Liverpool FC: Hillsborough Disaster from an American's Point of View

In the United States, April 15 is known as Tax Day. April 15 is a date that has a lot of events tied to it, and they are not good things. The Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, making this year the 100th anniversary.

An event that happened across the pond in England 77 years later warrants some attention here in the U.S. because we love our sports. We have so many other sports that some ignorant Americans refuse to give soccer the chance it deserves here. The ignorant ones certainly will not see this as big deal because we are supposedly civil when it comes to sports.

The fact of the matter is, what happened at Hillsborough can happen anywhere.

Hillsborough Disaster

On April 15, 1989, Liverpool Football Club was going to face Nottingham Forest in the semifinal of the FA Cup at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. It was held at a neutral sight like in past years. A year earlier, the same two teams met in the same event, in the same venue. However, in 1989 something went terribly wrong.

The match was to kick off at 3:00 p.m. Supporters coming to Sheffield from Liverpool experienced some delays during their travels, and because of that, fans were extremely anxious to get into the stadium. There was a massive rush to get in at the turnstiles. The police officer in command ordered an exit gate to be opened to relieve pressure.

But that caused a bigger problem. People were not directed to open space. They were not directed at all. Like sheep, people naturally just went down the tunnel that was right in front of them. That tunnel was narrow and could not handle the mass of people trying not to miss a second of the match. Had the tunnel been closed and had people been properly directed to side pens, the disaster may not have even happened.

When Peter Beardsley missed a goal by inches, the worst of the crushes happened because of the excitement of a near miss. People were pinned up against the wire fences that were put up to keep fans off the pitch. The crush caused the crush barriers that were cemented down to snap. There are some personal accounts that I’ve read that state that there were people who passed away while they were still standing up.

People climbed over the fences and spilled onto the pitch. The match was stopped six minutes into it. At the end of the day, 95 people were dead and hundreds more were injured (the 96th victim died in 1993 after being in a vegetative state since the disaster) not just physically, but mentally as well. There have been documented suicides of some of the survivors.

Delaying the match was the obvious thing to do. How and why the police could not have had some sort of presence on the terraces behind the goal at the Leppings Lane End is something I will never understand. Police officers were merely there trying to prevent hooliganism and stood there as a human barrier before realizing that no fighting was taking place.

Police officers and many other witnesses made written statements. There is a common belief that many of the officers were forced to change their statements by their superiors in order to cover their department’s tracks (all based off witness accounts).

What added to the mystery is why the coroner ruled that everyone who died was dead by 3:15 p.m. Whatever happened after 3:15 p.m. could not be investigated because they had been declared dead. One problem was one of the victims is known to have been alive well after that cutoff, based on a TV interview with a witness.

What happened after 3:15 p.m. must be investigated because many of the bereaved have no closure. More victims were alive after 3:15 p.m. The coroner was either incompetent or lazy.

Lord Justice Taylor said in his inquiry that the lack of police control (and in my opinion, the lack of communication) caused the deadly crushes to occur. The Football Association (FA) took Justice Taylor’s report and decided that stadia in the highest divisions of British football be converted to all-seaters, which is the way they are today.

Personal Experience

I stood outside Lincoln Financial Field before the Philadelphia Union's first game in Philadelphia. Joe Biden, the vice president of the United States, was there. This was not made widely known to fans because of security concerns. Those security concerns brought the Secret Service, who were agonizingly slow checking people's bags, going through medal detectors and using a hand-held metal detector.

I cursed out one of the officers for going through every square micrometer of a woman's purse. I missed the first goal in Philadelphia Union history because of it. When I found out about the Hillsborough disaster, I could not help but think about how anxious I was waiting to get in the stadium. 

The idea of this happening is hard for Americans to understand. After all, we are used to baseball where you sit back and relax with a hot dog, peanuts and a cold beer (if you are old enough) on a stadium seat or bleacher. We have standing room only tickets today, but we Americans are not used to seeing stands without something to sit on.

