Hillsborough: 20 years on
A lot of educated reading on Hillsborough exists online.
http://www.contrast.org/hillsborough/ The Hillsborough Justice Campaign site at contrast.org is the definitive history of what happened that day and the aftermath.
Paddy Shennan looks at http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2009/04/10/hillsborough-the-key-players-100252-23359710/2/ The Key Players of Hillsborough.
http://www.headheritage.co.uk/uknow/features/?id=93 Hillsborough: Twenty years, No Justice is a strong article that looks at the injustice - and I agree with every word of it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/mar/15/hillsborough-disaster-survivors The impact of the Hillsborough disaster on survivors’ lives is a harrowing read in The Observer.
ITV 3 are showing Hillsborough - the brilliant Docu-Drama by Jimmy McGovern on the 15th of April at 9pm. This deserves a huge television audience as it was very influental in terms of tackling some of the myths about what happened.
One thing that continues to sadden me are some of the disgusting comments I read on forums or hear spouted from time in time in pubs. You know you kind of stuff about Liverpool being grief city and not moving on and a whole lot worse. Hillsborough isn’t ‘something that just happened’ and petty rivaries are a poor excuse for such uneducated and distateful comments. I have nothing but strong admiration for Liverpool and its people. The fight for justice is something that affects everybody. As the contrast site so accurately points out - “Hillsborough becomes a metaphor for British society today. It is a microcosm of how society operates. Viewed in this way the history of Hillsborough becomes the history of injustice, of cover-up, and collusion”.
It could have been anywhere and happened to any of us. I remember going to a cup game as a Villa supporter to Upton Park not long before Hillsborough. Only the abscence of those ugly steel cages prevented deaths that night. I remember the feeling of gasping for air and feeling crushed. But the sensation I felt was nothing compared to the horrors of that spring afternoon in Sheffield.
Hillsborough should never be forgotten - and neither should the actions of the Liverpool supporters that day. The sight of Liverpool fans ripping down advertising hoardings to use as stretchers and lifting their fellow supporters up from the horrors of that terracing will live in my mind forever. It was in such sharp contrast to the police actions that day which included throwing supporters back into their cages of death and forming an unhuman cordon in the middle of the pitch which was hampering efforts of those trying to help. What is sometimes forgotten is that the police denied access to over 40 ambulances with 80 staff due to ‘fans fighting on the pitch’ (which was utter nonsense).
To the people who died and the thousands who remain deeply affected by what happened that day - the words of the Liverpool anthem continue to state what every decent person feels.
You’ll Never Walk Alone.
