Source: Daily_Mail
JEFF POWELL ON HILLSBOROUGH: That sun-kissed Saturday will haunt me forever
'It was more than an hour before they gave up the last little chap. They wheeled the breathless body from the doors of the ambulance to the floor of the gymnasium and gently laid him to rest under the neat rows of red and fawn blankets. The nurse who had pumped at his frail chest, cradled his head and prayed in vain for one small miracle stayed kneeling on the concrete, tears streaming through fingers. Inconsolable.[LNB] Hillsborough remebered - 20 years on...VIDEO: As Liverpool stands still, Rafa Benitez discusses the tragedyVIDEO: Anfield star Carra speaks on 20th anniversary of HillsboroughVIDEO: Liverpool skipper Gerrard on the impact of the Hillsborough disasterMARTIN SAMUEL: There will never be justice for the Hillsborough victims - but football can still be a force for goodMatt Barlow writes for the first time about his anguish of that tragic dayCity of sorrows - 20 years ago Ian Wooldridge shared in Liverpool's griefHillsborough remembered 20 years on: I'll never forget their screams...VIDEO SPECIAL: Is this the ultimate tribute to the victims of the Hillsborough disaster? The constable who had tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until he, too, was blue in the face sat staring back at the terracing to which so many boys and girls had come to watch a football match only to meet death in the afternoon. Incomprehensible.[LNB]The children had no chance. They lived for Liverpool FC and they died for Liverpool FC, so primitive are the conditions in which the less privileged are expected to observe their sporting passion in this country.'[LNB]With those words, 20 years ago, I began one of the several reports by which it fell to me to relate the horrors of Hillsborough.[LNB]Such was the burden of this newspaper's chronicler of English football's dark age of death and disaster. You set off one sun-kissed Saturday morning to watch Liverpool play Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup semi-final, only to be haunted for the rest of your life by images of crushed youngsters being set down alongside the bodies of fathers who were never to return home. The decades since have been filled with grief and recriminations, anger and remorse. The trauma is being re-endured as we approach six minutes past three this afternoon, the moment when silence will fall over Merseyside.[LNB] Horrifying: Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish (centre), flanked by police and officials, looks distraught as the tragedy unfolds[LNB]Yet as our car turned off the motorway from London on April 15, 1989, we had been reassured to find police units checking vehicles to prevent potential trouble-makers from proceeding to that famous but decaying old ground in industrial Sheffield. Even for we veterans of the Heysel tragedy four years earlier, the first whiff of more mortal danger in the air did not raise hairs of apprehension on the backs of our necks until we were walking along Leppings Lane.It was some 35 minutes to kick off but already the throng were ranting at closed turnstiles. A tide of humanity clamouring for entry to the crumbling steps upon which 96 of Liverpool's number would shortly perish. [LNB]There was laughter in that crowd as the pressing weight and force of their 3,000 lifted the hooves of a huge police horse almost a foot off the ground. A different emotion gripped those in charge of the police: Panic. [LNB]That animal and its rider were guarding the entrance to the Leppings Lane End. Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, well-intentioned in his attempt to ease the crush but fatally misguided and persecuted thereafter, sanctioned the re-opening of those gates to hell. [LNB] HAVE YOUR SAY... Leave your tributes to the Hillsborough victims On April 15, 1989, the events at Hillsborough tragically claimed 96 lives. Twenty years on the emotions surrounding the disaster are as strong as ever. TELL US WHAT YOU THINK In they surged and almost at once the first cries of distress could be heard from within. [LNB]We who had been in Brussels feared we were about to witness something terrible again. This would be even more dreadful because it should have been prevented. A match so emotive should have been located in the comparative security of Old Trafford. Even at Hillsborough, Forest's less numerous fans should have been allocated the less spacious Leppings Lane End.