Heysel

[bognor gull]

I was a concourse steward in the late 80's & early 90's, I can remember umpteen Liverpool fans coming to my gate without tickets & were trying every trick in the book to get in my section. Those ticketless scousers caused the tragedy at Hillsborough only a month before the '89 cup final, & here they were again trying it on at Wembley. In my mind, the LFC fans are their own enemy's & I believe that the police at Hillsborough & Heysel just got overwhelmed by a colossal amount of drunken supporters & had no other choice but to let them get on with the wrongness they were causing.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I was a concourse steward in the late 80's & early 90's, I can remember umpteen Liverpool fans coming to my gate without tickets & were trying every trick in the book to get in my section. Those ticketless scousers caused the tragedy at Hillsborough only a month before the '89 cup final, & here they were again trying it on at Wembley. In my mind, the LFC fans are their own enemy's & I believe that the police at Hillsborough & Heysel just got overwhelmed by a colossal amount of drunken supporters & had no other choice but to let them get on with the wrongness they were causing.

Your belief is wrong as confirmed by the official report which has been quoted previously in this thread. The number of fans at Hillsborough did not exceed the number of tickets sold.
Why this ignorance continues to be peddled is beyond me. There was plenty of room at the Leppings Lane end but the police & stewards were directing the fans into the centre section when the two side sections were practically empty.

 

[Simster]

Your belief is wrong as confirmed by the official report which has been quoted previously in this thread. The number of fans at Hillsborough did not exceed the number of tickets sold.
Why this ignorance continues to be peddled is beyond me. There was plenty of room at the Leppings Lane end but the police & stewards were directing the fans into the centre section when the two side sections were practically empty.

Wise words. The good news is that it really is only a select band of simpletons insisting on blaming Liverpool fans for Hillsborough nowadays.

Heysel is another matter though. El Presidente's explanation about why it's not mentioned much is spot on. But the bin dipper who was on this thread early on using the words "partly responsible " should hang his head in shame. Heysel is a national disgrace and could easily have happened at the hands of Spurs or Leeds fans in that era. But scousers not accepting their culpability are like a drunk driver refusing to apologise for mowing down a child because other drunk drivers get away without causing injury.

 

[portlock seagull]

Your belief is wrong as confirmed by the official report which has been quoted previously in this thread. The number of fans at Hillsborough did not exceed the number of tickets sold.
Why this ignorance continues to be peddled is beyond me. There was plenty of room at the Leppings Lane end but the police & stewards were directing the fans into the centre section when the two side sections were practically empty.

And you can see this on the TV footage - and still people believe what they want to despite the fact your own eyes can SEE the empty spaces!! What is wrong with these idiots who still believe the Sun's lies and all the other Shite invented by the establishment to save their own skins? It really really angers me and proves just how many personal vendettas and bigots there are out there even after you've removed the witless trolls on the subject

 

[Mo Gosfield]

Your belief is wrong as confirmed by the official report which has been quoted previously in this thread. The number of fans at Hillsborough did not exceed the number of tickets sold.
Why this ignorance continues to be peddled is beyond me. There was plenty of room at the Leppings Lane end but the police & stewards were directing the fans into the centre section when the two side sections were practically empty.

The official report ( to my knowledge ) doesn't refer to the number of Liverpool fans who couldn't gain access to Hillsborough because of the massive crush outside. Local press estimated that approx 1200-1500 fans either gave up or were eventually turned away once it became obvious there was a major problem. There were also rumours ( unsubstantiated but mentioned by local press ) that one of the other turnstiles wasn't working properly, causing even more problems in getting fans into the side pens.
If the numbers all added up and some bona fide fans didn't enter the ground then is it fair to suggest that some fans who were inside the ground had got in without tickets.

 

[drew]

Your belief is wrong as confirmed by the official report which has been quoted previously in this thread. The number of fans at Hillsborough did not exceed the number of tickets sold.
Why this ignorance continues to be peddled is beyond me. There was plenty of room at the Leppings Lane end but the police & stewards were directing the fans into the centre section when the two side sections were practically empty.

