James Tompkinson writes for the University of York’s The Yorker on how football fans should honour the lives of the 96:
Walking through the gates at the Leppings Lane end of the South Stand at Hillsborough is something of a personal pilgrimage – a journey into a world which in a lifetime supporting Sheffield Wednesday has delivered heartache and happiness along with an abundance of wonderful memories. I was a fresh faced eight year old in 1999 when my dad brought home two season tickets at the ground where just ten years earlier one of the greatest tragedies to ever occur in Britain took place. I never even knew.
Hillsborough is a place which to many people is associated with pain, scarring and emotional torture. The ground which I grew to love and became so emotionally attached to thanks to eleven players running around in blue and white was the scene of the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans on April 15th 1989. For 23 years the blame for what can really only be described as a massacre was placed squarely at the feet of those Liverpool fans who entered the ground closer to kick off and were directed to the centre of the away end.
Little did they know that as they tried to make their way to watch the game, fans at the bottom of the same stand, fans supporting the same team and wearing the same scarves, were losing their lives…
Full article here.
Hillsborough: Why football should provide its own justice
Walking through the gates at the Leppings Lane end of the South Stand at Hillsborough is something of a personal pilgrimage – a journey into a world which in a lifetime supporting Sheffield Wednesday has delivered heartache and happiness along with an abundance of wonderful memories. I was a fresh faced eight year old in 1999 when my dad brought home two season tickets at the ground where just ten years earlier one of the greatest tragedies to ever occur in Britain took place. I never even knew.
Hillsborough is a place which to many people is associated with pain, scarring and emotional torture. The ground which I grew to love and became so emotionally attached to thanks to eleven players running around in blue and white was the scene of the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans on April 15th 1989. For 23 years the blame for what can really only be described as a massacre was placed squarely at the feet of those Liverpool fans who entered the ground closer to kick off and were directed to the centre of the away end.
Little did they know that as they tried to make their way to watch the game, fans at the bottom of the same stand, fans supporting the same team and wearing the same scarves, were losing their lives…
Full article here.
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About the author
Deputy Editor. Beckie is a final-year Japanese student at the University of Leeds. She is Editor-in-Chief of Lippy: No Gloss and Features Editor of Leeds Student.