89

by Amy Lawrence

  ADAM DWIGHT:

  I am a lifelong Wolves fan who just happened to attend Liverpool University. I felt very much part of the true football community of Liverpool, which came together, united in grief, after the Hillsborough disaster in April 1989. In truth the whole football community came together because every football fan during this era knew that there but for the grace of God it could have been us standing on that Leppings Lane terrace. During this era, we were all at times treated as thugs; all caged like animals. My best friend’s girlfriend, also a student at Liverpool University, lost her life at Hillsborough and we queued for many hours to pay our respects on the Kop, where she too had stood. I was determined to try and get a ticket for the big match to end all big matches and so I made my way early on the Friday evening in the hope of buying a ticket. Sure enough we soon found a young Scouse lad who sold my friend and I two tickets for the Kop for £10 each and I’ll never forget that the tickets were in his shoe, which he quickly replaced with the £20.

  BRENDAN BOYLE:

  My biggest concern was my actual match ticket, which was for the Kop. The radio at work had been saying all day that any Arsenal fans with Kop tickets wouldn’t get in. I unsuccessfully tried to get into the away end on three separate occasions, before being told I would be nicked if I tried again. On entering the Kop end it was quite moving to see the messages written on different areas, to those who had perished in Sheffield. I asked a steward if he would take me down to the so far empty away end. He said normally he would, but for this game they were not allowed, then informed me, ‘Your lot are over in the corner.’ I was astounded to find about 30 Arsenal fans in the corner, one guy was actually wearing an Arsenal sweatshirt! Everyone was trying to get moved up to the away end, and it was said they were going to move us en masse. About 25 minutes before kick-off with a big cheer we began moving to the top of the terrace to begin our trek to the away end. Unbeknown to us they were passing the lads to the police, who were throwing them out of the ground. Luckily for me I was at the back of the group, and when I saw what was happening, I made my way back to the corner, where only six remained, including the guy in the sweatshirt.

  SIMON RICH:

  We bundled off the coach and ran to Anfield. We stood near the back, just next to the Arsenal away seats. I had my bag of ticker tape I made using a hole punch at home the week before. It took me days to make enough. I don’t think anyone does this any more but back then I did it a lot.

  MICHAEL COHEN:

  We secured a ticket from the great Theo Foley at the team hotel and hung around as players and staff mingled. I remember there was a palpable air of calm. It’s hard to explain but you could feel we were going to do it. We got into the ground and I found myself sitting next to Pierce O’Leary, recognisable because he looks just like David.

  EMILIO ZORLAKKI:

  I was working as an Arsenal Travel Club steward. We missed the first 15 minutes of the game, but were told by a police officer, who came on our coach as we were entering Liverpool, that the game was going to kick off at 20.30 p.m. Amazingly, we didn’t have a radio. When we parked up on the side of Stanley Park and heard the roars of the crowd, there was pandemonium. Fans were running to the ground as quickly as they could and I saw people jump over the turnstiles. I couldn’t understand the atmosphere amongst the away fans, in optimistic mood and looking so happy. They must be mad, I thought.

  AMY LAWRENCE:

  As the convoy of coaches arrived with the game already started everyone sprinted to get to the entrance, the urgency to get in the ground rising fast. It became very crowded outside the turnstiles with people jostling for position. I recall one mounted policeman barking at the fans outside with piercing shout: ‘Think about what happened at Hillsborough.’ For a moment everyone went quiet, took a collective step back, and got into a more orderly queue. It was a weird feeling to be simultaneously patient and impatient to move.

  ALAN PICKRELL:

  We parked on a grass verge very near to Anfield. Police told us we would get a parking ticket (which we did) but we just wanted to get into the ground as we were 15 minutes late. I remember a turnstile attendant telling us we were 1–0 up. We all cheered as we ran up the stairs – we weren’t obviously (Scouse humour I guess).

  PAUL AUSTIN:

  We missed the first half hour and abandoned the minibus driver a fair distance from the ground, saying: be in this same spot after the game. Sure we were the last into the ground.

