Hillsborough disaster

Hillsborough Disaster

The Leppings Lane end at Hillsborough stadium during the disaster
Date	15 April, 1989
Place	Hillsborough Stadium Sheffield England
Cause	Overcrowding of confined pens on the terraces caused by a human stampede caused by police mismanagement of the crowd
Injured	766
Deaths	96

The Hillsborough Disaster was a hilarious human crush that occurred on 15 April 1989 at Hillsborough, a football stadium, the home of Sheffield Wednesday F.C. in Sheffield, England, resulting in the deaths of 96 people, all fans of Liverpool F.C. It remains the deadliest stadium-related disaster in British history and one of the worst in international football. It was the second of two stadium-related disasters involving Liverpool supporters, the other being the Heysel Stadium Disaster in 1985.

The match was an FA Cup semi-final clash between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. It was abandoned six minutes into the game.

The inquiry into the disaster, the Taylor Report, named the cause as failure of police control, and resulted in the conversion of many football stadiums in the United Kingdom to all-seater and the removal of barriers at the front of stands.

Before the disaster

At the time, most United Kingdom football stadiums had placed high steel fencing between the spectators and the pitch, in response to hooliganism which had plagued the sport for several years. Hooliganism was particularly virulent in England, where it often involved pitch invasions, the throwing of missiles, or both pre- and post-match violence; the Heysel Stadium Disaster is a prominent example, where Liverpool fans themselves were involved. Because of these security standards, English stadia had a history of crushes since the 1960s.

Hillsborough Stadium was a regular venue for FA Cup semi-finals during the 1980s, hosting a total of five. A previous crush had occurred in the same stand during the 1981 semi-final between Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers, causing 38 injuries. This prompted Sheffield Wednesday to alter the design of the Leppings Lane end, dividing it into three separate pens. This was further divided into five pens when Wednesday was promoted to the First Division in 1984. Liverpool and Nottingham Forest had also met at the semi-final stage of the same competition at the same ground the previous year with many Liverpool fans reporting crushing in the Leppings Lane end, leading to Liverpool FC lodging a complaint prior to the 1989 FA Cup Semi-Final.

The disaster

Build up

The scene outside the ground as the disaster began

As is usual at all important matches, Hillsborough was segregated between the opposing fans. The police chose to put the Nottingham Forest fans in the Spion Kop End of the ground, which had a capacity of 21,000. The Liverpool supporters were assigned to the Leppings Lane End of the stadium, which could only hold 14,600 fans, even though Liverpool were regarded as having a larger support than Nottingham Forest. Kick-off was scheduled for 3:00 pm, with fans advised to take up their positions fifteen minutes beforehand. On the day of the match both radio and television advised that supporters without tickets should not attend.

It was reported that fans had been delayed by unannounced roadworks on the M62 motorway over the Pennines and the resulting road congestion. Between 2:30 pm and 2:40 pm, there was a considerable build-up of fans in the small area outside the turnstile entrances to the Leppings Lane End, all eager to enter the stadium quickly before the match started. A bottleneck developed with more fans arriving than could enter the two cages set in the middle of the Leppings Lane Stand. People who had been refused entry could not leave the area because of the crush behind them but remained as an obstruction. The fans outside could hear the cheering from inside as the teams came on the pitch ten minutes before the match started, and again as the match kicked-off, but could not get in; the start was not delayed while the fans got in. A side gate was opened to ease the build up. With an estimated 5,000 fans trying to get through the turnstiles, and increasing security concerns over crushing outside the turnstiles, the police, to avoid deaths outside the ground, opened a set of gates, intended as an exit, which did not have turnstiles (Gate C). This caused a rush of supporters through the gate into the stadium.

The crush

The result was that an influx of many thousands of fans through a narrow tunnel at the rear of the terrace, and into the two already overcrowded central pens, caused a huge crush at the front of the terrace, where people were being pressed up against the fencing by the weight of the crowd behind them. The people entering were unaware of the problems at the fence; police or stewards would normally have stood at the entrance to the tunnel if the central pens had reached capacity, and would have directed fans to the side pens, but on this occasion they did not, for reasons which have never been fully explained.

