The Hillsborough Disaster 1989 Quiz

Answer: Sheffield

Hillsborough is the home ground of Sheffield Wednesday, located near the River Don. It was selected by the FA as neutral territory for the 1989 FA Cup semi-finalists between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. It had four stands: the North Stand, the Leppings Lane end (where the standing-only pens were allocated to Liverpool fans), the South Stand, and the Spion Kop, a stand name shared with the home end of Liverpool's home ground of Anfield.

The Leppings Lane end was where the fatal bottleneck that would lead to the disaster occurred.

Answer: No

Although the Hillsborough Disaster was the first fatal crush at the stadium, it was not the first incident. Hillsborough had been the venue for previous FA Cup matches in the 1980s. In 1981, at an FA Cup semi-final between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Tottenham Hotspur, a crush occurred at the Leppings Lane end due to overcrowding, and 38 fans were injured, some with broken limbs or ribs. Police later stated that if action had not been taken as quickly, there would have been fatalities. The Leppings Lane end also did not have an up-to-date safety certificate, as the last time it was updated was 1979. The crush barriers also did not meet the current safety standards; although the official capacity was 2200, and the actual number of fans therein estimated to be 3000, it was later discovered that it should have been 1600, meaning that the pens were holding almost twice the 'safe' capacity.

Following the crush at the Wolves and Tottenham game, the Leppings Lane terrace was divided into three pens. However, this change invalidated the stadium's safety certificate. It also did not resolve the problem; when Liverpool and Forest played each other in the 1988 (sic) FA Cup semi-final, crushes were reported again in the Leppings Lane end, to the point where Liverpool lodged a complaint.

Answer: Pens 3 and 4

Pens 3, 4 and 6 were in the Leppings Lane end. Although the North and Leppings Lane stands had been allocated for Liverpool fans, and there were three sets of turnstiles - two leading to the Leppings Lane end and one to the North Stand - the turnstiles leading to the North Stand were not used, forcing Liverpool fans to converge at the Leppings Lane turnstiles.

Half an hour before kick-off, a crowd began to build up. There were warning signs in the stadium; John Motson, who was commentating, noticed that there were gaps in the stands and that Pens 3 and 4 were overcrowded. People who went to the wrong turnstiles were unable to go back because of the crowd. The police opened an emergency exit gate, Gate C, to allow a flow of people, followed by Gates A and B. Gate C led into a narrow tunnel leading into Pens 3 and 4; with thousands of people pouring through a bottleneck, the people nearer the front were pressed against the fencing of the pens, with no way of escape. For reasons that were not explained, the police and stewards did not direct fans into the side pens, which was normal procedure if they reached capacity.

In desperation, fans began to climb the fences into Pens 1 and 5 to escape the crush in Pens 3 and 4, while others escaped through a gate in the fencing. When Liverpool's Peter Beardsley hit the crossbar, the crowd in Pen 3 surged forward and one of the crush barriers gave way, with people falling on top of each other. However, worse was yet to come.

Answer: 5 minutes

Although a police officer sent a radio request asking for the match to be delayed by 20 minutes, in order to allow people into the ground, it was refused and the match still went ahead as planned. The players were aware that something was wrong early in the game; Bruce Grobbelaar, Liverpool's goalkeeper at the time, was playing in the goalmouth at the Leppings Lane end and reported later that fans behind him were crying for help, and when he tried to alert a nearby policewoman, she responded, "There's nothing I can do."

At 3:06 PM, a policeman ran onto the pitch and ordered the referee to stop the match, and it was subsequently abandoned. However, the damage was done. Some fans had escaped onto the pitch, while others were pulled to safety by fans in the higher stands, but several of the fans trapped in the pens were crushed to death. Many were asphyxiated and died standing up. The police and medics were overwhelmed. In the end, 42 ambulances were sent to Hillsborough Stadium, with two making their way onto the pitch, although access to the pitch was delayed because the police reported 'crowd trouble', and instructions to the paramedics were unclear. Firefighters with cutting gear also had problems getting into the stadium.