  CARL ELDRIDGE:

  Ticketless, me and a pal tried to bunk in. We went through an open door in the Main Stand and followed a labyrinth of corridors, ever certain of gratis entrance with the match under way – finally faced with a closed door, we hesitantly opened it to find … the police control room. We (me and my mate Waz) high-tailed it before the assembled puzzled plod cottoned on – back to the away end turnstiles where a friendly bobby told us: ‘You won’t get in now, lads. Best bet is to go to the Arkles and watch it on TV.’ Following a nine-hour drive from Bognor Regis on snarled-up roads with our beloved Gunners in with a smidgeon of a chance to win the bloody league title, we swerved his kind suggestion – and generally panicked. About 15 minutes into the game we heard a commotion and then the sound of people running – three coachloads of Arsenal fans – themselves held up by the horrific jams on the M6 – were frantically legging it to the game. We both stood in the middle and begged for ‘any spares’. Within a minute Waz had a seat for a tenner and I told him to get himself in; a few minutes later I had bagged a ticket for a tenner, too, and in I went.

  MEL O’REILLY:

  When the boys in yellow and blue ran on the pitch before kick-off with the flowers for the Liverpool fans still mourning their 96 brothers and sisters who had died weeks earlier at Hillsborough, we were watching it on the coach’s portable TV, until the Merseyside constabulary decided to give us a fast-track escort to the ground. Once inside, tucked into a corner, I found myself wedged up alongside a Demis Roussos lookalike (look him up, kids).

  AMANDA SCHIAVI:

  I got the great David Rocastle’s (RIP) flowers. A man in front caught them and passed them to me. I always felt honoured that they were Rocky’s flowers. I remember a few weeks before I had written a letter of condolence to Liverpool FC after Hillsborough.

  TOM BROWN:

  We arrived at Anfield full of confidence. We had been in great form and there was no way Arsenal would beat us. We took up our usual places on the Kop. When the Arsenal team came carrying bouquets that they distributed to people around the stadium my friend Andy pointed out that it was a nice touch, but he didn’t like the Arsenal players getting on the ‘good side’ of the crowd.

  PART II: NOT GOING

  ANTONY SUTTON:

  Instead of joining my mates for the journey north on that fateful day I did my round, selling pork pies out the back of a lorry round the Surrey/Hampshire border. Beef sausages, steak and kidney pies, chipolatas, beef and onion pies. I was a good salesman but on this particular day my mind was elsewhere. I made my rounds on autopilot, returned home about lunchtime and had a few beers in my local before the game started. I got back home, hung my Arsenal flag up in the bedroom window, a feeble gesture I know but I had to do something, didn’t I?

  So I sat alone in front of the TV, just me, a six-pack in the fridge and a chicken vindaloo from the local tandoori, curtains drawn, with mixed emotions. I wanted to be there, I should have been there, I deserved to be there. Tonight would be for all Arsenal fans who had seen the dross. Walsall, York City, Oxford United, near relegation, Pat Howard, tonight would make up for all of that.

  JAMES LUKIC:

  Anfield 89 is legendary in our family. I was seven at the time and it is my first real memory of any game of football I have watched. My uncle John was playing in goal for Arsenal and so my dad, grandma and grandad were lucky enough to have tickets in the away end for the night. I remember my dad leaving the house with my grandma and grandad and not really being optimistic about Arsenal
getting a result given the size of the task in hand.

  Me and my younger brother sat in the front room of our house watching the game as my mum had said it was OK for us to stay up a bit later than normal to watch. My brother was only four at the time and so he wasn’t really old enough to sit still and watch all the match but he kept sitting for five minutes and then going to play and then coming back again for five minutes. I wasn’t much older but just remember being glued to the settee.

  NICK HORNBY:

  I was working out near Heathrow. I had this weird afternoon job and I was living in Finsbury Park and I walked down to the Tube to go to work and there was a load of coaches ready to go to the game. I was like, ‘Go on, you’re welcome to it’, as I saw all these people getting on the coach. They’re going, ‘Come on! 2–0 no problem!’ And I thought, it’s very sweet but there’s no way. The sheer agony of those games against Derby and Wimbledon lingered. I couldn’t see how we were going to win the league. It was a reminder yet again that football teams will always let you down and the players are all useless. I got on the Tube. After work it’s a long Tube ride back and I remember panicking a little bit about not getting home in time. I was watching with friends just around the corner from the stadium. I got home about 7 and sat down to watch.

