Hillsborough: Twenty Year Remembrance

[frasermc]

from our official website -


THIS coming Wednesday, April 15, marks the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster, when 96 Liverpool supporters lost their lives during an FA Cup semi-final. It was a tragedy that stunned the world of football.

Ahead of this week’s anniversary, Celtic chairman, John Reid, has written to Liverpool Chief Executive Rick Parry, to pass on the thoughts and prayers of everyone in the Celtic family to their Liverpool counterparts at such a sad time.


Dear Rick,

Even 20 years later, the tragedy Liverpool Football Club and your supporters suffered at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989 is, I am sure, still very painful and difficult to comprehend.

The events that day changed domestic football forever and it is very regrettable that such a disaster was the catalyst for the safety we now take for granted in stadia up and down the country.

Throughout all that time your club conducted itself with great dignity and I know that several members of your staff at that time attended each of the 96 funerals. That must have been unbelievably distressing and those involved can only be commended.

I recall with both pride and sadness that Celtic hosted a benefit game in what was to be Liverpool’s very first match following that fateful cup tie and that strengthened what were already very strong bonds between our two clubs.

Our thoughts and prayers are with you, the team and the wider Liverpool FC family as you approach this anniversary.

With very best wishes to you all,
Yours sincerely

Dr John Reid
Chairman
Celtic Football Club


http://www.celticfc.net/news/stories/news_120409092716.aspx

[Grinners89]

from our official website -


THIS coming Wednesday, April 15, marks the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster, when 96 Liverpool supporters lost their lives during an FA Cup semi-final. It was a tragedy that stunned the world of football.

Ahead of this week’s anniversary, Celtic chairman, John Reid, has written to Liverpool Chief Executive Rick Parry, to pass on the thoughts and prayers of everyone in the Celtic family to their Liverpool counterparts at such a sad time.


Dear Rick,

Even 20 years later, the tragedy Liverpool Football Club and your supporters suffered at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989 is, I am sure, still very painful and difficult to comprehend.

The events that day changed domestic football forever and it is very regrettable that such a disaster was the catalyst for the safety we now take for granted in stadia up and down the country.

Throughout all that time your club conducted itself with great dignity and I know that several members of your staff at that time attended each of the 96 funerals. That must have been unbelievably distressing and those involved can only be commended.

I recall with both pride and sadness that Celtic hosted a benefit game in what was to be Liverpool’s very first match following that fateful cup tie and that strengthened what were already very strong bonds between our two clubs.

Our thoughts and prayers are with you, the team and the wider Liverpool FC family as you approach this anniversary.

With very best wishes to you all,
Yours sincerely

Dr John Reid
Chairman
Celtic Football Club


http://www.celticfc.net/news/stories/news_120409092716.aspx

Very classy. The mark of a great football club.

[liverbird]

from our official website -


THIS coming Wednesday, April 15, marks the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster, when 96 Liverpool supporters lost their lives during an FA Cup semi-final. It was a tragedy that stunned the world of football.

Ahead of this week’s anniversary, Celtic chairman, John Reid, has written to Liverpool Chief Executive Rick Parry, to pass on the thoughts and prayers of everyone in the Celtic family to their Liverpool counterparts at such a sad time.


Dear Rick,

Even 20 years later, the tragedy Liverpool Football Club and your supporters suffered at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989 is, I am sure, still very painful and difficult to comprehend.

The events that day changed domestic football forever and it is very regrettable that such a disaster was the catalyst for the safety we now take for granted in stadia up and down the country.

Throughout all that time your club conducted itself with great dignity and I know that several members of your staff at that time attended each of the 96 funerals. That must have been unbelievably distressing and those involved can only be commended.

I recall with both pride and sadness that Celtic hosted a benefit game in what was to be Liverpool’s very first match following that fateful cup tie and that strengthened what were already very strong bonds between our two clubs.

Our thoughts and prayers are with you, the team and the wider Liverpool FC family as you approach this anniversary.

With very best wishes to you all,
Yours sincerely

Dr John Reid
Chairman
Celtic Football Club


http://www.celticfc.net/news/stories/news_120409092716.aspx

Neither club will ever walk alone

[Matt Clark]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00jlxjp/The_Reunion_12_04_2009/

Radio 4's The Reunion covers the Tradegy. This was on this morning. I was preparing lunch for all my friends for Easter Sunday. It made me cry, I'm not ashamed to admit. Properly cry. I've met Trevor Hicks, but never his wife. She comes across so beatifically in this.

