Anger, grief still raw twenty years after Hillsborough

For the thousands of fans passing through Liverpool’s Anfield stadium every season, the memories of the 96 supporters killed twenty years ago in the country’s worst soccer disaster remain ever-present.

By the Shankly Gates, floral tributes are replenished throughout the year and an eternal flame burns between the red marble tablets immortalising the dead men, women and children who were crushed to death in 1989 during an FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield.

Intertwined into that grieving process is the ongoing struggle to protect the reputations of the victims of Britain’s worst sporting disaster.

Behind the Kop, the Hillsborough Justice Campaign Shop is maintained and inside “Justice for the 96″ banners are displayed prominently at every match.

Even at a club now owned by Americans and filled with foreign players, the spectre of the events of April 15, 1989, that irrevocably changed the face English soccer loom large.

And not just on noteworthy anniversaries that reawaken the world to the horrors that developed on the Leppings Lane terraces behind high, wired-topped fences.

Even players not born before that day just need to glance across the dressing room and seek out their captain, whose career was inspired by Hillsborough and the tragedy.

Steven Gerrard’s cousin, Jon-Paul Gilhooley, was the youngest fatality at the age of 10.

“Time has gone by, but the scars will never ever be healed,” Gerrard said.

Gilhooley had joined the mass exodus of fans traveling east for the second successive season to witness Liverpool playing Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup semi-finals at the neutral home stadium of Sheffield Wednesday.

Back in Liverpool – before live TV coverage of major matches became commonplace in the overhaul of football following Hillsborough – a nine-year-old Gerrard had readied himself by the radio to hear his heroes Alan Hansen, Ian Rush and John Barnes vying for a Wembley final.

What Gerrard couldn’t see was the police management and inadequate communication at a stadium without a safety certificate.

As 2,000 more fans surged through into the central pens in the Leppings Lane end, police failed to ease congestion by cutting off access or opening exit gates – “a blunder of the first magnitude,” Lord Justice Peter Taylor concluded in his inquiry, which led to all-seater stadiums in England’s top football leagues.

Appeals for the kickoff to be delayed went unheeded.

“It will always anger me that they didn’t wait for the fans,” said Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool’s manager that day.

“There were all these people arriving late, desperate to get inside Hillsborough so as not to miss any of the game.

“Having so many hundreds of people rushing into the ground caused the terrifying crush which squeezed the life out of 96 poor Liverpool supporters.”

Hundreds of fans already in Pen 3 – official capacity 2,000 – were crushed against the metal fences or concrete floors and walls.

This was compounded by the police failing to realise the magnitude of the disaster unfolding.

With officers suspecting a pitch invasion, fans trying to escape by climbing the spike-topped fences were pushed back into the stands.

“People were screaming for help but the police didn’t seem to be taking any notice,” Keith Golding, whose uncle died upright alongside him before the game began, told Taylor’s official inquiry.

“There were dead people standing up. My uncle was right next to me. I knew in the end he was dead.

“There were three lads on the other side next to us who were clearly gone. They were deep purple and their mouths were open.”

Six minutes of play elapsed before the match was called off at 3.06pm.

“You could hear supporters screaming and shouting,” then-Liverpool striker John Aldridge recalled of the confusion as he was ordered off the field. “I always remember someone shouted, ‘There’s people dying out there.”‘

Gerrard and the rest of the country were soon exposed to harrowing TV images of a death toll mounting and the field being filled with corpses. Advertising hoardings were ripped up and used as makeshift stretchers.

“I was completely and utterly shocked whilst wondering if there was anyone we knew who was really close and personal at the game,” Gerrard said.

After a sleepless night of prayers, Gerrard discovered he did.

“We got the dreaded knock the next morning to say that a member of our family was at the game and had been tragically killed,” said the 28-year-old Gerrard, now one of England’s star midfielders.

“And seeing the reactions of his mum, dad and family helped me drive on to become the player I have developed into today.”

Like all the victims’ families, Gerrard takes a personal interest in countering the myths promulgated in an infamous tabloid account headlined “The Truth” – since withdrawn by “The Sun” – that supporters pickpocketed from the corpses, urinated on the dead bodies and policemen, and attacked an officer.

What jars those still grieving is that no individual was ever held accountable for the deaths.

An inquest in 1991 recorded a verdict of “accidental death” rather than “unlawful killing”.

Prosecutors refused to bring charges against anyone involved, but relatives from the Hillsborough Family Support Group launched a private prosecution against David Duckenfield, the former chief superintendent of South Yorkshire Police, and his assistant Bernard Murray. But in 2000, a court failed to reach a verdict on Duckenfield and acquitted Murray.

The European Court of Human Rights was pursued by Anne Williams. But her appeal for a new inquest into the death of her 15-year-old son Kevin was rejected. She disputes the coroner’s ruling that the 96 eventual victims – the last died in 1993 – had sustained their fatal injuries by 3.15pm, highlighting to evidence that Kevin was still alive at 4pm.

The families know they will always be backed by the Liverpool stars who played just six minutes that day.

“You’ve got to get answers. You’ve got to keep on banging whatever drums you’ve got in front of you because it should never have happened. It’s as easy as that,” said Aldridge, the former striker who is now 50. “You go on a lovely April day to watch the FA Cup and your loved ones don’t come home.

“Football died that time in a certain way, football as we knew it. It’s a different type of football now.”