My Liverpool Home (33 page)

Liverpool’s return to Hillsborough on 29 November was really difficult, really distressing. The whole occasion of the League game was very solemn, with wreaths laid before kick-off. We couldn’t get in and out quick enough. The players hardly covered themselves with glory and Wednesday deservedly won 2–0. I understood why the players’ hearts weren’t in it. They couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened the last time they were here. I sensed their discomfort before, during and after the game. The Leppings Lane End was empty and that made the atmosphere even more eerie. We fulfilled our obligations, took the defeat and sped home. I was in a car with Hansen, Stevie and Eleanor Nicol.

‘Gaffer, can we get some chips?’ asked Stevie, who loved chips.

‘Not tonight, Chico,’ I replied. ‘I just want to get home.’

Hillsborough continued to dominate our thoughts. When the Taylor Report recommended all-seater stadia, I understood why, but I also feared the working-class man might be priced out of football. Fans nowadays enjoy greater access to hospitality, more comfort and, touch wood, they feel safer, but all that comes at a cost. Somebody has to pay for all those magnificent facilities and it is the fan. Stepping through the turnstiles is an expensive move and football must be very, very careful that it doesn’t lose generations of supporters. When I was at Blackburn, we failed to sell out Ewood despite the team doing well, so the club, intelligently, let in local schoolkids for a quid. Anfield, Old Trafford and the Emirates do get sold out, so they don’t have the opportunity to do this. I worry that the younger generation will get out of the habit of going to the game and will go elsewhere.

My view of the police changed after Hillsborough. As a child I was brought up always to respect the police. My parents taught me the police were there to safeguard society, that they were good people doing a vital job and I should listen to anything they said. At Hillsborough, I felt no animosity towards the police as an institution, solely towards individual officers, including Duckenfield, who made mistakes and have still failed to admit responsibility for their calamitous decisions on 15 April 1989 and to apologise. The final death toll rose to 96 when Tony Bland’s life-support machine was switched off in 1992.

Everybody was scarred by events that dreadful day, some more deeply than others. Some policemen received compensation for stress suffered, but they never lost a loved one. They never went through the harrowing experience of having to identify their precious child’s lifeless body. It was wrong that only the police had their emotional wounds dressed when the families suffered more. When BBC
Grandstand
went live to Hillsborough that afternoon, the families were traumatised by the scenes they’d tuned in to. They were looking at the television pictures, searching for their sons, seeing them lying on the pitch, friends desperately trying to revive them. How shocking was that? Sitting at home watching was more distressing than being there at Hillsborough, where at least you could do something.

I still cannot understand why the authorities felt the police should get preferential treatment when it came to reparation. When somebody joins the police force, he or she must know and accept that stressful circumstances will be encountered. When somebody enters a football ground, that does not imply acceptance of possible threats to life and limb. The Establishment tried to protect itself. Any other club might have let it go but never Liverpool. The people have held on because they want closure, want somebody to hold up their hands and acknowledge their guilt. If the police accepted responsibility, the floodgates would open for compensation and that’s the big issue, the Establishment’s fear that the families will claim off the state. So the Establishment is going to block them. Trying to discover whether there was a cover-up has seemed an impossible task.

In the summer of 2000, Duckenfield was brought to court along with Bernard Murray, another police officer from Hillsborough. Murray was cleared of any wrongdoing while Duckenfield had no verdict against him. Any hopes of a retrial were scuppered by the judge. I always felt it was unfair that just two people were called to account. The whole system stank to me. Nobody had a personal vendetta against Duckenfield but the buck stopped with him. As the person in charge at Hillsborough, he had to face the wrath. The judge ruled that Duckenfield had suffered enough trauma, a verdict that wouldn’t have brought much sympathy from the families.

On the twentieth anniversary of the tragedy, Government minister Andy Burnham was heckled during the memorial service at Anfield, an incident that said everything about the enduring resentment on Merseyside over the authorities’ failure to alleviate the families’ suffering. I felt for Andy, a politician of principle, a local man and an Evertonian who understood that Hillsborough was a national scandal needing tackling. Andy was always part of the solution, not the problem within Government. Since Hillsborough, the grieving families were let down by politician after politician until Andy Burnham came along, promising justice and a proper investigation.

