Liverpool FC Forum

by **stmichael** » Sat May 29, 2004 3:28 pm

Nineteen years ago today, 39 football supporters died watching Liverpool play Juventus in the European Cup. It is a day no football fan should ever forget.
At 3.06pm on April 15th each year, thousands of Liverpool fans all over the world take a moment or two out from their everyday lives to stop and remember the 96 supporters who died at the Hillsborough stadium disaster in 1989.

It's the saddest day of the year for many Liverpool supporters. However, it's not the only day when many fans stop for a moment to think of a large group of football supporters who went to a match only never to return.

If April 15th is the saddest day in the club's history, May 29th is surely the lowest. Nineteen years ago today (May 29), 39 football fans died when a wall collapsed at the Heysel stadium in Belgium. What should have been one of the greatest nights in the club's history turned into a nightmare. Instead of leaving Brussels having seen our team lift a fifth European Cup, Liverpool supporters travelled back to England having witnessed the deaths of 38 Italians and one Belgian.

Liverpool had objected to the choice of ground to stage the final well before the friendly banter outside the stadium began to turn nasty inside. Aside from the fact that the stadium appeared to be crumbling, Liverpool's main concern was that there was to be a neutral section of the ground set aside for football fans from Belgium. The club argued that only Liverpool and Juventus should be allocated tickets. Setting aside a neutral area would only lead to both sets of fans being able to buy tickets off Belgium touts thus creating a dangerous mixed area. As history has since proved, this neutral area was soon filled with Italian supporters.

As tempers became frayed inside the ground about an hour before kick off, both sets of fans baited each other through a segregating fence made from chicken wire. After a sustained period of missiles raining down on the Reds end, some Liverpool fans charged at their Italian counterparts and as chaos took over, Juventus fans fled only for a wall blocking their escape to collapse on top of them. Thirty-nine football supporters died where they fell.

Later that night, Juventus won the European Cup 1-nil. It's a match nobody wants to remember.

Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool's greatest ever player, will never forget what happened in Belgium though.

"I can't condone the action of some Liverpool fans but it is difficult not to react when the opposing supporters are throwing missiles at you," recalls Dalglish. "The fact that fatalities might result wouldn't have occurred to the Liverpool fans when they ran across. If you have been pelted by stones the year before, and suffered badly, you are not going to accept it again. That's how the trouble started."

Dalglish admits that it wasn't until the following morning that the Liverpool players finally realised exactly what had happened inside the stadium.

"We saw the Italian fans crying, and they were banging on the side of our bus when we left the hotel," he recalls. "When we left Brussels, the Italians were angry, understandably so; 39 of their friends had died. We needed a lot of police to protect the bus. I remember well one Italian man, who had his face right up against the window where I was sitting. He was crying and screaming. You feel for anybody who loses someone in those circumstances.

"You go along to watch a game. You don't go along expecting that sort of ending, do you? Football's not that important. No game of football is worth that. Everything else pales into insignificance. Juventus fans should not have been throwing stones. Liverpool fans should not have reacted the way they did. Yet neither set of supporters could have anticipated the terrible outcome. If they had foreseen the dreadful consequences, or thought what terrible things might unfold, I'm sure the stones would never have been thrown by the Italians and that the English retaliation would never have occurred. Every single one of them, both Italian and English, must have regretted it. I'm sure they still do now."

Peter Robinson, the club's executive vice chairman at the time, had warned of the potential for disaster if the game was played at Heysel. He was unfortunately proved right. "It's a horror story that one has to live with," he says now.

May 29 is a day of remembrance for both Juventus and Liverpool supporters. Think for a minute about those who lost their lives at Heysel and pray it never happens again.

RIP 39

by **murphy0151** » Sat May 29, 2004 3:40 pm

RIP 39

YNWA

by **greenred** » Sat May 29, 2004 9:16 pm

Your right,that was the lowest day in LFC history,Juventus as well.If only it hadnt happened,how different the last nineteen years might have been.

by **Stan Laurel** » Sat May 29, 2004 9:24 pm

Yeah, I remember that time when I was so young, it was awful.

Rest in Peace 39.

by **chiggz_likes_owen** » Sat May 29, 2004 10:09 pm

God Bless

by **supersub** » Sat May 29, 2004 10:13 pm

We should never allow events like these to fade from memory.
My story of that night can wait for some other time,but it still rankles with me that the authorities shifted any responsibility away from themselves.What was a great day in Brussels,turned into the scariest night of my life.

rest in peace

Liverpool FC Forum

Heysel anniversary - Rip 39!

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