Does the report state how many people were outside of the ground after kick off with or without tickets though? I appreciate that it states the number inside did not exceed the tickets sold but that doesn't confirm whether all those inside, and for that matter, those still outside had tickets. Liverpool were not the only club who had fans turn up at matches without tickets and, like every club in the country, fans with or without tickets could also have several drinks before a game. Don't quite understand why some people seem to imply this didn't happen at this game.

With regard to the Police and Stewards directing fans to the tunnel, is this correct or was it a case, as indicated in the report, that the tunnel was directly opposite Gate C and had the sign above it 'Standing' and was therefore the place that most fans would gravitate to. The failure by the Police was that when the decision to open Gate C was made, they didn't identify the obvious problem of pens 3 and 4 already being full and therefore block access to the tunnel causing the influx of 2000 fans to get to the terrace around either side of the stand.

 

[jonny.rainbow]

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned that the Juve fans that died at Heysel had turned up ticketless (Wait, only Liverpool fans did that surely?) and bought/managed to obtain places in a neutral section of the ground next to Liverpool fans. Some of them proceeded to goad the Liverpool fans and pelt them with lumps of the crumbling terrace. Liverpool fans charged them a couple of times until eventually all the neutrals were crushed against a perimeter wall. Contrary to popular belief, the wall collapse actually relieved the crush pressure and most fans who died had been asphyxiated whilst standing (as at Hillsborough).

 

[cattlin'srockshop]

The real or imagined drunk Liverpool fans barging their way into the Leppings Lane end angle goes down like a sack of bricks because it has been proven not to have been a cause of the Hillsborough disaster. I cannot believe this stuff is still being peddled, the truth of the Hillsborough disaster has sort of been in the news quite a lot in the last year.

There were also many reasons for Heysel: a key was the behaviour of a lot of Liverpool fans, but also weak policing and crowd control, a dilapidated stadium wholly unsuited to hosting a game of that nature, the behaviour of some Juve fans and so on. Given the behaviour of many English clubs' fans in England and Europe for the decade or so prior to Heysel, this could have been Tottenham, Man Utd, Chelsea, Leeds etc. Hillsborough could also have happened to anyone's fans, as those of us travelling the country watching football in those days should surely know. Indeed, Spurs fans almost came to similar grief in the Leppings lane end at the 1981 SF. They opened the gates that day and a tragedy was averted.

The decades long attitudes towards football and football fans of various governments, the football auths and police led to Hillsborough. Football violence over this time impacted these attitudes, but the seeds of enmity for working class culture and people were and are deep rooted among these institutions. They couldn't or wouldn't distinguish with the morons who used football to fight and cause mayhem and the overwhelming majority of us who only wanted to watch football. Indeed they let the former dictate their strategies.

Outside of local rivals and Chelsea, Liverpool are my least favourite football club, but the way Hillsborough and Heysel are used to damn Liverpudlians almost as a race apart and the city as a whole is scandalous.

 

[User removed 4]

It held 60,000 people. It had hosted another big game shortly beforehand without any incident whatsoever. This constant reiteration about the state of the stadium is, IMHO, utterly irrelevant to the fact that those Juve fans died and if people aren't using it as an pretty tawdry excuse, then people should stop mentioning it as an explanation. They died because of xenophobia and hooliganism.

What the f**k has xenophobia got to do with it ? Seriously , this isn't a ukip thread, you're not duty bound to slip a reference like that in, what next ' little Englander' Liverpool fans ?

 

[User removed 4]

For these reasons, it's very hard for me to imagine, that Liverpool fans are as blameless as Andy Burnham and the Justice groups etc make out.