[LNB]But no. Autocratic policing by complacent officers compounded a charge by ticket-less fans to gain access to a cattle pen barred off from the playing field by the fences erected against the violent pitch invasions prevalent at the time which would have been fit for purpose as a Turkish jail. [LNB]As the players warmed up, they glanced but briefly at the carnage in that deadly cage. Some fans were attempting to scale the wall at the rear. Almost all fell back into the maelstrom below. The children having been passed over heads to the front in the old-fashioned way of improving their view were suddenly in the gravest peril. [LNB]They had arrived, faces bright with excitement, small hands clutching cherished tickets. Now, down there by a grimy wall at the foot of that unforgiving fence of Sheffield steel, those boys and girls had no escape.[LNB]We glanced away from that ghastly scene in disbelief as the semi-final kicked off. Somebody responsible thought the heaving desperation behind that goal was just another of football's all-too- familiar outbreaks of disorderly conduct and that it would cease once the trouble-makers had some football to watch. [LNB]It took them six-and-a-half minutes to recognise people were dying. As the whistle blew, I scrambled down from thegrandstand to the pitch and helped frantic men in Liverpool red tear down the advertising hoardings for use as stretchers. [LNB]As we reached that goalmouth the nightmare was there to be seen in ghastly, sun-bright close up. As the dust settled as if at the end of some mediaeval battle the rescuers turned back to the Leppings Lane end, there to pay respect to friends and relatives who would not be going back to those tumbledown tenements huddled around Anfield.[LNB]They tied red and yellow scarves to broken railings. They hung crumpled hats on jagged edges of crumbling wall. Many of them had learned this way of honouring their dead from watching Italians the morning after that black night in Belgium. [LNB]Death came more quickly to the north of England on this spring Saturday. No time for running. No breath for creaming. Just the dreadful crush. Then the awful hush, pierced finally by the wail of ambulances. [LNB]And this time the children were dying. Children whose day out ended with blankets over their faces and with their torn-off clothes and pitiful possessions taken away in plastic bags.[LNB] Stark reminder: Liverpool fans still want justice[LNB]'It has been my misfortune to witness the two most nauseating stampedes in the history of European sportingtragedy. The first, by hundreds of English football hooligans in Brussels, resulted in 39 Italian supporters being trampled to death. The second, by men at all levels of authority attempting to flee responsibility for the fatal crushing of 96 fathers, sons and daughters in Sheffield, leaves the Government no alternative but to impose civilised order on the game. Mrs Thatcher's response has to be nothing less than the closing of all standing terraces at every footballground.'[LNB]Those words, in the Daily Mail of April 17 1989, I intensified the crusade for all-seater stadium which had begun at an emergency meeting to which I had been summoned in the Prime Minister's office at No 10 Downing Street two mornings after the Heysel tragedy. [LNB]During the intervening four years Sports Minister Colin, now Lord, Moynihan and I had continued to urge upon MrsThatcher this unpopular solution to the hooligan crisis of the Eighties. [LNB]After Hillsborough, it became the undeniable, unavoidable measure essential for the prevention of more disasters.Now, it can be of no more than small consolation to those Liverpool families whose pain is brought back acutely in this week of the 20th anniversary of Hillsborough that their loved ones did not die entirely in vain. [LNB]That day changed the game they loved forever, and for the better.