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"From Where I Was Standing:
A Liverpool Supporter's View of the Heysel
Stadium Tragedy"
Brussels, Belgium, 1985. Liverpool are contesting their
fifth European Cup Final in just nine seasons. But what
starts out as the usual care-free continental trip for
Chris Rowland and his friends ends up as the darkest
night of their lives. A wall in a decrepit stadium
collapses, and as a result 39 Juventus fans lay dying.
From Where i Was standing starts out as an amusing
account of the build-up to the final - an experienced
group of eight travelling Reds enjoying the delights of
yet another big European occasion – before the mood in
Brussels turns increasingly dark, and tragedy ensues.
What follows is an honest, personal account of what took
place inside the stadium that night; one which sets the
record straight about an event that tarred all Liverpool
fans with the same brush. It concludes with an
examination of the aftermath: the world’s reaction
(including shocking hostility aimed towards those simply
there to watch a match), the official inquests (which
apportioned blame far beyond those culpable Liverpool
fans), and the punishment meted out to those held
responsible.
20 october 2009
Fonte: Amazon.it
Chapter 7
AT THE HEYSEL
May 29th 1985, 6.30pm-after midnight
I’ve
no idea what the Heysel Stadium is like now; it’s not
even called the Heysel Stadium anymore. But on the day
that it made history, it was a rickety, ramshackle,
crumbling, run-down football and athletics stadium in
the north-western part of the Brussels conurbation. Its
history involved some Belgium international matches and
domestic cup finals and some athletics meetings. It was
rarely more than half-full and usually less than that.
This time it would be full to its nominal capacity with
nearly 50,000 supporters. Close behind the Heysel
Stadium stands one of Brussels’ most distinctive
landmarks, the Atomium. Built for the Brussels World
Fair in 1958, it’s a huge metallic reconstruction of the
atom, rising hundreds of feet into the sky and instantly
recognisable to anyone who has driven around the
Brussels peripheral motorway ring. For me it remains to
this day a stomach-churning memorial to that monstrous
night. Just seeing its image, even if only in a brochure
or newspaper article, is enough to set off a small hand
grenade in my stomach and vividly reactivate all those
recollections. But on that perfect late spring evening,
the Atomium rose majestically into the vivid blue sky,
its metal glinting in the sun’s glare. In the
foreground, the flags of the Heysel Stadium fluttered
proudly in proclamation of its finest ever moment, the
first time it had ever hosted the major European final
–– and its last. No scene could have hinted less at the
sordid, squalid show that was to follow. The Heysel was
approached by a series of pathways winding through lawns
and gardens adjoining the main road. As expected, the
entire area was a ring of steel barricades and temporary
fencing, each break manned by police with dogs. Here
supporters would be checked for alcohol, weapons and
valid tickets before being allowed closer to the
stadium. Beyond, much nearer the ground, a second inner
ring would pick off any who had somehow evaded the first
search. At least that was the assumption, and all
perfectly customary procedure for football fans. What
certainly wasn’t customary on that day was the sight, in
full view of hundreds of on-duty police, of several bars
open right by the ground and, hardly surprisingly,
packed to bursting point. As this was Liverpool’s end of
the ground, it was a red and white carnival, with
supporters spilling out onto the road and massed on the
wall. From inside came all the familiar anthems amidst a
cacophony of shouting, foot-stamping and table-thumping.
Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, pubs and bars by a
football ground and inside it were closed on match days,
without exception, and especially in Europe when an
English club or the national team was involved. It was,
on police orders, the (reluctantly) accepted norm. You
were lucky if the whole city didn’t close. So to see
these bars open, right in front of the police, was a
culture shock for us, albeit a very welcome one, and all
but unprecedented for such a big game in Europe, defying
all logic, wisdom and common sense, and contradicting
every assurance from all the authorities. But if life is
made up of fixed and variable factors, that hordes of
football fans will take advantage of a bar open right by
a stadium is definitely one of the former. Leave the
chicken coop open and the fox will certainly get in.
Despite the strong advice –– rather than enforcement,
transparently –– not to open, the lure of quick fat
profits was presumably enough for the bar owners to take
the risk of damage, disturbance and adverse publicity.