  DERMOT O’LEARY:

  I was in a band with a guy called Simon Wild. That was our band – just me and Simon. He had a guitar and we both tried to harmonise and we did Springsteen and Prince covers and we were awful. He used to come round and practise every Friday after school and this particular day was two days after my birthday and I remember I said to him, listen, we can’t do band practice. But I really want you to come over and watch Arsenal versus Liverpool because if we win by two goals we win the league. He just didn’t like football at all but he was a lovely guy, a good buddy, so he sat down with me not really getting it. We watched it in my sister’s room because she had a bigger room and the portable television.

  MARTIN FROW:

  Me and my mates had booked our annual lager-fuelled summer holiday to Magaluf (I know, I know) earlier in the year for late May. Of course we didn’t know the season would be extended past the FA Cup. A day or two before the game we noticed the Everton players were in Magaluf too on their post-season holiday. On the night of the game we’d found a bar showing the game and the Everton lot were in there too. Whilst at the bar getting a few San Miguels in, one of the Everton lot was also getting some in. I asked him what he thought Arsenal’s chances were. His reply … ‘No fookin’ chance, mate, no fookin’ chance at all.’

  ALAN DAVIES:

  I couldn’t get a ticket for the game. It was a Friday, which was a bit unusual. It was my brother’s birthday. He’s a Tottenham fan. Great. I was down in Whitstable, which is where I’d been to university and I still had lots of friends down there and I was with my good friends Damian Harris and Tom Connolly. Tom was a student with me. Damian was from Whitstable and I used to play pool in the pub with his older brother when I should have been studying. We went to Damian’s house and we watched it there with his dad, who was a big Arsenal fan, and I thought I was going to be late. I remember we’ve got to get some cans in. We’ve got to get some cans from the 10 o’clock shop. And cigarettes obviously. Because it’s the 80s, everyone’s got to smoke. We got some cigarettes and the game started late. So now we’re even more wound up. We’re really tense sat on the sofa.

  IAN CHILDS:

  I was 13 at the time of the game. Growing up just outside High Wycombe the local team was non-league so everyone had a First Division team. My best mate was Andy White and he was an Arsenal fan too. We were both in the Junior Gunners. I was mascot for the first game after we lost the League Cup final to Luton. I still have the pictures of leading the team out alongside Tony Adams through a tunnel of mascots as it was the Junior Gunners’ somethingth anniversary.

  Andy was round for the game and we watched it in the front room, just the two of us. I can picture that room clear as day now. Green sofa, mahogany coffee table in front of it that the parents still own, big rug with a red flowery pattern and white tassels round the edge with polished dark wooden floorboards underneath. In the corner was the TV, a boxy number that was pretty big for its day but would be dwarfed by anything you have now. We were having our garage extended and redecorated and that Friday when I got home from school one of the builders asked me if I thought we would do it. I distinctly remember pausing, saying yes, and for the first time actually believing it.

  PAUL BINGLEY:

  I started regularly attending Arsenal games from 1987. I lived in Billericay, Essex, and would attend with my friend Greg, whose grandparents lived in Highbury New Park. We’d drive there in the morning, eat a nice roast dinner with his grandparents, and then walk to Highbury. Greg’s dad worked for the Met Police. He would go to the front of the Marble Halls on the first game of the season and get chatting to the policeman on duty. He managed to wangle free tickets to the Clock End almost every game. During the 1988–89 season, I went to every home game bar Liverpool and spent a grand total of £20. When it came down to that last game I couldn’t get a ticket. I didn’t hold out much hope. In fact, I didn’t hold any. Liverpool were just too good. They were unbeatable at home and they’d just suffered the Hillsborough disaster. If anything, I thought we should just give up.

