As a liverpool fan who was at Hillsborough all be it at a very young age I have often wondered about your thoughts about what happened and how its affected your lives, i can always remember an old lady letting me and my uncle call home to let the family know that we were amoungst the lucky ones.
Sorry if this has been covered in the past

My cousins were Forest supporters.

I was living in Walkley at the time and wondered what the heck was happening because of the activity with helicopters and such.

I wouldn't say it affected my life any more than any other tragedy; my cousins came through with no long terms physical and psychological harm, thank God.

Joe

There are a lot of people like my family and friends who are from hillsborough, and remember that day very vividly. But don't wish to go public with details of what happened that day, because of the vitriolic nature of some of the liverpool families.
We grew up a few hundred yards from hillsborough, and were used to all the big teams coming and extremely busy match days.
In decades past, the ground used to hold much bigger crowds, the record was 77 thousand!.

In decades past, the ground used to hold much bigger crowds, the record was 77 thousand!. But it seems those were days of much better behaviour.
^?????
the vitriolic nature of some of the liverpool families

can you explain the above comments they have shocked me a bit to be honest

I understand that there a lot of video tape on it thats the Sheff police have, they say it's so bad it will never be shown to anyone, is that a fact ?

what do you mean there are video tapes that will never be seen? If this is true sure its in the public interest to make available to the public domain?

Originally posted by poppins
I understand that there a lot of video tape on it thats the Sheff police have, they say it's so bad it will never be shown to anyone, is that a fact ?

If it's true, you can now request a copy under the Freedom of Information Act that came into force this year. Anyone fancy a shot at it?

If it is the true that the Police will never release the film, then I can only assume that their main reason is that the film actually shows people dying.

Being a First Aider, I can only say that the scenes will be very harrowing and extremley upsetting. Remember how we all reacted to the footage of the Bradford Football Ground fire - especially the scene of the man walking across the pitch while he was on fire?!

One can only imagine the reaction of parents and relatives of those who died if they were to see footage of those they loved, in the process of dying.

As regards any footage of criminal and/or offensive behaviour during the incident - I think that that too must be left in the safe-keeping of the Police and the Courts.

My personal feeling is that releasing such footage would not be in the 'public interest'.

Patrick
(in Bournemouth)

Originally posted by superCol
If it's true, you can now request a copy under the Freedom of Information Act that came into force this year. Anyone fancy a shot at it?

Thats what i remember anyhow, i just wish i could remember where i read it, i could be wrong too, but not wrong that i read it someplace.

Have to agree with Patrick.

I see no benefit to anyone to be gained from turning it all over again. If you see footage of a loved one dying, or of a loved one behaving like a horse's arse and posisbly precipitating problems, who does that benefit?

Joe

The Sheffield Star, I recall, published a 'Special' on the disaster and my brother still has a copy. Suffice to say, some of the photographs in that are extremely distressing, so I for one would not wish to see a video of people being crushed to death.

My day began with a pal and I doing a few pubs around Hathersage, an incredibly beautiful spring morning. By the time I'd got to the Ranmoor Inn, the television was showing the unbelievable scenes of the Leppings Lane end and I remember being shocked by how many fans were pressed into that one area. The friend whom I had spent the day with got a call from his mother who was nurse at the Hallamshire. He disappeared for a while but when he returned he was white as a ghost. He'd been down to the hospital and seen some shocking sights.

That evening, in my then local, The Rising Sun in Nether Green, there was a group of Liverpool fans who showed me the crush marks on their wrists and their complete matchday tickets. They'd got in without even being checked. They were extremely angry but were great guys. I've often wondered what they're up to thses days.

It was a horrible day - I remember the overcast skies the following Sunday which hung like smoke upon some battle ground. Trying to look on the brighter side of things, football stadia has improved incredibly since then.

That evening, in my then local, The Rising Sun in Nether Green, there was a group of Liverpool fans who showed me the crush marks on their wrists and their complete matchday tickets. They'd got in without even being checked. They were extremely angry but were great guys. I've often wondered what they're up to thses days.


^ Being a scouser myself I find these stories a little comforting, true there are still some mindless people up and down the country who still believe the lies that THAT RAG printed just a few days after and that is what still drives people on to this day, to continue the fight for justice, to educate and maybe just maybe the truth will out and 96 brothers and sisters can finally be left to rest.

YNWA and JFT 96

I didn't live in Sheffield back then. I had gone to watch Aldershot Town FC, who at the time were my nearest team, and were in the heady heights of League Division 4. At full time, my mum picked me up and it was still being reported as "crowd trouble". I remember being quite angry with the Liverpool supporters, because I was a football fan, and was fed up with the way they were damaging the game. Also, the previous summer when I was on holiday in Italy, I had become seperated from my parents in a crowd and was accosted by some Italians who demanded to know if I was a Liverpool supporter, making it clear that the answer better not be "Yes". No prizes for guessing which team they supported.

Of course, when we got home and saw the TV, it was immediatley apparant that there was no violence at all, but instead a tradegy. It obviously didn't have any long term effect on me, just depressed and shocked me at the time.

Chill
have you ever looked into liverpool fans reputation pre hysel? and had a look into the archives to see what happened at hysel also?
you may be shocked to find that LFC fans had a rep like the tarten army have and then the london press got hold and tarnished it for ever.
dont get me wrong i know that liverpool fans were involved in fighting at Hysel but it was 50/50 and as you rightly point out that tv pictures dismiss any notion of crowd trouble in 89, IMO just an in expeienced police officer in charge of a big football match whos backside started twitchin

This is the original. (http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=711)

I expressed my opinion there

I hope this thread is closed quickly when the mud starts flying again. There are too many raw nerves associated with this still

Just putting my Mod hat on - if we DO get in to any mud finging I will close this thread down.

People who know me on here also know I have no problems about closing threads at the drop of a hat.

Joe

Mods
close it for me that link says it all, to many people believe what the papers say, if any of the orignal posters would like to attend the memorial in april with me please let me know i will be at SWFC on the morning and then to Anfield

stewthered - I wasn't trying to make any assertion as to the behaviour of the fans around the time, I was just trying to frame my initial reaction (which was to assume it was violence from Liverpool fans) within the context of the era and the fans' reputation at the time.
As it happens though, I have looked into the press treatment of Heysel and the Liverpool fans, I chose it is a topic for a project on journalism when I was at school, and collected loads of newspaper articles about the subject. They are all probably languisging in my parents' loft somewhere, it would be interesting to dig them out. :)

My nanna lived on a side road, just down from the football ground. Burrowlee road. She let quite a few people in that day to phone home to relatives etc, maybe you were one of them stewthered.

I was at work that day, and each time a customer came into the shop the numbers involved kept rising. The emotion of the sheffield people telling the story and the shock that something like this could happen in 'our town' was really upsetting for a young saturday girl like me. In the end we closed early, because it was to much to take in, even though we were not directly involved.

chill
sorry if it came across that i was thinkin that but after the week in which the press tried to make us scousers look like unforgiving and stubborn people i have a little bit of hatred swelling around, the fact that our car was 2 people light on the way home on that sad day just adds to the anguish really
Like i said earlier dont want to go over old ground but just wonder sometimes what peoples views are on us whenever something happens to bring the whole thing to the forefront of peoples minds