A Sheffield Number

April 15, 1989

*Grandstand theme tune* (sing it to yourself in your head: Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun duuuuuuuun duuuuuuuun, dun dun dun dun dun dun da da!)

“Hello, two of our greatest sporting events dominate Grandstand today. One is only just beginning, the other is reaching its climax. It’s FA cup semi-final day, and Hillsborough as it has so often before provides an impressive setting for Liverpool versus Nottingham Forest, a repeat of last year’s enthralling semi, at the same venue. Villa park stages the other semi-final, Everton versus Norwich City.”

It’s semi-final day I am watching the large and slightly faded TV in my nan’s house. Sat on the brown velveteen settee beneath the cuckoo clock, bare feet on the thin carpet over the concrete floor, I have decided I want Liverpool to win. It’s an easy choice, not only are Liverpool in my top ten clubs (below Leeds, of course, but above Juventus) but Forest are manged by Brian Clough who was terrible at Leeds and we don’t like him. The other semi, well, it would be nice for Norwich to get a final but a Liverpool derby, that’s surely what we want. Not many girls like football, Dad says, but Mum used to go to Elland Road with Grandpops when he was alive, back in the Revie years. She says maybe I can go when I’m bigger and if they go up, which they might with Wilco in charge. Mum says you get more nutters in the lower leagues.

Hansen’s playing. First appearance this season! A few minutes in, there’s fans the wrong side of the perimeter fence. “Bloody scousers,” says Dad, “they’ll be kicking off.” Southampton, the teleprinter tells us, go one up against West Ham.

Back at Hillsborough, something’s wrong. Some people are on the pitch. Lots of them.

“Pitch invasion, it’s not right,” says Dad.

Mum, a veteran of the Scratching Shed end, isn’t so sure. “It looks like something’s wrong. Maybe we should turn it off.”

We don’t, not when the ref ushers the teams off the pitch. We continue to watch, to listen to John Motson’s commentary. “And there are clearly a number of fans seriously injured…

“I have to say that this was cause as far as we know not by misbehavour, except that the reason it happened, was that one of the outside gates here, was broken, and non-ticket-holders forced their way in, and overcrowded the section of the Leppings Lane end, occupied by the genuine, authentic, ticket holders.”

Some people are on the pitch. In recovery position, or not moving at all. Fans in the upper level pull people up to safety. Other fans climb the perimeter fencing.

“There has not been to my knowledge, a loudspeaker announcement in the ground…”

A memory ignites. Four years ago but to a ten year old in the dim and distant past. Some people are on the pitch. Behind them a terrace burns orange. Odsall. I scan the TV pictures of the Leppings Lane end for signs of fire but there are none.

“…There’s no question now that the problem was caused by non-ticket holders, forcing their way through a broken gate…”

Advertising hoardings are torn down for use as stretchers. Held up by eight or ten fans they look like little insects among the chaos. My Mum is mouthing to my Dad to turn the TV off but no-one can tear their eyes away from the pictures.

“I’m told without tickets.”

A blue wall of police are on the halfway line, between the Liverpool end and the Forest end. The nets have been taken off the goals at the Leppings Lane end where the Liverpool fans are.

“There was one moment, a few seconds ago, when a section of Nottingham Forest fans did taunt some Liverpool fans who raced down the pitch and at the moment the police have formed a barrier… to stop the Liverpool fans from going down there.”

The Liverpool fans have a reputation, but who doesn’t? The South Yorkshire Police have a reputation as well, even I know that.

“Desmond [Lynham] is down at pitch level.”

“I’ve been hearing the points of view of so many Liverpool fans, there are people in tears here, people who don’t understand the situation. There’s been no violence as far as the Liverpool fans are concerned, they simply said they got the wrong end of the ground. Too many tickets were given for that end of the ground and furthermore the gates were opened, tickets were not inspected and too many of their fans were allowed into the ground. There are grown men coming by me in tears. Exhausted, troubled, concerned that they’re going to get the blame for this again when their behaviour has been sound and solid.

“You had a little boy with you didn’t you? Is he OK?”

Men with tickets, stubs intact, tears streaming down their hard faces. The man’s little boy is OK. I wonder how little he is, to be allowed to go to a cup semi-final.

“As to whether the game will go on, that seems doubtful, although it hasn’t been officially called off.”

Some people are on the pitch, being taken away in ambulances.

“55 minutes later and the pitch is being cleared… I’m told that nobody from the football association or from the local police is in a position to comment at this stage.”

I don’t know at the time, but the police are busy, taking photos of discarded beer cans. Briefing the press and the Prime Minister.

“I have to draw a certain comparison with Heysel.” No you don’t. No you shouldn’t.

I don’t know at the time, but somewhere in Sheffield there’s the body of a fourteen year old boy, cold blood being tested for alcohol.

“To our knowledge there was no fighting or rioting, it was a case of those without tickets being allowed into the ground.”

I don’t know at the time, but one day I will have a son, and he will be older than that poor dead fourteen year old ever got to be, before the truth will out.

“The behaviour of the Nottingham Forest fans has been impeccable”

On the Nine o’clock News women line up at Lime Street Station. Waiting. To see who comes home and who doesn’t.

“We have a number for those of you worried about loved ones, a Sheffield number.”

At bedtime my mum hugs me extra tight.

 

 

 

 

Afterword

The sections in quotation marks are taken pretty much verbatim from the BBC coverage of the day. First John Motson, then Desmond Lynham. Both audibly upset by events. To modern eyes it seems unreal that they kept the cameras rolling. There was some litigation from relatives of the dead and injured who were traumatised by watching the BBC footage. The courts decided as they didn’t view events “through their own eyes” they didn’t have a case.

I hope I’ve made it obvious that any comparison with Heysel is erroneous. It is included purely as it was part of the coverage and to show the way the narrative changed through the day, in particular to start to push the blame onto the Liverpool fans.

I’m fairly sure I started watching the semi final. In fairness to my Mum and Dad, if I was we switched off the TV when it became apparent people were dying. It may well be I only saw the news coverage. Regardless, it stayed with me. I re-watched the original BBC live footage to write this, so I could write it as if watching the events live. That wasn’t easy. Also I feel I should make it clear my Dad never said any of the things in the piece, this is a fictional Dad for narrative purposes only. My Dad’s sound. My Mum really is a veteran of the Scratching Shed end though.

The reaction of the people of Liverpool to the terrible events of Hillsborough is inspirational. The community spirit aspired for in the home counties is for some reason derided when it happens on Merseyside. Liverpool mourned, but also organised. Liverpool fought, fought hard for justice. Lawyers, campaigners, and most of all family members of the victims worked over 16 years for justice. I did my law degree in Liverpool and came out of it with an inescapable commitment to social justice law, in no small part from the inspiration of the Hillsborough campaigners.

I’ll leave you with the words of Paul Routledge, writing in The Mirror in 2009. “If 96 had died at Ascot, they’d have had justice”

J496