Liverpool FC Forum

[taff]

He does strongly deny ever making the its like living in a foreign country comment   

[JBG]

He does strongly deny ever making the its like living in a foreign country comment   

Well, he would.

BTW taff, congrats on yesterday. 

[taff]

Thanks a lot 

It was chaos in Cardiff last night and everyone in a great mood 

I agree with SS and Dalglish as you can avoid trouble in or near the ground as a thumb rule but  would be very careful in Turin with small things like wating for a train or nipping for a drink by your hotel etc as thats when you get caught out as there wont be the police presence or cameras etc

[JBG]

Brian Glanville in today's Times gives his say on Hysel.

He said he was at the match but was also at the match at Rome the previous year.

He said that after the Roma game when Liverpool fans left the Olympic stadium they were attacked by Roma fans. The problem was exasperated by the alleged fact that Lazio fans started to side with Liverpool fans and, allegedly, "pressed" bars and broken galsses into the hands of Liverpool fans in an attempt to get the Liverpudlians to fight back. There was also general trouble between Lazio and Roma fans that night.

A lot of Liverpool fans had 7 bells kicked out of them that night and Glanville claims that when Liverpool drew Juventus in the final the following year, there was talk of settling old scores among a small element of the Liverpool support, Italians simplistically being Italians among certain supporters.

Nick Hornby in his book "Fever Pitch" claimed that all of English football was partly to blame for Hysel. He said that as a young Arsenal supporter he was well used to the concept of terrace "rushing". This was where a large gang of home supporters would charge towards the away support screaming and shouting, but almost always pulling up a few feet away from the away support. Hornby claims that it was irresponsible and immature, but generally harmless. Almost every regular football goer in the 1970s and 1980s were aware of "rushing" to one extent or another and most realised it was harmless.

The problem, however, as Glanville and Hornby see it, was that a lot of tickets for the Hysel game were sold to Italian immigrant workers in Belgium. These were groups of families who were not used to going to football matches and would have been completely unaware of the concept of rushing. So when some of the Liverpool support charged towards the Italians, a large amount of the Juventus supporters standing in the section beside the Liverpool section were actually Belgium based Juve fans who panicked.

Of course, the stadium was completely dilapidated and unsafe, and the police made a complete mess of it. The rushing had been going on for about 20 minutes before the police had reacted, and had the security intervened early it probably would have been nipped in the bud.

I wasn't at Hysel and I was only a young lad watching in horror on television so I cannot claim to know what happened. What I posted above is Brain Glanville and Nick Hornby's view on the events.

However, maybe its time Liverpool supporters discussed this taboo issue and perhaps there is no better way than to offer some sort of fans tribute at Anfield when Juventus come to visit?

[LFC #1]

to follow up on that JBG, in the Hillsborough: The Truth book written by Phil Scraton he says that 41 Liverpool fans were injured in knife attacks that night in Rome.