Hillsborough: An Education

Posted on 15. Apr, 2012 by Liam Tomkins in Hillsborough

The 1989 Hillsborough disaster was an event that shook the country to its very core, leaving behind it a lasting legacy that shapes the very way we observe the game today. But as the years continue to pass and the eternal flame flickers with the threat of being extinguished, it is important that we educate the new generation of football fans who will be picking up the torch to continue the fight for justice. So, what really happened at Hillsborough?

The story begins many years before that fateful day in April 1989, with the 1981 FA Cup semi-final between Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers. This game, too, was held at Sheffield Wednesday’s prestigious Hillsborough Stadium and this game, too, resulted in a human crush. Fortunately for either party there were no fatalities, but the lessons that the footballing authorities failed to learn would ultimately cost 96 innocent Liverpool fans their lives.

Like most stadiums of that era, Hillsborough had high steel fencing designed to prevent pitch invasions and the throwing of missiles from the stands. It was supposed to be a solution to the hooliganism that had marred match-days for many years, especially in England, but in the end it proved to pose more of a threat to safety and security than anything it had been designed to prevent.

Being a venue of appreciable capacity, Hillsborough played host to many high profile matches during the 1980′s, including five FA Cup semi finals. By 1984 the troublesome Leppings Lane end had been redeveloped twice in an effort to deal with increasing volumes of spectators, but even that wasn’t enough to prevent the inevitable.

One year before the notorious Hillsborough disaster, Liverpool and Nottingham Forest actually met at the same stage of the same competition, at the very same ground. Numerous Reds reported crushing within the same stand, but their complaints fell on deaf ears. Even an official complaint from the club itself prior to the 1989 FA Cup semi-final wasn’t enough to convince the powers that be to rethink the Hillsborough’s plans.

By the time the 15th of April 1989 came around, then, English football had already been served several warnings about the dangers of the stadium’s set-up. But, as is so often the case within the game and in life itself, the lesson wasn’t to be learned until it was too late.

The first ingredient for a catastrophic recipe was the police’s decision to allocate Nottingham Forest the Spion Kop end, which had a capacity of 21,000. This left Liverpool supporters assigned to the Leppings Lane end which could accommodate just 14,600 – even despite it being well known that they had the larger following. Long before a single person had set foot in the stadium, then, the seeds had been sewn for an unprecedented disaster that would scar the game forever.

With roadworks on the M62 on the day of the final resulting in heavy congestion, many fans were faced with a frantic rush to make it into the ground before the scheduled 3:00pm kick-off. This led to a considerable build-up of bodies in the area outside the turnstile entrances to the Leppings Lane End between 2:30 pm and 2:40 pm.

With more people turning up than could enter the two cages in the middle of the Leppings Lane Stand, a bottleneck quickly ensued. To make matters worse, people who had been refused entry to the ground were unable to make an exit as they were obstructed by the inward influx behind them. As the teams stepped out ten minutes before kick-off, those still outside the ground were teased with the roar of those already inside. The officials chose not to delay kick-off to allow late arrivals to take their places, which led to an even greater rush amongst those still trying to gain entry.

When a small gate was opened to eject someone, twenty people filtered through the other way. A side gate was then opened to ease the congestion of 5,000 fans trying to squeeze in via the turnstiles. With the seriousness of the situation escalating by the second, the police made a decision that would ultimately prove fatal. They opened Gate C, an exit that did not have turnstiles, which resulted in fans pouring into the stadium without any measure of control.

The net effect of this string of disastrous decisions was many thousands of fans entering the ground through a narrow tunnel at the rear of the Lepping’s Lane end. They drove into the already overpopulated central pens, which in turn caused a huge build-up at the front of the terrace where people were being crushed against the steel fence by the weight of the crowd behind them. The situation was now critical, and it was about to get worse as the authorities again failed to act in an appropriate manner.

It was routine practice for the police or stadium stewards to be positioned at the entrance to the tunnel in order to directed fans to the side pens if the central pens had reached their full capacity. On this occasion, though, they failed to do so and to this day the reason remains unclear.

