Saturday, April 15, 2006
Today,this post is dedicated to them.This horrific incident can be ranked as bad as the Heysel disaster suffered almost 4 years preceding this.The loss of the these 96 people is truly a tragic event.
I urge you to just spare a few minutes of your time to just read what Dalglish has to say...
Kenny Dalglish,then manager of Liverpool, never really seemed to recover from witnessing the loss of life...the loss of life of people who held the Merseyside club in high regards.Here is what he had to say when interviewed by www.liverpoolfc.tv on his reflection of that fateful day:
HILLSBOROUGH WILL STAY WITH ME FOREVER Kenny Dalglish
I find it very difficult to write about Hillsborough, where terrible mistakes by the authorities, both police and football, ended with 96 of our supporters dead. The memory will remain with me for the rest of my life. I was offered the manager's job at Sheffield Wednesday after I left Liverpool but I couldn't take it because of what had happened at Hillsborough. The person who offered me the job said: 'I never thought of that.' But I can never be in the stadium without thinking of all those people who died on the Leppings Lane terraces.
In mourning the victims during the heartbreaking, endless succession of funerals and ever since, my emotions have been coloured by a feeling of complete frustration. Liverpool had played in an FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough the year before and there had been no reported problems. The organisation was superb. The fans had to come through a barrier 500 yards away from the ground where they had to show their tickets. That wasn't the case on 15 April 1989.
A different team was in charge and the stewarding had changed. Why wasn't the procedure repeated from the previous year? If it was repeated, why did it fail? If it had been run exactly the same as the year before, those 96 people might have been alive today and there wouldn't be family after family across Merseyside struggling to live with the memory of a lost loved one.
It was obvious that Liverpool supporters should have been given Hillsborough's Kop. The smaller Leppings Lane end was clearly unsuitable. Apparently the police said it was better for the Nottingham Forest fans to come at the Kop end of Hillsborough. To be fair to the police, our fans had stood at the Leppings Lane end the year before, without any problem. There was enough room in the ground for our fans. Liverpool had the whole stand next to the Leppings Lane end but this added to the problem. Liverpool fans with tickets to that area had to enter through the Leppings Lane turnstiles.
The previous year there had been no motorway roadworks. The police knew how many supporters were expected. With so many not inside, they must have realised many of them had been delayed on the journey to Sheffield. The police must have known about the hold-ups on the motorway. When I took the players back to Sheffield to the hospitals on the Monday we were ferried through by Liverpool police, then handed over to the Manchester police, passed on to the North Yorkshire constabulary and finally South Yorkshire police. All the police forces collaborated. Surely one force could have told another that there were problems on the motorway and that they should put the kick-off time back? It wouldn't have been the first semi-final to be delayed in football history. It will always anger me that they didn't wait for the fans. There were all these people arriving late, desperate to get inside Hillsborough so as not to miss any of the game. Having so many hundreds of people rushing into the ground caused the terrifying crush which squeezed the life out of 96 poor Liverpool supporters.
We went out on to the pitch, the players warmed up, and I settled back to watch the game. I never noticed any problems. Suddenly a policeman ran on to the pitch and talked to the referee, Ray Lewis, who stopped the game. Lewis sent the teams back into the dressing-rooms and told us to wait for news. Nobody knew the scale of the disaster. I ordered the players to stay inside and went out into the corridor. A few fans had gathered there. They called out to me: 'Kenny, Kenny, there are people dying out there.'
News of the horror filtered through. People who had been outside began to give a hint of the unfolding disaster. Like any man, my first reaction was to check my family was all right. I went up to see Marina and Kelly, who had been in the directors; box. My son Paul wasn't with them because he always went to cup games with Roy Evans's son, Stephen, and another friend, Alan Brown. It was a happy ritual for them, having lunch together and then going off to the match, like hundreds of thousands of young lads every weekend. I went out to see if I could find them. Imagine my relief to see Paul walking across the pitch. He could easily have been in the Leppings Lane end because, although his ticket was in the other stand, he had to go through the Leppings Lane turnstiles to get there. If Paul hadn't arrived at Hillsborough early he could just as easily have been in that area where all the fatalities occurred. I was overjoyed to see him. I took him immediately to Marina, who was so relieved.