That’s market forces for you I suppose –– if somebody
wants something and is prepared to pay for it, somebody
else will be prepared to supply it, regardless of the
consequences. Opening was a decision based on
straightforward, calculated self-interest, and, purely
from the commercial point of view, a successful one. The
profits would more than pay for a few hours of the
cleaners’ time. But it was astonishing, in the context
of the times and given the high profile of the match,
that they were allowed to open, by both the police and
the Brussels authorities. We felt like children with our
noses pressed against the outside of a sweet shop window
who had suddenly been invited inside to tuck in. It was
a wholly unexpected opportunity to grab another beer and
let rip with some singing and chanting to get in the
mood, a last chance to crank up the atmosphere before
the match. We weren’t going to miss it. We entered the
first and biggest bar. Inside the insane, heaving melee,
the mass of bodies had almost fused into a single
pulsing entity. Within seconds, our shirts were soaked
with sweat and beer that spilled from plastic glasses
held on high as people tried to push and worm their way
through. The toilets had long since ceased to cope, and
a trail ran from them to the pavement outside. The
super-competitive business of getting served was only
for the grimly determined or desperate, but we managed
it. The story of the stabbing had arrived before us,
fuelling the tension that hung heavy in the overpowering
hot stale air. There also seemed to be any number of
obviously forged tickets in existence, wads of them
being passed around in tens and twenties at a time, with
the instruction: "Get something for them if you can, or
get your mates in, or just dump them".
For once, supply
seemed to outstrip demand, as handfuls of discarded
forgeries were tossed idly aside, fluttering earthwards
to be trampled soggy. Forgeries are always an ominous
harbinger of trouble; if they work and get people in,
they can cause serious congestion. If they don’t, they
can cause delays and unrest at the turnstiles or at
whatever point the forgery is detected as people are
turned away, or try to break through by force, or turn
nasty, or get arrested.
With
about half an hour left to kick-off, we drank up and
left for the ten-minute walk to our end of the stadium.
The first security check, the most cursory and
superficial of body searches, revealed a disinterest
that almost bordered on the insulting to fans from the
country that consistently topped the hooligan export
league. We did not know yet, but these same security
checks at the other end of the ground were failing to
detect a replica handgun, which later turned out to be a
starting pistol ("Ooh it’s not a gun it’s a starting
pistol, OK fine you can bring it in then, no problem"),
to be brandished at the height of the carnage by an
Italian supporter before a worldwide TV audience of
millions. No other security check followed this one. We
just passed right through the sets of barricades, police
didn’t even stop us or ask for tickets. Suddenly we were
on our final approach. Away to our right, we could see
part of our crowd in one of the terraces, a vast curving
sweep of red and white bathed in sunlight. We followed
the signs for Blocks X and Y, past the main stand and up
a gentle slope. We didn’t quite know what to make of the
muffled thud that soon followed, not crisp enough for a
firecracker, not metallic enough for clanging gates, not
quite like any of the usual football match sounds.
Suddenly, ahead of us, a group of supporters came
clambering over the wall at the edge of Block Z,
shouting and gesticulating. At first we assumed it was
our lot trying to bunk in without tickets and being
turned back. More and more appeared, swarming over the
wall and charging down the bank towards us. But as they
drew nearer, running maniacally towards us, it quickly
became apparent they were not Liverpool supporters
trying to get in but Juventus supporters getting out.
And they were heading straight for us, at speed, maybe a
hundred or more. When faced with a number of rival
supporters charging at him, the average English football
fan’s experience tells him they are not coming for his
autograph. Phil’s eyes narrowed: "Bloody hell, these are
coming for us here –– quick, get a brick or something!"
The first group arrived, but just ran straight on past
us, wild-eyed, before barging into some more Liverpool
fans behind us. One Italian, wearing a silk scarf like a
headband, bandanna-style, launched into a bizarre kung-fu
routine with circling hands and trilling noises, before
sprinting off with the others. More and more followed,
all with the same wild demeanour. Most odd, we thought,
not familiar with this type of pre-match behaviour, as
we continued towards our entrance, completely unaware of
the significance of what we had just seen and heard. Our
first sight of the crumbly stone walls and old-fashioned
turnstiles conjured an image of rosettes and rattles,
Kenneth Wolstenholme commentary and the old ‘Match of
the Day’ theme tune. It was tragi-comic to behold, like
a faded glamorous actress long past her prime
auditioning for the part of sex kitten. Outside the
shabby exterior, an anarchic, unsupervised queue swayed
and swirled without pattern as it shoved and pushed and
sweated towards what seemed a wholly inadequate number
of turnstiles. Many of those forged tickets were being
used successfully. We witnessed cash being handed over
to turnstile operators who then allowed them in. The
sacred match ticket, that took so much hard work to get
hold of, seemed to have been relegated to an optional
extra for this strictly ticket-only event. In another
major departure from convention, there were no police or
stewards outside to control the surging swaying mass, or
just beyond the turnstiles to check and control the
access points. As the pressure at the front of the
queues built, those behind were crying out for the
pushing to stop – a chilling foretaste of what was to
come four years later at Hillsborough.
