Liverpool FC, a soccer club with an identity woven in trophies and tragedies

Independent

27-05-2025

The somber-looking home page of Liverpool FC on Tuesday reflected the mood of a club still in shock after a man plowed a car into a crowd of fans who were celebrating the team's latest Premier League title, injuring 47 people.
Under a statement sending thoughts and prayers to those affected were references to two deadly stadium disasters involving Liverpool fans in the 1980s that had a profound impact on the club and its identity.
Below that was a digital visualization of all the trophies won by Liverpool FC in its 133-year history that make it one of the most decorated men's teams in world soccer.
It was a moving reminder that with all the silverware and success has come pain and tragedy for a club synonymous with the anthem 'You'll Never Walk Alone.'
Here is a closer look at those two stadium disasters referenced by the club:
Heysel
In May 29, 1985, Liverpool played Italian team Juventus in the European Cup final at Heysel Stadium in Brussels.
Crowd disorder before kickoff culminated in a surge by Liverpool fans into an adjacent stand containing mostly Juventus supporters. In the ensuing chaos, some were trampled or suffocated to death as they tried to flee the violence and others died when a retaining wall collapsed.
A total of 39 people — 32 from Italy, four from Belgium, two from France and one from Northern Ireland — died and around 600 were injured.
Liverpool fans were largely blamed for the violence. Twenty-six of them were arrested and charged with manslaughter, 14 of whom were found guilty and given 3-year prison sentences.
Many also attributed the disorder to the dilapidated condition of Heysel, a 55,000-capacity structure with outdated standing-room only stands, flimsy fences and crumbling walls inside and outside the stadium, as well as poor organization from police and UEFA, European soccer's governing body.
The 40th anniversary of the disaster is on Thursday, with Liverpool set to unveil a newly designed memorial at Anfield to mark the occasion.
Liverpool's home page on Tuesday showed the emblems of Juventus and Liverpool above the date of the match and the Italian words 'in memoria e amicizia' ("in memory and friendship" in English).
Hillsborough
Four years later, Liverpool was involved in another stadium tragedy — this time on English soil — that led to the death of 97 of the club's fans.
The crush at the FA Cup semifinal match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough in Sheffield on April 15, 1989, is Britain's worst sports disaster.
The catastrophe unfolded when more than 2,000 Liverpool fans were allowed to flood into a standing-room section behind a goal with the stadium already nearly full for the match.
The victims were smashed against metal anti-riot fences or trampled underfoot, and many suffocated. A police officer ran onto the field and asked the referee to halt the game, which was abandoned after six minutes. Fans and rescue workers ripped up advertising boards and used them as makeshift stretchers as police and first-aid workers treated victims on the field.
With hooliganism rife in English soccer throughout the 1980s and the events of Heysel still fresh in the memory, there were immediate attempts to assign blame on the Liverpool fans and defend policing at the match. A false narrative that blamed drunken, ticketless and rowdy Liverpool fans was created by police.
It took decades of campaigning for Liverpool supporters to prove there was a cover-up by authorities.
In 2016, a jury found that police and emergency services were to blame for the Hillsborough disaster and exonerated the behavior of Liverpool fans, saying the victims were 'unlawfully killed.'
The reference to Hillsborough on Liverpool's website displayed the number '97' with the date of the match and the words 'Never Forgotten.'
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