By cy.Reporter, 14 April, 2022
Moments before the start of the match between Liverpool and Benfica for the quarterfinals of the Champions League, the movement of the players for a minute of silence, was one of the few moves to honor the people of Liverpool the tragedy that happened 33 years ago in Hillsborough and deprived 96 people of their lives! CybetNews recalls the events that led like today in 1989 to one of the greatest tragedies in the field of football.
April 15, 1989. Liverpool and Nottingham Forest are ready to face each other in the FA Cup semi-finals. The Wembley final is now just one game away. Liverpool fans are looking for days to find tickets to be able to watch closely and help with their voice their favorite team to qualify for the final. Several hours before the start of the match which starts at 15:00, people are out of the stadium.
Liverpool fans were outside the north gate of the stadium. Due to the controls and the crowd, the match was asked to be delayed in order for the people to enter the stadium smoothly. However, this was not accepted and the match started at the scheduled time. It is said that five minutes before the start of the match, the crowd outside the stadium reached 5,000! People were trying to enter through different entrances. Then the order is given to open three entrances, with the result that people start to enter quickly. Now control is lost. The people who enter the specific point of the podium are numerous. The situation is starting to get out of hand, with the Liverpool friends in the first places being stuck on the railings and unable to breathe.
Now, it was too late. In the 6th minute of the match the referee decides to stop the game. The footballers have not understood what is happening and are going to the locker room. Those Liverpool friends who have the strength, climb and jump in the field to be saved from suffocation and trampling. Within minutes the billboards have become stretchers and transport unconscious people to the field. Chaos prevails because many people in the rest of the stadium have not realized what has happened. After 15 minutes three ambulances arrive in the stands but now it is too late.
94 people are killed and 776 are injured. An investigation is immediately ordered into the incident and the conclusion of the Police is that the fans are to blame. A portion of the press, the political leadership and the Federation are trying to put the blame on the world. However, for several years there are different findings. The families of the victims are looking for justification for the lives lost. 27 years later and specifically in April 2016, the court in Warrington acquits the people who lost their lives in Hillsborough. After years of hearings, he decided that the mistakes of the police led to the entry of Liverpool friends on the podium.
After several years, Kenny Dalglish also spoke, who still seems shocked by this event. "I will never forget, but never April 15, 1989. I can not even think of the name Hillsborough and not come to mind these tragic images. It was difficult for me to write about Hillsborough, about the tragic mistakes of the authorities, both police and football, which resulted in the death of 96 of our fans. The memories will be there for the rest of my life. A few years later and after I had left Liverpool, I was offered to take over Sheffield United but I refused for what happened then at its stadium. The person who offered me the job said, "I did not think that." "It was difficult for me to be back in that stadium, let alone to work as a coach."
However, this tragedy can not be easily forgotten, as many people who lived, lost friends and relatives. A typical example is Steven Whitel who in 2011 ended his life. The reason was that for 22 years, he could not believe that due to a professional obligation he had given his ticket to his friend who lost his life. Thus, in the day before yesterday's match between Liverpool and Benfica, the chorus formed by the friends of the team had the number 97, in honor of all those who lost their lives from the event that shocked the whole world.