Required listening, seriously. It's an education, even for those of us who have been sunk in this for 20 years. Actually, probably more for us than most.

[Red Bird]

This is probably too late as MOTD cannot be played back but on it Hansen looked absolutely sad; raw, helpless sadness as he described how they visited a hospital before a 14-year old boy's life support was switched off. His mother just wanted him to hear his heroes before he died.

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BBC Video - Anfield Remembers Hillsborough (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/7995038.stm)

[liverbird]

Gordon Brown:

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N163989090413-1024.htm

I think that the families, in trying to cope with this disaster, have had the support of all decent minded people across the country. I think that's probably what matters most: that people understood that the behaviour of Liverpool fans in helping each other was, as I think the judge said, 'Magnificent'; that it was wrong for people to blame, as some did, Liverpool fans on that day and it's right that the Freedom of the City has been given to the families of Liverpool fans on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of this disaster."

When questioned on what he thought the legacy of the disaster was, Mr Brown again reiterated his point about how the actions of Liverpool supporters on the day were not just heroic but totally at odds with how they were portrayed in certain sections of the media following the disaster.

"I think people have learned first of all not to rush to instant judgements and some of the people who did rush to instant judgements have been proven wrong and that's why the Liverpool people are so respected throughout the country," he said. "The work that they did to help each other on that day and subsequent events when people had to help each other through the difficult times is something that will never be forgotten."

[liverbird]

The Gaffer on Saturday and Hillsborough

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N163992090413-1105.htm

"I think the minute's silence was fantastic," he said. "We showed respect, everyone knows what it means for us, so we are really pleased with the reaction all around stadium.

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TRAYNOR - Eerie Symmetry As Hillsborough Brothers Were Crushed To Death 10 Years Apart (http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-fc/liverpool-fc-news/2009/04/13/eerie-symmetry-as-hillsborough-brothers-were-crushed-to-death-10-years-apart-100252-23372487/) - YNWA Glover Family! :(
JOE Glover was never the same again after surviving the sickening crushes at Hillsborough.

He was standing next to his younger brother Ian moments before the 20-year-old was swept away on the Leppings Lane terrace.

Joe, 23, somehow managed to clamber onto the pitch. He was on the other side of the fence when he saw Ian just two rows into the pen.

“Help me, I’m dying,” Ian was saying to him.

He was powerless to intervene and could only watch Ian slip away.

Later on the pitch Joe desperately gave the kiss-of-life to his stricken brother. But it was too late.

He and oldest brother John, then 27, who had been sitting in the stands, carried Ian into the Hillsborough gymnasium.

They stayed with him until their dad John Snr travelled from Merseyside to identify the body and a priest read the last rites.

In the family’s own words Joe became a ‘shell’ from that day on.

He would often go missing and would later be found by his family sleeping on his brother’s grave in Kirkdale cemetery.

Rarely talking about the scars he carried, he would sometimes say: “I want to be with him. I can’t handle being here and Ian’s not.”

Almost exactly ten years after the disaster Joe was tragically killed when he was crushed by marble slabs.

He was unloading a van in Clegg Street, Everton, when he took the full weight of five tonnes of marble.

Heroically Joe had pushed his work colleague out of the way of the falling load, almost certainly saving his life.

With an eerie symmetry the 32-year-old officially died of traumatic asphyxia, a mirror image of his younger brother’s death at Hillsborough a decade earlier.

Sister Lorraine, 35, said: “He was never the same after Hillsborough.

“He blamed himself that he got out and Ian didn’t.

“He didn’t talk about it much. But once when I got home at 3am a bit drunk he was lying on the sofa saying ‘I was standing on dead people and standing on their heads’.

“Ian was asking me for help and I couldn’t. Although it was terrible when he died, at least it meant Joe and Ian were finally together.”

After Hillsborough Ian’s dad John became the driving force of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign. It looked after survivors of the disaster as well as families who lost loved ones.

It held its first meetings in early 1998, spearheaded by John, survivor Peter Carney and actor Ricky Tomlinson (who played John Glover in Jimmy McGovern's ‘Hillsborough’).

The group was formed amid disagreements about the direction the Hillsborough Family Justice Group was taking.

n the months leading up to Joe’s death he had shown signs of escaping his mental torture.

He had done his first media interview and his family were delighted with how well he was looking – the old white pallor starting to disappear.

