Source: Liverpool_Echo
Heysel 25 years on: Former Liverpool Echo chief reporter Bob Burns remembers the tragedy
Former ECHO chief reporter Bob Burns covered the Heysel Stadium disaster for the paper.[LNB]Here he recalls the day...[LNB]IT was a dreadful night with enough horrifying images to last anyone a lifetime.[LNB]I was in the Heysel press box eagerly waiting for the match to begin, along with scores of mostly sports journalists.[LNB]One of them, a TV producer a few seats away, pointed to a disturbance at the Juventus end. Wearing an ear piece and staring at his TV monitor he told us: 'There are fatalities.'[LNB]The shocking comment seemed like a wild exaggeration. I instantly reflected on what (Reds boss) Joe Fagan had said the previous day. A local reporter had asked him about crowd trouble and he said there was nothing to be concerned about.[LNB]On the day of the match I'd spent hours observing the party-like atmosphere downtown and had seen no real problems. There were no ominous warning signs despite the previous year's final in Rome where many Roma fans suffered a meltdown after their team lost to Liverpool.[LNB]The producer's bleak comment had to be checked out. High up and back in the rafters it was impossible for most of us in the press box to see what was really going on. The only way was to get down there.[LNB]Hurrying down the stairs to get outside and as near as possible to the chaos I only found out later that the Brussels police inside the stadium were haplessly dealing with the disaster.[LNB]But that wasn't the case outside on the concourse. All the authorities, police included, were operating as if they had performed several drills for a disaster such as this. Even so it was pandemonium. Red Cross helicopters were landing nearby. The dead and the dying were being stretchered away. It was like a scene from a war movie.[LNB]I was too stunned by what I was seeing to really have any strong feelings about it all at that point. They would come later after spending several more days in Brussels. There would be deep sadness after visiting the hospitals and seeing the heartbreak there. Shame after realising that some fans of our great club, regardless of where they were from, had helped cause the disaster. It was just surreal.[LNB]But from what I could see the rescuers on the concourse likely saved many lives that night.[LNB]I witnessed a man being given the last rites by a priest - I tried to talk with some of the survivors. An apparently unhurt woman was stepping into an ambulance, but appeared to ignore my question. Though I tried to be as gentle as possible, I felt terrible just for asking her after it dawned on me she was in deep shock, just like so many others.[LNB]In the days before mobile phones it was time to try to get back inside the press box and report in to my news editor at the ECHO. Strangely, just as I was about to call him, a then Daily Post colleague Ian Ross, who was sitting several rows behind me, shouted out my name.
