Hillsborough disaster
Tragedy and solidarity
The Hillsborough disaster forever changed soccer and the city of Liverpool. The working class survivors of the disaster fought for 28 years against national government and ruling elites to uncover the truth of the tragedy and to bring about justice for the victims.
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Disaster
It was 2:30 in the afternoon on April 15th, 1989, in Sheffield, England. A critical soccer match was about to kick off. Liverpool FC and Nottingham Forest would compete to reach the final of the FA Cup, one of the world’s most historic tournaments. Supporters of both teams were eagerly making their way towards Hillsborough stadium. The two supporters groups were kept separate as they waited to pass through the turnstiles. Liverpool supporters were allocated a single entrance on the West side of the stadium, at Leppings Lane.
By 2:40, a tightly packed crowd of Liverpool supporters was forming outside the stadium gates. Men, women, and children were packed in shoulder-to-shoulder. More and more fans were arriving as the turnstiles struggled to keep up. Some supporters presented their tickets only to find they were at the wrong turnstiles, but were unable to escape the crowd.
By 2:50, the crowd at Leppings Lane had grown to over 5,000. They could hear the crowd inside the stadium roar as the two teams walked onto the pitch. Their efforts to get through the turnstiles became more desperate. Seeing the dense throng outside, a policeman requested that the match be delayed so that supporters could pass through in a more controlled manner, but his request was declined.
A large exit gate, which was normally used to funnel supporters out of the stadium, opened, relieving some pressure. Two more exit gates opened nearby. The crowd, desperate for space and air, rushed through. They entered a narrow tunnel which led to the stands. When they got to the end of the tunnel, they found the stands were already packed to capacity. Behind them, supporters continued to push their way into the stadium, unaware of the problems up ahead.
As the minutes passed, the situation became more and more dire. By now, the match had started, and Liverpool’s goalkeeper recalled supporters pleading to him for help. The intensity of the crush broke metal barriers in the stands. The crowd was spilling all directions as supporters desperately tried to escape. Some climbed up into the stands above. Others climbed down onto the pitch.
The two teams were ushered into their dressing rooms and informed that the match would be delayed. Meanwhile, some Liverpool supporters in the stands were so tightly packed that they began to suffocate and die. By now, everyone in the stadium was beginning to understand the severity of the situation.
Hundreds of injured fans were stumbling out onto the pitch. Police, stewards, and first responders were overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster. Confusion reigned during the hours that followed as officials struggled to coordinate their efforts.
When the dust settled, the extent of the destruction was laid bare. 94 people, mostly men, died that day. Two more died in hospital. 38 of the victims were children. Another 766 suffered injuries.
Among the dead was 18 year-old James Gary Aspinall. James worked as a clerk in Liverpool, and travelled to the game with a friend, who also died. James had two brothers, David and Andrew, and two sisters, Kerry and Louise. Here’s James’s mother, Margaret, describing the moment she saw her son’s body:
Blame
It wasn’t long before the disaster found its way into the news. South Yorkshire Police provided media with a version of events that laid the blame squarely on Liverpool supporters. Paul Middup, a police spokesperson, speaking to the media, said the following:
“I’m saying to you, if police officers had been [funneling supporters to emptier portions of the stands] when this mob surged through, the police officers would have been trampled to death underneath it. You just can’t handle them, and the vast majority of that lot had been drinking, the ones who were arriving late, and they will not be told where to go. [...] The police certainly aren’t to blame. Because if the fans did what the police asked them to do, there wouldn’t be any problem.”
Media reports described drunk, violent, thuggish Liverpool supporters, who refused to comply with police orders, and who were unable to properly form a queue. Kelvin MacKenzie, a journalist at Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun, wrote a cover story claiming Liverpool fans attacked, punched, and urinated upon rescue workers, and rifled the pockets of the injured.
Condolences flooded in from around the world. Vigils and requiem masses were held. The Queen, the Pope, and President George H. W. Bush all made statements.
By the time the 10th anniversary of the disaster rolled around, three survivors had committed suicide. Hundreds more suffered from severe post-traumatic stress. They struggled with alcoholism, drug abuse, and strained personal relationships. The effects of the disaster spread deep into the Liverpool community.
Survivors of the disaster felt they were unfairly blamed, and accused the government of crafting a false narrative and the media of uncritically broadcasting it.
Put into context, their skepticism was understandable. 1980’s Liverpool was an industrial city with endemic poverty and a politically-active working class organized around trade unions. Liverpool was a Labour Party stronghold, and between 1983 and 1987, their city council was dominated by a trotskyist Labour subgroup called Militant, which was perceived by the national government to be a threat. Liverpool Football Club was at the center of many working people’s social lives.
When Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, one of her first acts was to raise police pay by 45%, solidifying them as an ally in her Conservative government’s prolonged efforts to simultaneously enact deep austerity cuts and neutralize the labour movement. In handwritten notes for an abandoned speech, Thatcher called the Labour party the “enemy within” and accused them of being part of an insurrection against democracy.
Liverpool’s bereaved were right to be suspicious of their government. They viewed the tragedy as being part of a larger political struggle, one which pitted them against their own government and against ruling elites.
