THERE ARE very few days in your life that you can remember clearly 20 years later. On April 15, 1989 I played in an FA Cup semi-final for Everton against Norwich City.
Having spent nearly £1m on me at the start of the season and having missed three months already with a cruciate ligament injury, I was desperate to start paying my way for the Toffees. You will not have seen it, no-one did. We won 1-0, I scored th
e goal, the most important of my career, we played exceptionally well and walking off the sunbathed Villa Park I knew that I had rarely felt so happy, relieved or exhilarated in my life. Two minutes later our jubilant fans, my team-mates and I were plunged into the depths of despair.
As the news filtered through about what had happened in the other semi-final at Hillsborough, at first it simply felt impossible, unreal. Trying to compute the enormity of the awful events on what had been for us a blissful afternoon just didn't make sense. The faces of the journalists who first informed us in the corridor were a shock in themselves; by the time I got to the dressing room our backroom staff, Scousers to a man, were desolate and then it began to sink in. The champagne corks never popped, victory songs were never sung. We dressed quietly and left to join the rest of the nation in shock.
My next clear memory is two days later driving back down to Liverpool from Scotland where I had been visiting family. The streets of the city were like a bad horror movie. People were walking about aimlessly, every bridge had folk standing on their own looking lost and bereft. Others just sat in any random open space alone with their thoughts.
I felt that the final, whoever progressed, should be cancelled and a blank space left on the old trophy as a reminder that football wasn't after all as important as life or death. The following days were, if anything, even worse as players from both Everton and Liverpool attended the funerals of the young and the old. I went to six, each one a trauma, but couldn't imagine how the Liverpool lads who had been on the pitch on the day could do the same. In most cases they attended many more. The memories of what the bereaved went through still haunt anyone who was there.
In the midst of it all there were moments that did restore your faith in football and humanity. Walking on to Anfield with the rest of the Everton squad when the pitch was covered with a huge carpet of flowers and then being respectfully applauded was truly moving. Maybe this should have alerted us to what the reaction would be from the families of the dead when football inevitably had to start up again.
I expected anger, resentment and hatred towards the game, at least for a while, from those who had lost their loved ones. I certainly didn't expect them to demand that Liverpool FC should carry on in the tournament, play that cursed tie again and try to win the cup in their memory. They all seemed to be saying that their lost brothers, daughters, fathers, sons and friends had loved football, had loved their club so much that the only fitting memorial would be for Kenny Dalglish's team to go on and win it. I have always loved the game, but I know I never loved it that much: their attitude was inspirational.
In hindsight it was, of course, the right thing to do, a chance for the city to grieve and celebrate together. It was an all-Merseyside final that turned into a classic, Liverpool winning 3-2 after extra time. It was not only the right decision to play, it was also the right result, even if I was playing on the other side. Everyone involved in the tragedy, and that means every football fan in the country, had to live with the consequences. The game had to change, after a decade that had also witnessed Heysel, Bradford and the culture of the vile hooligans who had hijacked the sport; it had to change or it too would die and at that moment many would not have mourned its passing.
During that 1989 cup final at Wembley, the fences that had caged the fans, the same ones that had contributed to the deaths of those 96 people, were taken down in respect. It isn't often reported but the fans invaded the pitch at various points. It was never in anger, only to celebrate goals, but it underlined that even in the immediate aftermath of such tragedy, fans couldn't control themselves or see the hollow irony of their actions. Maybe this is why those of us who had any personal involvement still feel incredibly uncomfortable about going back to standing terraces. I understand the game has lost some atmosphere in places and that other countries have developed safer versions of terracing. But is any risk, however small, worth taking when you consider the disasters that have happened and are still happening around the globe when you bring together large numbers of exuberant fans?
Living in the area during the next few years I continued to marvel at how the Liverpudlians coped with what they had been through. For derby games at Anfield and Goodison, the fans were still intermingling with not even the slightest suggestion of trouble. The city seemed to grow closer after Hillsborough but for me one of the saddest things to happen in the intervening years is that the bond between the clubs has broken down.
The Taylor report led to all-seater stadiums and, with the advent of stricter segregation and season tickets for seats that couldn't be moved, the blues and reds of Merseyside could no longer be shoulder to shoulder on derby day. In a classic case of ignorance breeding fear, that enforced segregation has slowly but surely led to something approaching hatred by many.
This week, however, both will look back to another time, one that was certainly not better, but one when the city came together, when the position of football was shown to be more important than many of us had previously thought. A time that should never be forgotten, not only for the terrible things that happened but also for the understanding and humanity that came out of the other side.
The full article contains 1100 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
