On the 15th April 1989, 96 Liverpool fans went to watch the FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough Stadium, and never came home. That day, overcrowding in the central pen of the Leppings Lane End, due to police match commander David Duckenfield opening exit gate 3 and allowing more and more fans to stream into the group. To this day, the disaster is the worst in British sporting history, and the families of the dead still strive for justice.

This essay investigates the reaction, both immediate, and up to 10 years after the event, focusing on the reaction from the people from Liverpool, how the two major football clubs of the city reacted, how the Government and the police reacted and how the disaster was covered by the media.

The city of Liverpool was left in shock and disbelief when they received the news. Families of the deceased were left in shock, as they did not know how to react to such a tragic event.

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The blame was attached to Liverpool fans, and the families reacted by bringing forward a private prosecution against David Duckenfield, however he was not convicted.[1]

Before the disaster, there was a strong sense that the rest of the country was against the team. Liverpool had always been unique, and, with the blaming of the victims by the South Yorkshire police, the pre-existing perceptions of an anti-Liverpool bias were triggered in the city,[2] and the city and people of Liverpool have endured a fractious relationship since, with papers uncovered in 2011 revealing that Margaret Thatcher would leave the city to ‘Managed Decline.’

The people of Liverpool saw the team as a third cathedral of Liverpool and made pilgrimages to the stadium to pay their respects to the dead.

Whilst Liverpool were the club that were most affected by the tragedy, there was also a reaction from Everton, Liverpool’s city rivals. Everton and Liverpool were joined together in mourning, and a ‘mile of scarves’ was tied between Everton’s Goodison Park and Liverpool’s Anfield stadiums, whilst Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish made sure that Liverpool were represented in some capacity at the funerals of each of the dead, attending some of them in person.

There were mass tributes laid at Anfield, the city’s third cathedral for many.[3] When Labour leader Neil Kinnock visited, he commented that there was “almost as much blue as red”, showing the solidarity between the two football clubs. There were over a million visits to Anfield, with the Kop end becoming a tribute to the dead, where scarves and shirts were laid[4].

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The immediate reaction from the South Yorkshire police was to conduct an internal investigation, while the home secretary established a judicial enquiry, led by Lord Justice Taylor, which concluded that standing was unsafe in stadiums and all English stadiums would legally be required to be all-seater.[5] However, no prosecutions followed the Taylor report, despite the police being found as the guilty party.[6]

The cover-up had started at the Stadium, where David Duckenfield chose to lie to the FA chief Executive Graham Kelly[7], telling him that Liverpool fans were at fault for the crush, and not informing him about the gate that had been opened.

Maria Eagle, Member of Parliament and Hillsborough justice campaigner, claimed in a speech to parliament in 1998 that the South Yorkshire police conducted a campaign that can only be described as a propaganda campaign to put the blame on anybody apart from themselves.[8] The way in which the police and the Government covered up the disaster and claimed that it was not their fault that the 96 fans had died did a lot to harm the public trust in the police, both in Liverpool and in the rest of England. [9]

Within minutes of the disaster, the chief match official, David Duckenfield, had misinformed senior FA officials that Liverpool fans had forced entry, information that was broadcast to the UK media.[10] A local Conservative MP informed the Sun of these allegations,[11]  leading to the infamous headline ‘The Truth’ , accusations that were not based on fact.

The headline of the Sun, 19th April, 1989
The Sun, 19 April 1989, p.1

The Sun was not the only newspaper that broadcast misinformation; however, the accusations in the newspaper, and the size of the newspaper itself, led it to be the most prominent. Norman Bettison says that “I have not seen a shred of evidence to support such shameless accusations”[12]

To support the media campaign that Liverpool fans were to blame for the disaster, all the bodies were tested for alcohol, including the youngest, at only 10 years old. This shows the cover-up that was fed to the media to perpetrate the myth that the Liverpool fans were drunk and disorderly. [13]

The reaction to the Hillsborough disaster seemed to have two sides – one hand there were the families who were suffering and the football clubs who were supporting them by attending the funerals, and the other side, with the Government and police conducting a cover-up to stop the blame being attached to the both parties, and the media, especially the Sun, reporting the baseless accusations that made Liverpool fans seem like the bad people in the disaster.

The accusations by the Sun that Liverpool fans were to blame has led to the newspaper being hounded out of Merseyside – In 2017 the Liverpool Echo reported a ‘scandal’, as the newspaper was being sold ‘under the counter’ at a Liverpool-based Sainsbury’s[14], showing the lasting impact that the disaster has had on the city. The Conservative government’s role in the disaster, amongst other things, has contributed to the Merseyside area consistently voting Labour by large margins in general elections, year upon year.

The pain from the disaster has lasted for all of 31 years. It shows no sign of letting up any time soon.

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Article © Harry Morgan 

Bibliography

Ashton, John R. “I Triaged Hillsborough Fans While the Police Conspired.” BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 345, no. 7875, 2012, pp. 34–34. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23278747. Accessed 28 May 2020.

