Every year as we begin this week that leads to April 15, I find myself compelled to read again and re-post, with a bit of date editing, this poem. When they were younger I took my son and daughters to watch football matches. My son and I went to two MLS Cup finals. I can't fully understand, but I can imagine the endless pain that the Hillsborough survivors feel. A schoolboy holds a leather ball in a photograph on a bedroom wall the bed is made, the curtains drawn as silence greets the break of dawn. The dusk gives way to morning light revealing shades of red and white which hang from posters locked in time of the Liverpool team of 89. Upon a pale white quilted sheet a football kit is folded neat with a yellow scarf, trimmed with red and some football boots beside the bed. In hope, the room awakes each day to see the boy who used to play but once again it wakes alone for this young boy’s not coming home. Outside, the springtime fills the air the smell of life is everywhere viola’s bloom and tulips grow while daffodils dance heel to toe. These should have been such special times for a boy who’d now be in his prime but spring forever turned to grey in the Yorkshire sun, one April day. The clock was locked on 3.06 as sun shone down upon the pitch lighting up faces etched in pain as death descended on Leppings Lane. Between the bars an arm is raised amidst a human tidal wave a young hand yearning to be saved grows weak inside this deathly cage. A boy not barely in his teens is lost amongst the dying screams a body too frail to fight for breath is drowned below a sea of death His outstretched arm then disappears to signal 28 years of tears as 96 souls of those who fell await the toll of the justice bell. Ever since that disastrous day a vision often comes my way I reach and grab his outstretched arm then pull him up away from harm. We both embrace with tear-filled eyes I then awake to realise it’s the same old dream I have each week as I quietly cry myself to sleep. On April the 15th every year when all is calm and skies are clear beneath a glowing Yorkshire moon a lone scots piper plays a tune. The tune rings out the justice cause then blows due west across the moors it passes by the eternal flame then engulfs a young boys picture frame. His room is as it was that day for 28 years it’s stayed that way untouched and frozen forever in time since that tragic day in 89. And as it plays its haunting sound tears are heard from miles around they’re tears from families of those who fell awaiting the toll of the justice bell.
Warrington (CNN)Britain's Crown Prosecution Service has confirmed that it has charged six people with criminal offenses over the 1989 Hillsborough disaster in which 96 supporters of Liverpool football club lost their lives. A former senior police officer, David Duckenfield, will face manslaughter charges over 95 of the 96 deaths. The decision, which comes 28 years after the tragedy, follows last year's inquests which found that those who died were unlawfully killed. http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/28/e...ughter-charges1047AMStoryLink&linkId=39183915
Just when they thought it was over. Justice is coming. Ex-Ch Supt David Duckenfield faces 95 charges of manslaughter while five others will be prosecuted. Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-40419819
Blairites and the nonsense we put up with https://uk.yahoo.com/news/tony-blairs-refusal-order-hillsborough-inquiry-highlighted-141415587.html
With the blood of hundreds of thousands already on his hands, I doubt that the negligence of not doing the right thing for another 96 is likely to bother him too much.....
I'm going to ask a stupid question that I should know the answer to but why 95 counts of manslaughter and not 96?
It's a legal thing, apparently in April 1989 there was a time limit in which the death on the 96th could be linked/prosecuted Anthony Bland was left severely brain damaged by the crush at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield and died aged 22 in March 1993, four years after the disaster. At the time of his death the law prevented people from being found guilty of homicide where the death occurred more than a year and a day after injuries were inflicted.
Only those who have personally been affected can truly appreciatethe horror of a state-sponsored cover-up.
This is true - but there was a whole lot of that going around England and the World back then. Some would say it's still going on today in different guises.
Good to see so many other clubs using their social media channels to send out condolences yesterday. I want to say so much but cannot ....
Didn't know where to put this (didn't like the idea of it being in the rando thread)... https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-50592077
It's still the old boys club. Only thing I can say is that it must have been weighing on his mind for all these years. Incompetent arsehole at best. Cover up artist calling dead kids drunkards and Houligans at worst.
A very strange Hillsborough anniversary with this worldwide lockdown, football canceled, no sports anywhere, and an odd, other-worldly feel to life. And yet. And yet, we still remember the 96. We will always remember them as long as we are Liverpool fans. Much has changed since that awful day in 1989, a modicum of justice in that the truth, the real truth, is now the accepted conventional wisdom and no one in their right mind dares question this real truth. And yet. And yet, with the exception of the Sheffield Wednesday Safety Officer, no one has been held responsible for the unlawful killing of 96 Liverpool fans. The law says they were unlawfully killed and yet no one person or persons unlawfully killed them. And odd state of affairs. It's almost as if the Establishment had to give under the weight of the compelling narrative of the day and threw the families a sop or even a paean with the unlawfully killed verdict, but then closed ranks again to protect their own, lest any one of them be held responsible. And yet. And yet, the families, the fans and all right thinking people know the truth, this real truth. They were unlawfully killed, we know who was responsible but maybe that's as far as we'll get. And yet. And yet, we know that there has not been complete justice for the 96, they still lie in that netherworld of legal limbo, vindicated but without true justice. And yet. And yet, as Liverpool fans we will remember them, we will honor them for they are us, for now and for ever. Justice for the 96!