Having finally got into the stadium, further reasons for
the turnstile chaos immediately presented themselves.
Just beyond the turnstile, a water pipe had fractured,
turning the area into a sea of reddy brown mud, in which
floated endless crushed paper cups and empty cans,
discarded wrappers from chocolate bars and bags of
crisps and other unidentifiable debris. A red Liverpool
FC cap lay forlornly semi-submerged. The mud lake was
too wide to jump across, so wading was the only
alternative.
The
result: apart from spattered jeans and squelchy shoes
and socks, it meant a build-up of bodies just beyond the
turnstile, restricting the smooth flow of supporters
into the ground from outside, at the precise time and
place where the crowd pressure was greatest. Once over
the water jump, the next obstacle was a choking,
swirling cloud of red dust, as the decrepit building’s
foundations were scuffed into life by the stampede of
thousands of pairs of feet. Ahead of us, partly no doubt
as a result of the cavalier approach to ticket control
and ground admission, the terracing was a solid,
impenetrable Red Sea with no parting –– and there were
still thousands outside waiting to get in, most
presumably possessing genuine match tickets and assuming
there would be space for them. But they, like us, would
have to lever
their
way through, prising bodies apart and wedging their own
into the tiny gap created, which would snap shut
instantly behind them as they pushed forwards another
few inches in the sweltering body heat. On some of the
crush barriers, the concrete had crumbled away to reveal
the exposed metal reinforcing strips inside, rusted and
twisted. We felt an acute sense of disappointment at the
standard of the venue; this stadium did not make it feel
like European football’s grandest occasion. You expect
to be impressed, awestruck by the sense of occasion; I
thought back to the grandeur and pageant of the Stadio
Olimpico in Rome, the inspiring first impressions and
the explosion of sound and vision created by
Liverpool’s
army of fans. In stark contrast, the inglorious Heysel
felt second-rate, squalid, shorn of style and class, and
with feeble organisation to compound it.
We
finally found a position where we could see what should
have been the green of the pitch. Instead, we saw that
the entire near right-hand quarter of the vivid green
playing
surface had been engulfed by a human spillage of
epic scale –– a tangled mass of fans, police, stewards,
officials, paramedics and photographers. We took this as
nothing more than yet another manifestation of
overcrowding and organisational incompetence. After all
the chaos, Don began to lose patience, with which he
probably isn’t over-blessed: "For fuck’s sake sort
yourselves out, this is shite", he yelled across the
terraces. "There’s been a bit of bother in that corner
lad, a crowd surge or something, a bit of fighting
like", came a voice from behind. If the match was to
start on time in twenty five minutes –– 20.15 kick-off
in those days –– there was an awful lot of clearing up
to do. In the UK, a TV audience of millions was
finishing dinner, fetching beer from the fridge and
settling down to watch the football. But what they, and
millions more across Europe and across the globe, saw
and heard instead were the first harrowing images of
people dying at a football match. Replay after replay of
clashes and charges between rival supporters was being
shown, interspersed with an ever-rising fatalities
figure. Around the globe, newsrooms sparked into
frenzied activity, phones and faxes chattering excitedly
as a major news story broke. Yet we inside the Heysel
Stadium, only yards from the eye of the hurricane, had
much less idea of the gravity of the situation than most
of the rest of Europe who were watching. No commentary,
no replays, no access to TV or the authorities to feed
us information, certainly no rumours of deaths yet, just
speculation. Still oblivious to the nature and scale of
the incident, we remained the calmest and least
horrified of observers. I’m sure it looked incredibly
callous, but we just didn’t know. We just wanted the
pitch cleared so the European Cup Final could start, and
grew more agitated with the authorities’ apparent
inability to get even that right.
