The Hillsborough Disaster: Sheffield, 1989
1989 · event
On 15 April 1989 Liverpool and Nottingham Forest met in an FA Cup semi final at the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield. Liverpool supporters were allocated the Leppings Lane end, a standing terrace divided into fenced pens reached through a narrow row of turnstiles. As kick off approached, pressure built outside, an exit gate was opened to relieve it, and thousands entered a tunnel that led directly into two central pens that were already full. A fatal crush developed against the perimeter fencing. The match was stopped after six minutes. Ninety seven people died, the youngest of them ten years old.
Supporters tore down advertising hoardings to carry the injured across the pitch while only a small number of ambulances reached the ground. In the days that followed, statements attributed to police sources and repeated by parts of the press blamed the behaviour of the fans, an account that was untrue and that the families of the dead spent decades fighting.
The inquiry led by Lord Justice Taylor reported in 1990 and found the main cause to be a failure of police control. Its recommendations ended standing terraces in the top divisions of English football, removed the fences that had turned a crowd into a trapped one, and rebuilt the way large crowds are managed. The stadium of the 1990s looked entirely different because of Hillsborough.
The full truth took much longer. An independent panel reported in 2012, the original verdicts were quashed, and fresh inquests in 2016 concluded that the ninety seven were unlawfully killed and that the supporters had not contributed to the disaster. On the anniversary each year the city of Liverpool remembers them by name, and the campaign the families ran has become a reference point for anyone seeking accountability from public institutions.