96 Reasons to Say Ding Dong.

Do you think about why we do the things we ultimately do and the motivations behind them? I often wonder what causes cruel behaviour, as a parent I am constantly reminded of my failings by the behaviour of my children when every little below par demonstration is a crystal clear re inforcement that they are the product of their environment. Despite previous intentions, currently I am guilty in the eyes of some of cruelty as despite my intentions to behave differently, I have acclaimed the death of Margaret Thatcher, but I feel there is 96 reasons to do so.
           24 years ago like many I went to the FA Cup semi final at Hillsborough on 15/4/1989, but unlike every other football game I attende I was unable to acquire a ticket for the Leppings Lane, so I bought one of the many surplus for the Spion Kop end and ventured inside at 12.30pm and consoled myself with the fact that although I was not in the Liverpool end at least I was present. That consolation was tempered as I watched the central pens fill at the opposite end until 1.50pm, when it became apparent from my vantage point that there was just too many people coming into the central pens & minimal overflow of people into the adjacent pens. I remember the time vividly as I felt some shame at the fact that I was glad I was not in my usual area behind the goal.
   The reason I hold Thatcher responsible is not a conclusion I drew on that day as a naive 20 year old, but over many years of reflection. In basic terms if I could deduce at 1.50pm that there was an issue, why did the Police with cameras overseeing that area and a physical watch position almost overlooking Leppings Lane not take the preventative  measures that could alleviated all of this heartache & despair. One of the first things Thatcher did when she became Prime Minister was to increase the pay of the Police, so they became her Police and not the protectors of the peace. The reason she took that step was (as has been well documented to crush the unions) and she in her cynical wisdom recognised that it would involve confrontations. The South Yorkshire Police Force on duty at Hillsborough were the same force who a handful of years earlier had initiated the Battle of Orgreave, where protesting miners were lured into a paddock and then attacked by Police & mounted Police in a bloody assault which in classic testimony to Thatcher's Britain, many of the accosted miners were subsequently jailed. Ultimately they were exonerated & compensated but the damage had been done to them and their community. The outcome for the Police was business as usual, no convictions against them for the corruption of the law.
           I had two encounters with the Police on that day in Sheffield, which were brief & abrupt, the first was as the obligatory cordon search as you approached the stadium, and as is my way to defuse tensions somewhat I offered the greetings of the day to the nearest officer as I opened my jacket for my examination, this was greeted with absolute dismissal as he spoke with his colleague, as that conversation continued I concluded that when he had taken his hands off me that I must be fine to proceed as there was no other indication. The next encounter was an attempt to enquire if it was possible to get to the Liverpool end when I got in, I approached a copper on the Spion Kop and as I said "excuse me I am a LFC fan...but without eye contact or another acknowledgement I received a stern "NO". As I say I was naive and it took me many years to piece together what I had experienced that day. On reflection from the SY Police's perspective Liverpool supporters were unwelcome guests. In the years leading up to Hillsborough Thatcher had been campaigning to implement the Identity cards for all football fans as a way of preventing football hooliganism, but as I never saw football hooliganism at games I attended, it is apparent on reflection, to me that it was a step in the criminalising of a class that she felt no affinity or empathy towards. I remember taking trains around London & England to Liverpool games and there was a clear absence of malice until the end of the game when the local Constabulary decided you were a criminal risk and herded the visiting support to some designated train station. The broad mix of society in these fans were acutely aware of how they were being dehumanised as inevitably the animal chorus of bleating or mooing would strike up.
      In the aftermath of Hillsborough the qualification of this dehumanising sprung to life with the horrendous lies of these "thugs" storming gates drunk, which was immediately the causation expressed by the SYP to the politicians and between them to the infamous outcome with the sun & its editor Kelvin McKenzie. The black ops were in full swing. Amongst those closely briefed was Bernard Ingham, Thatcher's press secretary and a local Yorkshire man, he was still spreading the black ops message in 1996 when he responded to the family of a victim by telling them it was time to get over it & if it wasn't for the drunks there would not have been a tragedy. When Justice Taylor cited Police failings & incompetence and not fan behaviour as the cause, and Thatcher viewed the reports conclusion she challenged that the Police could be held culpable, not her Police. The Police's incompetence arrogance and refusal to acknowledge these failings in conjunction with their black ops were the ultimate manifestation of how they were products of their environment, an environment of being beyond reproach as they had been bought to be the foot soldiers of her policies.