Me too.
Liverpool were by far the most successful English club through the 70's and 80's and attracted vast popular support. Every other fairweather JCL tied his colours to their mast and revelled in unbridled glory. Trophy after trophy came their way.
I watched a lot of football in that era and had the misfortune to witness appalling acts of hooliganism ,thuggery and awful boorish behaviour in the name of football supporting. At the top of this pile of human embarrassment were Leeds, Millwall, Cardiff, Chelsea, West Ham and Liverpool. The last named had the largest travelling support ( only Man.U were close ) and they descended on venues in their thousands, with or without tickets. Many of them were determined to get into grounds, using whatever means they could, whether that meant robbing and beating up touts, scaling walls and fences, sliding under turnstiles etc. It was fair game. They weren't the only ones to do it, its just that they did it in very large numbers.
Liverpool fans in that era had a reputation for turning up late, in force and often ticketless.
Before kick-off at Hillsborough, there were still thousands outside and creating enormous pressure. Many had emptied out of local pubs and bars minutes before kick-off and expected to get straight into the ground. When they got there and saw the queues and the crush, it was every man for himself and extra pressure was put on stewards and police to open gates. This doesn't condone the subsequent decision making process by those in charge and the terrible consequences that ensued.
There has to be an element of culpability from those that rushed into the Leppings Lane End and used force to push down from the back. It happened regularly at grounds then, anyway, with surges and crushes from the back. Some fans thought that it was great fun to instigate these and watch people getting swept along, feet off the ground or wrapped over/around crash barriers. They would have seen nothing wrong in their actions at the Leppings Lane End. Their only thought was getting a view of the game and no-one was getting in their way. It wasn't their fault that too many had been let into that section. All they did was make the situation worse.[/QUOTE]


Incorrect, it was either man utd or Liverpool that had the largest travelling support in the 80s, Chelsea had the second largest.

 

[Southern Scouse]

Wise words. The good news is that it really is only a select band of simpletons insisting on blaming Liverpool fans for Hillsborough nowadays.

Heysel is another matter though. El Presidente's explanation about why it's not mentioned much is spot on. But the bin dipper who was on this thread early on using the words "partly responsible " should hang his head in shame. Heysel is a national disgrace and could easily have happened at the hands of Spurs or Leeds fans in that era. But scousers not accepting their culpability are like a drunk driver refusing to apologise for mowing down a child because other drunk drivers get away without causing injury.

I think I am probably the "bin dipper" so that make you the "poofter". What a shame you, who usually write quite well have to stoop to using such jargon. As someone who has supported the Albion and LFC since birth via my parents, I am ashamed of any tragic waste of life. The reason I use the phrase "partially sponsible" is have been a PO I understand that there is never a simple answer, but with hindsight and determination things can be improved so that hopefully they do not occur again. Violence in those times was a common occurrence at every game I went to. Unfortunately the authorities and clubs did little in order to prevent it happening other than massive police presence.
Old stadiums, high unemployment, cheap transport and tickets, poor staff training all contributed to both Hillsborough and Heysal. If all the above had been to today's standards both tradegies would not have happened.
I saw a group of twelve Albion fans in the seventies run from West Ham, then at the station set upon a pensioner in a west ham scarf just so that they could burn it on the bridge in front of the other irons fans. The guy was in his 80's..... Anyone who went to football in the 70/80's was probably culpable in some way or another.
Regards
Bin-dipper poofter

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

I think I am probably the "bin dipper" so that make you the "poofter". What a shame you, who usually write quite well have to stoop to using such jargon. As someone who has supported the Albion and LFC since birth via my parents, I am ashamed of any tragic waste of life. The reason I use the phrase "partially sponsible" is have been a PO I understand that there is never a simple answer, but with hindsight and determination things can be improved so that hopefully they do not occur again. Violence in those times was a common occurrence at every game I went to. Unfortunately the authorities and clubs did little in order to prevent it happening other than massive police presence.
Old stadiums, high unemployment, cheap transport and tickets, poor staff training all contributed to both Hillsborough and Heysal. If all the above had been to today's standards both tradegies would not have happened.
I saw a group of twelve Albion fans in the seventies run from West Ham, then at the station set upon a pensioner in a west ham scarf just so that they could burn it on the bridge in front of the other irons fans. The guy was in his 80's..... Anyone who went to football in the 70/80's was probably culpable in some way or another.
Regards
Bin-dipper poofter

should have been at the Queens , a couple of seasons back then
regards
DR

 