Bettison, Norman, Hillsborough Untold: Aftermath of a disaster, (London, Biteback Publishing, 2016) ProQuest eBook

Brennan, Michael, Mourning and Disaster: Finding Meaning in the Mourning for Hillsborough and Diana, (Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008) EBSCO host eBook

Coleman, Sheila. “Hillsborough: The Long Struggle to Expose Police Corruption.” How Corrupt Is Britain? ed by David Whyte, (London, Pluto Press,2015), pp. 85–93. JSTOR, <www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt183p7g4.10>. Accessed 22 May 2020.

Davie, Grace, ‘Believing without Belonging. A Liverpool Case Study’, Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 38.81, (1993), 79-89.

Drury, John, Cocking, Chris. “Talking about Hillsborough: ‘Panic’ as Discourse in Survivors’ Accounts of the 1989 Football Stadium Disaster” J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol, 24. (2013), <http://dx.doi.org https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.2153>

Ganesh, Janan, ‘Justice for the 96; The Hillsborough inquest’, The Economist, 29 April 2016,

Grech, E. D., et al. “The Hillsborough Tragedy.” BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 304, no. 6826, 1992, pp. 573–574. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/29714720. Accessed 22 May 2020.

House of Commons, Hillsborough [Online] <http://hansard.parliament.uk > [Accessed 27 May 2020]

Hughson, John, and Spaaij, Ramón. “’You Are Always on Our Mind’: The Hillsborough Tragedy as Cultural Trauma.” Acta Sociologica, vol. 54, no. 3, 2011, pp. 283–295. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41330483. Accessed 21 May 2020.

‘Justice for the 96; The Hillsborough inquest’, The Economist, 419.8987, (2016), , in <https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=STND&u=chesterc&id=GALE%7CA451181848&v=2.1&it=r&sid=summon> [accessed 27 May 2020]

Mansfield QC, Michael, “Hillsborough: the Power of the People Is so Much Stronger than the People in Power.” Socialist Lawyer, no. 73, 2016, pp. 18–23. JSTOR, <www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/socialistlawyer.73.0018.> Accessed 22 May 2020.

McLoskey, B, ‘The Hillsborough Football Stadium Disaster and the Judiciary ‘, Bracton Law Journal, 42, (2010), 6-27, in Law Journal Library <https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/braclj42&id=7&collection=journals&index=> [accessed 28 May 2020].

Renton, David, ‘Twenty-three years waiting for justice’, Socialist Lawyer, 62, (2012), 17-19

Scraton, P. (2013). The legacy of Hillsborough: liberating truth, challenging power. Race & Class, 55(2), 1–27. <https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396813499488.> Accessed 22 May 2020

Wardrope, James, et al. “The Hillsborough Tragedy.” BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 303, no. 6814, 1991, pp. 1381–1385. JSTOR, <www.jstor.org/stable/29713843.> Accessed 22 May 2020.

 

References

[1] B. McLoskey, ‘The Hillsborough Football Stadium Disaster and the Judiciary ‘, Bracton Law Journal, 42, (2010), 6-27, in Law Journal Library <https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/braclj42&id=7&collection=journals&index=> [accessed 28 May 2020].

[2] John Hughson, and Ramón Spaaij. “’You Are Always on Our Mind’: The Hillsborough Tragedy as Cultural Trauma.” Acta Sociologica, vol. 54, no. 3, 2011, pp. 283–295. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41330483. Accessed 21 May 2020.

[3] Michael Brennan, Mourning and Disaster: Finding Meaning in the Mourning for Hillsborough and Diana, (Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008) EBSCO host eBook

[4] Grace Davie, ‘Believing without Belonging. A Liverpool Case Study’, Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 38.81, (1993), 79-89.

[5] . Phil Scraton, (2013). The legacy of Hillsborough: liberating truth, challenging power. Race & Class, 55(2), 1–27. <https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396813499488.> Accessed 22 May 2020

[6] Sheila Coleman, “Hillsborough: The Long Struggle to Expose Police Corruption.” How Corrupt Is Britain? ed by David Whyte, (London, Pluto Press,2015), pp. 85–93. JSTOR, <www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt183p7g4.10>. Accessed 22 May 2020.

[7] Sheila Coleman

[8] House of Commons, Hillsborough (8 May 1998, vol 331, col 955) [Online] <https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1998-05-08/debates/441e37a1-ce99-40fe-9acb-0103aa075726/Hillsborough>  [Accessed 27 May 2020]

[9] ‘Justice for the 96; The Hillsborough inquest’, The Economist, 419.8987, (2016), , in <https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=STND&u=chesterc&id=GALE%7CA451181848&v=2.1&it=r&sid=summon> [accessed 27 May 2020]

[10] Phil Scranton

[11] John R. Ashton, “I Triaged Hillsborough Fans While the Police Conspired.” BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 345, no. 7875, 2012, pp. 34–34. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23278747. Accessed 28 May 2020.

[12] Bettison, Norman, Hillsborough Untold: Aftermath of a disaster, (London, Biteback Publishing, 2016) ProQuest eBook

[13] David Renton, ‘Twenty-three years waiting for justice’, Socialist Lawyer, 62, (2012), 17-19

[14] Jenny Kirkham, ‘Liverpool Sainsbury’s ‘secretly’ selling the S*n ‘under the counter’’, Liverpool Echo, 30 September 2017