Tuesday, April 14, 2009

You'll Never Walk Alone

I've been quite subdued. Thinking solemn thoughts. All brought on by this evening's fantastic Champions' League match between Liverpool and Chelsea. Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of The Hillsborough Disaster. That event was so shattering that the only word needed for most English folk (especially the football fans) is Hillsborough. It was a truly awful occurrence but the what made it worse was that it could have been prevented. We knew the ground could be a danger. We knew fences were bad. They'd been part of the problem at Heysel If they'd had fences at Bradford the loss of life (bad as it was) would have been horrendous. Hillsborough was a disaster waiting to happen. It could have been less of a tragedy, fewer people might have died if the people giving the orders had listened to the officers at pitch level but the Police commander made some pretty bad errors of judgement. The Sun newspaper (I'm not providing a link for that rag) in its usual just below a bottom-feeding sea-slug style of "reporting" told some disgusting lies about the fans. To this day The Sun's sales in Liverpool are negligible because of it. I haven't bought a copy since.

Good stuff did come from it eventually. The fences are gone, we have all-seater stadia now not terraces. Premier League football grounds are some of the safest in the world. My lads play tomorrow and I'll feel safer that I used to, as a kid, the next time I get to the stadium to watch. It's just a shame it cost so many lives.

Ze

1 comment:

ToonCat said...

I have to admit to being one of those who prefers to stand at a match. I quite enjoy it if we play lower league teams in the cup and they have terraces. And the Germans have shown it's possible to have safe terracing in the top flight.

Maybe it's nostalgia - Wifey still can't quite believe that as a kid I stood and watched the match through fences at St. James' Park!

In memory of the 96...