The Hillsborough Disaster was a human crush that occurred on 15 April, 1989, at Hillsborough, a football stadium, the home of Sheffield Wednesday F.C. in Sheffield, England, resulting in the deaths of 96 people[1], all fans of Liverpool F.C. It remains the deadliest stadium-related disaster in British history and one of the worst in international football.[2] It was the second of two stadium-related disasters to feature Liverpool supporters, the other being the Heysel Stadium Disaster in 1985.

The match was an FA Cup semi-final clash between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. It was abandoned six minutes into the game.

The inquiry into the disaster, the Taylor Report, named the cause as failure of police control, and resulted in the conversion of many football stadiums in the United Kingdom to all-seater and the removal of barriers at the front of stands.

As one of the most remarkable tragedies in football history, it remains symbolic for fans, as can be seen by large remembrance ceremonies as well as fan friendship events connected to it. During the 20th anniversary year of 2009, some controversial media coverage occurred, mostly resulting in earnest apologies.



At the time, most United Kingdom football stadia had placed high steel fencing between the spectators and the pitch, in response to hooliganism which had plagued the sport for several years.[3] Hooliganism was particularly virulent in England, where it often involved pitch invasions, the throwing of missiles, or both pre and post-match violence; the Heysel Stadium Disaster is a prominent example, where Liverpool fans themselves were involved.[citation needed] Because of these security standards, English stadia had a history of crushes since the 1960s.[4][clarification needed]

Hillsborough Stadium was a regular venue for FA Cup semi-finals during the 1980s, hosting a total of five. A previous crush had occurred in the same stand during the 1981 semi-final between Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers, causing 38 injuries.[4][clarification needed] This prompted Sheffield Wednesday to alter the design of the Leppings Lane end, dividing it into three separate pens. This was further divided into five pens when Wednesday was promoted to the First Division in 1984.[5] Liverpool and Nottingham Forest had also met at the semi-final stage of the same competition at the same ground the previous year with many Liverpool fans reporting crushing in the Leppings Lane end, leading to Liverpool FC lodging a complaint prior to the 1989 FA Cup Semi-Final.



As is usual at all important matches, Hillsborough was segregated between the opposing fans. The police chose to put the Nottingham Forest fans in the Spion Kop End of the ground, which had a capacity of 21,000. The Liverpool supporters were assigned to the Leppings Lane End of the stadium, which could only hold 14,600 fans, even though Liverpool were regarded as having a larger support than Nottingham Forest.[6] Kick-off was scheduled for 3:00 pm, with fans advised to take up their positions[7] fifteen minutes beforehand. On the day of the match both radio and television advised that supporters without tickets should not attend.

It was reported that fans had been delayed by unannounced roadworks on the M62 motorway over the Pennines and the resulting road congestion. Between 2:30 pm and 2:40 pm, there was a considerable build-up of fans in the small area outside the turnstile entrances to the Leppings Lane End, all eager to enter the stadium quickly before the match started.[8] A bottleneck developed with more fans arriving than could enter the two cages set in the middle of the Leppings Lane Stand. People who had been refused entry could not leave the area because of the crush behind them but remained as an obstruction. The fans outside could hear the cheering from inside as the teams came on the pitch ten minutes before the match started, and again as the match kicked-off, but could not get in; the start was not delayed while the fans got in. A side gate was opened to ease the build up. With an estimated 5,000 fans trying to get through the turnstiles, and increasing security concerns over crushing outside the turnstiles, the police, to avoid deaths outside the ground, opened a set of gates, intended as an exit, which did not have turnstiles (Gate C).[9] This caused a rush of supporters through the gate into the stadium.



The result was that an influx of many thousands of fans through a narrow tunnel at the rear of the terrace, and into the two already overcrowded central pens, caused a huge crush at the front of the terrace, where people were being pressed up against the fencing by the weight of the crowd behind them. The people entering were unaware of the problems at the fence; police or stewards would normally have stood at the entrance to the tunnel if the central pens had reached capacity, and would have directed fans to the side pens, but on this occasion they did not, for reasons which have never been fully explained.

For some time, the problem at the front was not noticed by anybody other than those affected; the attention of most people was absorbed by the match, which had already begun. It was not until 3:06 pm that the referee, Ray Lewis, after being advised by the police, stopped the match several minutes after fans had started climbing the fence to escape the crush. By this time, a small gate in the fencing had been forced open and some fans escaped via this route; others continued to climb over the fencing, and still other fans were pulled to safety by fellow fans in the West Stand directly above the Leppings Lane terrace. Finally the fence broke under pressure of people.


Liverpool fans desperately try to climb the fence onto the safety of the pitchFans were packed so tightly in the pens that many died standing up of compressive asphyxia. The pitch quickly started to fill with people sweating and gasping for breath and injured by crushing, and with the bodies of the dead. The police, stewards and ambulance service present at the stadium were overwhelmed. Uninjured fans helped as best they could, many attempting CPR and some tearing down advertising hoardings (billboards) to act as makeshift stretchers.

