by Amy Lawrence
JOHN FAIRCLOUGH:
The next day, hungover but still elated, I was at home relaxing and planning to go back out celebrating again when the phone rang. It was my wife phoning from Ireland. I thought she might have been phoning about the result, but unfortunately no. She just blurted out, ‘Mammy’s dead.’
I then had to try and find her two young nephews, also Arsenal supporters, who had only recently arrived in London looking for work. Back down in my local looking for my wife’s nephews, the celebrations were still continuing and while I was there someone connected with the club brought the trophy in. I have a photo somewhere of me holding it. Talk about a weekend of mixed emotions. Anyway, to finish, I eventually found the two nephews and needless to say they were both completely broken and cashless. The governor of the pub, Tom, who had met my mother-in-law a couple of times, actually paid both their flights back to Ireland.
NICK CAPARA:
I was studying in Cheltenham in my halls of residence and a load of us had a TV set up in the hallway with beers ready to watch Liverpool’s inevitable win. I was the only Arsenal fan and was sat next to a friend of mine who was a Liverpool fan who was fortunate enough to turn down a ticket to Hillsborough where his friend was one of the unfortunate 96 not to make it away. As a result there was an odd atmosphere in the group. With the clock ticking down and our feat of leading 1–0 looking like an honourable effort I turned to Matt and congratulated him on the title. The rest is history.
TONY FISHER:
I had obtained two tickets the day before the game to pick up in Liverpool. I didn’t tell my son and on Friday I waited for him to arrive at work with the exciting news that we were going. I waited and waited. No mobile phones then so I was at a loss to know what was happening. It was now the afternoon and reports were coming in about the terrible traffic jams on the motorway. Result was that I decided it was now too late to go and had to make the call for the tickets to be released elsewhere. I next saw him on the Monday and he had no good reason for not coming in on the Friday. We had a massive row and I didn’t speak to him for weeks. He never did tell me what had happened. We obviously made it up later and he was a crowd extra in the Highbury celebration scene in Fever Pitch. I tragically lost him in 1999 and every 26 May I watch Fever Pitch as a memory of my personal events of that day and for my son.
JOHN POWELL:
After some dark days in the 70s and 80s, and particularly the Hillsborough tragedy, the evening felt like a new dawn. A cathartic re-fresh, and 1989 became a very poignant year for us; along with the backdrop of the Berlin Wall coming down later that year, with our daughter born on the day it came down, and also with a new job and a new house, the league win seemed to be the catalyst for an exciting change and a new era of hope.
ANTONY SUTTON:
The next morning there was a knock on my front door. ‘Sorry, mister, my dad’s a Liverpool fan and he says can you take down your flag?’ I would like to apologise to that lad for my reply. It was unseemly and impolite.
PART VI: AT THE OTHER END
CHRIS TRANTER:
I remember watching this match on TV in my bedroom as a 16-year-old. I often watched with a friend but this match was too important to be somewhere else. When it finished I turned the TV off and sat in the dark for about an hour. Just a feeling of emptiness I’ve never felt in any other game. I didn’t want to go to school or do anything, didn’t want to talk to anyone. I still can’t quite believe it happened. I’m sure it’s related to Hillsborough and the feelings are probably linked. I hope I never have to feel that low again for any sport.
TOM BROWN:
When Michael Thomas got the goal at the end I remember just stunned disbelief, and I sank to the ground and just sat on the terrace with my head in my hands. We left quickly after the final whistle and the atmosphere on the 27 bus home was one of silence and shock – I remember saying to Andy as I got off ‘at least we won the FA Cup’ and immediately regretted it as it just sounded so hollow. In retrospect it was a devastating day for us, but, while we all felt the pain, the bigger picture meant that we really couldn’t feel too sorry for ourselves in light of the wider context – we had lost a championship in the worst possible way, but our friends had lost their lives, and the press and establishment were busy spewing their lies and hatred on all of us.
LLOYD BLACKLER:
The game was played on our final day of school before we left for study leave and sat our A levels. My best friend had never drank beer before and decided that this day would be a good time to start … The four pints of Kronenbourg at lunchtime and a couple of Newcastle Brown Ales for good measure ended up being deposited in my lap by ‘Boy Chunder’ as we watched Michael Thomas score the winner for Arsenal. We are both Liverpool fans so … NOT. A. GOOD. DAY. PS: He then ended up snogging the best-looking girl in school.
DEAN GRIFFITHS:
I was ten years old and followed Liverpool the best I could from South Wales. My father, a Liverpool fan, had been promising to take me to a match for a while. I had very little contact with my dad as he’d separated from my mother when I was three and it was a bit sour. Anyway on this occasion he followed through with his promise and got us on to a supporters’ bus trip from a nearby town. He was a regular on this bus which didn’t normally take children. The trip up to Anfield is around four hours and I loved every second of it. I was in awe of all the men around me drinking and singing songs that I only knew from the TV. But honestly, the best thing for me was spending time with my father.