Answer: False

At the time of the Hillsborough Disaster, football hooliganism was a serious problem in England, with special trains being commissioned specially for football fans and heavy policing at matches. This was also one reason why Liverpool and Nottingham Forest fans were segregated at the match. Rather than admitting to the role that their own negligence and mismanagement played, South Yorkshire Police blamed drunken and/or ticketless Liverpool fans for the disaster.

Three days after the disaster, "The Sun", a British tabloid newspaper, published an editorial accusing fans of 'scapegoating' South Yorkshire Police. This was followed by a now notorious article on 19th April 1989 with the headline 'The Truth' - Mackenzie had originally intended to call it 'You Scum', but was told to change the title - claiming that Liverpool fans had done both of these things, as well as attacking police officers giving artificial resuscitation, firefighters and ambulance drivers. "The Sun" claimed that they had received this information from police inspector Gordon Sykes, along with various unnamed officers. However, it was later revealed to be untrue, with Sykes admitting to spreading false allegations to other police, and the vast majority of Liverpool fans were not drunk.

While other newspapers published similar stories at the time, "The Sun" was singled out because of the staff's insistence on defending their stance; when families of the victims complained to managing editor William Newman, he responded that he was willing to pay the price of a boycott of "The Sun" for a free press. Newsagents across Merseyside subsequently refused to stock "The Sun". Mackenzie called then Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish for advice and Dalglish suggested publishing an article entitled 'We Lied', but Mackenzie refused. Sales of the newspaper never recovered on Merseyside, and "The Sun" reporters were banned from attending press conferences by Liverpool FC in 2017. (Rivals Everton followed suit later that year when Mackenzie wrote an article in the 'Sun' comparing Ross Barkley, a mixed-race Everton player, to a drug dealer and a gorilla.)

Answer: Kevin Williams

Kevin Williams was one of several teenage victims of the Hillsborough Disaster, and his mother Anne was one of the founding members of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, originally known as Hope for Hillsborough. The original inquest, conducted by Dr Stefan Popper, stated that the victims of Hillsborough had received irreversible crush injuries, and were either dead or incapable of being revived by 3:15 PM. However, several families of the victims questioned this, Williams included. In 1991, a policewoman, Debra Martin, stated that Kevin was still alive at that point, as while she was giving him heart massage in a gymnasium where the bodies of the victims had been taken, Kevin opened his eyes at 3:57 PM, said, "Mum," and then died.

Williams subsequently spent several years campaigning for a new inquest to be opened, tracking down witnesses and consulting a pathologist, who revealed that Kevin had died of neck injuries that closed his airways, rather than traumatic asphyxia as the initial report had claimed. In 2012, the Hillsborough Independent Panel confirmed that several victims were alive past that point, and that at least 41 potentially could have been saved, were it not for the failings of the ambulance and police response.

Anne Williams died of cancer in 2013, three days after attending a memorial service at Anfield for the victims, and was posthumously awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award, given for 'outstanding achievement in the face of adversity', for her years of campaigning. Alan Hansen - Liverpool's captain at the time of the disaster, who had attended the funerals of some of the victims - presented the award to her brother and surviving children.

Answer: Taylor Report

The official title of the Taylor Report, commissioned by Lord Justice Taylor, was "The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster Enquiry Report". It was published in January 1990, following an interim report in August 1989, and found that the main reason for the disaster was not the behaviour of fans as claimed by South Yorkshire Police, but the failure of police control. Factors cited as having led to the crush included the refusal to delay kick-off, and the decision to open the secondary gates. Sheffield Wednesday were also criticised for not having enough turnstiles at the Leppings Lane entrance, along with insufficiently safe crush barriers. The police cited previous matches where Leppings Lane had been the only access point to the North Stand and Leppings Lane End as a reason for not opening other routes into the stadium, but the report argued that both of these matches had been at midday on a Sunday, and kick-off had been postponed to allow for late arrivals.