[MarioOrlandi]

We can keep splitting hairs on these subjects but there are three common factors
1 For what ever reason Juventus supporters were charged by a drunken mob of Liverpool Supporters
2 There is footage elsewhere on this thread showing ticket less Liverpool Supporters gate crashing the FA Cup Final
3 There was a rush of Liverpool Supporters 10 minutes before the game started ticketless or not. With the obvious intention of rushing the gate.
What ever happened afterwards caused the tragic death of 96 innocent people. Were the Police wholly to blame? Some say so. But why did so many people turn up so late in the day if not to try and help their ticketless mates gain illegal entry. There is proof that hand held cb radios were being used in the Toxteth Riots to direct the rioters and warn them of Police movements. I suspect this same tactic was used at Hillsborough to rush the gate.

 

[red star portslade]

Our Day of Shame
A Liverpool fan recalls how events spiralled out of control. By Tony Evans at the Sunday Times.

NEVER forgive, never forget. Never understand. On Merseyside, the feelings about the Heysel disaster are as deep as they are confused. The chant above was sung at the derby match last month by Everton fans, many of whom feel that in some way they are the real victims of that dreadful day because their title-winning team could not play in the European Cup the next season. It taunted Liverpool supporters, some of whom still feel that they had nothing to do with the deaths of 39 people on that May night nearly 20 years ago.

“A wall collapsed, that was all.”

I have said it and heard it countless times. Except it is a lie.

There was a moment that day that, more than anything that would happen over the ensuing 24 hours, has haunted me. Our train had just arrived at Jette station and a long column of Liverpool supporters set off downhill towards the centre of Brussels. I lingered and watched them, chequered flags flying, and thought it looked like a medieval army on the move. Above the narrow street, the locals hung out of open windows and watched, half-grinning but nervous. As I set off for the Grand Place, I thought: “We can do what we like today. No one can stop us.”

IT WAS warm and sunny, but there was a dark side to the general mood. It did not need the chequered flags, bought in Rome, to remind anyone about the events in the Italian capital a year before. Then, playing AS Roma in the European Cup final in their own stadium, Liverpool had won the cup but it was not a day remembered with affection. Before the match, scooter gangs has stalked the travelling fans. After the game, Rome erupted in rage, and the bloody events around the Olympic Stadium left everyone who was there — and those who had only heard talk of what happened — determined not to suffer again at the hands of Italian ultras.

“The Italians won’t do that to us again,” was a refrain repeated in the weeks since the semi-final. It was not a matter of revenge. It was a wariness, a fear that built itself up to an enormous rage that would spill out at the slightest perceived provocation.

The anger was palpable, and not just toward Italians. The British media, we felt, had barely reported one of the worst outbreaks of violence in the game’s history. Had it happened to supporters from any other city, there would have been outrage. But Liverpool was out of step with the mood of the country, marginalised and despised. Well, we could fight our own battles.

Turning into a narrow street in the centre of town, my brother and I saw about six Juventus fans in their twenties, lounging outside a café, trying to look cool and hard at the same time. When one looked me straight in the eye, I snarled: “Go on gobshite, say something.” They did not take up the offer. But the tone was set. And the drinking had not even started.

WE WERE used to confrontation, though not necessarily at football matches. The first half of the 1980s was perhaps the city’s lowest point, philosophically and economically. Scousers were labelled as thieves in the press, the city’s working class moved ever leftwards as Margaret Thatcher was fêted and the culture gap between Liverpool and the rest of England was stretched to breaking point.

Many of Liverpool’s travelling fans were politicised, even if only in a loose way. Quite a few of us had battled with police outside at Eddie Shah’s printing plant in Warrington and gravitated towards Militant Tendency. On the ordinary trains the tales were as likely to be about picket lines and Troops Out marches as incidents at football grounds. This was not hooligan culture as popularly imagined.