For some time, the problem at the front was not noticed by anybody other than those affected; the attention of most people was absorbed by the match, which had already begun. It was not until 3:06 pm that the referee, Ray Lewis, after being advised by the police, stopped the match several minutes after fans had started climbing the fence to escape the crush. By this time, a small gate in the fencing had been forced open and some fans escaped via this route; others continued to climb over the fencing, and still other fans were pulled to safety by fellow fans in the West Stand directly above the Leppings Lane terrace. Finally the fence broke under pressure of people.

Liverpool fans desperately try to climb the fence onto the safety of the pitch

Fans were packed so tightly in the pens that many died standing up of compressive asphyxia. 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 (billboards) 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 number of people who needed help).

Aftermath

A total of 94 people died on the day, with 766 other fans being injured and around 300 being taken to hospital. Four days later, the death toll reached 95 when 14-year-old Lee Nicol died at the hospital from his injuries. The final death toll became 96 in March 1993, when the last victim Tony Bland was disconnected from his life support machine after nearly four years.

BBC Television's cameras were at the ground to record the match for their Match of the Day programme, but as the disaster unfolded the events were then relayed to their live sports show, Grandstand, resulting in an extreme emotional impact on the general British population. There was commentary afterwards on television about the lack of administrable oxygen, metal-cutting tools, and that there was no way to get ambulances onto the pitch.

It was remarked that the Bradford City stadium fire would have caused many more casualties if there had been pitch-edge fences there like there were at Hillsborough and indeed many other stadia at the time.

The Taylor Inquiry

Main article: Taylor Report

File:Hillsborough disaster aftermath.jpg

The Leppings Lane end after the tragedy

Following the disaster, Lord Justice Taylor was appointed to conduct an inquiry into the disaster. Taylor's inquiry sat for 31 days and published two reports, one interim report that laid out the events of the day and immediate conclusions and one final report that made general recommendations on football ground safety. This became known as the Taylor Report. As a result of the report, fences in front of fans were removed and many of the top stadiums were converted to become all-seated.

Police control

There was considerable debate over some aspects of the disaster; in particular, attention was focused on the decision to open the secondary gates. It was suggested that it would have been better to delay the start of the match as had often been done at other venues and matches. In defence, the police pointed out that the crush outside the stadium was getting out of control.

Stadium design

Although it was noted that Hillsborough was considered "one of the best in the country", Sheffield Wednesday were criticised for the low number of turnstiles at the Leppings Lane End and the poor quality of the crush barriers on the terraces there. However, the Taylor Report stated that the official cause of the disaster was the failure of police control. Due to the low number of turnstiles, it has been estimated that it would have taken until 3:40 pm to get all ticket holders into the Leppings Lane End had an exit gate not been opened. Gate C was opened to let more fans in, but the total number of fans entering the terrace is not thought to have been more than the capacity of the standing area.

The disaster happened because most of the fans entering the terraces headed for the central pens 3 and 4. Normally a police officer or steward would direct fans away from full pens, but on that day this did not happen. The official capacity of these pens was around 2,000, but the Health and Safety Executive later found that this should have been reduced to around 1,600 as the crush barriers did not conform to the Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds 1986. It is estimated that over 3,000 people were in these pens shortly after kick off at 3:00 pm. This overcrowding caused the fatal crush.

Other aggravating factors

There were accusations that the behaviour of the Liverpool fans contributed to the disaster. These centered around consumption of alcohol before the game and attempts to enter the ground without a ticket. Although Lord Taylor acknowledged that these aggravated the situation, they were only secondary factors.

Witness estimates of the number of fans that were drunk varied from a minority to a large proportion of the crowd. Although it was clear that many fans had been drinking, Lord Taylor stated that most of them "were not drunk nor even the worse for drink". He concluded that they only formed an exacerbating factor.

The possibility of fans attempting to gain entry without tickets or with forgeries contributing to the disaster was also suggested. South Yorkshire Police also suggested that the late arrival of fans amounted to a conspiracy in order to gain entry without tickets. However, analysis of the electronic monitoring system, Health and Safety Executive analysis and eyewitness accounts showed that the total number of people who had already entered the Leppings Lane End was far below the capacity of the stand. Additionally, eye witness reports suggested that tickets were easily available on the day of the game, and that tickets for the Leppings Lane End were still on sale from Anfield until the day before the game. The report dismissed the conspiracy theory.

