I’d been with them to the same fixture at the same ground (with both sets of supporters allocated the same sections of the stadium) the year before and that had been a great occasion, even though Liverpool won 2-1 I had to admit they were brilliant, as had the whole day out. The Forest lads were full of confidence that this year they would beat Liverpool and reach the F A Cup Final. I was also hoping to see my hated rivals, the all-conquering Liverpool turned over of course. I was a Manchester United supporter, a Stretford Ender who jumped at the chance when Paul said he had a spare ticket, addicted to the buzz, excitement and atmosphere that was generated at a big football match. There were five of us in the car: Paul, Mark and Byrnie, who were Forest supporters, and Dave, a Liverpool fan. Saturday morning, a car horn pips outside the house – my mates picking me up for the drive to Sheffield. Hundreds of fans fell down the steps, leaving sixty-six people suffocated or trampled to death. I read about how there had been a crush on stairway 13 near the end of a match between Glasgow Rangers and Celtic. The headline was from the Ibrox Stadium disaster. I turned the page, 1971, and there was a photocopy of a newspaper headline printed on the page: SOCCER DISASTER…66 die in big match panic.’ I was up to 1970, and Brazil’s victory in the World Cup Final. Kelly, a book about newspaper coverage of football from 1900 to 1988. I put the book down, and picked up Back Page Football by Stephen F. Next to the other two stands it looks ordinary, but the view it provides is excellent, as are its facilities….a visit to Hillsborough on a crisp autumn afternoon remains one of the quintessential joys of English sport.’ I opened up Simon Inglis’s The Football Grounds of Great Britain to read the section on Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough Stadium, where the following day’s semi-final was to be held: ‘Hillsborough is a stadium with all the grand connotations the term implies…To the left is the West Stand, with 4465 seats in an upper tier, and open terraces in front. I took two football books – which I had bought earlier that year – down off a shelf. Saturday out with the lads, drinking a few beers, going to a big football match. Last year on the retirement of Alex Ferguson Tony Hill wrote an article for us describing going to match at United back in Fergie’s early days, when the knives were out for him, and Madchester was happening in the city.įriday afternoon and I was sat at home excitedly looking forward to the next day, the sort of day I loved.
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