This time 25 years ago, on a day exactly like today, I was working my first proper day on Greaty market. I was due to go the game with me mate and his dad but decided to help Dave (me arl fellas mate) out on his new stall. I remember us doing really well and me being knackered because I hadn’t stopped, we had the radio on and I was regretting having not gone the match as the kick off approached.
I think we were starting to pack up as kick off arrived, and as we were back and forth loading up the van with what gear we had left, kick off came, someone shouted “mon you reds”, kick off went. Then you could tell something was wrong. I remember hearing the commentator mentioning a couple of reds running down to the Forrest end and ripping off advertising hoardings and thinking “ha, fucking nutters, what are they doing” and thinking that’s all it was and the game would resume.
By the time we got in the van to go home, I said as much to Dave, still not realising what was happening and he just told me to “shut it” as he turned up the radio and we both sat there, listening, neither able to speak. For how long, I couldn’t tell you. But we drove back to Kirkby like that. I remember looking out of his Transit van window as we came down Walton Hall Avenue onto the Lancs and seeing some kids on their bikes, having a laugh, messing about and enjoying the sun. I remember the juxtaposing of that happy image with the things I was hearing. It was then it really, properly, stabbed me.
When I arrived home me arl fella was sitting on the edge of the couch, eyes raw from the tears. And I lost it then too. We sat and watched Grandstand, the images, it was real.
I can’t recall if it was at this point or later images on the news that I saw one of my mates in the practically empty pen to the left, screaming at a police officer to open the gates in the central pen. It was unreal. If I’d have gone, I wouldn’t have been in the Leppings Lane end, I’d have been in the main stand, next to the police box. But for some reason, I felt something like what you would describe as guilt. I think I always have. I hate myself for it.
In the years that followed, much to my shame, I tried to forget Hillsborough and I wanted everyone else to do the same. That went on for many years, sadly, though I did anything I could for anyone of course, and I did my own little bits, here and there, but I just wanted people to let it go. Talk about putting your fucking head in the sand, if someone like me can be like that, it’s no wonder what the rest of the country thought all those years.
Thank fuck the families and friends and reds and everyone who joined the fight for justice, didn’t feel the same. I thank and love you all.
For my 96 brothers and sisters, you’ll never walk alone.