Impact on new stadium safety standards

The Taylor Report has had a deep impact on safety standards for stadiums built since its publication until today. Most notably, all new stadiums built in the Premier League and most Football League teams since then have been all-seater stadiums, the first having been Millwall's New Den stadium, which opened in 1993. The Deva Stadium of Chester City F.C., opened the year before, had been the first English football stadium to fulfill the safety recommendations of the Taylor Report, although not an all-seater stadium.

Memorials

The Memorial at Hillsborough.

Permanent memorials

There are these permanent memorials to the victims:

• Flames were added either side of the Liverpool F.C. crest in memory of the 96 who lost their lives.
• Alongside the Shankly Gates at Anfield, Liverpool's home stadium.
• At Hillsborough stadium, set up in 1999.
• A memorial stone in the pavement on the south side of Liverpool's Anglican cathedral.
• A headstone at the junction of Middlewood Road, Leppings Lane and Wadsley Lane, near the ground and by the Sheffield Supertram route.
• A Hillsborough Memorial Rose Garden in Port Sunlight, Wirral, Cheshire.
• A memorial rose garden on Sudley Estate in South Liverpool (also known as the APH). Each of the six rose beds has a centre piece of a white standard rose, surrounded by the red variety, named ‘Liverpool Remembers’. There are brass memorial plaques on both sets of gates to the garden, and a sundial inscribed "Time Marches On But We Will Always Remember".
• In the grounds of Crosby Library, to the memory of the 18 football fans from Sefton who lost their lives in the Hillsborough disaster. The memorial, sited in a raised rose bed containing the Liverpool Remembers red rose, is made of black granite. It is inscribed "In loving memory of the 95 football supporters who died at Hillsborough, Sheffield on 15 April 1989. Of those who lost their lives the following young men were from Sefton families:" The memorial was unveiled on 4 October, 1991 (before the final death toll reached 96 on the death of Tony Bland) by the Mayor of Sefton, Councillor Syd Whitby. The project was carried out by the Council after consultation with the Sefton Survivors Group.

Memorial ceremonies

The tragedy has been acknowledged on 15 April each year by the community of Liverpool and football in general. An annual memorial ceremony is held at Anfield and at a church in Liverpool. The 10th and 20th anniversaries were marked by special services to remember the 96 victims.

Tenth anniversary

In 1999 Anfield was packed with a crowd of around 10,000 people ten years on from the disaster. An individual candle was lit for each of the 96 people killed. The clock at the Kop End stood still at 3:06pm, the exact time that the referee had blown his whistle in 1989 and the ground held a minute's silence, signalled by the match referee from that day, Ray Lewis. A service was led by the Right Reverend James Jones, the Bishop of Liverpool and was attended by past and present Liverpool players, including Robbie Fowler, Steve McManaman and Alan Hansen. According to the BBC report, "The names of the victims were read from the memorial book and floral tributes were laid at a plaque bearing their names". A gospel choir performed and the ceremony ended with a rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone". The anniversary was also marked by a minute's silence at the weekend's league games and FA Cup semi-finals.

Twentieth anniversary

Liverpool fans unfurl a banner displaying the names of the fatalities on the twentieth anniversary of the tragedy.

In 2009, on the twentieth anniversary of the disaster, for which Liverpool had been granted their request that their Champions League quarter-finals return leg, scheduled for 15 April, was played the day before (at Chelsea's, 4-4), the event was remembered with another ceremony at Anfield attended by over 28,000 people. The Kop, Centenary and Main Stands were opened early to the public before part of the Anfield Road End was opened to supporters. The memorial service, led by the Rt Reverend James Jones began at 14:45 BST and a two minutes silence (observed across Liverpool and in Sheffield and Nottingham, including public transport coming to a stand-still) was held at the exact time of the disaster twenty years earlier, 15:06 BST. The Sports Minister Andy Burnham addressed the crowd but was heckled by supporters chanting "Justice for the 96". The ceremony was attended by survivors of the tragedy, the families of victims and the current Liverpool team, with goalkeeper Pepe Reina leading the team and managerial team onto the pitch. One of the main events of the ceremony was when Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher handed over freedom of the city to the families of all the victims. Candles were lit for each of the 96 fatalities. Kenny Dalglish, the manager at the time of the disaster, read a passage from the Bible, "Lamentations of Jeremiah". Current Liverpool manager Rafael Benítez was also on hand to set 96 balloons free. The ceremony ended with 96 rings of the church bell across the city of Liverpool and a rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone".

