Hillsborough - 19 Years Ago Today

Me too, i was in a caravan about 5 miles from St Andrews. Pretty sure it was pishing down outside and we were huddled round the table watching the news on the 5" black and white tv. I was completing a "find the 5 ladybirds" competition thing i'd picked up at a bookshop, and got a letter in the post a month or so later naming me as a runner up in the competition. Won £10 and bought a book about birds and got my picture in the local rag.

Exciting stuff eh?
 
I remember it because my uncle and cousin were at the game.

Luckily they had stand tickets but in the days before mobile phones were in mass circulation it was a worrying time.

Of course that pales into insignificance against what the families of the victims went through.
 
mmm... I'd been to play footy at the rec on stanton road (bit of the local venacular, to paint the picture and all). Was walking down fairacres rd & the bloke at the top told us five people have been killed, the idiots have been rioting.

And at the time we thought, this is as bad as it can get. It's a cliche, but everyone knew someone who knew someone at least, lad who my mum taught broke his leg.
 
the day haunts me and will till i die. it is easily my most vivid childhood memory for obvious reasons. although over the years i'm sure some of what i've seen in pics and footage has merged/superseded what i actually saw.

we lost many friends that day and it has devestated the lives of numerous people close to me.

first time in 15 years i'm going to miss the service at anfield.

ynwa. :cry::cry::cry:
 
Important to remember I think, although didn't want to upset you Gregatello.

*manly hug*
 
no, of course. lest we forget.


btw - LFC TV (the digital channel from setanta) is free tonight and has a new hillsborough documentary.


and recently, there has been a launch for a "Hillsborough for dummies" guide, which is essential reading/viewing for anyone who either knows nothing about the disaster or who doesn't know all the facts.

there is a short and long written document and a slideshow with pics and footage. it would mean a lot to me if people took a few mins to read/view. if anyone has any questions, please PM me.

http://hfdinfo.com/
 
Remember this day very well. I was 15 at the time and remember playing footie over the park with 4 mates and coming back home to see this on TV. I later worked with a Liverpudlian who lost friends in this too. A very sad day indeed.
 
was at Celtic Park for a Scottish Cup semi-final. Rangers vs St Johnstone

0-0, really awful game
but soon forgotten when we were walking away from the ground and the news filtered through
stunned
 
grego said:
no, of course. lest we forget.


btw - LFC TV (the digital channel from setanta) is free tonight and has a new hillsborough documentary.


and recently, there has been a launch for a "Hillsborough for dummies" guide, which is essential reading/viewing for anyone who either knows nothing about the disaster or who doesn't know all the facts.

there is a short and long written document and a slideshow with pics and footage. it would mean a lot to me if people took a few mins to read/view. if anyone has any questions, please PM me.

http://hfdinfo.com/
Click to expand...

That's a very interesting though harrowing watch/read mate.

I've been trying to work out why this today and the whole Mark Speight thing resonate so much, for me, than say thousands starving in some far flung place. Rightly or wrongly, I guess, tragedy involving 'people like us' effects us more than tragegy involving very different folk. I was a regular on the North Bank when Hillsborough happened and Speight seems to have had a hedonistic streak I, and others here, can identify with.

Do we empathise with self-interest? There but for the grace etc?*

*Grego - obvious different for you than us, of course. RIP the 96.
 
This is a definate "kennedy" moment for me as I can vividly remember where I was, what I was doing etc.

Can't believe it's 19 years though :eek:

time has not lessened the magnitude of what happened.

a massive, massive tragedy!!

rip the 96!!

may it never happen again!!!
 
I was at a friends....the news reports stated that Peter Beardsley had just hit the bar before the game was stopped......Kennedy moment indeed.
 
Buckley said:
That's a very interesting though harrowing watch/read mate.

I've been trying to work out why this today and the whole Mark Speight thing resonate so much, for me, than say thousands starving in some far flung place. Rightly or wrongly, I guess, tragedy involving 'people like us' effects us more than tragegy involving very different folk. I was a regular on the North Bank when Hillsborough happened and Speight seems to have had a hedonistic streak I, and others here, can identify with.

Do we empathise with self-interest? There but for the grace etc?*

*Grego - obvious different for you than us, of course. RIP the 96.
Click to expand...

i agree buckers. what is it, a child dies from starvation every 3 seconds or something. there has been pretty much the equivalent of our 7/7 bombing every other day in Iraq for 4 years. but when it's close to home, to use the cliché, it certainly makes you think about things.

it is just so sad after the warnings in 1981, 87 and 88 in the exact same circumstances that such a disaster could occur in 89. leppings lane was notorious as one of the worst terraces in the land.

i've spent many hours and days thinking about all sorts of things about what happened and how it could happen

- 23 turnstiles for 25,000 fans, in contrast to the 63 turnstiles for a similar number of forest fans
- no pre turnstile filtering, which had worked well at previous semis
- after 1981s crushing, meaning the venue was banned from hosting semis, the pens were made more dangerous and the ground had no safety certificate, barriers were ineffective and wrongly positioned
- the fact john motson saw 30 mins before kick off that the central pens were overcrowded yet the police, with a control box over directly over the pens did nothing. by kick off it looked like this
empty.jpg


but above all else, it was the fact the tunnel wasn't closed that led to fatalities, 2 coppers standing at the entrance of the tunnel would have saved 96 lives. there was, in fact, a barrier which could block access to the tunnel, which was regularly utilised if the central pens became crowded.

in some ways, what happened was a perfect storm type scenario (except it was a storm that had visited before).

the disaster however quickly turned to tragedy.
- no emergency/disaster plan was executed,
- only 1 ambulance out of 42 outside ever made it onto the pitch,
- the dying were instead taken inside to the gymansium, which had no facilities for care whilst ambulances waited outside
- fans carrying the dying on hoardings were stopped from getting to ambulances by a barrier of coppers on the half way line, there to stop them attacking forest fans (!)
- gates at the front of the pens, were left locked and forcibly closed out some points
- out of 96 dead, only 14 made it hospital and 7 were already dead on arrival. many of the others lay dying in the gymansium when all was required was some oxygen or a simple tracheomoty.
 
quite right, a cataclysmic f**k up which could so easily have been avoided. I used to go away with City quite a lot in those days and the police attitude to you was that you were subhuman, de-generate scum...animals even and that you should be treated as such...if you tried to reason or even engage with them you got a slap round the head or if you were lucky told to "shut the f**k up" so in many ways and overall more tragically this was inevitable :(
 
Thank for the link Grego.

I have to say I wasnt totally aware of everything surrounding the events, I knew of it but not everything that happened. Not through ignorance just generally not being that aware.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top