Hillsborough Disaster.....who saw it coming?

At the school where I work in Chatswood some of the Year eight classes are studying ballards / storytelling poetry. In particular they have been looking at the Ballad of Hillsborough
poem by Simon Rae.
Most adults in the UK and many worldwide, know that in 1989, 96 Liverpool supporters lost their lives in a terrible human crush at the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield during an F.A. Cup semi-final match versus Nottingham Forest. You can read more about the 1989 disaster here.
What many people don’t know however is that disaster nearly struck eight years earlier, at the same ground, in the same round, of the same cup competition.
A video of the crush at the Hillsborough 81' Tottenham v Wolves semi-final is included below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtzHVe2mEN0
That year it was Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers who travelled to the Hillsborough stadium, and it was the Spurs fans who were allocated the smaller, problematic Leppings lane end of the ground. There were broken limbs and other injuries sustained that day in 1981, 38 being injured but thankfully no fatalities largely due to the fact that the police opened up pitch-side gates as the crushing became apparent. If only they had done that in 1989.

Fans try to escape the crush in 1989 liverpool v Notts Forest semi-final

The poem the boys are reading is by by Simon Rae

THE BALLAD OF HILLSBOROUGH

The Liverpool supporters
Were given the smaller end;
Crammed behnd the goalmouth,
The fans were tightly penned –

Penned, penned in their thousands,
Penned in under the sky
No one there had reckoned
That ninety-five would die.

The barriers all buckled,
They couldn’t take the strain
The cheers of jubilation
Turned into cries of pain.

And when at last they noticed,
The police unlocked a gate,
But the exit was too narrow,
And they’d opened it too late
The nation watched in horror,
Stunned with disbelief
As the shadows from the goalmouth
Stained a football pitch with grief.

An inquiry has been opened
To find out who’s to blame,
But for those who lost their dear ones
Nothing will be the same.

For nothing brings the dead back,
Post mortems, flowers or prayers,
It’s like reaching the top of the stairwell
And finding there are no stairs.

That drop into the darkness
Goes down and down and down;
And grief’s black water well there,
Inviting you to drown.

Never to see your loved ones,
Or hear them on the phone –
It’s hard to believe when it happens
That you’ll never walk alone.
But down at the Kop at Anfield,
The goalmouth shows it’s true:
The scarves around the crossbar
Are knotted red and blue.

Despite divided loyalties
Liverpool loved its own,
And every tribute there proclaims:
You’ll never walk alone –
Not by the banks of the Mersey
Nor down the terraced streets;
Beneath the great cathedrals
A city’s warm heart beats.

And now in the cold spring sunset,
The Liver Bird’s aflame
The Phoenix rose from the ashes;
A city can do the same.
Simon Rae
I was at that 1981 Tottenham  / Wolverhampton semi-final, so I was pleased to go in and give our schoolboys some background to the culture behind football in the UK. More particularly I was able to give them some idea of what it was like to be in a football crowd up at Hillsborough. Most of them had no idea that 'standing' at games used to be the norm. I tried to give them an insight into what standing in a crowd was like.  Additionally interpreting many of the 'football' references for the boys.
I tried to give them an idea of how terrifying the 'funnel' effect of a crowd converging on turnstiles could be.

The 'Leppings Lane' end also had a tunnel before the fans emerged up behind the goal. Usually it would be a matter of seconds before you emerge into the light behind the goal. The effect of penned fences at the end and being at a standstill in the tunnel would have added to the terror felt by those unable to go forward or back.

We looked at terminlogy in the poem such as 'Liver bird' which is  part of the Liverpool badge and is mentioned in the lines
The Liver Bird’s aflame
The Phoenix rose from the ashes

The multiple references to You’ll never walk alone – clearly developed new more poignant meaning after the Hillsborough. In class we turned off the lights and played the following rendition pretty loud!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjVJETz7lfk
Liverpool fans  singing: You’ll never walk alone


The boys also wondered about the lines
The scarves around the crossbar
Are knotted red and blue.
Of course the whole world of football had come together in grief for Hillsborough, not least the Everton blue and white side of Liverpool

One of the stronger messages I put across was that the lessons of 81' were not really learnt and this ommission contributed to what happened in 89'. The boys were keen to know who was to blame for the disaster. Police. Fans. Ground Controllers. FA. Authorities.......all I could say was that there is still no resolution for most connected with the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.

Web site Looking at the 1981 semi between Spurs and Wolves
http://thehillsboroughdisasterdocumentary.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/hillsborough-1981-disaster-narrowly-avoided/
Web site looking at the making of a documentary on Hillsborogh disaster 1989
http://thehillsboroughdisasterdocumentary.wordpress.com/