The police asked Brian Clough and me to make an announcement. We walked through Hillsborough's kitchens where a radio was giving out some football scores. It was weird. They just didn't matter. We went up to the police box at the corner of the Leppings Lane end and tried to broadcast a message but the microphone wasn't working. There were two guys on the Leppings Lane end waving to us, indicating that they could not hear. So the police suggested we continue up to the DJ's booth and use his announcing equipment. I went upstairs but Cloughie didn't. Cloughie just turned and went back. He never made any announcement to the fans. Only me. Why he didn't come up to address the fans, I don't know. That was his decision. I don't think I saw Cloughie again that day. Forest left quite quickly.
I continued up to the DJ's box to make the announcement as the police requested. I told the supporters to remain calm, that there had been an accident. I told them that the way they were conducting themselves was magnificent, the help they had been giving the emergency services was equally fantastic. 'Please remain calm,' I kept saying. And they were. The punters were brilliant.
Cloughie had a moan about me in his book. After we had beaten Forest when the semi-final was eventually played at Old Trafford, I commented that there was one team who wanted to win more than the other. For our fans' sake, Liverpool desired victory more than Forest. That was to be expected. Cloughe admitted that was true but that I didn't need to say it. There was no logic in Cloughie's comments. I wasn't being derogatory to his Forest players. Because of Hillsborough, it meant a lot more to us to win it than it did to Forest. Then Forest came to Anfield to play us in the League on 10 May. Cloughie was unbelievably negative, playing with 10 men behind the ball who never moved, a wee bit pathetic really. We still won 1-0.
When we realised that people were dying at the Leppings Lane end, the Forest fans behaved superbly. They were a real credit to their club. A few Liverpool guys ran towards the Forest end, some aggressively, some simply to get away from the carnage at the front of the Leppings Lane. My immediate reaction had been that there was crowd trouble in the Leppings Lane, that Forest fans had got in there to cause hassle. Many people thought that. Once people realised that the problem was congestion, the attitude of those running at the Forest fans changed. There could have been a full-scale riot if the Forest supporters on the Kop had reacted to the angry Liverpool supporters charging at them. The disaster was bad enough but if could have been even worse if the Forest fans had thought the Liverpool fans were trying to get to them. To their eternal credit, the Forest fans showed restraint. For their conduct at Hillsborough, Forest's supporters will always have a special place in my affections.
It soon became apparent that what was going on at the Leppings Lane end wasn't crowd trouble but a major disaster. Liverpool fans were ripping down advertising boards to use as stretchers, trying to help people on the pitch, trying to lift people out from that terrifying crush. There was very little the stewards and police could otten. Hillsborough, and the ensuing Taylor Report, definitely changed the atmosphere of grounds. With smaller capacities, no one standing and a wealthier audience, grounds have become quieter. The Kop has definitely changed, atmospherically. Each ground changes, when they re-build a stand. Clubs should set aside an area for those who cannot afford season-tickets but want to go whenever they have enough cash. Poorer fans should not be discouraged. We should never forget the wee boy in the street whose father cannot afford to take him. One has to be mindful of the fans of the future.
I have been at three matches, as a spectator, player and manager, where they have been disasters - at Ibrox, Heysel and Hillsborough. Although not directly involved, with the number of matches I have been at, the chances of it happening to me or somebody in my own family are probably well above average. I feel fortunate that it wasn't me or one of my kids. Parents will always be protective even when their children become adults. That's human nature.
In the aftermath of Hillsborough, I appreciated my family even more. Marina says that at times I was difficult to live with, that I was clearly under strain. I didn't realise at the time. Tom Saunders told Marina that he was going to keep an eye on me, but he always did anyway. I do not know how tense I was being at home. Without my being aware of it, the strain of Hillsborough was beginning to catch up with me.
So..please....treasure life...and let us all remember those who lost their lifes...so tragically.
You'll Never Walk Alone
rewind-`
|11:50 PM|
LOVE;
WISHLIST;