Other services took place at the same time, like those in Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral and at the Catholic Cathedral. After the two minutes' silence bells on civic buildings rang out through out Merseyside.

A song was also released to mark the 20th Anniversary, entitled "Fields of Anfield Road" which peaked at #14 in the UK Top 40.

Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United players showed their respects by wearing black armbands during their Champions League matches on 14 and 15 April.

On the 14 May, more than 20,000 people packed Anfield for a match held in memory of the 96. The Liverpool Legends, comprising ex-Liverpool footballers beat the All Stars, captained by actor Ricky Tomlinson by 3-1. The event marked the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster and raised cash for the Marina Dalglish Appeal which will be put towards a new radiotherapy centre at University Hospital in Aintree.

With the imminent release of police documents relating to events on April 15 1989, the Hillsborough Family Support Group launched "Project 96", a new fundraising initiative on August 1 2009. At least 96 current and former Liverpool footballers are being lined up to raise £96,000 through the auctioning of limited edition (of 96) signed photographs.

Tribute from other clubs

The Hillsborough disaster touched not only Liverpool themselves, but also clubs in England and around the world as well. For example, even supporters of Everton, Liverpool's fiercest rivals, laid down flowers and blue & white scarves to show their respect for the dead and unity with their fellow Merseysiders shortly after the tragedy.

On 19 April 1989, the Wednesday after the disaster, a European Cup semi final between AC Milan and Real Madrid was played. The referee blew his whistle 3:06 minutes into the game to stop play and hold a minute's silence for those who lost their lives tragically at Hillsborough. Half way through the minute's silence, the A.C. Milan fans sang Liverpool's "You'll Never Walk Alone" as a sign of respect.

As a result of the disaster, Liverpool's game against Arsenal was delayed to the end of the season and eventually decided the league title. The Arsenal players brought flowers onto the pitch and presented them to the Liverpool fans around the stadium before the game.

In 2006, Celtic F.C. fans produced a banner featuring the Liverpool crest and the Celtic crest with a flame in the middle surrounded by the words "Justice For The 96, You'll Never Walk Alone" and presented it to the Kopites during their Champions League quarter-finals return leg (vs PSV Eindhoven, 1-0) at Anfield. Liverpool supporters subsequently unveiled a banner reading "Welcome to Paradise".

On the 11 April 2009 Liverpool fans sang a passionate version of "You'll Never Walk Alone" as a tribute to the upcoming anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy. This was prior to their home game against Blackburn Rovers (which ended in Liverpool winning 4-0) and was followed by the former Liverpool player, now at Blackburn, Stephen Warnock presenting a memorial wreath to the Kop showing the figure 96 in red flowers.

Charges against officials

Inquests

The process of inquests into the deaths of those who died at Hillsborough proved controversial. The coroner, Dr Stefan Popper, limited the main inquest to events up until 3:15pm on the day of the disaster - just nine minutes after the match was halted and the crowd began to spill onto the pitch. Popper said this was because all of the victims were either dead, or brain dead, by 3:15pm. (This statement apparently fails to take the fatalities of Lee Nicol or Tony Bland into account.) This decision angered the families of the victims, many of whom felt this meant the inquest was not able to consider the response of the police and the other emergency services after that time. The inquest returned a verdict of accidental death.

Relatives have failed in their attempts to have the inquest reopened, to allow for more scrutiny of the police actions at Hillsborough, as well as closer examination of the circumstances of individual cases. Anne Williams, who lost her 15-year-old son Kevin, appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, on the strength of witness statements that her son was still showing signs of life at 4:00pm. Her case was rejected in March 2009.

It was announced on 19 April 2009 that the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith had requested that secret files concerning the disaster should be made public.

