The 1989 Hillsborough disaster was an incident that occurred during the FA Cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest football clubs on 15 April 1989 at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England. The crush resulted in the deaths of 96 people and injuries to 766 others. The incident has since been blamed primarily on the police. The incident remains the worst stadium-related disaster in British history and one of the world’s worst football disasters.
This investigation reveals how police, politicians, lawyers and judges all played a part in burying the truth about Britain’s worst football disaster.
Never-before-broadcast footage of the FA Cup semi-final in which 96 Liverpool fans died reveals a catastrophic failure by the emergency services, how lives might have been saved and how subsequent inquiries were misled.
And a former home secretary and former police chiefs are put on the spot about why a succession of official investigations left the truth hidden for a generation.
I was there a year or two before this incident, in the same end with the Liverpool fans. Firstly, the design of that tunnel and that fenced in section was lethal. I nearly suffocated and I wonder how many people did pass out being crushed in the years before the disaster. I wonder how many incidents there were in the preceding years. Second thought, the fences went up in the first place because of animals like the Liverpool fans ( I was a Liverpool fan myself) who caused destruction everywhere they went. I was chased down the street by hundreds of them after the game I went to and I was one of their own fans, but because I didn’t share their scarf or accent I was a target. Animals. When I was stuck in that tunnel it sloped backwards, away ftom the turf, so you couldn’t see the match. dozens of us were trapped in there. So even years before either too many people were allowed in that end or the design was so bad it was extremely dangerous. As for what happened on the day, the people of Hillsborough will tell you how many Liverpool fans foreced their way in with or without tickets. The policing was awful… but picking one scapegoat isn’t going to bring anyone back and there were hundreds if not thousands of fans, cops, ambulance, security, management, stadium designers and others all at fault. Not one senior cop, not one club executive. This who pitch the Liverpool fans as blameless are utterly ridiculous, they played their part and sadly many among them died. I wish this whole subject would finally be put to rest instead of being brought up time and again. We don’t see Heysel videos and appeals at every turn, do we? No, the fans have soon forgotten that.