today, april 15th, (well, it's today in england now) is the aniversary of the hillsborough disaster. 96 football fans were killed due to 'the breakdown of police control'. These fans were crushed to death.
We are still trying to obtain justice for the 96 innocent victims, as nobody has been prosecuted for the disaster, nobody has taken the blame. This is what the Hillsborough Justice Campaign was set up for. Please take the time to have a look at their website:
www.contrast.org/hillsborough/There is also a mass boycott of the Sun newspaper. Refered to by many as the S*N because of what they wrote after the disaster.
Here is an account from one of the survivours. It gets quite graphic at times. Please read it if you have time.
Gary was 17 at the time of Hillsborough. He remembers it as if it were yesterday. Gary's account of what happended in pen 4 is very graphic. He tells it how it was, including the reaction of people outside Liverpool, based upon the crap they read in the Sun. By clicking on the audio buttons you can hear Gary recounting his experiences.
How old were you?
"17 years old."
Did you go to most games?
"Yeah, home and away. I was living near Northampton and we went on the supporters coach. We went to the semi-final the year before but I had a seat that year.
"Caught the coach at 11.00am,relaxed mood everyone quietly confident of a good game. Sun shining, not too hot, a little overcast in places. Had already received my £6 ticket for the Leppings Lane terrace and watched as the other tickets were distributed on the coach. I noticed that there were two spare seat tickets. I thought about changing my ticket for a seat but decided not to because the atmosphere would be better standing and that I would save the £2!
"Arrived at the ground about 1.45pm. Seemed busy around the entrance of Leppings Lane, as the coach passed, so decided to stay on the coach and get off further away from the ground. Coach went back up the hill, I got off with Geoff and his son Ryan. We walked down, warm day, seemed to be Liverpool fans everywhere. We were surprised that there was no police cordon stopping anyone who didn't have a ticket, as they did the year before at the previous semi-final. Stopped at a newsagent just outside the ground, met another lad off the coach joked about the shop having no change. Walked through the blue gates towards the turnstiles."
Did you notice any difference from the year before?
"When you walked down, there was a hill towards the ground and they had metal barriers like a cordon with police on it, you had to show them your ticket before you could pass through the cordon. There was none of that from the year before. There was no filtering. When we were there, there wasn't that many people outside, there was no queuing or control. There was just a crowd of people trying to find their own way in., milling around trying to get near to the turnstiles.
"Everyone was good-humoured, many supporters began to sing, I joined in. I can remember a mounted policeman sitting there not really knowing what to do for the best. Liverpool fans started joking with him, he joked back.
"The whole scene was stupid, the flow through the turnstiles was very slow because of the lack of definite queues for each turnstile. People were eager but not desperate to get in but at least when you are in a queue at least you can see the end and you feel that you are actually going somewhere but not here. Finally the mounted policeman started to look worried, his horse turning one way then another, he shouted across to another policeman who was stood by the far turnstile. He then started to try and sort things out, he shouted for people to move back, forwards, sideways but it was too little too late.
"Eventually I was close to the turnstiles and finally got myself into a position in front of one of the turnstiles, I then noticed that one supporter had entered the turnstile but was involved in a conversation with the bloke on the gate. Suddenly the policeman who was stood next to the turnstile turned and entered the turnstile and started talking to the gateman. The policeman then grabbed hold of the supporter by the arm and tried to push him out of the turnstile entrance but with the crowd there was nowhere for the policeman to go, so he turned said something to the gateman and let the supporter enter through. What the problem was I don't know because I couldn't hear anything, but it was obvious that even at this early stage the police had no control.
"I finally entered the ground through turnstile three, third from the left near a big blue gate. Police officers were on the other side randomly searching people, they didn't search me and I stood and waited for the others. They finally came through moaning that the horse had nearly stood on Ryan's foot. We walked across a courtyard and towards a toilet, which was on the right of the tunnel. As we did I mentioned to Geoff that if it was like that outside what would it be like inside. We bought a programme and made our way through the only obvious entrance to the terracing, through the tunnel.
