You can't miss it. On the west side of Anfield Stadium, in Liverpool, stands the memorial to the victims of the Hillsborough disaster – fresh flowers, an eternal flame and 97 names engraved on red marble. There is a constant flow of visitors, from local residents and schoolchildren to tourists, who stop to pay their respects after taking a selfie in front of the statue of Bob Paisley, the legendary Liverpool FC manager, or buying a club shirt.

Thirty-five years on, the memory of the "97" lives on in the fabric of the city. Supporters, victims' families and survivors have forgotten nothing of that day, and what came after, and the wounds are still raw.

It was April 15, 1989, at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, two hours' drive from Liverpool. Thousands of Liverpool FC supporters had come to watch the FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest. Hundreds of them, slowed down by too few entry points into the stadium, arrived late at Leppings Lane, an already packed standing terrace, resulting in massive overcrowding. Many were trampled on and suffocated in the minutes after the match began. Others were left to die on the pitch due to a lack of medical assistance. With 96 dead – and one victim, Andrew Devine, dying in 2021 as a result of injuries sustained on the day, according to the coroner – and more than 760 injured, the tragedy was the worst in British sporting history.

Two-tier justice

England's Football Association should never have chosen a stadium with such poor safety standards. Meanwhile, South Yorkshire police, then led by a commissioner inexperienced in major sporting events, made the mistake of directing hundreds of fans into already full pens. However, the police almost immediately blamed the fans for the tragedy, accusing them of having had too much to drink and causing the stampede by trying to force their way into the stadium.

The UK media, with tabloid newspaper The Sun leading the way, zeroed in on this version of events, portraying the fans as hooligans. The lie was easily bought. At the time, violence was endemic at football stadiums. Four years earlier, in Brussels, a stampede caused by English hooligans before a Liverpool-Juventus match in the European Cup final had resulted in 39 deaths at Heysel Stadium.

But none of this was the case in Sheffield, where there was no question of hooliganism. In 1991, an initial judicial inquiry concluded that the deaths were "accidental." However, the victims' families refused to leave it at that. They wanted the courts to re-examine the facts and establish who was responsible. In 2014, a second investigation was launched. In 2016, the verdict was delivered: the deaths were not accidental, the police had contributed to the tragedy, and the supporters had done nothing wrong.

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