[LNB]Yet even now, after all these years of more humane spectator facilities, some civil liberties groups still campaign for a return to the terraces.[LNB]When will they ever learn that it is not an upstanding human right to put people at risk of losing their lives.[LNB]And lest they forget the grim toll exacted at Hillsborough, let me reprint one other sentence I wrote at the time.[LNB]'There is precious little dignity in public death by suffocation.' Hillsborough remebered - 20 years on...VIDEO: As Liverpool stands still, Rafa Benitez discusses the tragedyVIDEO: Anfield star Carra speaks on 20th anniversary of HillsboroughVIDEO: Liverpool skipper Gerrard on the impact of the Hillsborough disasterMARTIN SAMUEL: There will never be justice for the Hillsborough victims - but football can still be a force for goodMatt Barlow writes for the first time about his anguish of that tragic dayCity of sorrows - 20 years ago Ian Wooldridge shared in Liverpool's griefHillsborough remembered 20 years on: I'll never forget their screams...VIDEO SPECIAL: Is this the ultimate tribute to the victims of the Hillsborough disaster?[LNB][LNB]96 LIVES REMEMBERED John Alfred Anderson, 62 [LNB]Colin Mark Ashcroft, 19 [LNB]James Gary Aspinall, 18 [LNB]Kester Roger Marcus Ball, 16 [LNB]Gerard Bernard Patrick Baron, 67 [LNB]Simon Bell,17 [LNB]Barry Sidney Bennett, 26 [LNB]David John Benson, 22 [LNB]David William Birtle, 22 [LNB]Tony Bland, 22 [LNB]Paul David Brady, 21 [LNB]Andrew Mark Brookes, 26 [LNB]Carl Brown, 18 [LNB]David Steven Brown, 25 [LNB]Henry Thomas Burke, 47 [LNB]Peter Andrew Burkett, 24 [LNB]Paul William Carlile, 19 [LNB]Raymond Thomas Chapman, 50 [LNB]Gary Christopher Church, 19 [LNB]Joseph Clark, 29 [LNB]Paul Clark, 18 [LNB]Gary Collins, 22 [LNB]Stephen Paul Copoc, 20 [LNB]Tracey Elizabeth Cox, 23 [LNB]James Philip Delaney, 19 [LNB]Christopher Barry Devonside, 18 [LNB]Christopher Edwards, 29 [LNB]Vincent Michael Fitzsimmons, 34 [LNB]Thomas Steven Fox, 21 [LNB]Jon-Paul Gilhooley, 10 [LNB]Barry Glover, 27[LNB]Ian Thomas Glover, 20 [LNB]Derrick George Godwin, 24 [LNB] [LNB]Roy Harry Hamilton, 34 [LNB]Philip Hammond, 14 [LNB]Eric Hankin, 33 [LNB]Gary Harrison, 27 [LNB]Stephen Francis Harrison, 31 [LNB]Peter Andrew Harrison, 15 [LNB]David Hawley, 39 [LNB]James Robert Hennessy, 29 [LNB]Paul Anthony Hewitson, 26 [LNB]Carl Darren Hewitt, 17 [LNB]Nicholas Michael Hewitt, 16 [LNB]Sarah Louise Hicks, 19 [LNB]Victoria Jane Hicks, 15 [LNB]Gordon Rodney Horn, 20 [LNB]Arthur Horrocks, 41 [LNB]Thomas Howard, 39 [LNB]Thomas Anthony Howard, 14 [LNB]Eric George Hughes, 42 [LNB]Alan Johnston, 29 [LNB]Christine Anne Jones, 27 [LNB]Gary Philip Jones, 18 [LNB]Richard Jones, 25 [LNB]Nicholas Peter Joynes, 27 [LNB]Anthony Peter Kelly, 29 [LNB]Michael David Kelly, 38 [LNB]Carl David Lewis, 18 [LNB]David William Mather, 19 [LNB]Brian Christopher Mathews, 38 [LNB]Francis Joseph McAllister, 27[LNB]John McBrien, 18 [LNB]Marion Hazel McCabe, 21 [LNB]Joseph Daniel McCarthy, 21 [LNB]Peter McDonnell, 21[LNB]Alan McGlone, 28 [LNB]Keith McGrath, 17 [LNB]Paul Brian Murray, 14 [LNB]Lee Nicol, 14 [LNB]Stephen Francis O'Neill, 17 [LNB]Jonathon Owens, 18 [LNB]William Roy Pemberton, 23 [LNB]Carl William Rimmer, 21 [LNB]David George Rimmer, 38 [LNB]Graham John Roberts, 24 [LNB]Steven Joseph Robinson, 17 [LNB]Henry Charles Rogers, 17 [LNB]Colin Andrew Hugh [LNB]William Sefton, 23 [LNB]Inger Shah, 38 [LNB]Paula Ann Smith, 26 [LNB]Adam Edward Spearritt, 14 [LNB]Philip John Steele, 15 [LNB]David Leonard Thomas, 23 [LNB]Patrik John Thompson, 35 [LNB]Peter Reuben Thompson, 30 [LNB]Stuart Paul William Thompson, 17 [LNB]Peter Francis Tootle, 21 [LNB]Christopher James Traynor, 26 [LNB]Martin Kevin Traynor, 16 [LNB]Kevin Tyrrell, 15 [LNB]Colin Wafer, 19 [LNB]Ian David Whelan, 19 [LNB]Martin Kenneth Wild, 29 [LNB]Kevin Daniel Williams, 15 [LNB]Graham John Wright, 17 [LNB] [LNB]