When we arrived at Anfield I don’t think I blinked for a good hour. I’m not sure I took many breaths either. It was everything I expected and more. The smells, the noises and the crowds. It was also a bit of a reality check for me seeing all the scarves and flowers still laid out, outside Anfield in the aftermath of Hillsborough.
We were sat three rows from the front of the paddock right in the corner by the Kop. The noise was incredible. I do remember the Arsenal fans singing too, it was a different noise though, obviously fewer supporters but still very loud. We all know how the game ended. I vividly remember some of the Arsenal players coming around the pitch towards us with the trophy and getting the applause they deserved but I was numb. I remember thinking, maybe I’m not into football as much as I thought, because this feels shit.
The journey home was horrible, almost four hours of silence, a bad copy of a film playing on the coach video player (RoboCop I think). That would be the one and only game my father ever took me to. I didn’t return to Anfield for a few years, until I was old enough to go on the coach with friends. My second game was against Blackburn at Anfield, the year they won the league. So my record was two games, two league titles. Unfortunately none for Liverpool.
JON FRIEND:
I have always felt, given the utterly incredible context of the game, that I was honoured and privileged to have been at it. The way in which it played out just enhances the sense of witnessing football history and the uniqueness of the match. The personal reason for this match holding a place in my heart is it invokes such melancholy for my dad. He passed away many years ago now. It was my dad, wholly unfamiliar with the world of football and culture around tickets and touting, who somehow, miraculously, produced my oh so precious ticket for the Kop that night.
Simply the hugest game in Football League history (certainly of the modern era), he had gone outside of his normal world and comfort zones to get a ticket for his youngest, knowing how much it would mean to this child to get one. I will now never know exactly what this meant or how much money he handed over. I don’t think I made my gratitude and love clear to him at the time. My other memories include it being packed on the Kop that night, that the bouquets of flowers from Arsenal players went down very well amongst us, and the strange mixture of crushing disappointment and relief that the season was over. Just about all the Kop waited not just to see our own players but also the trophy presentation. My personal belief is this was one of the Kop’s best moments, one I am v
ery proud to have taken part in.
CRAIG BALMER:
I stood on the Kop as a season ticket holder. Plan for the night was simple: win the league, go to Planet X (a nightclub in town) and blow off school (I was 17). It had been my second season as a season ticket holder. Spirits were high, few bevvies on the train on the way in. I watched in horror as Thomas ran the length of the pitch unchallenged to score the second. I’d never before seen grown men crying, 21,000 of them in the heaving Kop. I’d never felt so bad about a football result. Upon trudging out we saw bus stops being smashed, road signs ripped down. We walked the 20-plus miles home in near silence; sober, cold and fed up.
JAY RAY:
It was almost silent coming out of the ground. No blaming the officials, or players, or Kenny. Just a numbness running through every fan. The events of the previous six weeks caused that. Even if we’d have won the league that night, it wouldn’t have been celebratory, like other title wins. If the fans were exhausted, then imagine what the players were like. Attending funerals, trying to train, matches every few days at the end of the season. They were on their knees at the end. They had nothing left. I would imagine the dressing room was like the streets outside Anfield at the end. Completely silent. In retrospect, it was all about winning the cup that year. The league was something of a side issue. The team and fans had to honour the 96 and we’d done that at Wembley.
KIERAN DAVIS:
I was at Anfield that night with my brother Michael, Kemlyn Road, Kop end. I don’t recall an overwhelming sense of excitement given what had happened at Hillsborough, just wanted the season over. But I also had a sense that we would never be beaten by two clear goals, which is what they needed. When the second went in there was silence from the Liverpool supporters but there was also anger I recall. ‘This can’t be happening.’ I glanced over at the away end, complete fervour. Then on the pitch, Liverpool players on their knees, each on their own in the positions they were at the final whistle. It mattered so much more than I thought it would. Hillsborough had put everything into perspective. Of course we wanted to win but the players as well as the fans had endured a terrible five weeks. Is it any wonder that there was vulnerability. It wasn’t a sense of disappointment, it was a sense of injustice. As we walked to the car I witnessed a fight between two frustrated Liverpool fans. I got home and went to bed. In the morning my mum came in and said, we’ll win it next year. We did, though the injustice of that season, what happened to us, what happened on that night, has never been resolved. Still gets me.
CHRIS SMITH:
I was down south hosting a party with my now deceased wife, Jacqui. I keep one eye on the video recorder whilst explaining things about the weekend to our guests, as I was the organiser. But I checked my watch and said ‘excuse me, I just have to make sure that I have recorded this special game!’ … and turned on the TV … exactly as Thomas stuck the second goal in the net. I turned the TV off, and the tape off. I think I pulled the plug out from the wall.
