HILLSBOROUGH changed irrevocably the lives of 96 families, and thousands of survivors, writes DAVID WEBBER. It was, as Neil Atkinson has powerfully and rightly argued, a national disgrace. It prompted a cover up to which successive governments would be complicit, and...
I DIDN’T want to write about Hillsborough this week. I’ve found the right words in short supply. How can you ever do the 96 JUSTICE? But, equally, how can you write about football during such a momentous, emotional week? Never have I felt the build up so low key...
WRITTEN on the day of the verdict from the latest inquest, this was first published on New Statesman’s website. IT IS important on days like today to remember that we can’t expect one correct response from the thousands of people touched by the national...
WAKING up on the first morning after the truth has finally been recognised, it would be easy to talk about the front pages of today’s editions of The Times and The S*n. It would be easy to talk about their final parting shot at the 96. But please don’t. Not today....
THROUGHOUT my childhood Hillsborough was always there — like a nettle bush prickling at my consciousness in a field of many feelings. I was five years old in April 1989. I can’t remember the afternoon of the 15th at all, the terrible events. Strangely, I...
IT’S an enormous day. A momentous one, and one for which I, and many of us, were not prepared. I’ve always wondered what it would feel like. I pictured celebrations in city squares, hugging strangers and downing pint after pint after pint as those responsible,...
NEIL ATKINSON and John Gibbons react to today’s Hillsborough inquest verdict, which exonerated Liverpool fans of any blame for the tragic events of 15th April, 1989. JUSTICE FOR THE 96. Direct: Free Podcast – Hillsborough Inquest Verdict – A...
AGED around eight years old, the word crudely daubed in white paint and the dripping number that followed it meant nothing — a foreign city and two digits which carried no significance in a personal world that had Liverpool FC battling for attention with comics, toys...
by IAN SALMON IT’S the small moments that give you the true measure of a man. Leaving The Kop at the end of the memorial service via Back Rockfield Road (go on then, it’s the alley way down to ‘The’Arry’) we noticed a small gathering surrounding a van at the end...
By Amy Lawrence WALKING up Wembley way, en route to an FA Cup semi-final in an all-seater stadium for an all-ticket match, it was impossible not to take a moment to look back. What have you done in the last 25 years? I left school, got a degree, landed a series of...