But as recovery beckoned the freak accident struck.

Joe left two children, a son Ian, now 15, and a daughter Beth, now 11.

Lorraine added: “Ian and Joe used to share the same bedroom. Joe used to try on his brother’s clothes as he loved his fashions. He used to wear his stuff when Ian came back from a shopping spree which wound him up.

“The last thing I remember about Ian was on the morning of the match when he had a double breakfast – two of everything – before he left.

“We watched as he and Joe walked down the road together, us laughing as they were like little and large, Ian towered above Joe.”

The Glover family bond has kept them strong over the past 20 years.

Lorraine still wonders if Ian, who would have turned 40 this year, would have got married, had children, what would he look like now?

She says: “We are all very close. If people see me on County Road without my mum they ask us why.

“I think my last relationship with my previous boyfriend ended because of the fact mum and I are so close. She comes first before any man.

“After the disaster it was horrible. But we stuck together. Some families can drift apart through death.”

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Associated Press - Anger, Grief Still Raw 20 Years After Hillsborough Disaster (http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/9443518/Anger,-grief-still-raw-20-years-after-Hillsborough)
For the hundreds of thousands of fans passing through Liverpool's Anfield stadium every season, the memories of the 96 supporters killed 20 years ago in the country's worst football disaster remain ever-present.

Intertwined into that grieving process is the ongoing struggle to protect the reputations of the victims of Britain's worst sporting disaster. Behind the Kop, the Hillsborough Justice Campaign Shop is maintained and inside "Justice for the 96" banners are displayed prominently at every match.

Even at a club now owned by Americans and filled with foreign players, the specter of the events of April 15, 1989, that irrevocably changed the face English football loom large. And not just on noteworthy anniversaries that reawaken the world to the horrors that developed on the Leppings Lane terraces behind high, wired-topped fences.

Even players not born before that day just need to glance across the dressing room and seek out their captain, whose career was inspired by Hillsborough and the tragedy. Steven Gerrard's cousin, Jon-Paul Gilhooley, was the youngest fatality at the age of 10.

"Time has gone by, but the scars will never ever be healed," Gerrard said.

Gilhooley had joined the mass exodus of fans traveling east for the second successive season to witness Liverpool playing Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup semifinals at the neutral home stadium of Sheffield Wednesday.

Back in Liverpool - before live TV coverage of major matches became commonplace in the overhaul of football following Hillsborough - a 9-year-old Gerrard had readied himself by the radio to hear his heroes Alan Hansen, Ian Rush and John Barnes vying for a Wembley final.

What Gerrard couldn't see was the police management and inadequate communication at a stadium without a safety certificate.

As 2,000 more fans surged through into the central pens in the Leppings Lane end, police failed to ease congestion by cutting off access or opening exit gates - "a blunder of the first magnitude," Lord Justice Peter Taylor concluded in his inquiry, which led to all-seater stadiums in England's top football leagues.

Appeals for the kickoff to be delayed went unheeded.

"It will always anger me that they didn't wait for the fans," said Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool's manager that day. "There were all these people arriving late, desperate to get inside Hillsborough so as not to miss any of the game.

"Having so many hundreds of people rushing into the ground caused the terrifying crush which squeezed the life out of 96 poor Liverpool supporters."

Hundreds of fans already in Pen 3 - official capacity 2,000 - were crushed against the metal fences or concrete floors and walls. This was compounded by the police failing to realize the magnitude of the disaster unfolding. With officers suspecting a pitch invasion, fans trying to escape by climbing the spike-topped fences were pushed back into the stands.

"People were screaming for help but the police didn't seem to be taking any notice," Keith Golding, whose uncle died upright alongside him before the game began, told Taylor's official inquiry. "There were dead people standing up. My uncle was right next to me. I knew in the end he was dead.

"There were three lads on the other side next to us who were clearly gone. They were deep purple and their mouths were open."

Six minutes of play elapsed before the match was called off at 3:06 p.m.

"You could hear supporters screaming and shouting," then-Liverpool striker John Aldridge recalled of the confusion as he was ordered off the field. "I always remember someone shouted, 'There's people dying out there."'

Gerrard and the rest of the country were soon exposed to harrowing TV images of a death toll mounting and the field being filled with corpses. Advertising hoardings were ripped up and used as makeshift stretchers.

"I was completely and utterly shocked whilst wondering if there was anyone we knew who was really close and personal at the game," Gerrard said.