Where other clubs’ supporters gave themselves butch names and built a myth of organisation and generals, Liverpool and Everton fans mocked the hooligan ethos relentlessly. Read copies of The End, the seminal fanzine of the period, and the picture is clear. Service Crews, Headhunters and their ilk were laughable. The Inter City Firm drew guffaws and was seen not as a force to be admired and feared but as something from a Thatcherite Ealing Comedy. None of those people were present in Brussels, no matter what was said at the time. Hooligans from the far right would not have been welcome.

Of course, this did not mean there was no trouble at our games, just that it evolved in a different manner. When groups of young, aggressive, predominantly working-class men are put in confrontational situations, then there will be confrontation. There was.

THE GRAND PLACE was less tense than might have been expected. Liverpool fans were here in numbers and small groups who had travelled independently met up, felt safe and relaxed into an afternoon of drinking. Clustered around the bars, we sang, bare-chested in the sun. It was almost idyllic. Then the atmosphere started to turn as the drink kicked in.

The common belief was that Belgian beer was weaker than the booze at home. In the heat, young men used to drinking a gallon of weak mild were quaffing strong lagers as if they were lemonade. Small incidents started to mushroom and suddenly the mood changed and the bars began to shut down.By now, there were four of us in our little group. We were reluctant to leave the square because other friends may still be heading for the rendezvous. I went to find some beer, taking a red and white cap to give some protection from the sun. Walking down a narrow street, I saw a group of boys laughing almost hysterically. Seeing my quizzical look, they pointed at a shop. It was a jewellers with no protective grating over the window. All you could do was laugh.

Farther on, I saw a group of Juventus supporters, and one was wearing a black and white sun hat. It would give me more cover in the heat, so I swapped with him. Only he clearly did not want to part with his hat. He had no choice. Sensing danger, he let me have it and looked in disgust at the flimsy thing I’d given him. This was not cultural exchange: this was bullying, an assertion of dominance. I remember strutting away, slowly, the body language letting them know how I felt.

There was a supermarket by the bourse and, at the entrance, there was a Liverpool fan. “You’re Scouse?” he said. There was no need for an answer and he knew what I was there for. “It’s free to us today,” he said, handing me a tray of beer. Things were spinning out of control.

On the way back to the square, the group of Liverpool fans by the jewellers had been replaced by riot police. Glass was scattered all over the street. There was hysteria — and pride — in my laughter. This was turning into an excellent day.

We set off for the ground and there seemed to be more and more small confrontations. On other days the little cultural misunderstandings would end in hugs. Here, with the hair-trigger tempers, it was tears, and we were determined they would not be ours.

AT THE ground there was madness. People were staggering, collapsing, throwing up. A large proportion of Liverpool fans seemed to have lost control. We met a group of mates who had come by coach. A fellow passenger we all knew had leapt off as soon as they arrived and attacked two people, one an Italian, with an iron bar.

Even in a drunk and deranged state, the stadium appalled us. The outer wall was breeze block, and some of the ticketless were kicking holes in its base and attempting to crawl through. Most were getting savage beatings from the riot police, finally making their presence felt. It was easier to walk into the ground and ignore the ticket collector, some of whom were seated at tables — I went home with a complete ticket. Four years later, on another dreadful day, I would enter another ground without needing to show my ticket. It is not just the Belgians whose inefficiency had deadly consequences. Section Y grew more and more crowded and, in front of us, a crush barrier buckled and collapsed.

The rough treatment by the police drew a response and they disappeared from the back of the section after skirmishes. Seeing a policeman beating a young lad who was attempting to climb over the wall and was caught in the barbed wire, I pushed the Belgian away. He turned to hit me and I punched him — not hard — through his open visor. He ran away.

With the police gone, groups of youths swarmed over a snack stand and looted it. I climbed onto the roof, and was passed up cans of soft drinks. It felt like being on top of the world up there.

