were dispatched, but all of them had difficulty reaching the pitch as the police were reporting crowd trouble. Only one ambulance managed to get on the pitch which had to turn back and leave eventually. The Liverpool fans who were lucky enough to come through uninjured, tried their best, by attempting to give CPR and tearing down ad-boards to make them as makeshift stretchers. Of the 96 people who died, only 14 were admitted to a hospital.

 

 

Following the disaster, an inquiry was ordered into the tragedy. The inquiry was headed by Lord Justice Taylor and the report submitted, known as the Taylor Report, criticised the police for not handling the crowd effectively and their slow reaction to the disaster unfolding at the stadium. The report accused Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, for "failing to take effective control".

The report brought about structural changes which made the stadiums much safer. Fences in front of the fans were removed and top stadiums were converted into all seated stadiums.

 

Kelvin Mackenzie, then editor of The Sun, used the front page headline "THE TRUTH", with three sub-headlines: "Some fans picked pockets of victims"; "Some fans urinated on the brave cops"; "Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life”. It also reported that "drunken Liverpool fans viciously attacked rescue workers as they tried to revive victims" and "police officers, firemen and ambulance crew were punched, kicked and urinated upon”. Following the report, the newspaper was boycotted in Liverpool and it is still despised in that region of England.

 

Twenty years on, thousands of people still bear the scars of what happened at Hillsborough.

 

“It was a difficult time to know that one of your cousins had been at the game and been tragically crushed. Seeing the reactions of his mum, dad and family helped me drive on to become the player I have developed into today.'' - Steven Gerrard talking about the impact the Hillsborough incident had on his life.