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Originally Posted by NBC
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I was actually going to be at Heysel that night but had to cancel due to a family matter. I had friends that attended though and they said that the stadium was a disaster waiting to happen. It was an old rundown stadium in really poor repair. The fans were separated by a flimsy wire fence. Flare guns were shot into the terraces towards them and that led to a number of Liverpool fans either rushing the fence or scrambling to leave. There was mass panic and that when the deaths occurred when the wall collapsed. 33 Juventus fans died and also 6 Liverpool fans. A terrible tragedy that was so preventable. Liverpool fans were blamed, and rightly so, but some Juve fans definitely had a hand in what occurred.
As for Hillsborough; again I was going to be at that match but, again, events transpired that I couldn't go. (Incredible the more I think about it.) The year before (1988) I was at the semi-final again between Liverpool and Forest at the same location. I was situated in the stand above the Lepping Lane with my dad. I remember vividly looking down at the terraces and saying to him that they really were packing them in too tight down there. I feared the worst that day, a year before the actual tragedy. It could have happened that season too.
In 1989 I had tickets for the same stand as before but gave them to a friend when I couldn't make it. He said that looking down you could see that there were too many fans in the section and they kept herding them in like cattle. He actually pointed it out to a steward who simply shrugged it off. (Wonder what he felt like after). It was an absolute nightmare when the crushing occurred. Fans were trying to pull people up into the stand above with only minimal success. He said that the images of that day will haunt him for the rest of his life. (I believe him). Again, a tragedy that could/should have been prevented. The signs were there from the previous year,