Back on the terraces there was an exchange of missiles — nothing serious by the standards of the day. We looked enviously at the space in section Z, though. There were too many people in our section. I went to the toilet and, by the time I came back, the fence was down and people were climbing over. Unable to locate my group, I joined the swarm. In section Z I wandered around for a while. There seemed to be very little trouble. People backed away but there were no charges, just a minor scuffle or two.

I climbed back into section Y, oblivious that 39 people were in the process of dying. It was clear that a huge commotion was going on at the front, and we began to get tetchy about the delayed kick-off.

Then there seemed to be a long tirade in Italian over the public address system — someone suggested it was a list of names — and all hell broke loose. Juventus fans came out of their end and came around the pitch and attacked the corner where the Liverpool supporters were standing. My mother, brother and sister were in there. Everyone went crazy. Men tore at the fences to get at the Italians and, at last, the police did an effective job of holding Liverpool fans back. The brother with me said: “If those fences go, football will be finished. There’ll be hundreds dead. It will be over.” Finally, the police drove the Italians back.

The game? I remember nothing. Afterwards? A deep disappointment, a nervousness about Italian knives, and a Belgian policeman whose parting shot at the stadium was to open the doors of a bus, throw in a canister of tear gas, and shut everyone in.

At Ostend it was a passive, depressive struggle through overcrowded departure rooms. No one mentioned deaths and shock ran through the ferry when we heard the news.

AND SO WE limped home, quickly throwing off any shame, repeating the mantra that it was a construction problem, just a wall collapsing, hiding from the scale of what had happened. The disaster has a long causal chain — stabbings and beatings in Rome, hair-trigger tempers, aggression on both sides, excessive drinking, poor policing and a stadium ripe for disaster. Remove any one link and the game may have passed off peacefully. But it didn’t.

So, Evertonians sing, with pathetic self-pity, “Thirty-nine Italians can’t be wrong.” Well they weren’t. We were. I was.

Written by Tony Evans of The Times who was there.

 

[Skaville]

There is no way the Liverpool fans were blameless but I was on a ferry on my way to a youth football tournament in that fateful day. Myself and a few mates were given beer in exchange for our Liverpool scarves and hats by the many Chelsea, Spurs and Millwall fans on the boat who were admitting they were only going to the game to cause trouble.

 

[D1AX]

Typical scousers, offended by everything, ashamed of nothing.

 

[Driver8]

Our Day of Shame
A Liverpool fan recalls how events spiralled out of control. By Tony Evans at the Sunday Times.

NEVER forgive, never forget. Never understand. On Merseyside, the feelings about the Heysel disaster are as deep as they are confused. The chant above was sung at the derby match last month by Everton fans, many of whom feel that in some way they are the real victims of that dreadful day because their title-winning team could not play in the European Cup the next season. It taunted Liverpool supporters, some of whom still feel that they had nothing to do with the deaths of 39 people on that May night nearly 20 years ago.

“A wall collapsed, that was all.”

I have said it and heard it countless times. Except it is a lie.

There was a moment that day that, more than anything that would happen over the ensuing 24 hours, has haunted me. Our train had just arrived at Jette station and a long column of Liverpool supporters set off downhill towards the centre of Brussels. I lingered and watched them, chequered flags flying, and thought it looked like a medieval army on the move. Above the narrow street, the locals hung out of open windows and watched, half-grinning but nervous. As I set off for the Grand Place, I thought: “We can do what we like today. No one can stop us.”

IT WAS warm and sunny, but there was a dark side to the general mood. It did not need the chequered flags, bought in Rome, to remind anyone about the events in the Italian capital a year before. Then, playing AS Roma in the European Cup final in their own stadium, Liverpool had won the cup but it was not a day remembered with affection. Before the match, scooter gangs has stalked the travelling fans. After the game, Rome erupted in rage, and the bloody events around the Olympic Stadium left everyone who was there — and those who had only heard talk of what happened — determined not to suffer again at the hands of Italian ultras.

“The Italians won’t do that to us again,” was a refrain repeated in the weeks since the semi-final. It was not a matter of revenge. It was a wariness, a fear that built itself up to an enormous rage that would spill out at the slightest perceived provocation.

