The legendary Red Devils coach: The road to success

Chapter 107 "Hillsborough Disaster"

"The stadium turned into hell, with life and death only a moment away. This tragedy shocked and saddened the whole world."

--Inscription

The Red Devils were eliminated from the FA Cup, and Nottingham Forest, who eliminated them, will face their next opponent Liverpool in the semi-finals.

This FA Cup semi-final was held on April 1989, 4 at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield.

It was a routine procedure for the English Football Association to arrange the FA Cup semi-finals at a foreign stadium at that time, and Hillsborough Stadium was also planned early on. Hillsborough Stadium is a huge stadium, the home of Sheffield Wednesday, and has rich experience in organizing competitions. Many games have been held here for a long time.

Nottingham Forest was a legendary team in England at the time. Two Champions League titles made Clough famous and made them a rival to Liverpool. The game was already popular before it was played, and a huge number of tickets were sold. The English Football Association allowed standing seats at the stadium that year, and more than 10,000 Liverpool fans went to Sheffield to watch the semi-final. Nottingham Forest also had a large number of die-hard fans who bought tickets to participate.

Before the game started, Hillsborough Stadium was already packed. But there were still many fans outside the stadium, waiting for their tickets to be checked in at the stadium entrance. A reporter at the scene said: "The Hillsborough Stadium, which can accommodate people, was packed one hour before the game started. There were people everywhere, and what was even more terrifying was that there were still many people gathered outside the stadium."

Hillsborough is a very old stadium. It not only has standing seats, but also has a mixture of seats and standing seats distributed in various stands. At that time, the stadium was considered to be too old and many facilities needed repair, but no one thought that the dilapidated stands were in danger of collapse.

When the match was about to start, many fans with tickets blocked the entrance, and some fans without tickets mixed in with them. The fans with tickets were very dissatisfied and demanded that the organizers solve the admission problem immediately, making loud noises. The police and the organizers of the match were in a great headache, as they could not disperse the fans without tickets and were not able to let the fans with tickets in in time.

The dangerous fuse began to ignite.

More and more Liverpool fans came, and their emotions became more intense, and their complaints became louder. The situation gradually got out of control. Many fans without tickets were also fanning the flames, trying to fish in troubled waters and sneak in to watch the game. Slowly, the fans rushed towards the 16-foot-wide iron gate like a tide, shaking it violently, and accompanied by loud shouts, the situation became a little out of control.

The big iron gate was suddenly opened. There was no ticket inspector at the door, and no one was controlling the flow of people. The fans were allowed to rush into the stadium like a flood breaking through a dam.

It is impossible to know what the police and stadium staff had in mind when they opened the gates and let people in. The gates were opened with the consent of the stadium security director and the temporary police chief, but the specific details cannot be restored. There was no ticket checking, no control, no guidance, and it is an absolute fact that fans entered the stadium in disorder.

After entering the stadium, the fans squeezed forward along the aisle and the crowd rushed into the two stands behind the entrance.

The normal capacity of these two stands is only about 1600 people, and they quickly reached full capacity. There were more than 3000 people outside the stands trying to squeeze in. They had no idea what was ahead, but they still had to rush forward. The crowd swarmed and formed a huge wave. At this time, the game had already started, and Liverpool had even completed an attack, and the shot hit the goal post, which made the fans watching the game extremely excited and made waves. The fans who did not enter the stands became more anxious after hearing the noise, and squeezed forward even harder.

The crowds were getting bigger and bigger, and the huge force pushed the crowds forward. But the fans forgot that there was an insurmountable obstacle in front of them - the barbed wire between the stands and the stadium. This circle of barbed wire was specially built at Hillsborough Stadium to prevent football hooligans. It was usually used to prevent extreme fans from rushing into the stadium. Now they have become the biggest "murderer" of the tragedy. These barbed wires finally blocked the flow of people and also blocked the last living space for the fans.

The screams came suddenly. The fans who were squeezed against the wire mesh screamed in pain. Some of them had their ribs broken, and some were squeezed to the point of being unable to breathe. The stands immediately became chaotic. The fans in the front were squeezed against the wire mesh, while the crowd behind them continued to move forward. Some fans were suddenly squeezed to the ground and screamed in pain, but they could not stop the crowd from trampling them. Some fans lost their minds and rushed around crazily.

The stands became chaotic, and the disaster happened. Trampling, shoving, suffocation... Many fans were injured, pushed down, trampled, fractured and bleeding, screaming in pain, blood flowing, facial features deformed... The scene quickly got out of control, and the stands turned into hell.

The crowd continued to surge, the situation continued to deteriorate, and the disaster became more and more serious. Under the emotional collapse, the fear and the desire to survive made the fans more panicked, and more and more people fell into crisis. The fans were squeezed and pushed, and the chaos was in chaos. More and more people were injured and more and more people were unconscious. Many people were knocked to the ground, some with broken bones, some unable to breathe, some were trampled, and some fell into a coma. Those who were pushed to the barbed wire on the sidelines had their bodies deformed and their facial features were squeezed and pushed by the barbed wire and other people. Blood was squeezed out.

Deaths occurred, and the death toll increased rapidly.

Now the entire stand was in chaos like boiling water, and the frightened fans caused even greater chaos. Screams, curses, and cries were heard one after another. Some fans lost their lives after being trampled and squeezed, some fans suffered serious fractures, and some fans fainted because they could not breathe. The crowd fell like dominoes, and people kept stepping on the fallen bodies and pushing them to the ground. Some fans had broken ribs, leg bones, and even the frontal bones on their faces. Some fans were trampled to death, and some fans were squeezed to death and suffocated.

