'It was every man for himself,' survivor remembers Heysel Stadium tragedy

RTÉ News​

29-05-2025

A survivor of the Heysel Stadium tragedy has recounted his experience 40 years ago when 39 people were killed after a wall collapsed on fans at the European Cup Final match in Belgium.
"We were enjoying the atmosphere as you would at any match and the next thing we started getting missiles thrown at us by the Liverpool supporters by a very small cohort."
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Michael Hamell said he was in what was termed the "neutral" part of the stadium, which was behind one of the goals.
At first, "harmless stuff" was thrown like apples, bananas, and tomatoes, then the mood changed, he said, and they started to throw rocks.
Mr Hamell said once bottles started being thrown, he could sense the whole crowd moving downwards towards the pitch.
"Then, rather dramatically, the Liverpool thugs got over the barrier and charged," he said.
"And I always remembered the poles that they had and to think that they had the colours of Liverpool Football Club on them a few moments before."
"The crowd panicked, as you could expect. There were middle-aged, older people. There were people with their children, everybody there."
Most of the destruction, he said, came from "the pressure that moved the crowd down".
Mr Hamell said that he was halfway up the stadium and very quickly "it was every man for himself".
He said he was trying to hold his ground but eventually, he and other men around him were rolled to the ground and pushed down "literally like an avalanche. A small slow avalanche".
"I squirmed my way under a crowd barrier. When I fell, five, six, seven people fell on top of me, but I did get my hands and my arms up and held my ground underneath the barrier and that's certainly what saved me."
After around five, six or seven minutes, he said the pressure started to ease.
"When the pressure eased, I was able eventually to get up. I was pretty well bruised and damaged but not badly damaged."
While he could stand up he said the people on either side of him who were on his arms never got up.
"And that's a moment, that's a time, that will stay with me."
The Red Cross arrived and took Mr Hamell down onto the pitch where he walked to the far end to rest.
"When I got to the far end, I looked back and the pitch was actually cleared at that stage and the two teams came out and played the match."
He added: "My whole memory is of the stupidity of this nonsense, attacked at a football match. And so much damage to so many people."
Unlike other football tragedies, he said Heysel is not spoken about much.
"I always thought that there was a sense in part of the British press that you could find fault with somebody else, rather than taking the reality and saying we, our fans started this, you know, you could always find someone saying, well, some Belgians threw rocks or anything.
"But I can assure you from where I was nobody did anything. And I think that belief that it was almost a mistake that happened, and you were goaded. It was part of the problem."