Despite the frenzied scurrying and frantic arm-waving of
the assembled legions of arm-banded officials, police
and the advance guard of the army, the situation seemed
not to change for what felt like an eternity. Their
hyperactivity contrasted sharply with the unnatural calm
that had settled over the red mass of supporters. With
kick-off so close, excitement levels should have been
approaching critical. Instead we waited in silence for
news, explanation or action, or at least some visible
signs of progress. Kick-off, if indeed there was going
to be one, would clearly be considerably delayed,
opening up the additional complication of probably
missing our last train back to Ostend. A man wearing a
Liverpool shirt suddenly appeared on the running track
surrounding the pitch, hotly pursued by another
supporter. After being chased for nearly half the
length of the pitch, he was felled by a brick to the
head. The pursuing police seized the chasee –– though
not the chaser –– and frogmarched him away with highly
visible and almost over-compensatory firmness for their
hitherto supine response. Cops chasing fan chasing fan,
it was a farce that belonged more to The Benny Hill Show
than the European Cup Final. There
would clearly be no football for some time. We decided
to move to the back, away from the packed terracing, to
find some less competitive oxygen. It also gave us a
clearer view of the chaos on the pitch. Two concentric
semi-circles of armed police with helmets and riot
shields now spanned the entire Liverpool section of the
crowd, staring blankly back at us with their backs to
the pitch. Whatever had happened, it looked pretty clear
where the blame was being apportioned. With all the
police attention directed towards us, the Juventus crowd
remained a police-free zone. A rhythmic chant rolled out
from the Italian masses, thousands of black-and-white
flags jigging suddenly into life. One bore the
inflammatory message ‘Reds are Animals’. Unless someone
had brought a blank flag and felt-tip marker pen in to
the stadium with them, ready to tailor a relevant
message on the spot according to events as they unfolded,
at least one Italian fan had a preconception regarding
the English fans opposite them. A few red flags waved
half-heartedly in token, muted response, but by now
nobody seemed in the mood. A large electronic scoreboard
–– just about the stadium’s only concession to the 20th
century –– flashed incomprehensible digital messages,
whilst a public address system babbled incessantly and
totally unintelligibly. A mood of deep gloom and
foreboding pressed down like a heavy, soggy blanket. All
we’d looked forward to for so long, built ourselves up
for, dissipated into the clammy evening air.
By this time, at the opposite end of the ground, a group
of Juventus supporters had got to work dismantling the
perimeter fence, but the police, preoccupied with
staring at us, either didn’t notice or didn’t care. A
group broke through and swarmed over the mangled debris
of the fence. Another roar rolled from the Italian end
as a group of 40 or 50 began to charge round the running
track towards our end. (See photo page 79.) We watched
with mild bemusement. A crowd of 15,000 does not feel
threatened by 40 or 50 potential attackers, but the
evening was becoming more surreal by the minute. It was
tempting to shout a pantomime-style "Behind you!" to the police, who steadfastly refused to switch their
expressionless gaze from us as the Italians grew ever
closer behind them. Some of the Italians wore scarves
bearing the Ultras’ skull-and-crossbones insignia,
pulled cowboy-style over the mouth and nose.
When they reached the seated Liverpool section they came
to a halt and began hurling stones, coins, cans, even a
metal waste bin into the packed seating. The response
from the Liverpool supporters was immediate, and a
random assortment of debris (including the returning
waste bin) arced from the stand towards the Italians on
the running track, who scattered to ironic jeers as the
bin crashed to earth and bounced amongst them like a
loose firework.
Most of the police continued to ignore the entertainment
from a distance of no more than twenty yards away, but
eventually one or two began to take a mild interest,
tilting their heads ever so slightly away from us and
towards the skirmish behind them on the running track. A
detachment finally broke away and another half-hearted
cartoon-style chase ensued, to get the errant Italians
back down the running track to their allotted territory,
accompanied by jeers of derision. The Olympic 4 x 100
Police Chasing Fans event. Lane discipline was poor.
By now, large sections of the perimeter fence at the
Juventus end of the ground were under assault. No longer
able to ignore the growing disorder, a large contingent
of police was despatched towards it from somewhere
within the bowels of the stadium. Dressed in curious
blue overalls and helmets, they looked more like armed
plumbers than crime fighters as they marched
purposefully towards the Italians, to more ironic cheers
from Liverpool’s supporters. They were immediately
bombarded with debris –– there was now plenty of it
lying around –– by the Italian fans and, seriously
undermanned, they mounted a swift and decisive retreat.
