On Saturday15th April 1989 I was a spectator at a football match being played in a British football stadium.   Fortunatly for me I got home that night after the game to eat my supper and enjoy the usual Saturday evening events that a typical teenager in the 1980's would. Like most Saturday afternoons at that time my team Aberdeen were playing Hamilton Academical in a Scottish Premier League game at Pittodrie with a 3pm kick off. Back then there were few Sunday afternoon games, very little lunchtime kick -offs and hardly any midweek fixtures outwith European ties and cup replays.

It was like any other spring afternoon. Reasonably sunny, calm and clear and as with most fans, all of the guys I was with in the stadium knew that it was FA Cup semi-final day in England. Liverpool were playing Nottingham Forest in the semi-final at Hillsborough in Sheffield.

Back then, as I still often do now, I carried a small portable radio with me to the game. It allowed me to listen intermittently to scores from other games, reports from English matches and summerisation of the game I was at myself.   I also secretly fancied myself as a budding match commentator all through the eighties, learning match lingo and game cliché from those on the radio covering football who were lucky enough to work in the media.

As the game in Aberdeen kicked off I was listening to coverage coming through the airwaves of incidents occuring at the Liverpool match.   Back then hooliganism was in fashion, youth firms were everywhere and clothing trends were followed with a passion and any incident at a football stadium was one which got fans talking.  I had been at Anfield myself in 1987 for a Liverpool against Chelsea League game seeing the passion the scouse fans had for football but I was far from a Liverpool fan. When the first reports came through that an incident had occurred at Hillsborough the initial reaction of everyone was that it was a hooligan incident.  Reports of a pitch invasion were filtering through but at no time were the words 'crush' and 'accident' ever mentioned.   At half-time at Pittodrie almost all of those in attendance were aware something was occuring down south but no-one actually knew what. The PA announcer as per usual procedure played a few songs over the sound system which were in the top 40 charts at the time and then read out the half-time scorelines from north and south of the border. One by one the scores were read out until he got to the FA Cup semi-final with Liverpool and it was announced that the match had been abandoned due to crowd trouble.

That was about it though, for some reason I stopped listening to the radio that day watched the match I had paid to get into and thought not much more of it.   Media back then was not as cutting edge and readily at your fingertips as it it now.   Messages were sketchy and rumour and speculation was the main stream of communication.   Almost universally even on the radio the incident at Hillsborough was put down to hooliganism.

The walk home from Pittodrie Stadium that night was like very few others I can recall though. As I made my way home as per usual out of Pittodrie's South Stand onto Merkland Lane then Pittodrie Street and then Ardarroch Road people who had been watching events from Hillsborough unfold on televsion were standing on there doorways waiting for fans who were at the Aberdeen game to come out of the ground.    On Linksfield Place some 2 minutes from Pittodrie Stadium a lone man on his home door step shouted at passing fans '60 people dead at Liverpool game'.   I remember feeling at the time 'Is he blaming us..all football fans?' as if he was collectively making any football going supporter feel guilty for what was taking place in Sheffield.    But whether he was or not it was then that I knew that this was much more than just any other hooligan incident.  Something massive had occured in Sheffield.

This week sees twenty years passing since that Saturday on April 15th 1989. As it turned out 96 people got crushed to death in a horrifying end to life.   We now know that what occurred was not a hooligan incident that occurred on the terraces of the Hillsborough football stadium in Sheffield.    It was, and remains to this day, the worst tragedy in British sporting history, as 96 people died and hundreds more were injured, traumatised and lost loved ones.

Through time the Disaster became known simply as ‘Hillsborough’ just as the Heysel disaster came to be know as 'Heysel'.    What we do know is that when disasters happen, the sheer scale, confusion and trauma of the ‘moment’ overwhelms all involved. This includes the dying, the injured, the survivors, the witnesses and the authorities. Even today 20 years after the event people are still content with pointing the fingers of blame at those who made grave errors of judgement in the heat of the moment. Just as the officers who killed John Charles de Menezes blamed the incident on the 'fog of war' so many have tagged the Hillsborough disaster as simply a product of 'an error of judgement'.

What occurred at Hillsborough on that day though was more than just error of judgement. Institutionalised complacency and gross negligence by people in positions of power contributed to the circumstances of disaster, from the failure to respond effectively to the emergency, and the treatment of the bereaved and survivors,and to deceitful allegations that attempted to shift  responsibility onto the victims, their families and fellow supporters either through allegations of drunkeness or hooliganism.  Even more terrible was how the processes of investigation and inquiry failed to deliver even the basic elements of natural justice but also colluded, it would appear, to mask the truth and deny culpability.    It was all simply a matter of 'accidental death'.

Just like Paul Harcastle's famous '19' song from the eighties which echoed how survivers of the Vietnam was were still fighting the Vietnam war years later so those connected with Hillsborough are still fighting the battle of its terrible memory amost 20 years later. The consequences for individuals can only be imagined yet probably never fully understood on an emotive level by any outsider. But the consequences for football in general in the United Kingdom were massive and its has been felt by all who follow football and watch football in the UK.

Not two days after the event on April 17th 1989, with the whole nation shocked and shaken to its foundations at the grave stark reality of what happenend Lord Justice Taylor was appointed to conduct a public inquiry into the events. The terms of reference of The Taylor Report were: “To inquire into the events at Sheffield Wednesday football ground on April 15th 1989 and to make recommendations about the needs for crowd control and safety at sports events.”    Each and everyone of us know what occurred next in terms of recommendations for football stadiums. Many of those who were too young or not born at the time will never know what it was like to watch football in Britain at the highest level whilst standing on a terrace behind a fence and probably never will again.

Less than two weeks ago we read and saw images on the internet about another stadium disaster in Africa this time in the Ivory Coast. What was remarkable was the stark similarities in what happened in this disaster to what occurred at Hillsborough. Fans crushed outside the ground and forcing there way inside.   A sports gymnasium inside the ground being used as a morgue for dead fans. Accusations of police culpability and neglect.     Fans being blamed for over rowdiness and forcing entry. Its all so similar all be it that it occurred in Africa and not in England.

Many football supporters who follow Liverpool were at Hillsborough on that fateful day. Many of these same fans will also have been at Heysel Stadium some 4 years earlier when 39 fans were killed due to crushing. Many Juventus fans refuse to accept the offer of friendship from Liverpool fans and perhaps they are right after what occurred on that night. The 20-year gap between the tragedy and the apology from the Kop in 2005 was never enough for some Juventus fans as it was in 2005 when the two teams played. Despite efforts by Liverpool F.C. and sections of the media to suggest otherwise, the majority of Juventus supporters have never forgiven the Liverpool supporters for their actions at Heysel and have displayed these sentiments on many occasions since.    Similarly its hard to see how Liverpool fans will or should ever forgive the authorities for what happended on April 15th 2009 even if 'justice for the 96' is ever achieved.

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