With those still outside the stadium completely unaware of the catastrophe unfolding within, the intake of supporters continued, serving only to worsen the crush at the other end. By now the match was already under-way, which detracted attention from those in desperate need of aid. As the majority of those present were captivated by the action, the Liverpool fans in the Leppings Lane end were helpless to prevent their fate.

It was not until 3:06pm that the police advised the referee to stop the match as they spotted supporters desperately scaling the steel fence in an effort to escape the crush. There was some relief when a small gate in the fence was forced open, allowing a few fans to escape while others were hauled to safety by those sitting directly above them in the West Stand. The extreme pressure of the crush had broken the crush barriers themselves, and holes were later found in the perimeter fencing as haunting evidence of people tearing away in an effort to seek rescue.

Compressive asphyxia prevented many fans from being able to take a breath as they continued to be subjected to the full force of thousands of people packing tightly into the pens. Many of the 96 that lost their lives that day were dead on their feet before any aid could arrive.

The police, stadium stewards and St John’s ambulance crew could not cope with the sheer scale of the disaster, so many of the uninjured did what they could to help. Advertising boards were torn down and used as make-shift stretchers, while others attempted to resuscitate the unconscious with CPR.

Even despite the glaringly obvious severity of the situation at this point, the police made yet another incomprehensible, indefensible decision. Three-quarters of the way down the pitch they remained positioned so as to cordon off the opposing sets of supporters, as if they believed there to be a danger of violence if they gave way. As the Liverpool fans rushed to transport their injured to awaiting ambulances, they were met with force by the police who would not allow them through.

By now a total of 44 ambulances had arrived on the scene, but the police refused entry to all but one. The result: just 14 of the 96 Hillsborough fatalities ever arrived at a hospital.

This failure to allow essential aid into the vicinity contributed to the deaths of 94 people on the day of the disaster itself, while another victim, 14-year-old Lee Nicol, succumbed to his injuries and passed away four days later. The death toll reached 96 in March 1993, when 22-year-old Tony Bland died after showing no signs of emerging from his persistent vegetative stage.

Plainly, the Liverpool fans had been let down by a mixture of poor planning and devastating decisions on behalf of the officials responsible for ensuring their safety wasn’t compromised on the day. As a result 96 innocent lives were lost in the most horrific manner imaginable, and further 766 were injured. The ripple reached many thousands more as friends and families were scarred with the loss of loved ones, and millions more than that were touched by their stories.

Following the disaster Lord Justice Taylor sat a 31 day inquiry that would change the face of football forever. The ‘Taylor Report’ provided the impetus for fences in front of fans to be removed, and a considerable number of top stadiums were converted to all-seaters.

While Sheffield Wednesday were heavily criticised for the poor quality of the crush barriers on the terraces and the low number of turnstiles at the Leppings Lane End, the report also stated that the official cause of the disaster was failure of police control.

There are many misconceptions about the Hillsborough disaster, chief among which are the hateful and hurtful accusations that the Liverpool fans themselves were in some way responsible for the tragedy. Some suggested that the overcrowding was due to an excessive amount of ticketless fans trying to force their way into the ground, while others believed the consumption of alcohol prior to kick-off was a contributing factor.

South Yorkshire Police even went as far as to suggest that large numbers of Liverpool supporters had conspired to arrive at the ground late in an effort to gain entry without a ticket. A detailed analysis of the ticketing system, along with eyewitness accounts, though, revealed their claims to be nothing more than a smear campaign designed to deflect the blame away from themselves.

As the search for the truth continues, more evidence against those who were responsible continues to emerge and, with that, comes fresh hope that we will one day be able to obtain justice for the 96 fans who went to watch their team and never came home. By educating ourselves and others on the events of that fateful day, I hope we can continue to fuel the eternal flame in an effort to ensure that our memories of the lost ones remains exactly that; eternal.

Twitter: @liam_tomkins