Some fans climbed up the wire fence, and some shouted for help to the police on duty in front of the wire fence. But the police were also caught in the chaos and just tried to separate the crowd and rescue some fans urgently.

Many people began to realize the disaster and began to actively rescue. Fans fled frantically. Fans in the upper stands reached out to pull the trapped fans in the lower stands; some fans climbed up the wire mesh and tried hard to pull up the people squeezed below; some fans were pushed up the wire mesh and luckily escaped. The police and fans worked together to push the wire mesh down completely, and the fleeing fans rushed into the stadium.

At this time, the disaster had only happened for less than 2 minutes. People in the stands far away from the stadium didn't even know what had happened until the fans rushed onto the field and the chaos continued to spread. Only then did others realize that a tragedy had occurred.

The police immediately asked the referee to stop the game, which was suspended after only 6 minutes. The players from both sides returned to the locker room, where they soon learned of the death of the first fan, followed by more and more unfortunate news. Liverpool's Barnes burst into tears because his family and many relatives and friends came to the stadium to watch the game. Other players were also stunned, and coach Dalglish and some brave players returned to the stadium to help with the rescue.

A large group of police and paramedics rushed to the scene, but by then the blood of the dead and injured fans had already dyed one side of the stands red. More dead and injured were carried to the grass of the stadium. The scene was like purgatory and was horrific.

The chaos was eventually brought under control, but 94 Liverpool fans had already died in the incident. Four days later, the 95th fan died in the hospital. The 96th fan persisted in the rescue for 4 years, but finally died. There were many women and children among the victims of this tragedy, the youngest was only 10 years old. In addition to the 96 deaths, more than 200 people were injured. These were Liverpool fans. They came from all walks of life: working class and middle class, rich and poor, and their addresses were all over the country.

The tragedy shocked the whole city. Anfield Stadium was specially opened the next day to serve as a reception place for fans and their families. The fans mourned and paid tribute at the stadium. Countless flowers and scarves filled the grass, and countless fans and their families cried.

Liverpool manager Dalglish attended the memorial service with his players. He choked up and shed tears many times at the meeting, and barely comforted the suffering family members.

The city of Liverpool was filled with grief. More than half of the fans here belonged to Liverpool FC, while the other half belonged to the city's arch-rival Everton team, who were also shocked and expressed their condolences.

Football fans all over the world were shocked by the news of the tragedy and were all mourning the death of the fans.

The players who witnessed the tragedy were severely traumatized. They were at the scene and watched the fans get injured and die. Liverpool player Barnes was in so much pain that he began to drink and escape from reality through alcohol. Barnes said: "Before the Hillsborough incident, I always liked to analyze what was happening around me rationally. But after the tragedy, my outlook on life changed completely. I could no longer find the meaning of playing football. When I didn't perform well, when I left Liverpool, I asked myself: 'Does this matter?' I'm still alive, my family is still alive, that's good. Football is no longer that important, it can't represent everything. When fans are buried in the sea of ​​​​people, when parents lose their children, children lose their parents, and families are broken and destroyed, what does football count for?"

Liverpool's legendary coach Bill Shankly once said, "Football is not about life and death, but football is above life and death." However, Barnes said, "Football is a sport, a game, a struggle, but even if there are gorgeous competitions and glorious honors, what is it compared to life? No one can transcend death, especially those who died in the Hillsborough tragedy. This is a painful moment in the history of football..."

Dalglish was even more heartbroken by the Hillsborough tragedy. He said: "All the fans who lost their lives are like my family; all the injured fans make me feel sad. I have been trapped in self-blame for a long time, always thinking that it is my responsibility that led to the tragedy. I don't know why the tragedy happened, and I don't know how to reduce the guilt... I can't do anything."

"For a long time, I couldn't forgive myself," Dalglish said.

After the Hillsborough disaster, the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher arrived at the scene immediately after receiving the report and directed the aftermath. The English government quickly set up an investigation team and appointed Taylor to start investigating the disaster. After several months of investigation, his team published the Taylor Report, which had a profound impact on English football.

According to this report, the English government required all clubs to immediately carry out stadium safety renovations, requiring stadiums to convert all stands into seats, abolish all standing seats, remove explosion-proof iron nets, re-evaluate the building safety of old stadiums, and renovate or rebuild those with problems and hidden dangers.

The British government calls for strengthening order management and crisis management, and formulating plans to prevent excessive gatherings of people and to disperse them.

The Taylor Report pointed the finger of responsibility at the South Yorkshire police, but did not make a final determination of responsibility. Who was responsible for the disaster? This required that many media outlets at the time reported on the incident in various ways, and there were also various confusing statements. The fans who died were even slandered as people who were disobedient and impulsive, and they had almost no way to appeal for the injustice they suffered.

The families of the dead and injured were deeply angry in their grief. They refused to accept the slander and refused to give up the pursuit of the truth. In the end, their continuous efforts finally made the truth public and brought the relevant responsible persons to justice.

Liverpool suffered a series of heavy losses in the five years between the Heysel disaster in 1985 and the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. These purgatory-like tragic disasters continued one after another. The Heysel disaster caused Liverpool to lose its dominance in Europe, and the Hillsborough disaster made the situation even worse.

The tragedy has always been Dalglish's nightmare. "I am heartbroken. I can't say the name of that place (Hillsborough). I can't talk about it. I will live in the shadow of this tragedy all my life."