In the 27 years and 11 days since the Hillsborough tragedy, we have frequently heard or read the refrain "no one should die because they went to a football match". But on the day that a jury has delivered justice to the families of the 96 who died in Sheffield, by declaring their deaths unlawful, we should also put football into some context.
In England on April 15, 1989, football was somewhat in the social doghouse. To be a fan was to have pariah status in some circles. English clubs and their supporters were in the midst of a five-year ban from European competition after hooliganism had reached its nadir at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels on May 29, 1985, when 39 Italian fans died and 600 were injured as a result of fighting between Liverpool and Juventus supporters. Two weeks prior to that ugly encounter, 56 people died and at least 265 were injured when fire swept through Bradford City's antiquated Valley Parade stadium.
But, with the Premier League and its Sky money not heralding a gentrification of English football's elite for another three years to come, Hillsborough ensured that the sport continued to be supported without the fanfare and wall-to-wall attention it gets today. Amongst metropolitan circles to declare interest or even an opinion on the game would result in looks at social occasions akin to announcing a penchant for bestiality with zoo animals.
Hillsborough darkened the sport's already dimmest days and, that the tragedy should have involved Liverpool fans again brought a further cruel twist to the reputation of the city and the club. On the day of the disaster more than 24,000 supporters travelled from Merseyside for the FA Cup semi-final between the Reds and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough, Sheffield Wednesday's ground. They had been assigned to the North and West stands, but in the build-up, a large number of Liverpool fans were already crowding before the turnstiles of the Leppings Lane end of the ground. To relieve the pressure, an exit gate - C - was opened a few minutes before the scheduled kick-off time, but all this did was filter 2,000 spectators into fenced-in pens that were already bulging, resulting in a severe crush...and the deaths of 96 people. The youngest was just 10, the oldest, 67. Many had died horribly from compression asphyxia, an agonizing death (essentially how a boa constrictor kills its prey).
In the aftermath, blame was placed squarely on the behaviour of the fans themselves. As with Heysel, and indeed all the other shameful moments of English football support, it was assumed that this was a terrible event with the sport's neanderthal element at its root. This was seized upon by the police and the establishment, who appeared in collusion to besmirch the Liverpool supporters with lies to protect their own standing. Sir Bernard Ingham, then Margaret Thatcher’s press secretary, accused the fans of being "tanked up yobs". Today, he refused to apologise for the slur. The Sun newspaper compounded things by publishing lurid claims about the fans, rendering the paper persona non grata to this day on Merseyside.
Despite this, the families of the 96 men, women and children have fought a tireless battle in the intervening years to win back the reputations of their loved ones and, moreover, for the police who were supposedly in control of Hillsborough to be brought to account for their apparent negligence. Not all police officers at Hillsborough that day were culpable: most joined the effort to get victims to safety, with advertising hoardings famously used as makeshift stretchers. But the evidence and statements that have appeared throughout the inquest, one of the longest in British legal history, have made for grim testament of the conduct of the senior commanders on duty at Hillsborough and even of the culture within the South Yorkshire police authority in a decade that also saw it accused of heavy-handed tactics during the 1984 miners' strike.
Today, after hearing from more than 500 witnesses, reading 4,000 pages of documents. watching countless hours of video evidence and almost three months of deliberation, a jury has found the police commander at Hillsborough on the day, Chief Superintendant David Duckenfield "responsible for manslaughter by gross negligence". During the inquest, Duckenfield’s barrister, John Beggs QC, had pushed the prevailing police view of Liverpool fans being drunk and uncompliant with police instructions as the crush worsened at the Leppings Lane End. Survivors countered this, giving evidence that there hadn't any misbehaviour and that a lack of coherent police planning had led to the chaos that ensued. Overall, the jury concluded a catalogue of errors - a lack of police planning, control and communication, the inadequacies of the stadium itself, delays in the emergency response, poor signage and information on match tickets, and even a lack of response by Sheffield Wednesday officials in delaying kick-off of the cup tie. Of 14 questions the jury was asked to consider, all but one received a 'yes' - the one 'no' being in response to a question about whether the supporters' behaviour "caused or contributed to the dangerous situation at the Leppings Lane turnstiles".
There will, no doubt, be renewed vigour to bring those responsible to account for their negligence. Perhaps the police on duty on April 15, 1989 - all no doubt now enjoying comfortable retirement, generous pensions and preferred parking at the local golf club - will be pursued with the same zeal that miscreant celebrities have been by Operation Yewtree. For the record, the current chief constable of South Yorkshire Police, David Crompton, said the force "unequivocally" accepted the findings, and admitted that it had "failed the victims and failed their families".
Personally, I see no benefit in a witchhunt. The families, hopefully can now seek closure and vindication, rather than the prolonged pain of further legal proceedings. The one frustration is that they've had to endure 27 years of agony that could have been avoided a long time ago by a simple admission of failure. If there is a legacy of Hillsborough - and wisdom after the event - our sports stadia and the organisation around football matches improved beyond all recognition. Lord Justice Taylor's report saw to that, heralding in more expensive but safer all-seat venues, with changes to matchday policing at grounds. In the process, it also brought about a change in the clientele profile.
But for me the most important outcome of today's verdict is the full exoneration of Liverpool fans. Football has had a lot to answer for, and even today, it would be naive in the extreme to think that hooliganism has gone away. I, like the fans of most teams remain party to the tribalism that, to some extent, drives the game. As I am with Manchester United, Spurs and Arsenal, I'm programmed to dislike Liverpool out of a decades-long on-the-pitch rivalry. But no amount of dislike could wish for the events of 27 years ago. None.
No amount of retroactive investigation and, potentially, arrests will bring back the 96, either. All we can hope is that the reputations of those fans and, indeed, the city of Liverpool have been restored by the verdict, and the victims' families can, 27 years on, finally enjoy peace and dignity.
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