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Hillsborough Disaster 20 Years On

by Rachel Nixon | April 14, 2009 at 12:11 pm

1713 views | 17 Recommendations | 5 comments

April 15th marks the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, when 96 Liverpool fans were fatally injured in a crush during the FA Cup semi-final at the Sheffield Wednesday stadium in the north of England.

The deadliest disaster of its kind in British history, the crush happened just a few minutes into the match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest football clubs, playing on neutral ground.

Twenty years on, friends and families of the victims, survivors, players, and people living in Liverpool, Nottingham and Sheffield will come together to commemorate the tragedy.

At 3.06pm two minutes silence will be observed across the three cities and civic flags will be flown at half mast.

All trains, buses and ferries will come to a standstill at exactly 1506 and remain stationary for two minutes as a tribute to the 96 fans who died.

The poignant silence will be broken when civic, cathedral and church bells are rung 96 times.

The crush happened when a large number of Liverpool fans massed at the Leppings Lane end of the stadium, eager to get in to the match. Pens inside the stadium were already full to capacity. Police ordered an exit gate to be opened to alleviate the crowd outside the ground, however about 2,000 supporters entered the ground and went straight for a tunnel leading to the already full pens.

Five minutes after the match kicked off, a crush barrier inside one of the pens gave way, causing people to fall over. Some people were crushed because they were so tightly packed inside the pens. Altogether 730 people were injured and 96 people killed.

The pitch quickly started to fill with people sweating and gasping for breath and injured by crushing, and with the bodies of the dead. The police, stewards and ambulance service present at the stadium were overwhelmed. Uninjured fans helped as best they could, many attempting CPR and some tearing down advertising hoardings to act as makeshift stretchers.

As these events unfolded, some police officers were still being deployed to make a cordon three-quarters of the way down the pitch, with the aim of preventing Liverpool supporters reaching the Nottingham Forest supporters at the opposite end of the stadium. Some fans tried to break through the police cordon to ferry injured supporters to waiting ambulances, and were forcibly turned back. (44 ambulances had arrived at the stadium, but police prevented all but one from entering, and that one was forced to turn back due to the vast amount of people who needed help.)

The inquiry into the disaster, known as the Taylor report, blamed poor policing and inadequate facilities at the stadium, though no one has ever been prosecuted.

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mudricky

at 15:21 on April 14th, 2009

Very tragic.

itslefty

at 23:19 on April 14th, 2009

The tragedy of this story didn't finish here. The Rupert Murdoch flagship newspaper of the day "the sun" headed by Kelvin Mackenzie, made a giant cock up in the reporting of this incident.

The sun newspaper in its screaming headline stated The Truth

The headline read.....Some fans picked the pockets of victims

Some fans urinated on the brave cops

Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life.

These headlines destroyed families that were already grieving their lost ones.

Link

Rachel Nixon

at 09:30 on April 15th, 2009

Yes, you're right. The Sun's reporting of Hillsborough caused huge controversy at the time.

Eric The Fish2008

at 13:15 on April 15th, 2009

The Sun is still vilified in Liverpool. Its sales are low compared to the rest of the UK.

A lot of people are upset that The Sun has covered the memorial service and anniversary without, of course, mentioning its own place in the heartache caused.