The Daily Earworm is right: today is indeed the anniversary of the sinking of the “Titanic”, but there's also another commemoration that occurs today, closer to home and more recent. I speak of course of the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy, where 96 people --- most, if not all, Liverpool fans --- lost their lives in a combination of overcrowding, poor police control and inadequate emergency procedures during a match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield.
Ferry cross the Mersey --- 1989
Music and lyrics by Gerry Marsden
The biggest football-related tragedy in the UK, if not the world, Hillsborough touched everyone, across the football spectrum and beyond, with clubs who were known to be fierce rivals --- in particular Manchester United and Everton --- uniting in grief and sympathy for the lives lost. To this day, questions remain about the accident, and many families and friends of those who died are left unsatisfied as to the reasons they lost their loved ones, and if everything that could have been done to save them, and to have avoided the tragedy in the first place, was done. These questions are likely to haunt people to their graves, and in addition to being a horrible tragedy there is the sense of a cover-up or at the very least an abdication of responsibility on the part of certain parties.
In response to the tragedy, and to show solidarity with the families and help raise money for their cause, a charity record was released featuring Gerry Marsden, Paul McCartney, the Christians and Holly Johnson. Produced by Stock, Aitken and Waterman, the
enfants terrible of the time, who had produced everyone from Kylie to Rick Astley in that decade, the song was a version of Marsden's famous “Ferry cross the Mersey”, and went to number one, not surprisingly.
Even now, almost a quarter of a century later, I have no doubt there are those who are unable to hear this song without it affecting them, as it is now forever inextricably linked with the terrible events that unfolded that tragic day, when the only thing in most people's minds was to get into the stadium and watch a game of football. A black day for Liverpool, a black day for football, and a black day indeed for humanity. The only crack of light to shine through the darkness was that, as with many tragedies, it led to reform and action was taken. All football grounds were updated and the fences replaced by fully seated areas, and the barriers against which so many were crushed and died that day, fighting to get free, are now a thing of the past, so that such an awful event can, hopefully, never again occur.