Fighting Back
Following the disaster, the bereaved families formed The Hillsborough Family Support Group in order to assist one another. More than that, they took it upon themselves to uncover the truth of the disaster and to bring about justice. James’s mother, Margaret Aspinall, was elected chairwoman of their committee.
The first official inquest into the disaster ended in 1991, returning a verdict of accidental death. The bereaved families were deeply disappointed. They viewed the disaster as a crime, and their loved ones as the victims. They’d hoped for a verdict of unlawful killing, or perhaps manslaughter charges to be brought against the officers who were present at the disaster. Significantly, this first inquest was limited to events up to 3:15 pm, and did not include the emergency response.
Though they faced seemingly insurmountable odds, the Hillsborough Family Support Group continued their fight for justice. Their struggle began to pay off when, in 1991, Lord Justice Taylor carried out a separate inquiry and produced a report which concluded that “the main reason for the disaster was the failure of police control.” Further, he found that the behavior of the Liverpool supporters was only a secondary factor, and that most fans were not drunk. Despite the damning conclusions of Taylor’s inquiry, no charges were brought.
The series of inquests, panels, court cases, and investigations both public and private, that followed is complex. Suffice it to say, for decades, the bereaved families of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster bravely pushed forward in their quest for justice. Slowly but surely, the government’s narrative unraveled.
Truth
Today’s public understanding of the disaster is radically different from that of 1989. For years, it was widely believed that the victims themselves were to blame for the disaster. That their thuggish, drunken behavior led to their own demise. Now we know better.
We know that preparation by local officials was woefully lacking. Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield was assigned to command the match, despite the fact that he little to no training or personal experience overseeing such events. The preparation, such as it was, was largely focused on combating the perceived threat of hooliganism, not on crowd control.
We know that poor decisions were made by police leading up to the match. Duckenfield claimed that rowdy Liverpool fans forced open the gates beside the turnstiles in an effort to gain entry to the stadium. He would later admit that it was his own decision to have the gates opened — a decision which ultimately contributed to the fatal crush.
We know that supporters helped one another. In footage since released, fans can be seen tearing down advertising boards and using them as makeshift stretchers to assist in the response. Others can be seen reaching down from the stands above, pulling children out of the fray.
We know that even as victims lay dying, the police wasted no time in framing Liverpool supporters as the guilty party. South Yorkshire police performed blood alcohol tests on the victims, some of them children. They ran background checks in an effort to cast them as violent thugs.
We know that the police tampered with evidence. 116 witness statements were altered. South Yorkshire Police systematically removed or changed negative comments about their own department.
We know that first responders were unprepared to effectively manage the disaster. Unconscious victims were wrongly placed on their backs, rather than in the recovery position. An effective response could have saved 41 of the 96 victims.
We know that the media uncritically absorbed and amplified the narrative peddled by police and by government officials.
Hillsborough was not a disaster, but a crime.
Solidarity
In June 2017, six people, including two former senior police officers, were charged with criminal offenses over the Hillsborough crime and the cover-up that followed. Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield was charged with the manslaughter of 95 people.
After 28 years of fighting, the Hillsborough Family Support Group, along with the Liverpool community and countless others, achieved something approaching justice. Here, survivors react to the charges:
What explains their success? How did they dismantle a narrative, a lie, that was endorsed by the government and by the media? My understanding of this decades long struggle is limited, but here are some factors that stand out to me.
First, Liverpool Football Club supported the bereaved and the rest of their devoted fans throughout, and kept the memories of the Hillsborough victims alive with vigils, tributes, and anniversaries, and by incorporating the tragedy into their club’s culture.
Second, from the beginning, Liverpool’s local media broke from London-based outlets and approached their coverage of the crime with a healthy dose of skepticism, asking questions about policing, stadium design, and the validity of the subsequent inquests and investigations. On April 19, 4 days after the crime, the front page of the The Liverpool Echo read: “Speaking up for Merseyside! We challenge the London papers and Sheffield Police: produce your evidence.” Two days later, the Echo published photos of the stands demonstrating the role poor crowd control played in the tragedy.
Third, the bereaved, and the Liverpool community more generally, were highly organized. Labour unions, support groups, actions groups, and other structures made it possible to plan and carry out effective actions. For example, after the Hillsborough crime, the entire city of Liverpool boycotted The Sun — a boycott which continues today. It’s estimated that their boycott has cost The Sun £15 million a month for the past 28 years.
And finally, the local government seems to have consistently backed the Hillsborough Family Support Group and others seeking truth and justice. The Labour City Council, for example, funded the Hillsborough Project, led by criminologist Phil Scraton. Their goal was to externally scrutinize the investigations and inquiries following the crime. The findings of this initiative played an influential role in uncovering the truth.
In 2009, capitalizing on an article by the Guardian’s David Conn detailing the bereaved Hillsborough families’ continuing campaign for justice, Labour ministers Andy Burnham and Maria Eagle requested that all the official documents relating to the disaster be released — a request that was eventually granted.
Most of all, Liverpool was united. Survivors, their neighbors, the local government, Liverpool Football Club, local media, and countless others, fought in solidarity, year after year. In an interview with The Guardian, Margaret Aspinall reflected on Hillsborough: “What I admire about the people of Merseyside is that they are united when it comes to any form of injustice.”