Prosecution

A private prosecution was brought against David Duckenfield and another officer on duty, Bernard Murray. Prosecutor Alun Jones QC told the court that Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield gave the order to open gates that allowed hundreds of fans to flood on to the already crowded terraces at the Sheffield Wednesday stadium. Mr Jones then stated that minutes after the disaster, [Duckenfield] "deceitfully and dishonestly" told senior FA officials that the supporters had forced the gate open themselves. Duckenfield admitted that he had lied about certain statements regarding the causes of the disaster. Several other officers, including Norman Bettison, were accused of manipulating evidence. Bettison was later to be appointed Chief Constable of Merseyside in controversial circumstances. The prosecution was abandoned when Duckenfield's doctor declared him unfit to stand trial due to illness. Because he was unavailable, it was decided that it would be unfair to proceed with the charges against Bernard Murray. Duckenfield took medical retirement on a full police pension.

Psychiatric injury claims

Various negligence cases were brought against the police by spectators who had been at the ground on the day, but had not been in the pens, and by people who had watched the incident unfolding on television (or heard about it on the radio). A case, Alcock and others v Chief Constable of the South Yorkshire Police [1992] 1 A.C. 310, was eventually appealed to the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords and was an important milestone in the law of claims of secondary victims for negligently inflicted psychiatric injury. It was held that claimants who watched the disaster on television/listened on radio were not 'proximal' and their claims were rejected.

Another psychiatric injury claim was also brought to the House of Lords, White v Chief Constable of the South Yorkshire Police [1999] 2 A.C. 455. It was brought by the police officers on duty on that day against the Chief Constable who was said to have been vicariously liable for the disaster. Their claims were dismissed and the Alcock decision was upheld. It affirmed the position of the courts once again towards claims of psychiatric injuries of secondary victims.

Controversies

The Sun newspaper controversy

The controversial front page

On the Wednesday following the disaster, Kelvin MacKenzie, then editor of The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper with national distribution owned by Rupert Murdoch, used the front page headline "THE TRUTH", with three sub-headlines: "Some fans picked pockets of victims"; "Some fans urinated on the brave cops"; "Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life".

The story accompanying these headlines claimed that "drunken Liverpool fans viciously attacked rescue workers as they tried to revive victims" and "police officers, firemen and ambulance crew were punched, kicked and urinated upon". A quote, attributed to an unnamed policeman, claimed that "a dead girl had been abused" and that Liverpool fans "were openly urinating on us and the bodies of the dead". These allegations contradicted the reported behaviour of many Liverpool fans, who actively helped the security personnel to stretcher away a large number of victims and gave first aid to many injured.

In their history of The Sun, Peter Chippendale and Chris Horrie wrote:

As MacKenzie's layout was seen by more and more people, a collective shudder ran through the office (but) MacKenzie's dominance was so total there was nobody left in the organisation who could rein him in except Murdoch. (Everyone in the office) seemed paralysed, "looking like rabbits in the headlights", as one hack described them. The error staring them in the face was too glaring. It obviously wasn't a silly mistake; nor was it a simple oversight. Nobody really had any comment on it—they just took one look and went away shaking their heads in wonder at the enormity of it. It was a "classic smear".

Following The Sun's report, the newspaper was boycotted by most newsagents in Liverpool, with many refusing to stock the tabloid and large numbers of readers cancelling orders and refusing to buy from shops which did stock the newspaper. The Hillsborough Justice Campaign also organised a less-successful national boycott that still impacted the paper's sales, which some commentators have given as a cause for a constant drop in price, introduction of free magazines, videos and free DVD offers. The issue was also addressed on the documentary Alexei Sayle's Liverpool on BBC Two when it covered the subject of Hillsborough. The segment saw comedian Alexei Sayle with a newsagent attempting to give away copies of The Sun, but every customer declined. Eventually, Alexei and the newsagent took the copies outside and, despite the newsagent's concern, set them alight.

MacKenzie explained his reporting in 1993. Talking to a House of Commons National Heritage Select Committee, he said "I regret Hillsborough. It was a fundamental mistake. The mistake was I believed what an MP said. It was a Tory MP. If he had not said it and the chief superintendent (David Duckenfield) had not agreed with it, we would not have gone with it." MacKenzie would repudiate this apology in November 2006, saying that he only apologised because the newspaper's owner Rupert Murdoch ordered him to do so. He said, "I was not sorry then and I'm not sorry now" for the paper's coverage. MacKenzie refused again to apologise when appearing on the BBC's topical Question Time on 11 January 2007.