"The tunnel was a strange design, long, narrow but dark with no light's at all and the floor sloped upwards as you walked through but with the darkness you never noticed the slope. There weren't many other people walking through the tunnel as the three of us did but I can remember half stumbling because you couldn't see the slope in the darkness. Then as you got closer to the end and came into the daylight you were suddenly confronted by the dividing fence separating pen's 3 and 4. We went to the left side of the fence into pen 4."
How full was it at that time?
"We walked down into pen 4 and stopped about half way down the terracing. The top half of pen 4 was packed but there was space further down and with Ryan only being small we moved so that he could see. As we stood settling into our vantage point I kept glancing behind towards the top half of the terrace where all the singing was starting. I wanted to move backwards, I wanted to be where all the atmosphere would be. I asked Geoff if he minded if I moved, he said he didn't, "Go and stand with the young ones," he said.
"I made my way back and tried to make my way into the singing throng. I can remember a beach ball being thrown around, the large multi-coloured ball bouncing off unexpected heads who weren't watching, cheers from all round. The ball was now being thrown between the two pens. Everyone having a good time, very good humoured with the atmosphere building, the buzz of anticipation as we looked forward to another semi-final win.
"I tried to stand in my new spot for about five minutes but it was packed, the crowd swaying one way then another. I was used to standing, I'm over six foot, had a season ticket for the Kop and had learnt the art of watching football amongst the best footballing crowd there was. But this was boisterous, it was getting packed so I decided to move back down and stand with Geoff and his son. I found them and said that it was too busy up there and joked that I was knackered already!
"A tall bloke came and stood right in front of us so we had to move again. We moved further down the pen, towards the front of the pen, towards the fencing. The middle of the pen down to the bottom was fairly empty, there wasn't many people stood in front of us. There was big, wide open spaces but behind us was busy. We stayed there for a while. We kept looking round for somewhere the Geoff's son could see and we looked across at the corner pen (pen 5) and we thought it would be a good view if we could get up there but we didn't know how you'd get up there. We'd come through the tunnel to get into the ground, there wasn't any other obvious entrances. We thought you might have to have a specific ticket or that bit's not open. We couldn't see any immediate way of getting to it so we thought we'll stay where we are. The ground started filling up a bit more, nothing untoward. It must have been about 2.30 p.m., it was beginning to fill up but again nothing out of the ordinary and again you got the feeling that the pens were full and you couldn't get anymore in. In front of us there was still space, it was obviously filling up behind but you don't really look behind."
Could you distinguish they were pens?
"Yes because when we came through the tunnel you had the separating fences right in front. We knew we were in pens. As we came through the tunnel it was a case of left or right so we went left, which is probably how we ended up in pen 4."
Did you notice anything about pen 3 - that it was worse?
When we got in, pen 3 was probably fuller than pen 4. That's probably half the reason why we went into pen 4 subconsciously. It seemed to be filling up but nothing out of the ordinary but then suddenly it seemed really busy.
"You were suddenly aware of people stood around you or next to you or behind you. Then the space in front filled up but even then you thought it's just filling up - it's getting close to the kick-off. All of a sudden it seemed a bit tighter, people were standing on your feet and still trying to come past you, still trying to find some space to stand and they were coming past and seeing there wasn't really anywhere to go. People were trying to level out trying to find somewhere to stand. Suddenly you realised that you couldn't really move that well. You were pinned up against other people. You thought surely there can't be many more people coming in or if there are there couldn't be much space. I couldn't see where my mates were. I shouted out but I couldn't see them at all. There was still people trying to move down and people in front were shouting 'move back' and people were shouting back 'there's nowhere to move to.'
read the rest here if you want to:
www.contrast.org/hillsborough/history/gary.shtm