As these events unfolded, some police officers were still being deployed to make a cordon three-quarters of the way down the pitch, with the aim of preventing Liverpool supporters reaching the Nottingham Forest supporters at the opposite end of the stadium. Some fans tried to break through the police cordon to ferry injured supporters to waiting ambulances, and were forcibly turned back. (44 ambulances had arrived at the stadium, but police prevented all but one from entering, and that one was forced to turn back due to the vast number of people who needed help).



A total of 94 people died on the day, with 766 other fans being injured and around 300 being taken to hospital. Four days later, the death toll reached 95 when 14-year-old Lee Nicol died at the hospital from his injuries. The final death toll became 96 in March 1993, when Tony Bland died after remaining in a persistent vegetative state for nearly four years.

BBC Television's cameras were at the ground to record the match for their Match of the Day programme, but as the disaster unfolded the events were then relayed to their live sports show, Grandstand, resulting in an extreme emotional impact on the general British population. There was commentary afterwards on television about the lack of administrable oxygen, metal-cutting tools, and that there was no way to get ambulances onto the pitch.

It was remarked that the Bradford City stadium fire would have caused many more casualties if there had been pitch-edge fences there like there were at Hillsborough and indeed many other stadia at the time.



There are these permanent memorials to the victims:

Flames were added either side of the Liverpool F.C. crest in memory of the 96 who lost their lives.
Alongside the Shankly Gates at Anfield, Liverpool's home stadium.
At Hillsborough stadium, set up in 1999.
A memorial stone in the pavement on the south side of Liverpool's Anglican cathedral.
A headstone at the junction of Middlewood Road, Leppings Lane and Wadsley Lane, near the ground and by the Sheffield Supertram route.
A Hillsborough Memorial Rose Garden in Port Sunlight, Wirral, Cheshire.
A memorial rose garden on Sudley Estate in South Liverpool (also known as the APH). Each of the six rose beds has a centre piece of a white standard rose, surrounded by the red variety, named ‘Liverpool Remembers’. There are brass memorial plaques on both sets of gates to the garden, and a sundial inscribed "Time Marches On But We Will Always Remember".
In the grounds of Crosby Library, to the memory of the 18 football fans from Sefton who lost their lives in the Hillsborough disaster. The memorial, sited in a raised rose bed containing the Liverpool Remembers red rose, is made of black granite. It is inscribed "In loving memory of the 95 football supporters who died at Hillsborough, Sheffield on 15 April 1989. Of those who lost their lives the following young men were from Sefton families:" The memorial was unveiled on 4 October, 1991 (before the final death toll reached 96 on the death of Tony Bland) by the Mayor of Sefton, Councillor Syd Whitby. The project was carried out by the Council after consultation with the Sefton Survivors Group.[15]



The tragedy has been acknowledged on 15 April each year by the community of Liverpool and football in general. An annual memorial ceremony is held at Anfield and at a church in Liverpool. The 10th and 20th anniversaries were marked by special services to remember the 96 victims.

It was really bad. Gerrards cousin was one of the people to be killed.

A schoolboy holds a leather ball
in a photograph on a bedroom wall
the bed is made, the curtains drawn
as silence greets the break of dawn.

The dusk gives way to morning light
revealing shades of red and white
which hang from posters locked in time
of the Liverpool team of 89.

Upon a pale white quilted sheet
a football kit is folded neat
with a yellow scarf, trimmed with red
and some football boots beside the bed.

In hope, the room awakes each day
to see the boy who used to play
but once again it wakes alone
for this young boy's not coming home.

Outside, the springtime fills the air
the smell of life is everywhere
viola's bloom and tulips grow
while daffodils dance heel to toe.

These should have been such special times
for a boy who'd now be in his prime
but spring forever turned to grey
in the Yorkshire sun, one April day.

The clock was locked on 3.06
as sun shone down upon the pitch
lighting up faces etched in pain
as death descended on Leppings Lane.

Between the bars an arm is raised
amidst a human tidal wave
a young hand yearning to be saved
grows weak inside this deathly cage.

A boy not barely in his teens
is lost amongst the dying screams
a body too frail to fight for breath
is drowned below a sea of death

His outstretched arm then disappears
to signal fourteen years of tears
as 96 souls of those who fell
await the toll of the justice bell.

Ever since that disastrous day
a vision often comes my way
I reach and grab his outstretched arm
then pull him up away from harm.

We both embrace with tear-filled eyes
I then awake to realise
its the same old dream I have each week
as I quietly cry myself to sleep.

On April the 15th every year
when all is calm and skies are clear
beneath a glowing Yorkshire moon
a lone scots piper plays a tune.

The tune rings out the justice cause
then blows due west across the moors
it passes by the eternal flame
then engulfs a young boy's picture frame.

His room is as it was that day
for twenty years its stayed that way
untouched and frozen forever in time
since that tragic day in 89.

And as it plays its haunting sound
tears are heard from miles around
they're tears from families of those who fell
awaiting the toll of the justice bell.

If the new stadium is built, 96 seats with the names of the bereaved written on them will be left empty each matchday.