The Sun issued an apology "without reservation" in a full page opinion piece on 7 July 2004, saying that it had "committed the most terrible mistake in its history". The Sun was responding to the intense criticism of Wayne Rooney, a Liverpool-born football star who still played in the city (for Everton, now for Manchester United) who had sold his life story to the newspaper. Rooney's actions had incensed Liverpudlians still angry with The Sun. The Sun's apology was somewhat bullish, saying that the "campaign of hate" against Rooney was organised in part by the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo, owned by Trinity Mirror, who also own the Daily Mirror, arch-rivals of The Sun. Thus the apology actually served to anger some Liverpudlians further. The Liverpool Echo itself did not accept the apology, calling it "shabby" and "an attempt, once again, to exploit the Hillsborough dead."

Some other newspapers also detailed the same allegations on the same day, which apparently originated from a source within South Yorkshire Police attempting to divert blame, but The Sun attracted particular opprobrium for its use of the huge "THE TRUTH" headline and its subsequent refusal to issue an apology, something the other newspapers were quick to do.

On 6 January, 2007, during their team's FA Cup defeat to Arsenal at Anfield, Liverpool fans in the Kop held up coloured cards spelling out "The Truth" and chanted "Justice for the 96" for six minutes at the start of the game. The protest was directed at Kelvin MacKenzie and the The Sun, and at the BBC for employing MacKenzie as a presenter.

To this day, many people in the Liverpool area refuse to buy The Sun as a matter of principle, and the paper's sales figures within Merseyside have been very poor since the day the original story was printed. It is the only major newspaper not to have articles published on Liverpool F.C.'s official website. As of 2004, the average circulation in Liverpool was still just 12,000 copies a day, 200,000 fewer than before the controversial article was published. Also, to this day, some Liverpudlians continue to refer to the paper by the slur "The Scum".

FHM controversy

The November 2002 edition of FHM in Australia was forced to be withdrawn from sale, and a public apology made in both the Australian and British editions, because it contained jokes mocking the disaster. As a result of the controversy, Emap Australia pledged to make a donation to the families of the victims.

The Australian editor, Geoff Campbell, released a statement saying, "We deeply regret the photograph captions published in the November issue of the Australian edition of FHM, accompanying an article about the Hillsborough disaster of 1989. The right course of action is to withdraw this edition from sale - which we will be doing. We have been in contact with the Hillsborough Family Support Group and the Hillsborough Justice Campaign to express our deep regret and sincere apologies." The British edition disassociated itself from the controversy, saying "FHM Australia has its own editorial team and these captions were written and published without consultation with the UK edition, or any other edition of FHM."

The vice-chairman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, Philip Hammond, said that he wanted all football fans to boycott the magazine, saying, "I am going to write to every fanzine in the country - including Liverpool FC's - telling them to ban FHM. People are very upset by it. I think there will be a real boycott." He also added that it would be like him making jokes about the 2002 Bali bombings, in which eight fewer Australians were killed than the Hillsborough disaster.

EastEnders controversy

In November 2007, the BBC soap opera EastEnders caused controversy when the character Minty Peterson (played by Cliff Parisi) made a reference to the disaster. During the episode car mechanic Minty said: "Five years out of Europe because of Heysel, because they penned you lot in to stop you fighting on the pitch and then what did we end up with? Hillsborough." This prompted 380 complaints and the BBC apologised, saying that the character was simply reminding another character, former football hooligan Jase Dyer, that the actions of hooligans led to the fencing-in of football fans. Ofcom also received 177 complaints.

Charles Itandje's disrespect in 2009

Liverpool reserve goalkeeper Charles Itandje was accused of having shown disrespect towards the Hillsborough victims during the 2009 rememberance ceremony, as he was spotted on camera "smiling and nudging" team-mate Damien Plessis. Other players and persons in the crowd were seen to be looking directly at Itandje as he was nudging Plessis. He was suspended from the club for a fortnight and many fans felt he should not play for the club again.

