A mate of mine

Murphman · January 7, 2008

I was in the pub last night, a country boozer tucked away in South Bucks and as far away from inner city Liverpool as you can get, in every way. I never discuss Hillsborough with the locals, NEVER, it's a guaranteed argumant so ingrained are people's stereotypes and perceptions of what happened that day. But I did lend the book to a good mate of mine who generally has a very open mind and HE brought it up. Minefield....

My antenna was up, one of the lads made the point that the book was almost certainly carrying bias towards the Liverpool fans and that they had contributed towards the tragic events of that day. Whilst I was counting to 10 and thinking 'here we f*cking go again' one of my oldest friends steamed in with a vengeance. This lad was at school with me, he's a Spurs fan having been raised in North London, an insurance broker, vice captain of the local golf club, a conservative, the epitome of middle class and the last person you would expect to defend Liverpool F.C or it's supporters. His rant had me open mouthed.

'I went to the semi at Hillsborough when we played Wolves' (I already knew it had almost been a catastrophe from another friend who was at the game but this lad's graphic description of his experinece had the pub silent). 'We were a bit late as we'd been in the pub and the queues were terrible. We funelled into a tunnel, it wasn't an option which of the three tunnels we went in we were carried along by the surge. A small gap appeared in front of us so we jumped into it, I know now we were putting pressure on those already in the ground but.. Immediately we were trapped. I was pinned, I couldn't raise my hands and was starting to panic, I thought then I was in big trouble. I got rammed into the wall and was being crushed, luckily the crowd moved forward, I ended up againt a barrier and thought I was going to die. An older man was patently in serious trouble and we couldn't get him out, I'm pretty sure he was having a seizure. On either side the terracing was relatively empty, the lads were trying to climb the barriers to relieve the pressure. The Sheffield police treated us like a load of cockney wide boys actually hitting people with their truncheons and laughing at us. I never thought I'd see my kids again, I actually wrote a letter to the Sheffield Police and the thought 'what's the point?. When I heard about what happened at Hillsborough just a few years later I was actually racked with guilt for not sending the letter even though it would have made absolutely no difference whatsoever.

So don't ANY of you ever blame the supporters for what happened that day, the whole set up was a f*cking disster waiting to happen. He was REALLY animated and because he's such a quiet fella normally everybody was taking note.

I felt like clapping him, the pub was in complete stony silence, the whole thing was surreal, the lad who made the accusation looked like he was going to cry. That is all.

Edited January 7, 2008 by Murph

fyds · January 7, 2008

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