          The poet Maya Angelou says that we don't remember what is said to us or what is done to us, but how we are made to feel. Thatcher's policies, Police & right wing media made the victims, their families & the survivors feel like criminals, and that is her legacy. Out of that day's ineptitude disdain & resentment 96 people died and never came home. Countless others lives became exterior shells. As the survivors were criminalized there was no support structures available to them and there is no way of knowing how many suicides resulted from dealing with that trauma alone & with shame. The alcohol and drug abuse instances as survivors and bereaved families are also undocumented. 96 people died and their families lives were absolutely devastated, thousands would have privately dealt with what we recognise now as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, although just a witness, other than a couple of difficult conversations with my former girlfriend, it was 20 years before I spoke to friends about that day, so imagine what isolation the survivors felt.
              Since I became a parent 7 years ago every April I think of the young men & women who never came home to fulfill that stage of their lives. So today I am thinking as ever of the 96 and their families and the many other victims of Thatcher's policies that day and I will be raisng a glass while I listen to Elvis Costello's Tramp the Dirt Down. You may feel its cruel, but to me it feels right & just.
JUSTICE FOR THE 96 & THE MANY HILLSBOROUGH VICTIMS.

I hurried to St Pancras station that Spring morning with an inner fervour that was palpable. I arrived early to meet with LFC London Supporters club, whom I had joined as soon as I became aware of them after my arrival in London from Ireland in 1988. Another economic refugee from the emerald isle seduced at 20 by the big smoke, but, this was the culmination of life in England for this football tragic, going to see Liverpool at the weekends. The train was all set and the trip was no aggro, in Sheffield before 12pm, I made straight for the ground as was my pattern in early and get a good spot. Be 12.30pm I am at the ground and although living in London feverish reading of sports pages had informed of me that due to the Police's preference for Nottingham traffic coming from the south, they had been designated the big end the Kop.
 As I wandered towards and around Leppings Lane it seemed a little odd, almost quiet, unaware that I was that most Liverpool fans were stuck in traffic. The London LFCSC had minimal ticket allocation so it was the usual back up plan of "any spares?" Unlike every other 'Pool game the lack of tickets at 12.45pm made me a little anxious, so it got the better of me and I went up to the Forest end, sure enough, there was plenty as predicted Forest were never going to fill that end. By 1pm I had positioned myself right behind the goal and was staring enviously at the travelling Kopites as they assembled at the opposite end, as I strategised where best to position for the game over the next 30 minutes or so it seemed to me that the centre of the away end was very busy. The players warming up distracted for awhile but by about 1.50pm it occurred to me that in fact I had a better position than the one I craved, with the travelling Kop. The unease continued from my perspective and I silently wondered why people were not being funneled to either side. Before kick off a small group of LFC supporters gathered on an elevated spot near the corner flag and the fateful vehicle entrance that would ultimately remain inactive. When the Peter Beardsley's shot cannoned off the woodwork early, the bizarre switch in attention had occurred where by that flurry of activity with the ball had taken my eyes off the away end. Shortly after a Forest fan sensing what was happening climbed up beside us to visually confirm his fears, within moments he was berating some other Forest fans for typical low level chants, with tears flowing down his face he shouted "there's people hurting down there".
         Being so near yet so removed I saw alot but not specifics, there were a few things that have never left me, I remember the Forest fan I just mentioned, I remember a young fella about my age being led along the sideline towards us with what seemed like a deformed arm, he had wavey shoulder length fair hair, I remember 1 ambulanc, I remember some locals hurling derogatory stats about the number of deaths from a car as I trudged towards the train, I remember the queue to call my girlfriend back in London, She said I cried in my sleep that night. The following morning the regional and social separation was revealed to me when I went to mass in a west London Catholic church hoping to start the healing with prayer, only to encounter my first experience of that numb helplessness when the priest spoke only of parish funds.
Listening to David Cameron's speech was the first time in 23 years that I had a different emotion at the mention of Hillsborough, I felt relief for the families as if I was floating because they had been unburdened. That felling abated when I read that 41 innocent precious lives could have been saved as the guilt overwhelmed me again, but I am a parent now and the Hillsborough families have taught me how to be a parent, your children are always your babies, so you fight for them. So as gratitude to Mrs Aspinall. Mr Glover, the Hicks family and all the other brave families I will fight on for the 96. JFT96 YNWA