My partner is American, from a tiny town on Long Island, NY. Met her 10 years ago and she had no idea about football - had never heard of Messi... (I know, I know)...
Through me she became at first 'interested' in Liverpool - the club - and then educating her about the club, the city, the values, the history, etc. Hillsborough is obviously high on the list.
Americans - that I know - have a huge distrust in all their governments and instinctively disbelieve them in virtually everything they say and do, its ingrained in them, but even she became so angry and disillusioned about the entire process it took ahold of her. Researching, trying to help in any way possible, up all hours looking at facts and tales for months and months. By extension of this her immediate family also became (I cannot think of the right word for this), fascinated with the entire scandal.
She is a teacher at a school on Long Island, and dedicated classes to extremely bewildered children about the entire disaster and subsequent cover up. When I would travel over to see her, if I went to her school, random 12 year old kids I have never met would be asking me 'why were they saying people like me we drunk', 'why did the firefighters not help' (firefighters are their ambulances there), and a million other questions we have all asked over the years. I often felt embarrassed or a fraud as I felt I had no right to be a 'spokesperson' or sounding board etc.
Quick side note, one of her former students is in our U23's, I met him a few times, maybe it's common knowledge or I am naive, but they get educated on the entire story of Hillsborough relatively early in to their induction - or at least he did. Which I was happy to find out.
Towards the start of the most recent court case, I flew over to see her, I met her at her parents and they had all been discussing what may happen, what could happen, what should happen, what will happen if this happens, what will they do if they can't do this and so on...
In that moment it made me realise that one person, one family, 3000 miles removed, who lost nobody, and had never even seen a game of football and had no affiliation to the city, the club, the sport, even the country just 2 years earlier become so tired and worn out with it all... so HOW on earth did the families have the fight, the energy, the dignity, the will, the resilience, the power and the strength to fight for all those years and years and years, I cannot comprehend it. I cannot process it, still. They are an inspiration to everyone. I do not have the vocabulary to express my respect for them.
I am not from the city. I support Liverpool because my then sisters boyfriend took me to Anfield for the memorial in the days after the disaster, I was 5 I had no clue what was happening, but the feeling in the city, the stadium and the communities those days stuck with me for life and despite my Arsenal supporting family trying everything, I was a Red.
Over the years I spent countless days, weeks, months in the city, with scousers, in Liverpool, and had a few opportunities over the years to meet some of the families, albeit briefly. I have also met people that suffered in/after the 9/11 disasters, and the two places and people do share similarities. Loyalty, fight, strength, compassion, community. I strongly believe if Hillsborough was any other club, in any other city, with any other set of 'families', with any other set of fans, the cover up would have worked and the scumbags would have never had a single question to answer.
God bless the families and their inspirational fight for what they got. Vindication.
I don't know how they did it, but they did.