Later on that day, Andy spoke at the Town Hall, where the Hillsborough families were being inducted in the roll of honour for the City of Liverpool.

‘I have it on my agenda to get you access to the records earlier than you should,’ Andy told the families. At the time, Andy was minister for Culture, Media and Sport, giving him the power to release classified details of reports given to the first Hillsborough Inquiry.

That night at the Town Hall, Andy confided to me that some of the reports left a lot to be desired. ‘They are quite embarrassing,’ he said.

‘Andy, you spoke brilliantly and if you get those files opened for the families, I know how much it would mean. They just want to find out if there was a cover-up.’

Andy kept his word and it would be nice if he comes to the next Hillsborough memorial, in 2011, so people can apologise to him. In the spring of 2010, thanks to Andy Burnham, a panel was formed to examine these reports, a huge step forward in the fight for justice for the 96 who died at Hillsborough.

15

LEAVING HOME

D
EALING
with Hillsborough took a toll on me, physically and mentally. I can never say definitively that the tragedy was the reason for my resignation as Liverpool manager on 21 February 1991, but it played a part. Others suffered far more than I did, but I did feel incredibly drained. Stresses and strains dogged me during that period, tensing me up so much inside that my body broke out in blotches. Bottling up my emotions was deeply unhealthy. I never addressed issues, storing them up until eventually my system overloaded.

The pressure started building a year before Hillsborough, with the shock of the FA Cup final defeat by Wimbledon, and intensified some six weeks after the disaster with the game against Arsenal on Friday, 26 May, the last day of the 1989 season. When people talk about that remarkable match at Anfield as an epic moment in the history of football, I struggle to feel any pride or pleasure. I just feel pain. Anfield played host to a packed crowd of 41,718, tickets were like gold-dust and I was sure the television producers were licking their lips at the likely bumper viewing figures.

Privately, I was deeply unhappy about Liverpool being ordered to play on that Friday. The fixture had been scheduled for several weeks earlier, but the fixtures had been rescheduled and re-ordered after Hillsborough. I understood Liverpool–Arsenal offered the perfect showdown, a dream for ITV, but it was unfair on us. The League and ITV contributed to Liverpool losing the Double because they made our run-in too difficult. We beat Everton after two hours of draining football in the Cup final on the Saturday, grabbed a breather on the Sunday, took the Cup around the hospital in Liverpool on the Monday to show to those injured at Hillsborough, and then played West Ham on the Tuesday. Running on empty, the boys somehow summoned up enough energy to win, although the 5–1 scoreline was deeply misleading. Liverpool hadn’t won at a canter. Defeating West Ham was a real struggle. The lads were magnificent but there’s only so much a human body can take. We were shattered by Hillsborough and by the intense demands of an unforgiving final week.

Standing in the dressing room before kick-off against Arsenal, I caught a look of weariness in some eyes. Having gone through so much, some of the players just closed down. I tried to rally them for one final push. ‘Just go out and win,’ I said. Even a 1–0 defeat would give Liverpool the title, but it was never in the club’s mentality to play cautiously. Sensing their exhaustion, I urged the players to take the game to Arsenal, knowing a goal would kill them off.

Down the corridor, I learned later, George Graham told his players that ‘Liverpool will fall apart under the pressure. They will not be able to breathe out there for the weight of expectancy.’ It seemed to me that George was trying to build Hillsborough into the equation but that pressure had gone. After Hillsborough, our mission was to win the Cup for the families and we never buckled in fulfilling that vital duty. Liverpool players were long skilled in the art of handling heavy expectations.

As the players left the dressing room, I felt it was all so surreal that in a year of so much trauma Liverpool were within 90 minutes of the Double. I filled with pride that my players, who’d gone through a storm, were so close to another momentous footballing landmark. The heart was willing but I feared the legs might be weak.

