inquire | section name feature | hillsborough Everything had gone to plan up until of a club that won League titles and ran out for the match did not seem to that point. We had got to Sheffield on the European Cups as a matter of course, a be coming from our section behind train, been put on a bus at the station club that attracted out-of-towners like us the goal. At 10 to three, it was hot enough and were now standing outside a paper with its quiet, consistent brilliance and to feel lightheaded, and my view of the shop near the Leppings Lane entrance large, ebullient following, Kenny Dalglish’s pitch had narrowed to a slit between of Hillsborough, home of Sheffield side was something special. the hair, the skin and the hats in front of Wednesday FC. Phil lit a cigarette. It was The West Stand at the Leppings Lane me. The sounds now concerning me were a clear spring day, warm enough for me to end was the smaller of the two ends at not those coming from the other three question the wisdom of wearing my beige, Hillsborough, with a shallow bank of sides of the ground, but the breathing zip-up bomber jacket. terracing split into pens located below a and groaning and rising voices in my We shouldn’t have been there, really; single tier of covered seats. To our left was immediate vicinity — and the banging a pair of 18-year-old middle class boys the North Stand, also slowly filling with of my heartbeat in my ears. from London, seeing out their last months Liverpool fans. Nottingham Forest had We were bending forwards, legs, arms of sixth form. We couldn’t believe we were. been given the old-fashioned South Stand and necks at strange angles. As the pressure All we needed to do now was to swap and vast Spion Kop at the other end, one kept coming from behind us, I was finding our tickets. The bar manager at the sports of the biggest roofed terraces in Britain, it hard to maintain a firm footing. My coat club where I worked at weekends had despite the fact their average home was being taken off me by the crowd and come through, wangling me a pair of seats attendance was far smaller than I can remember keeping a tight grip on one through a contact, but they were seats in Liverpool’s. The ground had been divided cuff. There was nowhere to go; we were the South Stand, which had been allocated the same way the year before when hemmed in by fences on three sides and to Nottingham Forest. As Liverpool fans, Liverpool had beaten Forest 2-1 at the the concrete wall behind us. People were there was only one place to be, and that corresponding stage of the competition. shouting, trying to hold each other up. A was standing behind the goal at the Maybe it was a lucky omen. man to our right had fainted and was being Liverpool end. Our pen continued to fill up, but supported by two lads who, like the rest “Leppings Lane Standing — Liverpool I noticed there was plenty of space on the of us, had no means to support themselves. Area.” No row, no seat, £6. Swap made, terracing to each side of us. In the corners, Someone near the front managed to we were through the turnstile by 2pm, the crash barriers and concrete of the climb up above the crowd, and was heading into a concrete concourse area steps were still visible — unusual given shouting at the police on the other side of and then, without thinking, down the only that Liverpool’s allocation of tickets could the perimeter fence. The game was now access point that presented itself: the have been sold twice over. underway, but something was clearly and tunnel, under a big sign on the back of the By the time the teams came out to seriously wrong. We were being squeezed stand that said “Standing”. After a few warm up it was uncomfortably hot where tighter and tighter, and people were dozen quick strides, we emerged into the we were. Phil and I had been standing by now going over the fence at the front. light and the cigarette smoke and smells side by side, but the force of the crowd There seemed to be dozens, and then of men packed together. Levering was making it difficult to stay together. hundreds of fans in the narrow space ourselves into a decent “spec”, to the right Sweat was starting to seep through my between the front of the terrace and of the radial fence that divided the steps shirt so I motioned to Phil to suggest that the touchline at Bruce Grobbelaar’s goal. behind the goal into two small pens, we People were passing out, but the police were far enough back to be able to see over officers at the fence still did nothing. the inverted, mesh fence at the front. At the other end of the pitch, Peter It was busy in our enclosure, but we Beardsley’s effort came back off the bar. were in and that was the main thing. The We were so tightly A second later, as the noise in the stand THOSE WHO atmosphere was up and there was time to above us rose, the heaving mass seemed to packed that rib cages drink in the occasion. Even at the tail end spasm. We were being bent forwards of a decade that had seen English football were denied the space further, so tightly packed that rib cages sink to its lowest ebb, blighted by crowd were denied the space to expand as well as violence, mismanagement and neglect, to expand contract. With our arms either linked, or XEVER an FA Cup semi-final on a neutral ground grabbing on to clothes or hands, it was as was an occasion to savour. It is generally if we were being crucified. More and more a match that only those who have season people were climbing on the fence. Those tickets, attend regular home matches or we try to move nearer the front of the who had got out were trying to kick it have friends in the right places can be at. terrace. The view wouldn’t be as good down. After a few minutes, a fan ran on CAME HOMW I had managed one previous semi- — the fences would obscure the pitch and the pitch, then a policeman, and the Twenty years after being pulled from the fatal final, in 1986, spending my savings to there would be less perspective of the play referee decided to take the players off. answer a tout’s ad in a London evening — but at least we’d be out of a mass that “Open the fucking gate!” “Fucking do crush at Hillsborough, Dan Davies recalls paper. Phil and I had both been at was beginning to move through no choice something, will yer?” “Can’t you see? the day the worst disaster in British football led Wembley in May 1988 though, to watch of its own. There were no obvious There are people dying in here!” to the brutal death of 96 of his fellow fans the best Liverpool team in years lose 1-0 openings and, in any case, there was no to Wimbledon in the biggest upset in the prospect of ducking down because we had I met phil in my first week at secondary history of the FA Cup final. It was a team by now lost our independence in the crush. school. We bonded over a shared love ™ that included John Barnes, Peter Beardsley Twenty increasingly tense minutes of Liverpool FC; a pair of 11-year-old boys and Alan Hansen. Even by the standards later, the uplift in noise when the teams in ridiculous red blazers reciting games 002 | esquire | may 2009 may 2009 | esquire | 003 feature | hillsborough feature | hillsborough and line-ups and scorers while we figured than me, seemed to be fine in the crush; advertising hoardings that had been confirming a death toll that was now in each other out. Phil supported Liverpool I spent most of the game facing the ripped from the stands; six, sometimes its teens and rising. Long queues formed because his big brother did. I didn’t have electronic scoreboard behind us, having eight men to a hoarding, running through at phone boxes. People were quick to tell a big brother. I had Huw, the Welsh Men were bent over been turned by the force of the crowd. the chaos to the corner between the their friends and loved ones they were kid who lived next door when I was five. the balcony, furiously Not that I minded — being packed in North Stand and the Spion Kop. Applause alive before passing on to the next in line. He supported Liverpool, and that was together behind the goal, being part of rang out above the stricken din. Local residents opened their doors to good enough for me. dragging fans up from something bigger, was what it had become People had died. The whispers strangers with fear on their faces, offering At primary school I had wanted to for us. Classic glory-hunters, I suppose. confirmed what we were seeing and them cups of tea and the chance to be Terry McDermott. I loved his goals. the terrace below spread through the seats. Panic seemed call home. I loved the way he fixed his shin pads in I cannot clearly recall how I managed to be rippling around Hillsborough.