Heysel 30 years on

A few days ago, I heard a documentary on the BBC World Service commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Heysel Stadium disaster. It was something of a shock to realise how much time had elapsed since I'd watched that terrible event on television, but it also brought back some personal memories.

I'm not much interested in football, but my father was a lifelong fan of Liverpool FC. He'd go to every home match and away game that his job and circumstances permitted, and when his work took him abroad, as it did a lot, he'd listen to crackly commentaries on the short wave radio.

In 1985, he was seriously ill, but was still looking forward to watching the European Cup Final between Juventus and Liverpool. My mother and I decided to watch the match with him. The horrendous events began to unfold before our eyes: bodies being carried away on makeshift stretchers, a Juventus fan brandishing a pistol, crowds swirling and hostile fans facing each other, or fleeing from each other. Watching it on the TV, I found it impossible to work out who was to blame.

As the situation went from bad to worse, sports commentators found themselves having to report and comment on something way outside their field of expertise. They came out with all the insights and clichés you'd expect from an opinionated pub bore. Asked what they thought should be done, one replied that we should bring back corporal punishment, another said national service. Some felt more aggressive methods of crowd control should be brought in to deal with the 70s and 80s scourge of football hooliganism. All to a man condemned Liverpool fans out of hand. When a group of Juventus fans displayed a large banner stating "Liverpool animals", one said something to the effect that they were showing what they thought of the behaviour of the Liverpool fans. It occurred to none of them that you cannot conjure up such a banner out of nothing: it must have been prepared before the match with the aim of being provocative. None of them at the time ever mentioned the Juventus fan with the pistol whom I had clearly seen on the TV. So intent were they on blaming Liverpool fans that they ignored or failed to notice any fault in the opposing supporters. One even mourned the damage to the "beautiful Heysel stadium".

Then came the most extraordinary event of the whole night: UEFA ordered the teams to play the game. In a stadium from which they were still removing 39 dead bodies and tending to hundreds of the the injured, they had to play a game of football. I felt it was the most extreme example of getting your priorities wrong that I'd ever witnessed, and I still do. Although disgusted with the decision, I watched the match, willing Liverpool to win for my father's sake, but the final score was 1-0 to Juventus.

It was the last football match my father ever watched, and he died in the following month. I still regret that my father's lifelong support for Liverpool FC should end this way.

Aftermath: for several years, English football fans, Liverpool fans in particular, were pariahs in Europe. Then gradually, it was recognised that the Liverpool fans were not wholly to blame. The "beautiful" stadium turned out to decrepit, two police officers and the head of the Belgian FA were prosecuted as well as 26 Liverpool fans and gradually a slightly more balanced view of the disaster emerged. The selling of tickets in the Liverpool part of the stadium to Juventus fans had been the height of irresponsibility, but oddly enough, in their haste to condemn Liverpool fans, none of our sports commentators had thought it worth mentioning on the night.

Unfortunately, the view of football fans as drunken, out-of-control, feral hooligans led to increasingly oppressive methods of crowd control, and fans being caged in to keep rival supporters apart. And that directly takes us to the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989 where those very cages led to 96 more deaths. Because of the low opinion of football supporters, and so powerful were the voices of the politicians, the police, the football authorities and - the biggest culprit of all - the Sun that the official lies were accepted for years afterwards.

And what were moronic sports journalists saying? I clearly recall reading suggestions that Hillsborough was some kind of retribution for Heysel: I didn't think my opinion of sports commentators could sink any lower, but I was wrong.

I'm still not much interested in football, but I feel strongly about both of these disasters because of the terrible injustices imposed upon ordinary people. Yes, some Liverpool fans behaved disgracefully at Heysel, but many of the deaths were caused by the collapse of walls that were already crumbling. I've seen no evidence that any fan arrived in that stadium with murder in mind. The wholesale vilification of Liverpool fans after Heysel paved the way for the swallowing of the lies told about Hillsborough, which is how one disaster paved the way for the cover-ups and injustices of another. Only now, 26 years later, is the truth - of Hillsborough at least - finally coming out.