Hillsborough, 24 Years On

Today at Anfield sees the Hillsborough Memorial Service take place. Time for us all to come together, wherever we are.

What would they be doing now? Raising kids? Turning over the garden after the winter? Planning their retirement? Wondering what next year’s Premiership season will bring?

We can only imagine. And their families can only dream.

Because the Hillsborough Tragedy isn’t really about then. It’s not about 3:06pm, or 3.15pm. It’s about now.

It’s not a chapter isolated in our city’s turbulent history. It’s about today - families without dads, brothers without sisters, mates without mates. Every Saturday, every day.

Because when justice is won, the only freedom it really delivers is the freedom to start the clocks again, not turn them back. The freedom to carry on, in a world where loved ones have been taken before their time.

Who’d want to be in the position to have to fight for such a prize? And what sort of person would force a grieving mother to endure such a long, agonising battle?

Questions, questions. We’ve had 24 years of them. And some answers are as elusive as ever.

Today’s annual service of remembrance at Anfield will be as powerful, and poignant, as ever.

But this year is special. It’s the first since the Hillsborough Independent Panel proved that the deaths of our friends, our families, and our neighbours were caused by unsafe grounds and the inadequate response of the emergency services. Distorted evidence. Doctored reports. And that, from the moment our 96 perished, we’ve seen nearly a quarter of a century of lies, cover-ups and disinterest - from Bettison to Blair, Duckinfield to MacKenzie.

Jenni Hicks, the mother of Sarah and Victoria Hicks, who were 19 and 15 respectively when they were killed at Hillsborough, speaks on a programme to be aired this week on Liverpool FC’s television channel.

“The first national disgrace was that 96 people died at a football match. The second was the lies and the cover-up. The third will be if they make the families fight for the accountability. Hopefully the correct verdict will be put in place, which for me will be that those 96 people were all unlawfully killed. This campaign isn’t about vengeance, it never has been. It’s about putting something very wrong right. It’s basically about enduring and unconditional love for our loved ones.”

The city’s new memorial monument - a 7ft (2.1m) bronze structure by the Queensway Tunnel entrance on Old Haymarket - features the words “Hillsborough Disaster - we will remember them”, along with the names of all 96 Liverpool FC supporters who died. It’s a fittingly dignified spot for a moment’s quiet reflection today, if you’re not at the stadium.

Alternatively, go visit spray artist Gecko’s wonderful Spray For Justice piece at the Museum of Liverpool (pic: Pete Carr). Gecko was moved to produce a piece of art to honour the memory of his friend Carl Brown who died at Hillsborough when he was 18.

“I didn’t want it to be too solem,” he tells us. “Not like a gravestone. I didn’t want cliches, and wanted everyone to be different. Individual.”

The numbers on each piece represent the ages of those taken from us.

For the loved ones who remain, the fight for justice continues with fresh inquests.

And when it’s over? They’ll have the rest of their lives to contemplate the raw pain and emptiness that quiet dignity really entails. And that’s the truth.

Our thoughts are with everyone affected.

Second pic: Mosaic by Alan Wynne (pic Pete Carr)