  JON HOSSAIN:

  In 1989 I was a junior doctor working in the accident and emergency department at the Whittington Hospital. On that Friday night I was rostered for a late shift, 3 p.m. till 10 p.m., but I managed to get a colleague to come in early so I could get off. I was living in South London so had arranged to meet up with some friends in Victoria to watch the second half on TV. I got into my car about 15 minutes into the second half and listened to the game on Capital Gold. The roads in North London were empty, the only similar memory I have of this phenomenon was being in Italy when the World Cup was on and Italy were playing.

  ANDREW NORTON:

  That season was my first as a season ticket holder after answering an ad in the programme which called for volunteers to work at the ground during the redevelopment of the Clock End. Aged 15 and arriving at Highbury I was asked could I paint? I said no and after a week largely spent leaning on a broom I received my season ticket. Living in a family of non-football fans I watched the Anfield match alone on an old TV on my kitchen table.

  ROSS ADAMS:

  I sat there in my yellow Adidas away shirt willing the boys on. I had a job as a paperboy and had made a scrapbook with cuttings of every match from the season, so felt a victory and the final reports of this would complete my scrapbook and make the effort all worthwhile.

  MIKE FEINBERG:

  August 1988 had brought me – at the time a 15-year-old American who had never left the country – over to London for what was supposed to be a one-year stay due to my father’s business. I arrived as a ‘sports fan’ with no particular attachment to football, a curious teenager who wanted to assimilate into the culture and loved the incredible underground transport system. I decided immediately to find a football club to latch on to and, living on the Piccadilly Line, the choice was obvious – Arsenal.

  I arrived at Highbury early on in the 88–89 season and immediately fell in love. The North Bank became my second home that year. Friday, 26 May 1989, I knew I’d never have the chance to go to Liverpool to support The Arsenal in person, so I made plans to join my mates at a local pub to watch the game on a fuzzy small television next to the pool table. I got in a huge argument with my then girlfriend – 16-year-old romantic dramas are the best aren’t they? – and missed a good portion of the delayed kick-off and first half dealing with that insanity.

  Someone whose arse I would’ve loved to have kicked put Gerry and the Pacemakers’ ‘Ferry Cross the Mersey’ on the jukebox at the pub and there was a near riot. As for me, I must’ve walked the distance between London and Liverpool in pacing back and forth in the pub.

  MARK LEE:

  My b
est mate Tommie and I worked in Pizza Hut, Cambridge Circus at the time; I was the restaurant manager and Tommie a shift manager. Owing to staff shortages we both had to work, which meant we couldn’t even watch the game. Although the restaurant was busy I dialled up the Arsenal Live phone line from the main restaurant phone and put it on speaker.

  ANDY GRONNEBERG:

  During the week leading up to the match at Anfield arrangements were made as to in which pub we would be watching the game. The Kings Head? Nah, too small. The Cat and Lantern? Nah, Dave’s been barred after a fight the weekend before. We agreed on a 3 p.m. kick-off at the Prince of Wales. A good-sized boozer which was often frequented by a good bunch of Spurs fans too.

  On the Thursday afternoon my boss dropped the bombshell that I’d be required to work overtime on the Friday – that Friday. Talk about deflated. He apologised profusely, saying that he had no other options due to the workload and that he’d make it worth my while. I had considered phoning in sick on the Friday but you can’t do enough for a good boss. I made my way into work that day wearing the now famous yellow shirt defiantly. On the journey from Cockfosters into London that morning I copped a few ‘You haven’t got a chance, Gooner,’ from people. Fortunately I had a Sony Walkman with a built-in radio, so at least I’d have some coverage of the match. I arrived at work to find my boss waiting by his office door. He explained again how sorry he was for asking me to work and informed me that he’d brought in a portable TV for me to watch the game on and that he would afford me a two-hour break when the game was on. He set it up in the conference room to afford me some privacy. Privacy? My arse! Every few minutes someone would pop their head in: ‘Any score yet, Andy?’, ‘How’s your lot getting on, Gooner?’ ‘You ain’t got a chance aaaaaaaahhhh!’ to mention but a few.