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...
by Oliver Kay NOW that the lies, the smears and cruel myths about the Hillsborough disaster have been exposed once and for all, those who clung to them out of warped tribalism have but one straw left to clutch. “What about justice for Heysel?”, they plead. “What about...
£330,000. By Peter Carney, March 2001 LAST Thursday an ex South Yorkshire policeman, Mathew Long, was awarded £330,000 for the suffering he has been caused by late onset Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I don’t know the full details of the role this man played on the...