When they came out on to the pitch, the fatigue slowly seeping into the players was a contrast to the vibrancy of the Kop. Liverpool’s fans greeted the visitors with ‘boring, boring Arsenal’, a reference to their style of play under George. Arsenal’s back-four of Dixon, Bould, Adams and Winterburn was the strongest part of the team, a formidable barrier that loved an offside. I never criticised Arsenal for their approach because they enjoyed great success, and I also really liked George, a thoughtful footballer I’d known from our days with Scotland. George had a great managerial career, starting at Millwall, and was obsessed with football. I could imagine George and Terry Venables sitting at the dinner table, lining up pepper pots, empty coffee cups and wine glasses in formations as they debated tactics long into the night.

Just as I greatly admired Arsenal’s manager, so mutual respect defined relations between the clubs. To Anfield’s eternal appreciation, Bould, Adams and the rest of George’s players paid their respects for Hillsborough, handing out flowers to the fans. It crossed my mind that this could have been a psychological ploy. I know some people genuinely thought Arsenal were trying to push Hillsborough back into Liverpool minds with all the flowers. Personally, I felt they were a touch of class from a classy club. Hillsborough was always in our minds anyway, so we didn’t need our memories jogged.

The game unfolded in a blur and, looking back, it’s still like peering into mist. I can just about make out the outline of certain events, such as Arsenal’s first goal, an indirect free-kick that Alan Smith claimed he got a touch to, diverting it past Bruce. I can see the referee, Dave Hutchinson, talking to the linesman, checking the goal’s validity before pointing to the centre circle. What I recall most about Arsenal’s decisive second goal was the criticism of John Barnes for trying to take the ball past Kevin Richardson and losing it. Even now, newspapers pass critical comments about Digger for not knocking the ball out, or keeping it down by Arsenal’s corner-flag. I resented this condemnation of Digger. Why shouldn’t John attempt to go past Richardson, who was hobbling? John had been racing past people for fun for four years at Liverpool, and I’d never slam somebody for expressing themselves – that’s what I bought Digger for in the first place. All our success and our enjoyment came from Digger attacking, Rushie and Aldo trying moves in the box and Ray Houghton gliding forward. Why change them? I’d never question my players’ instincts nor Liverpool’s historic obsession with attacking. When Barnsey waltzed past three QPR players and knocked the ball in the top corner, nobody ventured the view that he should have played it safe because Liverpool were already ahead. John Barnes was a wonderful, creative footballer who tried moves that sometimes didn’t come off, but that never altered my belief that Liverpool were incredibly lucky to have him.

I once watched a clip of that Michael Thomas goal and heard that great commentator Brian Moore say: ‘Dalglish just stands there.’ I did. The shock froze me to the spot. I was numb, the fuel gauge showing empty as dejection set in. Doing the Double would have been a fairy tale, an unbelievable achievement after what Liverpool had endured. When some feeling returned to my body, and I shook hands with George, I acknowledged that Arsenal deserved so much credit for their display. Arsenal had been under pressure, too. George was very respectful and I admired Arsenal players for not going over the top in their celebrations. Liverpool had laid on some Champagne, which simply got rerouted to the away dressing room. It was one of those evenings when everybody conducted themselves impeccably, and I’ll never forget the Kop’s applause as Arsenal received the trophy. Even in defeat, Liverpool showed dignity. On the way off, I did check with the referee about Arsenal’s first.

‘Are you sure about the goal?’

‘Kenny, I’m sure,’ replied Dave. ‘You go and check.’ I did. Dave was right – it was a goal. So I went to the referee’s room with a bottle of Champagne.

‘OK, Dave, no problems, you’d better have this.’

I’m not normally that obliging with officials, but Alan Smith had touched the ball. I believe the absence of sensible communication between managers and referees has become one of the banes of the modern era. If a manager seeks out the referee afterwards and speaks to him in a reasonable tone, what’s wrong with that? They can have a dialogue, discuss any controversy and understand each other’s positions. Unfortunately, some current referees are stand-offish, almost arrogantly ignoring the managers, whose livelihood they threaten. If a referee occasionally admitted to making a mistake, they’d be treated with greater respect.