A chance for redemption
sunday tribune in ireland
Sunday April 3rd 2005
LIVERPOOL'S glories have become an unconquerable burden for many who have tried to match them in recent years, but this week, Liverpool will confront the most shameful evening in their history when Rafael Benitez attempts to continue his remarkable progress in the Champions League.
In a city which still seeks justice for the 96 people who died at Hillsborough (the red wristband worn by many Liverpool players is in support of that campaign), the events in the Heysel stadium four years before are a murkier catastrophe in the city.
Liverpool's supporters had travelled across Europe as successfully as the club they followed for 20 years. There were few incidents and nothing came close to the awful night in Brussels when a wall collapsed, killing 39 Italian supporters of Juventus.
Reports differ on what happened, whether Liverpool fans were responding to Italian aggression when they charged towards the Juventus fans or if they were simply claiming a terrace they believed belonged to them.
All agreed that the stadium was not fit for such a game, the ticketing arrangements were a mess, the walls were crumbling, eventually fatally, and security was not prepared for the lack of segregation of supporters. But all these facts do not hide the desperate truth that Liverpool's supporters were responsible for the deaths and failed, not in some logistical sense, but as human beings. This week Liverpool Football Club will try to make amends.
When the draw was made in Nyon two weeks ago, the clubs were prepared. They have grown close in the past 20 years, a relationship that prospered when Juventus bought Ian Rush from Liverpool a year after the tragedy.
But still there is the sense on Merseyside that more could have been done to acknowledge the devastation caused. Liverpool is a sad city, a city that mourns its own extensively. Yet it has proved more difficult to accept that the burden for Heysel - no matter what is said about the Heysel, ticketing, provocation and security - rests primarily with Liverpool supporters.
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