Hillsborough does not forget. And in Liverpool you no longer read the Sun

The Liverpool crest is a little gem among the logos of the sports and football world. Founded in 1892, the red club of Liverpool in 1901 adopts the Liver Bird as its idenditary symbol, the mythological bird meta cormorant meta eagle reproduced in two bronze statues that soar on the majestic towers of the city hall.
Over the decades, the team crest has undergone changes; today, however, we see the Liver Bird inside a shield, while at the top stands the gate of the Anfield stadium dedicated to the historic coach Bill Shankly and the words You’ll Never Walk Alone (You will never walk alone), which is also the title of the official anthem. The gaze, however, lingers on the sides of the shield: there are two flames, two braziers and they are in memory of the victims of the Hillsborough massacre.

Fifteen April 1989. The FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest is scheduled at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. As many as 96 Liverpool fans lose their lives crushed, trampled, in one of the most terrible accidents in sporting history.94 dead, plus a boy who died four days later in hospital and another four years later, when an artificial respirator was removed. That’s how:

The Liverpool fans had been assigned the Leppings Lane, sector to the left of the central grandstand, which contained 14,600 seats, leaving the Nottingham Forest fans, who normally had less followed, the larger opposite curve, the “Spion Kop End”, which it had 21,000 seats. Thousands of Reds fans stormed Sheffield, in the joyful atmosphere typical of a cup semi-final in English football, to support their favorites: in addition to the prestige that the FA Cup has always had in English football and the rivalry that existed between the two supporters, added to the fact that at the time the English clubs were excluded from the European Cups following the Heysel massacre,

Leppings Lane had just 6 entrances (compared to over 60 in the sector reserved for Nottingham Forest fans) and the influx to the stands proceeded very slowly (just half an hour before kick-off the sector was still half empty) . Fifteen minutes from the start, the mass of people pressing outside the stadium was still huge, so the police think about opening “Gate C”, a large steel gate placed at the entrance to a tunnel that led inside the stadium. Leppings Lane and side entrances.
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The idea turned out to be catastrophic: with only a few minutes left before the kick-off, the fans still outside the stadium began to crowd at Gate C of Leppings Lane which access only to the central part of the curve, the capacity of which was limited to 2,000 seats; so, while this sector of the curve begins to fill up beyond belief, the tide of people who continued to pour in from Gate C find themselves locked inside a sort of funnel. In short, the spectators who were already inside Leppings Lane were crushed towards the side walls and the fences that divided the stands from the field (particularly resistant because they were designed to withstand any charges from the hooligans,
While panic was unleashed in the curve, the race started regularly, without anyone on the pitch and in the other sectors of the stadium having noticed what was happening in the Liverpool corner. In reality, those who, to avoid being crushed, had climbed over the grating that separated Leppings Lane from the pitch. Moreover, not having understood what was really happening, the police took the initiative to intervene with charges aimed at preventing the fans from invading the field.
The situation, if possible, thus became even more dramatic for the fans who, on the one hand were crushed by the crowd that had arisen behind them, on the other were opposed by the police who prevented them from opening escape routes. Only after a few tragic minutes did the police realize the real reason for the invasion and opened the bars, finally giving Liverpool fans a chance to reach the pitch. But then, with Leppings Lane less full, everyone began to realize how terrible the scale of the drama was.

It was then that the referee suspended the game. It was 15.07 . Seven minutes from the starting whistle. Football, banality granted, has not forgotten. Liverpool has not forgotten. Steven Gerrard, historic captain “Reds”, one born in Whiston in Merseyside, has not forgotten. Because his cousin died in that tragedy . And because about that tragedy, the tabloids, especially the Sun , have been spitting on it since the next day. “Some fans themselves have robbed the victims. Some have urinated on their bodies “, reads the front page with a lot of strillonaggio headline:” THE TRUTH “.
A phony investigation, wanted by the Conservative government, wanted by Thatcher. A looting that offended the relatives of the victims and of all those who, until the end, pushed for the “true truth”. Reborn in 2012 after a popular petition forced the government to reopen the practice. It emerged that many of the responsibilities are attributable to the wickedness of the police, that the doctors also took blood from the children to confirm the alcoholic thesis and that many people could still be saved, but instead were hastily declared dead from irreversible asphyxiation.
After 23 years, the Sun has apologized. But in pubs and newsstands with a Scouse accent, the Sun is no longer read … since April 15, 1989.
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