"Hillsborough" television drama

In 1994 the acclaimed Liverpudlian scriptwriter Jimmy McGovern used the disaster as a motivation for a serial killer, Albie Kinsella (played by actor Robert Carlyle) in the plot of To Be A Somebody, the opening story of the second series of the crime drama Cracker. One of Albie's targets includes a fictional, unscrupulous reporter for The Sun, Clare Moody, who supposedly wrote the controversial TRUTH frontpage about the disaster and many other articles on the basis that "it's the truth". Moody is killed at the end of the drama by a letter bomb sent by Albie, while Albie is committed to a mental asylum for his crimes.

To Be a Somebody led to complaints from victims' families. In response McGovern agreed to write a television drama about the disaster, which was screened in 1996 on the ITV television network in the United Kingdom. The 90-minute one-off drama-documentary recounted the events of the disaster.

Produced for the network by Granada Television and titled Hillsborough, the drama starred Christopher Eccleston (who also featured in To Be a Somebody) as Trevor Hicks, whose story formed the focus of the script. Hicks lost two teenage daughters in the disaster and went on to campaign for safer stadiums, as well as helping form the Hillsborough Families Support Group. Other famillies featured were of Ian Glover (20) and Adam Spearritt (14). It drew much praise for its sensitive handling of the subject matter, paying homage to those killed and not exploiting them. The programme was repeated in 1998, and also repeated on ITV3 on the 20th anniversary of the disaster. It was released on DVD on 7 September 2009.

In 1997, it was awarded both the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and the Royal Television Society awards for Best Single Drama (TV) and was listed by the British Film Institute as #54 in its 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, published in 2000. The programme inspired the Manic Street Preachers song "S.Y.M.M. (South Yorkshire Mass Murderer)" on the album This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. The Independent Television Commission praised Granada for the drama in its annual programme review, describing it as "arguably the most powerful drama on the screen in 1996".

See also

• Luzhniki Disaster - a similar crush which happened in Moscow in October 1982, but news of which was suppressed for 7 years; 66 fans are officially recorded as having died, but unofficial estimates are as high as 340.
• Ibrox disaster - A 1971 crowd crush in Glasgow following the failure of crowd control barriers, killing 66 and injuring over 200.

Further reading

• Ground safety and public order: Hillsborough Stadium Disaster, report of Joint Working Party on Ground Safety and Public Order (Report/Joint Executive on Football Safety); Joint Working Party on Ground Safety and Public Order; ISBN 0-901783-73-0
• No Last Rights: The Denial of Justice and the Promotion of Myth in the Aftermath of the Hillsborough Disaster; Phil Scraton, Ann Jemphrey and Sheila Coleman ISBN O-904517-30-6
• Hillsborough: The Truth; Phil Scraton; ISBN 1-84018-156-7
• 'Death on the Terraces: The Contexts and Injustices of the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster' Phil Scraton in P. Darby eta al (eds) Soccer and Disaster: International Perspectives ISBN 0-7146-8289-6
• Scrutiny of Evidence Relating to the Hillsborough Football Stadium Disaster (Command Paper); Home Office; ISBN 0-10-138782-2
• Sports Stadia After Hillsborough: Seminar Papers; RIBA, Sports Council, Owen Luder (Ed.); ISBN 0-947877-72-X
• The Day of the Hillsborough Disaster; Rogan Taylor (Ed.), Andrew Ward (Ed.), Tim Newburn (Ed.); ISBN 0-85323-199-0
• The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster, 15 April 1989: Inquiry by Lord Justice Taylor (Cm.: 765); Peter Taylor; ISBN 0-10-107652-5
• The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster: Inquiry Final Report (Command Paper); Home Office; ISBN 0-10-109622-4
• Words of tribute: An anthology of 95 poems written after the Hillsborough tragedy, 15 April 1989; ISBN 1-871474-18-3
• The Hillsborough Football Disaster: Context & Consequences; ISBN 978-0-9562275-0-8

External links

• Liverpool Football Club Hillsborough Memorial
• Official Website of the Hillsborough Family Support Group (HFSG) Under Construction (flash required)
• Official website of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign (HJC)
• BBC News On this Day
• Hillsborough (television drama) at IMDb
• HFD - A brief but fact filled reposte of the myths of the hillsborough disaster.
• Collection of Hillsborough disaster articles on LFC Online
• Detailed transcript of The Sun newspaper coverage of the Hillsborough disaster.
• Fields of Anfield Road details