The report also stated that drunkenness of fans was not a factor in the crush and had been vastly overestimated by the police. It also dismissed the theory that ticketless fans were to blame by pointing out that the number of people who entered the Leppings Lane End was actually below the capacity of the entire stand (bearing in mind that the two pens were overcrowded), and that tickets had been on sale until the day before.

The report stated that standing was not intrinsically dangerous, but did recommend major stadiums in the UK convert to an all-seater model, with seats for all spectators with tickets. The English and Scottish Football Leagues ordered that all clubs in the top two divisions should have their stadiums converted to all-seater stadiums, and have fencing removed, by August 1994. The Deva Stadium, home of the now defunct Chester City, was the first stadium to undergo conversion. However, many non-league clubs, such as FC United of Manchester, have standing areas at their stadiums as well as seated areas. Fan groups have campaigned for safe standing areas to return to football grounds as a whole.

Answer: Steven Gerrard

Several victims of the Hillsborough Disaster were in their teens, and some were even younger. Steven Gerrard was just nine years old when the Hillsborough Disaster happened. He and his family were watching the footage of the disaster on television when it occurred, and they received the dreaded news about Jon-Paul Gilhooley's death the next day. Gilhooley had been in Pen 3 with a family friend, Rod Jolly, who passed out during the crush after the two became separated. Gilhooley's uncles were also at the match and went to look for him at the gymnasium where the bodies of the dead were taken. They learned that a ten-year-old boy had been taken to hospital, and were shown a photo of his body when they returned to the gymnasium later that night.

A lifelong Liverpool fan, Gerrard has cited his cousin's death as one of his biggest motivators. He went from Liverpool's academy to becoming one of their star players and, eventually, team captain. In the foreword to his autobiography, he states, "I play for Jon-Paul."

Answer: Manic Street Preachers, Stereophonics, Space, the Beautiful South

Also known as 'Rock the Kop', the Hillsborough Justice Concert took place at Liverpool FC's home ground on 17th May 1997, eight years after the disaster. The full line-up consisted of Liverpool bands the Bootleg Beatles, Smaller, Space, Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the Lightning Seeds, along with the Stereophonics, Dodgy, the Beautiful South, and the Manic Street Preachers. At the end, the bands all came onstage to sing 'You'll Never Walk Alone', Liverpool FC's theme song. Space had personal reasons for playing the concert; aside from them being Liverpool fans, keyboardist Franny Griffiths was a Hillsborough survivor. (I wish I had gone, but sadly had nobody to go with, so I contented myself by listening to it on local radio.)

The Manic Street Preachers wrote 'SYMM' about the Hillsborough Disaster, which appears on their fifth album, 'This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours'. 'SYMM' stands for 'South Yorkshire mass murderer'. Several years later, following the reopening of the inquest, they wrote another song about the disaster, 'Liverpool Revisited'.

Answer: 94

The vast majority of the victims either died at the scene of the disaster, or later succumbed to their injuries in transit or on the way to hospital. The 95th victim, 14-year-old Lee Nicol, died four days later in hospital, while Tony Bland, aged eighteen at the time, suffered severe brain damage and remained in a persistent vegetative state with no chance of recovery. Bland's family made the decision to have him taken off life support, and after a lengthy court battle, he became the 96th victim on 3rd March 1993. The original hashtag was #JFT96, but changed to #JFT97 when the 97th and final victim, Andrew Devine, died from injuries sustained in the disaster in July 2021.

Some consider Stephen Whittle to be an unofficial 98th victim; he was due to go to the match, but had to miss it due to work commitments and sold his ticket to a friend, who went on to die in the disaster. He took his own life in 2011, and survivor's guilt was thought to be the motivation. His parents did not wish to name the friend who bought the ticket out of respect to the friend's family, feeling that they had suffered enough.