It’s nearly 30 years to the day since the name of Liverpool FC, and the reputation of the city of Liverpool, was deeply tarnished by the appalling events in the Heysel Stadium. After all this time, I still find it hard to comprehend how such a shocking turn of events came to pass, especially given the generally good reputation of our fans beforehand.
Everyone knows what happened inside the stadium, and that has been discussed thoroughly elsewhere. What I’m still curious about, is how the events of the day were to lead to such a horrifying climax.
I should explain that at the time, I was an impoverished student living in a house without television and did not have regular access to newspapers (and consequently did not see/read many accounts of the immediate aftermath). I watched the game in the student union bar, and like everyone else was reduced to a state of numb shock.
I’ve read some accounts of the day’s events, most notably in two excellent books, From Where I Was Standing by Chris Rowland, and Far Foreign Land by Tony Evans (both of which are required reading for all LFC fans). Both tell their tales from different standpoints; whereas for Chris and his mates their trip to Brussels started out as a light-hearted jolly, the mood of Tony and his companions was very different. After having described how they were subjected to attacks from Roma fans the year before, he then goes on to describe his experiences on the day of the tragedy in what is one of the most shockingly honest narrative passages I have ever read.
It was only many years after the event that I discovered that Liverpool fans had been attacked by Roma ultras in 1984; as Tony mentions in his book, there appeared to have been minimal coverage of this in the national media. One of the aspects of the whole sorry saga I find interesting, was that no apparent attempt was made on the part of Liverpool supporters, to distinguish between Roma and Juve fans. It has been said many times that the seeds of Heysel were sewn in Rome the year before. Maybe those Liverpool fans who were brutalised in Rome were sufficiently embittered to fall back upon negative national stereotyping, that all Italian football fans were $h!thouses who couldn’t be trusted. I don’t know if that’s a fair assumption to make. It was interesting that there were no apparent problems with Milan fans in either the 2005 or 2007 finals, although by that time plenty of water had flowed under the bridge since 1985 and presumably any ill-feeling towards Italians had largely disappeared (not forgetting that, once again, Liverpool supporters were assaulted by Roma hooligans prior to the UEFA Cup tie in the Olympic Stadium in 2001).
Going back to the day itself, some 14,000 Liverpool fans attended the match, so obviously there are 14,000 different stories to be told, of which Tony’s and Chris’s are only two. I’ve come across accounts of Liverpool and Juve fans having a friendly match at a campsite the night before the game, of rival supporters seemingly mingling with no hint of animosity in the city centre beforehand and with no indication of the trouble that was to follow. I’ve also read about the disturbances in the Grand Place, of jewellers’ stores being looted, of widespread drunkenness outside the stadium prior to the disaster. Tony Evans’ account, in particular, described what appeared to be an appalling, shameful scene of unrestrained alcohol-fuelled anarchy, with a sizeable minority of Liverpool fans seemingly the worse for wear from all-day drinking, and some already showing violent hostility towards Juve fans. Even before the horrific events inside the ground, it seems that the reputation of Liverpool had already been tainted.
What is difficult to grasp is how quickly proceedings seemingly got out of control, from apparent good humour and joviality at the start of the day to the scenes of hatred, violence and death at the end. I’m just interested to hear people’s experiences of the hours before the match, what the mood was like amongst their fellow supporters, if there was any feeling of tension or animosity beforehand, whether they had experienced or witnessed any interactions with Juve fans (positive or negative), whether they had seen any scenes of disorder or violence in the city centre or outside the stadium, whether there was a distinct point during the day when the mood turned ugly; in short, a sense of how the day developed. If any Juve fans happen to be reading this, it would be particularly interesting to hear of their experiences as well.
I realise that this subject has probably been covered on several occasions before, so apologies for going over old ground if this is the case.
Thanks for taking the trouble to read this.
RIP the 39.