After a sleepless night of prayers, Gerrard discovered he did.

"We got the dreaded knock the next morning to say that a member of our family was at the game and had been tragically killed," said the 28-year-old Gerrard, now one of England's star midfielders. "And seeing the reactions of his mum, dad and family helped me drive on to become the player I have developed into today."

Like all the victims' families, Gerrard takes a personal interest in countering the myths promulgated in an infamous tabloid account headlined "The Truth" - since withdrawn by "The Sun" - that supporters pickpocketed from the corpses, urinated on the dead bodies and policemen, and attacked an officer.

What jars those still grieving is that no individual was ever held accountable for the deaths.

An inquest in 1991 recorded a verdict of "accidental death" rather than "unlawful killing."

Prosecutors refused to bring charges against anyone involved, but relatives from the Hillsborough Family Support Group launched a private prosecution against David Duckenfield, the former chief superintendent of South Yorkshire Police, and his assistant Bernard Murray. But in 2000, a court failed to reach a verdict on Duckenfield and acquitted Murray.

The European Court of Human Rights was pursued by Anne Williams. But her appeal for a new inquest into the death of her 15-year-old son Kevin was rejected. She disputes the coroner's ruling that the 96 eventual victims - the last died in 1993 - had sustained their fatal injuries by 3:15 p.m., highlighting to evidence that Kevin was still alive at 4 p.m.

The families know they will always be backed by the Liverpool stars who played just six minutes that day.

"You've got to get answers. You've got to keep on banging whatever drums you've got in front of you because it should never have happened. It's as easy as that," said Aldridge, the former striker who is now 50. "You go on a lovely April day to watch the FA Cup and your loved ones don't come home.

"Football died that time in a certain way, football as we knew it. It's a different type of football now."

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Torres Desperate For Proper Tribute For 96 (http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/9451242/Torres-desperate-for-winning-tribute)
"Those goals on Saturday were for the 96 and their families because I know that it was a special day for them with it being the home game closest to the anniversary.

"The goals were more special because of the service on Wednesday, when we will see the families on an important day for them and for all Liverpool supporters.

"It makes Tuesday's game all the more important. We have to try to do it for the families and the 96 who died."

[liverbird]

Jamie on Hillsborough

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N163908090413-1802.htm


The Hillsborough families have received the freedom of the city this year. What can you say about the way they have conducted themselves over the years?

They have conducted themselves superbly. You always put yourself in their shoes, particularly as I have children of my own. I don't know if I could have behaved myself like they have, as I know having a kid is your life. For people to send family and friends away to a game and for them to not return is a terrible thought. It terrifies you just thinking about it so what those people have gone through is unbelievable and the way they have behaved themselves is impeccable. They're still fighting for things in the right way too.

A couple of years ago, ahead of a match with Arsenal, there was a mosaic on the Kop that read 'The Truth'. Why is an event like that important for the club and fans?

It is important. We are always aware of it but sometimes you think people outside the club seem to forget about Hillsborough and have moved on. It seems as if a lot of it has been brushed under the carpet. But people shouldn't forget that they are still fighting for it today. I think people just want to put it back out there so the public realise what actually went on. Put yourself in their shoes; what if you had children, friends, or parents who went to the game and never came back... it's a frightening thought.

And finally, you are a local lad and an embodiment of what this club is all about. Do you have a message for the survivors and the families of the victims of Hillsborough ahead of the 20th anniversary?

Just keep believing and keep fighting for what you believe in. No-one will ever forget what happened at the club, certainly not now and they never will. Don't think that people at this club will just forget about it and move on like some people have in other parts of the country. We will always be there supporting the Hillsborough memorial and the families as much as we can.

[bethgemma]

bitterness and anger
distress and shame
branded "thiefs"
ashamed of thier name.
stealing from bodys?
of the people who have died?
answers and the truth
from the ones that have lyed.
we dont want revenge
and we dont want a riot
we want all to be revealed
not have the truth kept quiet
for 96 innicent lifes
were taken all too quick
the scars are way too deep
and the claims are stick too sick.
together for justice,
for the things that were said,
together for an apology,
for the ones that are now dead.


just something i made up x

[Fussballer]

Just found out that a friend of a friend, who's a Forest supporter, was at Hillsborough. Obviously, he wasn't in the terrace, but I get the feeling that he's been deeply affected by it and doesn't like talking about it.