Crush barriers are unheard of here. The only thing that I have experienced that comes close to that is the Penn State football student section at Beaver Stadium. But even then, we stand on bleachers that are designed for sitting. 

Penn State Football: The Jerry Sandusky Scandal

How could an event that happened 23 years ago, in a different country, be compared to an event that had a similar aftermath that I personally went through?

I mentioned Penn State football. The Jerry Sandusky scandal that surrounded the campus of the university I attend and its aftermath that I experienced brought another dimension to my understanding of what happened at Hillsborough in many ways including the aftermath.

A former assistant coach by the name of Jerry Sandusky was charged with multiple counts of child sexual abuse. A graduate assistant told Penn State head coach Joe Paterno he had witnessed Sandusky in the shower with a young boy. Paterno had told his bosses about the incident. He left his bosses to look into it. They told Paterno that the matter had been taken care of.

Before Joe Paterno was sacked because his “lack of leadership,” the media hounded him for comment and placed a lot of blame on him. It ended up putting pressure on the Penn State Board of Trustees, who caved in and fired the 85-year-old, legendary philanthropist who happened to be a football coach.

Students rioted in the streets of downtown State College, and I was there as an observer. I had to make my personal safety the priority. The streets were so crowded that I could hardly make my way through the crowd of students. At one point I was pinned up against a parked car and just stayed there. The major difference was that I had plenty of room to breathe.

After about an hour or so, I got away from the car and into the middle of the street to see what the hell was going on. The crowd began to move toward the next street over. People started to push each other, and that’s when I started feeling a little light-headed. I had to put my arms on my chest with my elbows facing out so I could get some space so I could breathe. Had that not happened in such a wide-open space, people would have been crushed like inside the pens at Hillsborough.

Two Different Events With Similar Aftermaths

The events were different. People died at Hillsborough. Here in Happy Valley, children were allegedly molested. But that is where the differences end.

Both were horrible tragedies. The immediate aftermaths of both events were too similar. Outrage, frustration, doubt, grief and the overall sense of community all had places in Merseyside and Happy Valley.

People's lives were changed for as long as they live.

People in charge needed to be held accountable. The opinions of fans differed greatly. Some never wanted to come back to football. People asked the same question over and over. “How could this have happened? Why did this happen?"

The idea of being so passionate a game just seemed to be stupid in the grand scheme of things. One thing is for certain: Sports are part of our lives for different reasons. They will be part of lives for a while. When some time had passed, people calmed down and eventually turned back to football and used it as a way to grieve.

Jerry Sandusky will have his day in court come summer, and whether or not justice will be served is yet to be seen, but justice for the 96 individuals and their families has never come, putting details aside. It has gotten to a point where human rights courts have had to be used.

Had a Hillsborough disaster-type of tragedy happened here in the States, the number of lawsuits that would have been filed would have been staggering. Justice in some shape or form would have come for the bereaved.

The emotions I felt and saw my peers feeling as well was just incredible. When I watched more than two hours of news reports in the aftermath of Hillsborough, I felt the same emotions I felt for the first few weeks during the heat of the scandal. The sense of community I felt made me more proud to be part of the Penn State community. I saw that in the faces of the Liverpool fans and the people of Liverpool (including Everton fans) in general.

Final Thoughts

The deafening roars of the call and response of “We Are…Penn State!” and the singing of "You’ll Never Walk Alone" in unison will go on louder than ever.

Liverpool won the FA Cup in 1989, beating Everton. On Saturday, Liverpool played in the FA Cup semifinal again. Liverpool beat Everton 2-1 to advance to the FA Cup final.

The manager for Liverpool at Hillsborough in 1989 was Kenny Dalglish. Dalglish was the manager for Liverpool on Saturday with the memories of Hillsborough in the hearts in minds of everyone associated with Liverpool. That was a very fitting ending.

I'll leave you with this little bit of poetry. 

We are what we are.

We are Liverpool.

We are Penn State.

And no matter who we are, may we all never walk alone.

Justice For The 96. May they all rest in peace. They will never be forgotten.

Follow me on Twitter @Rob_Gsinger25