The anger was palpable, and not just toward Italians. The British media, we felt, had barely reported one of the worst outbreaks of violence in the game’s history. Had it happened to supporters from any other city, there would have been outrage. But Liverpool was out of step with the mood of the country, marginalised and despised. Well, we could fight our own battles.

Turning into a narrow street in the centre of town, my brother and I saw about six Juventus fans in their twenties, lounging outside a café, trying to look cool and hard at the same time. When one looked me straight in the eye, I snarled: “Go on gobshite, say something.” They did not take up the offer. But the tone was set. And the drinking had not even started.

WE WERE used to confrontation, though not necessarily at football matches. The first half of the 1980s was perhaps the city’s lowest point, philosophically and economically. Scousers were labelled as thieves in the press, the city’s working class moved ever leftwards as Margaret Thatcher was fêted and the culture gap between Liverpool and the rest of England was stretched to breaking point.

Many of Liverpool’s travelling fans were politicised, even if only in a loose way. Quite a few of us had battled with police outside at Eddie Shah’s printing plant in Warrington and gravitated towards Militant Tendency. On the ordinary trains the tales were as likely to be about picket lines and Troops Out marches as incidents at football grounds. This was not hooligan culture as popularly imagined.

Where other clubs’ supporters gave themselves butch names and built a myth of organisation and generals, Liverpool and Everton fans mocked the hooligan ethos relentlessly. Read copies of The End, the seminal fanzine of the period, and the picture is clear. Service Crews, Headhunters and their ilk were laughable. The Inter City Firm drew guffaws and was seen not as a force to be admired and feared but as something from a Thatcherite Ealing Comedy. None of those people were present in Brussels, no matter what was said at the time. Hooligans from the far right would not have been welcome.

Of course, this did not mean there was no trouble at our games, just that it evolved in a different manner. When groups of young, aggressive, predominantly working-class men are put in confrontational situations, then there will be confrontation. There was.

THE GRAND PLACE was less tense than might have been expected. Liverpool fans were here in numbers and small groups who had travelled independently met up, felt safe and relaxed into an afternoon of drinking. Clustered around the bars, we sang, bare-chested in the sun. It was almost idyllic. Then the atmosphere started to turn as the drink kicked in.

The common belief was that Belgian beer was weaker than the booze at home. In the heat, young men used to drinking a gallon of weak mild were quaffing strong lagers as if they were lemonade. Small incidents started to mushroom and suddenly the mood changed and the bars began to shut down.By now, there were four of us in our little group. We were reluctant to leave the square because other friends may still be heading for the rendezvous. I went to find some beer, taking a red and white cap to give some protection from the sun. Walking down a narrow street, I saw a group of boys laughing almost hysterically. Seeing my quizzical look, they pointed at a shop. It was a jewellers with no protective grating over the window. All you could do was laugh.

Farther on, I saw a group of Juventus supporters, and one was wearing a black and white sun hat. It would give me more cover in the heat, so I swapped with him. Only he clearly did not want to part with his hat. He had no choice. Sensing danger, he let me have it and looked in disgust at the flimsy thing I’d given him. This was not cultural exchange: this was bullying, an assertion of dominance. I remember strutting away, slowly, the body language letting them know how I felt.

There was a supermarket by the bourse and, at the entrance, there was a Liverpool fan. “You’re Scouse?” he said. There was no need for an answer and he knew what I was there for. “It’s free to us today,” he said, handing me a tray of beer. Things were spinning out of control.

On the way back to the square, the group of Liverpool fans by the jewellers had been replaced by riot police. Glass was scattered all over the street. There was hysteria — and pride — in my laughter. This was turning into an excellent day.

We set off for the ground and there seemed to be more and more small confrontations. On other days the little cultural misunderstandings would end in hugs. Here, with the hair-trigger tempers, it was tears, and we were determined they would not be ours.

AT THE ground there was madness. People were staggering, collapsing, throwing up. A large proportion of Liverpool fans seemed to have lost control. We met a group of mates who had come by coach. A fellow passenger we all knew had leapt off as soon as they arrived and attacked two people, one an Italian, with an iron bar.