Jacqui looked at me with a stare, expecting me to say something. I just stared at the black TV screen, I don’t know for how long. I don’t know if I made any sense. I felt empty. That night will always stay with me, as will the other event that season that changed LFC, and me, for ever.
IAN GOLDER:
I had met a girl in late 1988 and we had started dating. We split up a week before Hillsborough. I went to Hillsborough and there was obvious concern from herself and her family as for my well-being in the aftermath. Hillsborough brought us back together.
From 15 April until that night at Anfield seemed to last a lifetime. The city was in mourning. There was a cloud. A horrible feeling yet football was still keeping us going. That game was going to be on the Friday night at Anfield due to the rescheduling of games. Normally, of course, the league programme would be completed before the FA Cup final. We were going for the Double, as we had in 1986. I had a season ticket for the Kop and managed to get my girlfriend a ticket too. I said to her that she would see nothing like it. We win the league and the celebrations afterwards would be immense. We were totally confident of wrapping it up. The game also had an air of inevitability about it, like we were entitled to win it because of what had happened.
It didn’t work out that way of course. Arsenal were superb that night and I think we were maybe overconfident and also very tired. Our legs were gone. Drained physically and emotionally. The ball broke to Michael Thomas and I swear time stood still. It certainly did on the Kop. Silence. I still can’t get my head around why Stevie Nicol didn’t just take Thomas out. It was an obvious choice to make.
I was heartbroken. This wasn’t supposed to happen. We walked back to my girlfriend’s house five miles from Anfield. I felt so low as the emotions of the previous six weeks took hold. We got back to her house and I decided I had to be on my own so walked back home to my mum and dad’s another six miles away.
That is the lowest I have ever felt after watching my team lose a game. It meant everything to win the league that particular year and we fell short in the cruellest way possible. It was a long summer but I had a rethink and got my girlfriend a season ticket for the 89–90 season. A year later she witnessed us win that league title back. A year after that our son was born and in 1994 we were married, having our daughter in 1996.
We have split up since but are still on good terms. Highs and lows of football and fate. If it wasn’t for what happened in those six weeks I honestly think my life would have been different. No girlfriend, no son, no marriage, no daughter.
I was lucky as I got out of Hillsborough but I still see so many people in pain due to what happened. RIP 96.
TWELVE
The Goal that Changed Everything
GEORGE GRAHAM:
It sunk in when I was on my way back to London. I thought: done the business. Thank you very much. Let’s get back home. The famous Desmond Morris idea. Get in there, hit them hard and get the hell out of there. I was so proud of the players. I’ve got nothing but admiration for them. You work at it during the week and make sure it can happen and they were fantastic and they did it.
MICHAEL THOMAS:
I always remember George Graham coming to the back of the coach. He never came to the back to have a drink with the boys. Never ever. So when he came to sit at the back and to drink with us, obviously you know it’s a big moment. It was a fantastic journey back. Cars beeping. Everybody out of the cars. Flags flying all the way down the M1, M6. It was incredible. I do remember the start of the bus journey back. But I don’t remember getting home.
GARY LEWIN:
We were supposed to be having food but that went out the window. Food wasn’t my problem, but beer was. That was my job. It was a party atmosphere with everyone on the bus singing and celebrating.
ALAN SMITH:
We’re all at the back of the coach singing songs and banging the window at people who were beeping their horn. ‘Look at this lot over here!’ We’d all go over to the side of the coach, waving. People were hanging out car windows. Stood out the top of sunroofs. They’d slow down and they’d overtake again and were waving again and it was brilliant.
DAVID O’LEARY:
I didn’t want the coach journey to end. I wish we could have kept going, got delayed on the motorway for six or seven hours. I don’t think we’d have even known. A convoy of cars beeping all the way. When we got back North London was alive. It was a fairy-tale night.
STEVE BOULD:
The police met us at the end of the motorway to give us an escort to the club, which was kept open for us.
NIALL QUINN:
I knew the guys in Winners, a club in Southgate. At that time it was predominantly a snooker hall that all the pros practised in – Cliff Thorburn and Kirk Stevens would be there each day practising ahead of tournaments and Alex Higgins would come the odd time. Snooker was huge then. It was a fun place to be with a lovely bar. I knew they would put on a decent night for us but in those days I had to run out and ring ahe
ad from a call box to ask if they would look after us when the lads got back. By the time we got there word got around and there were huge crowds outside. It was like Hollywood movie stars trying to get into a premiere. We got in there and it was pandemonium. So happy, so giddy. We had a fabulous night, which went on and on and on.
TONY ADAMS:
Snooker all night. I lost my blazer, gave it to a supporter. I got it back many years afterwards.
ALAN SMITH:
I was in a restaurant the other day and a chap came up to me and said: ‘I was in Winners that night and you gave me your tie and I’ve still got it.’