BBC Radio 4, The Reunion – The Hillsborough Disaster

Bromage · April 8, 2009

BBC Radio 4, The Reunion – The Hillsborough Disaster (Press Release)

11.15am-12 noon Sunday 12 April, repeat 17 April 9am-9.45am

In the second programme of the award-winning Radio 4 series The Reunion, Sue MacGregor is joined by five people who were involved in the Hillsborough disaster, which resulted in the death of 96 Liverpool football fans.

The fans died as the result of a terrace crush at an FA Cup semi final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, 20 years ago, on 15 April 1989.

The tragedy at Hillsborough was the worst spectator disaster in the history of British sport and resulted in widespread change in the design and safety of British sports stadia. The fatal terrace crush at the Sheffield Wednesday ground was ostensibly caused by a human tide of fans being swept along a sloping tunnel onto two already full "pens" which were blocked to the side and front by perimeter fencing. Fans at the front were crushed or trampled.

Sue MacGregor is joined by Jenni Hicks, who went to the game with her husband, Trevor, and teenage daughters Victoria, 19, and Sarah, 15, who both died. "We went as a family but came back a couple," recalls Jenni.

Another mother, Margaret Aspinall, vice chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, lost her 18-year-old son, James, who was attending his first Liverpool away game.

Colin Moneypenny, who survived the crush, describes the "utter chaos" of being "carried off my feet for 30 to 40ft" along the Leppings Lane tunnel to within 10ft of the front perimeter fence.

Paramedic Tony Edwards was in the first vehicle to treat injured fans on the pitch. He still suffers feelings of trauma and guilt for driving away instead of staying to help others.

Dr Rogan Taylor was chairman of the Football Supporters Association at the time of Hillsborough and is now a professor at the University of Liverpool's Football Research Centre.

Presenter: Sue MacGregor CBE

Producer: Chris Green

The Reunion is a Whistledown. production for BBC Radio 4.

Whistledown.

8A Ayres Street, London SE1 1ES

Tel: 0207 407 8001

www.whistledown.net

RP · April 12, 2009

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