[liverbird]

Great posting start

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BBC Videos:

Hillsborough Remembered - Rafa Benitez (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/7997273.stm)

Hillsborough Remembered - Steven Gerrard (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/football_focus/7994052.stm)

Hillsborough Remembered - Jamie Carragher (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/7997271.stm)

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TRAYNOR - Hillsborough Remembered: Joy Turned To Despair In A Few Seconds (http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-fc/liverpool-fc-news/2009/04/13/hillsborough-remembered-joy-turned-to-despair-in-a-few-seconds-100252-23372493/)
Luke Traynor talks to a family who had mistakenly been told their son was safe

THE loss of their son Nicholas at Hillsborough was the second tragedy to devastate Pat and Peter Joynes' happy family life.

In 1983 their son Mark was killed at the age of 25 in a jeep accident in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The doctor who tended to his head wound gave him a pain-killing injection instead of sending him for an X-ray that could have saved his life.

Fanatical Liverpool FC fan Mark later died of his injuries and the medic concerned was reprimanded and given a two-week suspension.

His grieving mum and dad could never have imagined six years later, their younger son Nicholas, 27, would go to a football match on a sunny day and never come home.

In the Joynes’ own words, just as those in a position of responsibility failed their son Mark, so the same happened at Hillsborough.

Mum Pat is firm in her belief.

She said: “After Mark died in South Africa we never thought we would have to go through it again – but we did.

“It was incompetence by a so-called professional.”

Nicholas lived in Knowsley Village and loved playing as a teenager, turning out for Bootle Boys during his early teens.

At the time of the tragedy he worked as an engineer at Otis Elevators, in Kirkby, and lived with his wife in Lydiate.

On April 15, 1989, he left for Yorkshire in a minibus with some seven friends meeting Francis McAllister who also died at Hillsborough

Nick and Francis didn’t know each other. But they were introduced by the group and they ended up walking down to the ground together.

Pat and Peter have seen a heartbreaking CCTV picture of their son next to Francis walking on the concourse inside the stadium.

The snapshot was taken just before the pair walked down the tunnel into the cramped central pen on the Leppings Lane terrace.

When news of the disaster first broke, Pat was working in Marks & Spencer in Liverpool.

She had just finished her tea break as details filtered through and staff who had relatives at the semi-final were taken to a quiet room.

Pat, now 72, rang her husband who worked in the building trade in Wirral and he came to pick her up.

There was then a heartbreaking false alarm when the family received news suggesting Nick was OK.

According to a witness, he was seen by a friend walking to the minibuses and was set to come home.

Pat remembers: “It was such a relief that Peter went out to get a bottle of wine. But we soon got another phone call to say the sighting had been a mistake.”

From joy to despair in seconds frantic calls were made by the Joynes family to the disaster hotline.

But it was virtually impossible to get through.

With little other option Pat, Peter and Nick’s best man from his wedding decided to drive to Sheffield.

They go there at 10.30pm.

Peter continued: “We started touring the hospitals and in the end social services told us to go the ground and make ourselves known.

“We were taken through to the gym where we found out that Nick was dead and would we come and identify him.

“I was so shattered that I didn’t go. Pat went with Nick’s father-in-law. At the time there were screaming mothers, crying.

“It was a terrible, terrible experience.”

Pat added: “In that gym I could hear people screaming. It was then I realised that the person screaming was me.

“There were photos on the wall of the dead. But I couldn’t bring myself to look at them. We were given Nick’s personal belongings and his match ticket.”

Pat and Peter are both active members of the Hillsborough Family Support Group which still fights for justice today.

They describe the way the tragedy was handled as a “cock-up” and no longer have any faith in the police.

Speaking passionately the Joynes cannot believe nobody from South Yorkshire Police was ever held culpable for a series of actions that led to 96 lives being lost.

They describe a fleeting exchange with then prime minister Margaret Thatcher at one of the first memorial services at Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral.

Peter added: “She said how sorry she was and I told her ‘I hope there will be no whitewash and no cover-up’. She replied ‘Mr Joynes, there will be no cover-up and no whitewash, I can assure you of that’.

“But there was.”

Pat and Peter grew up in Sheffield and left for Merseyside when he turned 25 and got a job at English Electric in Bootle.

They settled down in the area and have remained here ever since now living in St Helens.

In the early days Peter was an ardent Sheffield Wednesday supporter who often went to games at Hillsborough.

But he always remembers his acute dislike of standing on the Leppings Lane terrace – even 40 years before the tragedy.

