Below is a story of a very good friend of mine she thankfully still goes the match. Well in Jo mate
The effects of Mackenzie’s lies…
Been thinking for a while whether I could ever begin to write how the lies printed by Mackenzie affected me. There has been some amazing and brave stories written recently & standing on the Kop singing Justice for the 96 against Arsenal was one of if not the proudest moments of my life, I never thought that I could feel so proud and so sad at the same time.
My story is probably not that different to anyone else who was at Hillsborough but as part of the OTK family I just felt I wanted to talk about it.
Why now?
Dunno, suppose it’s the memories stirred up by Mackenzie.
My Story
I was always mad on Liverpool, strangely enough me Dad wasn’t into footie and my younger brother was too young. Didn’t stop me harassing me mum & dad for a season ticket for me fourteenth birthday though. They knew I was a tomboy but I reckon they thought I would grow out of it. Amusingly enough no-one seemed to really bat an eyelid when I started to go the match on me own. I didn’t care that I had no-one to go with, off I trotted with me Season ticket (princely sum of £55)!
I didn’t grow out of it, I just loved it even more. Slowly they got used to it but as I was only fourteen they wouldn’t let me go to any Away games, fair do’s I suppose especially as I was a girl!
The first away game I ever went to was Hillsborough in ’88 I was 15, the ticket as I recall was £6 and £7 for the train. Me mum got me up at the crack of dawn and made me a packed lunch. Thought I was the bees knees, going all the way to Sheffield on me own. Can still remember the walk down Leppings Lane, seemed miles from the train station! That was the year I went to my first Wembley and shed me first tears as we lost to Wimbledon. I was in one of the side pens at Hillsborough in ’88, I remember looking across at the two pens behind the goal & thinking how chocca they were. Madness I thought as I was standing in acres of space, looking back now the exact same thing happened in ’89, why didn’t they see it coming?
When it came to ’89 I was beside myself with excitement, I was really friendly with one of the teachers in school, we used to have loads of banter about the footie. He was a bluenose and I remember us both leaving school on the Friday afternoon. I wanted them to win for a change. I was too young to go to the final in ’86 but this was my chance to go to Wembley and see an all Merseyside Cup Final. I didn’t go on the train that year, went on the coach from Picton Clock, Home James I think the firm was called. Me mum took me to the coach (even though I was 16 now)! I don’t remember too much about the journey except for two things that stand out, the first one that our coach for some reason went though Manchester and everyone started singing the Munich song. I joined in blindly not really appreciating that I was singing about a tragedy. The second thing was the coach got stopped and searched for alcohol on route. That seemed to hold us up quite a bit as I remember panicking about missing kick off.
Then began the start of a long nightmare, I remember vividly seeing so many people queuing up outside just a mass of fans not even really in a queue. I was really worried about missing kick off by now but that was the least of my worries. I just remember next that someone decided to shut these two outer gates, but they never just shut them they kind of pushed them shut and caused us to be crushed in between the turnstiles and the perimeter gates. I remember thinking I was in big trouble then I was really squashed, on my own, smaller than everyone else. I thought no-one could see me. I really thought I was gonna die OUTSIDE the ground. I suppose because people don’t talk about Hillsborough, myself included I never really knew if anyone else felt so crushed outside.
When they opened the gates the first time I remember thinking thank god. They only let a few through at first to relieve some of the outside pressure. I don’t blame the police for that not the lads on the ground anyway. Some of them were getting just as crushed as us, I remember them looking frightened and one of them saw me and put his arm round me. He asked me who I was with and when I said on my own he tried to keep hold of me and stop me getting crushed. He was young and frightened and yes he was a policeman but it was the men at the top who were to blame not him. I heard him on his radio pleading for some guidance from a senior officer; he didn’t know what to do. Then they opened the gates again, this time for longer and relieved we all piled straight down the tunnel.
The rest as we all know is history and I don’t want to talk about the horrors that I saw after that.
The reason for this post is to talk about the relief I felt when someone opened those gates, I felt relief while m fellow fans at the front were crushed to death. When Kelvin Mackenzie published his lies I believed some of them and I was there.
For years I thought it my fault. I really thought that I personally helped to kill the people at the front of those pens. I went back to school on the Monday and got special treatment from the teachers, but I felt a fraud. Here people were being nice to me and wondering if I was okay but they didn’t realise that I wanted to them to open those gates that I was alive and the people at the front were dead. I saw those pictures, the crushed faces against fences and I wept. I helped to crush those people.
That is what the lies and the cover up done to people like me, they made me believe that I was responsible. Nearly two years of counselling before I started to believe it wasn’t my fault.
People like Kelvin Mackenzie made me think I was a murderer, and if you are reading this you might think well you were there you knew the truth but I was sixteen, an innocent kid going to a footie match. I thought the papers wrote the truth, yeah I knew that some of it was wrong. But I didn’t know what to believe. Whose fault was it?
A young policeman helped me, so was it the fault of the police, so many questions.
It took me years to find and accept the answers, so to all the liars on that day especially Mackenzie I hope you are proud of yourselves because you made one tragedy into two. You made me believe I was responsible for those deaths when I wasn’t. You ruined my teenage years (although at least I was alive) but most of all you still after all these years cause me pain.
The difference?
I’m older, wiser and I know THE TRUTH.
JUSTICE FOR THE 96
YNWA
Jo
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