I was at the disaster, I was 21 and been to Rome the year before which was like Beirut on a good day , the day started great, we got to the town centre on a sunny and hot day the atmosphere was typical good natured lots of singing and everyone have a great time, by mid-afternoon the mood changed.
We made our way to the stadium early evening a good two hours before kick-off; it was a total riot outside, best described as a war zone, bottles getting thrown, and the floor littered with stubby bottles of Stella, Italians waving Samurai swords and guns at us, it was a nightmare and like a scene out of a war zone, control was lost by authorities , when one of the lads asked a copper what was going on he got the coppers shield over his head, we had to tend to him in an ambulance until he came around , we made our way around to our end and were water cannoned and briked by Italians , hooded ultra shit houses some had hand guns.
We entered the ground through a hole in the wall, still have my ticket, the sewers went underneath us and we were walking in shit and piss, it was like holding an event a condemned building site, everything was crumbling around us including order.
The riot happened over an hour so police had enough time to form a segregating line , I watched on in disbelief ,what I do remember was how young and inexperienced the police were and I was only 21 myself.
The rest is kind of fuzzy, I remember seeing all the dead piled up and Phil Neal on the tanoy asking for calm, I remember the game but not much of it, I remember Platini doing a lap of honour celebrating, weird, we were lucky they won, because believe me there would have been more casualties after the game, the celebrations gave us a window of opportunity to get the fuck out of there.
We managed to get to Brussels central metro ,and then on to dover I will swear on anything and say the train was full of cockneys buzzing, that’s a fact I was there ask others, Liverpool fans who took part in the Riot have the deaths of the 39 on their hands , there is no getting away from that, but again all of this could have been avoided if a different venue was chosen fit for purpose, what surprises me is no one has ever asked for testimonies, RIP the 39