Dazed In The Life

I am so proud of my football team, both for its displays onfield and off. Today marked the 20th Anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster which claimed the lives of 96 Liverpool Football Club supporters at an FA Cup Semi Final on April 15th 1989. The memorial service at Anfield today was intensely moving – “You’ll Never Walk Alone” is a strongly emotive song on its own, but gains new poignancy when sung so passionately, so proudly in this context. There have been so many words written, both in sorrow and anger, commemorating the tragic incidents surrounding the events of that awful day, asking more questions than they answer. Mine are no greater than any of those already written. However, it is with regret that I direct you to this article by Martin Kelner in The Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/apr/13/hillsborough-disaster-liverpool-martin-kelner-bbc?commentpage=1&commentposted=1

I was so appalled by his attitude towards the will to remember Hillsborough, and especially by his ignorance of the unresolved matters surrounding the disaster that I felt compelled to reply to it. In this age of the web, letters to the editor are rather wasted, so I left a comment on the internet page. I have pasted the reply below. It is the ignorance of men like these, like Brian Clough who is being so celebrated right now yet who said “I will always remain convinced that those Liverpool fans who died were killed by Liverpool people” in the wake of the tragedy, like Kelvin MacKenzie who edited The Sun at the time and who published lies, fictions and slanders under the headline “THE TRUTH” simply to try sell newspapers, it is men like these who cause the misunderstanding about Hillsborough and who damn the memory of those who died. How dare they. Today is a day to remember those who died and to reinforce the need for Justice For The 96. You’ll Never Walk Alone.

I read this article while on a visit to England and felt compelled to make a comment, something I would never normally do. I found this utterly distasteful, a chance to have a go at the BBC and MOTD for doing what they HAD to do – commemorate Hillsborough – and then returning to what they are SUPPOSED to do – show football highlights. I second the comment below which points out that the words “crucial” and “vital” were within a completely different frame of reference to the type of “importance” Hansen and Stubbs mentioned. To criticise the panel for a joke about Hiddink’s accent is like criticising a funeral-goer for making a crack about the deceased: it happens, because we must always remember the dead, but not wallow. We try to go on as best we can. It was wholly appropriate to reflect on Hillsborough, it was a difficult subject and it is hardly voyeurism if someone is willing to share their grief in order to help us understand.
However, I take most issue with this paragraph:

Eh? The question might have been relevant 20 years ago, but we sort of know what happened after Hillsborough. The Taylor Report led to all-seater stadiums, people not getting crushed on terraces, the Premier League, prawn sandwiches, and poor people being priced out of live matches. And obviously those responsible for the hideous policing errors that contributed to the tragedy were prosecuted to the full extent of the law, or were retired on full pension and advised to keep very schtum indeed. I cannot quite remember.

We DO NOT know what happened after Hillsborough given that the final chapter has not been written. There has never been a full official apology for the police’s behaviour before, during and after the disaster. The original inquest into the deaths gave a verdict of “accidental death”, only examining the evidence up to 3:15, not taking into account the police reactions such as obstructing people carrying the injured from the scene.
 
However, most damning of all is your total ignorance of the legal issues. Those responsible for the hideous policing errors have NEVER been prosecuted to the full extent of the law. David Duckenfield, the Chief Superintendent on duty, and another officer, Bernard Murray, saw the private prosecution against them abandoned when Duckenfield was deemed medically unfit to face trial. He then retired with his full police pension. It became clear during the trial that several officers had lied, including Duckenfield. Duckenfield had backed up the stories which were leaked from within South Yorkshire police and used in the infamous <i>Sun</i> articles about the tragedy. Utter lies for which they – and Kelvin MacKenzie – have never apologised. Another officer, Norman Bettison, who was one of several to manipulate his evidence, later was appointed Chief Constable of Merseyside.

To flippantly dismiss all this as you did, to display your paltry knowledge of the events surrounding the Hillsborough disaster and afterwards, to use the memorials of the events to attack the BBC – that is distasteful, cynical and insensitive. It is this sort of ignorance which the Justice For The 96 and other campaigns continue to fight against. I live in Ireland, I was just 4 when Hillsborough occurred yet, as a Liverpool fan, it is a deeply distressing subject. If you want to write about something like this, you would do well to do your research properly, not simply allow yourself to “not quite remember” when this is the time everyone should be remembering.