Post by Mrs H on Apr 14, 2009 10:16:28 GMT -1
I won’t be around tomorrow so I wanted to share with you my memories of 20 years ago.
I was 10 when the tragedy happened. My parents live on the hill overlooking the Wednesday ground and match days are always busy and lively. I remember it being extremely busy that day. There was a minibus parked outside the house with about 10 loud and happy scousers and cars parked everywhere.
I’d been up to my bedroom earlier that day and put a Forest poster in the window (I wanted them to win). At 2.50 there were still Liverpool fans walking down my parents road. I distinctly remember it because my mum was looking out of the window and commenting on them. One of them had 2 four packs in each hand.
We didn’t really know anything was happening until Grandstand announced that there was crowd trouble at Hillsborough. The more it showed the more apparent it became that something seriously wrong. Over the next 5 or 6 hours my parents house became a refuge for fans of both sides. My dad was bringing people in off the street and getting them to phone their families and mum was making endless cups of tea. The most vivid memory I have is of a man on the opposite side of the road, sitting in the gutter. My dad went over to him and told him to come inside. The man started fighting against my dad telling him to fuck off and leave him alone. My dad held him up by his jacket and none too subtely told him to get inside and ring his family because somewhere out there someone thinks you might be dead. The man crumpled and wept in my dad’s arms as he carried him back to the house.
The lads from minibus all came back to the house but they were missing one of their party. The atmosphere was horrific. You could sense that these lads thought their friend was dead. A couple of hours of ringing around the hospitals and watching the tv for updates, Look North came on. Their friend was being interviewed in the hospital. He’d broken his leg. The relief on these lads faces was amazing. They hugged each other and cried again out of sheer relief.
A few weeks later my mum and dad received thank you cards from all of the people that had come back to our house. One said on the front ‘Strangers are friends we are yet to meet’. The year after all the lads from the minibus came to the house and brought my mum a big bunch of flowers.
It’s a day I will never ever forget and I will never be able to describe fully what it felt like to be around these men who had clearly witnessed the most horrific sight. I’m glad for my part that my family could and did help in some way that day.
I was 10 when the tragedy happened. My parents live on the hill overlooking the Wednesday ground and match days are always busy and lively. I remember it being extremely busy that day. There was a minibus parked outside the house with about 10 loud and happy scousers and cars parked everywhere.
I’d been up to my bedroom earlier that day and put a Forest poster in the window (I wanted them to win). At 2.50 there were still Liverpool fans walking down my parents road. I distinctly remember it because my mum was looking out of the window and commenting on them. One of them had 2 four packs in each hand.
We didn’t really know anything was happening until Grandstand announced that there was crowd trouble at Hillsborough. The more it showed the more apparent it became that something seriously wrong. Over the next 5 or 6 hours my parents house became a refuge for fans of both sides. My dad was bringing people in off the street and getting them to phone their families and mum was making endless cups of tea. The most vivid memory I have is of a man on the opposite side of the road, sitting in the gutter. My dad went over to him and told him to come inside. The man started fighting against my dad telling him to fuck off and leave him alone. My dad held him up by his jacket and none too subtely told him to get inside and ring his family because somewhere out there someone thinks you might be dead. The man crumpled and wept in my dad’s arms as he carried him back to the house.
The lads from minibus all came back to the house but they were missing one of their party. The atmosphere was horrific. You could sense that these lads thought their friend was dead. A couple of hours of ringing around the hospitals and watching the tv for updates, Look North came on. Their friend was being interviewed in the hospital. He’d broken his leg. The relief on these lads faces was amazing. They hugged each other and cried again out of sheer relief.
A few weeks later my mum and dad received thank you cards from all of the people that had come back to our house. One said on the front ‘Strangers are friends we are yet to meet’. The year after all the lads from the minibus came to the house and brought my mum a big bunch of flowers.
It’s a day I will never ever forget and I will never be able to describe fully what it felt like to be around these men who had clearly witnessed the most horrific sight. I’m glad for my part that my family could and did help in some way that day.
Forever without exception. x