The apparent timidity of the Dyno-Rod police seemed to
further encourage the Italian fans, who this time
mounted a major pitch incursion; with many hundreds now
on the pitch behind the goal and around the penalty
area. More reinforcements arrived, with what seemed like
divisions of militia marching formally and grandly into
the stadium, only to be stricken by the same lethargy
and indecision that afflicted their colleagues. The
battle waged on as the rest of us watched on, totally
bemused yet bizarrely entertained by this degeneration
through anarchy towards farce. There was still no sign
of the football, and we still didn’t know what had
happened or why there was this interminable delay in
getting the game started. It was clear something major
had gone wrong, but we still had no idea what.
NDR: From "Where I Was Standing" © Chris Rowland
and Paul Tomkins 20 October 2009
Fonte: Lfchistory.net
Heysel, 30 anni dopo:
intervista a Chris Rowland
"Volevamo essere
orgogliosi dei reds, non vergognarci"
di Paolo Avanti
"Nessun tifoso del Liverpool
potrà mai evitare di fare i conti con l’Heysel e il
passare del tempo non rende certo questa data più facile
da vivere". Chris Rowland era a Bruxelles, nella curva
del Liverpool, ennesima trasferta a seguire i suoi amati
Reds (ha seguito tutte le dieci finali europee disputate
dal club). Entrò nello stadio passando vicino al settore
Z proprio mentre i tifosi juventini stavano fuggendo
dall’aggressione degli inglesi. Al momento non capirono,
lui e suoi amici, cosa stesse succedendo. Non potevano
sapere di quei 39 morti né che tutto quello che amavano
sarebbe cambiato per sempre. Ora Rowland è blogger,
giornalista e scrittore. E su quella tragedia ha scritto
nel 2009 un libro, "From where I was standing",
purtroppo mai tradotto in italiano.
Cosa ricorda di quel
giorno ?
"E’ tutto ancora molto vivo,
ricordo tutti i dettagli. Prima della partita c’era un
bel clima, alcuni tifosi di Liverpool e Juventus
giocavano persino a pallone insieme. Si scambiavano le
sciarpe… Poi dentro tutto cambiò. Non si capiva bene
cosa fosse successo, non c’erano i cellulari, ma si
intuiva che qualcosa di grave era accaduto. Ricordo poi
la fuga verso la stazione prima che la partita finisse,
nelle strade buie di Bruxelles. Poi scoprimmo l’entità
del dramma che condizionò le nostre vite per settimane,
mesi. Tutto era cambiato. Volevamo essere orgogliosi
della nostra squadra, non vergognarci di essere tifosi
dei Reds. Riflettemmo anche sul concetto di colpa
individuale e collettiva. Noi non avevamo fatto nulla di
male, ma si fece di tutta l’erba un fascio. Rientrati in
Inghilterra fummo tutti trattati come delinquenti".
La crisi economica e
sociale della città contribuì in qualche modo a
scatenare l’Heysel ?
"Liverpool in quegli anni aveva
un altissimo livello di disoccupazione, ma la tifoseria
Reds non corrispondeva allo stereotipo inglese
dell’epoca, violento, xenofobo. Quello che accadde a
Bruxelles sembrava davvero estraneo al nostro mondo".
A Roma, nel 1984, i
tifosi inglesi furono oggetti di attacchi e agguati da
parte dei tifosi romanisti. Serpeggiava nella curva una
voglia di vendetta nei confronti degli italiani ?
"Ero a Roma nel 1984 e fu molto
pauroso. L’autobus dove eravamo fu preso d’assalto con
mattoni e spranghe. Ci furono dei feriti. Ma
personalmente non credo proprio che dietro l’Heysel ci
fosse un sentimento di vendetta".
Nel suo libro si
sottolineano le gravi carenze organizzative di quella
finale, forse assolvendo un po’ troppo gli hooligan ?
"No, in nessun punto del libro
ho difeso quello che ho chiamato la ferale aggressione
dei tifosi Reds. Ma se ci fosse stato un normale
controllo e distribuzione dei biglietti, una migliore
gestione dell’ordine pubblico e uno stadio più sicuro
non ci sarebbe stata nessuna tragedia".
29 maggio 2015
Fonte: La Gazzetta
dello Sport
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