Even in a drunk and deranged state, the stadium appalled us. The outer wall was breeze block, and some of the ticketless were kicking holes in its base and attempting to crawl through. Most were getting savage beatings from the riot police, finally making their presence felt. It was easier to walk into the ground and ignore the ticket collector, some of whom were seated at tables — I went home with a complete ticket. Four years later, on another dreadful day, I would enter another ground without needing to show my ticket. It is not just the Belgians whose inefficiency had deadly consequences. Section Y grew more and more crowded and, in front of us, a crush barrier buckled and collapsed.

The rough treatment by the police drew a response and they disappeared from the back of the section after skirmishes. Seeing a policeman beating a young lad who was attempting to climb over the wall and was caught in the barbed wire, I pushed the Belgian away. He turned to hit me and I punched him — not hard — through his open visor. He ran away.

With the police gone, groups of youths swarmed over a snack stand and looted it. I climbed onto the roof, and was passed up cans of soft drinks. It felt like being on top of the world up there.

Back on the terraces there was an exchange of missiles — nothing serious by the standards of the day. We looked enviously at the space in section Z, though. There were too many people in our section. I went to the toilet and, by the time I came back, the fence was down and people were climbing over. Unable to locate my group, I joined the swarm. In section Z I wandered around for a while. There seemed to be very little trouble. People backed away but there were no charges, just a minor scuffle or two.

I climbed back into section Y, oblivious that 39 people were in the process of dying. It was clear that a huge commotion was going on at the front, and we began to get tetchy about the delayed kick-off.

Then there seemed to be a long tirade in Italian over the public address system — someone suggested it was a list of names — and all hell broke loose. Juventus fans came out of their end and came around the pitch and attacked the corner where the Liverpool supporters were standing. My mother, brother and sister were in there. Everyone went crazy. Men tore at the fences to get at the Italians and, at last, the police did an effective job of holding Liverpool fans back. The brother with me said: “If those fences go, football will be finished. There’ll be hundreds dead. It will be over.” Finally, the police drove the Italians back.

The game? I remember nothing. Afterwards? A deep disappointment, a nervousness about Italian knives, and a Belgian policeman whose parting shot at the stadium was to open the doors of a bus, throw in a canister of tear gas, and shut everyone in.

At Ostend it was a passive, depressive struggle through overcrowded departure rooms. No one mentioned deaths and shock ran through the ferry when we heard the news.

AND SO WE limped home, quickly throwing off any shame, repeating the mantra that it was a construction problem, just a wall collapsing, hiding from the scale of what had happened. The disaster has a long causal chain — stabbings and beatings in Rome, hair-trigger tempers, aggression on both sides, excessive drinking, poor policing and a stadium ripe for disaster. Remove any one link and the game may have passed off peacefully. But it didn’t.

So, Evertonians sing, with pathetic self-pity, “Thirty-nine Italians can’t be wrong.” Well they weren’t. We were. I was.

Written by Tony Evans of The Times who was there.

As long as we remember that these pissed up violent scousers, who had absolutely no respect for anybody, and who anyone who followed football in the 80's will have encountered, had NOTHING to do with Hillsborough.

 

[MarioOrlandi]

As long as we remember that these pissed up violent scousers, who had absolutely no respect for anybody, and who anyone who followed football in the 80's will have encountered, had NOTHING to do with Hillsborough.

Of course they never, the little darlings had reformed by then!!!

 

[BadFish]

Heysel was a result of the hooligan culture prevalent at the time. I find it ironic that often those most critical of the Liverpool fans at Heysel are those who glorify the halcyon days of casuals and football violence.

 

[MarioOrlandi]

Heysel was a result of the hooligan culture prevalent at the time. I find it ironic that often those most critical of the Liverpool fans at Heysel are those who glorify the halcyon days of casuals and football violence.

Er mm then the likes of Millwall, West Ham and Chelsea are stuck in a time warp