He recalled: “It was always such a crush. I remember a particular game back in the early 1950s when we were playing Sheffield United in a derby.

“It was an all-ticket 40,000- crowd match and I had a ticket for the Leppings Lane.

“I was 14 at the time.

“It was getting so packed and I got nervous and panicky but managed to get out off the terrace.

“I caught the tram back into Sheffield and went to the pictures instead.

“If you went to Hillsborough it was always best to go on the Kop – the stand opposite Leppings Lane.

“It was given to the smaller contingent of Nottingham Forest fans on April 15, 1989

Peter, now 74, once a dedicated football fan, has never been to a football match since Hillsborough.

He added: “I have always got this tension in my body that won’t go away. What antagonises us is reading in the paper of how some got the story wrong.”

At home Pat has a picture no mother should ever have – but once she will forever keep.

It shows her son Nick standing at the graveside of her older son Mark.

She adds: “That photo still haunts me to this day.

“I am ever hopeful that the truth will emerge and we’ll get the justice for our loved ones.

“I just hope it happens before we die.

“Hillsborough seems like yesterday in some respects – it’s as clear as anything.

“As time goes by people think we must be getting on with it.

“And we have to.

“We have no choice."

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Radio Reporter Watched Hillsborough Horror Unfold (http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-fc/liverpool-fc-news/2009/04/13/radio-reporter-watched-in-horror-as-chaos-unfolded-100252-23372490/)
IF GRAHAM Beecroft had known at the time that two of his Sunday league football friends had died at Hillsborough, broadcasting the horrors of that day may have been impossible.

The commentator described the scenes of chaos in Sheffield to thousands of listeners on Radio Merseyside.

Later he was to learn that among the dead were brothers Christopher and Kevin Traynor, 26 and 16, who Graham played with for Parkside in the Birkenhead league.

Graham was sports editor at Radio Merseyside on that fateful day.

The main commentary match was due to be Everton’s semi-final at Villa Park.

But as the tragedy unfolded in Yorkshire, programme bosses hastily switched to Hillsborough as football took a back seat.

Graham remembered: “I noticed the central sections were more crowded. But it was only when people started climbing over that I realised something was wrong.

“One journalist sat in front of me, known as one of the doyens of the sports world, turned round and started blaming hooliganism.

“We were supposed to be broadcasting the Everton game with regular reports from Hillsborough.

“But at 3.06pm that plan completely changed.

“It was a skeleton staff and we had to go with what we saw. It was obviously difficult as I had to provide first-hand information.

“I didn’t want to be too dramatic or undersell it. I broadcast live for 45 minutes – we could see this was a serious situation.

“I distinctly remember people putting friends on advertising boards and running across the field almost as it they were doing a Chinese dragon dance.

“I could see Liverpool fans imploring the police to do something. But their minds were on making sure no Nottingham Forest fans spilled towards the Liverpool end.

“You had to detach yourself from the possibility that there might be someone who you knew who could have been seriously injured or killed.

“One of the things that struck me was the high level of security with lines of bag checks even in the morning getting into the ground.

“In all of this the police have been held to blame. One group who has got away with it is the Football Association.

“Peter Robinson (Liverpool chief executive) wrote a letter to them asking for the Kop end at Hillsborough. But it didn’t happen.

“The FA’s intransigence was almost as much to blame as the police.

“The station stood me down on Sunday and gave me the week off. I remember driving over the Woodhead Pass back to Merseyside and it was a beautiful day with white clouds just over the Pennines.

“It struck me how there were people who were not lucky enough to be driving back home that day.”

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It seems like each story is worse than the last.

It's so sad.

:(

I get choked up reading stories about the families.

Justice for the 96.

[Grave27]

I got on ESPN.com, went to the soccer net section and under the spotlight section when it rolled over to analysis and they where talking about this, yes it was posted on the 9th, and I started reading.......I found my self thinking back to middle school and reading about Hillsborough one day and at the time I did not think to much about it until today. After I got home I started reading what I could find about Hillsborough going over the links posted in this thread and I found myself crying on the outside and the inside think about how 10 years ago I read about, I was 12 then, 22 now, and now to think it has been 20 years. With that I offer this.....

May the good souls of the 96 who lost there lifes forever be remember in not only the hearts and minds of the Liverpool faithful but in the hearts and minds of all the fans of the beautiful game, and may the 96 souls rest in peace with Lord, Amen

Justice For The 96

You'll Never Walk Alone