The fact the standards of crowd management and policing had to be stress tested to such a tragic extent means attending (Chelsea) supporters must be culpable. What other logical conclusion can be drawn? It’s akin to blaming a death caused by speeding on a faulty seatbelt. If you weren’t speeding in the first place then the faulty seatbelt wouldn’t be an issue (in that instance).
The most unappealing thing for me about this enduring denial around their role in Heysel, which is manifest to anyone who has read around the subject and is capable of objective thought, is that many Liverpool supporters choose to ignore the tragedy because to do so enables them to pontificate to others about how their club, and crucially its supporters, are somehow superior to others’. To admit that they caused the death of 39 people would serve to undermine that.
They have absolutely no right to lecture anyone on their superiority, moral or otherwise. They are a group of supporters like any other. Some good, some bad and with a history that is very far from perfect, and one I’m certainly grateful that I’m not invested in. As if winning all those European Trophies somehow extinguishes what they caused at Heysel. How can it? So they pretend it didn’t happen. Or that is wasn’t their fault, when it demonstrably was and an event that should temper and constrain their collective hubris and give them cause for reflection, rather than be consciously ignored so that hubris can remain front and centre.
Because this means more.
www.derbytelegraph.co.uk
www.bbc.com