The Association Football season opened last Saturday. Seeing as nobody's posted anything on Hillsborough Day this year, I'm posting my tribute to the Hillsborough 96 today. Sosumi. It's a poem I just wrote for no good reason about how it was like to stand on one of the great, massive, 20,000 persons or more capacity terraces in their heyday, which might help us glean a small amount of understanding as to how it felt to stand, push, and be crushed to death on a stupid fence. I have stood on Arsenal's North Bank and Clock End, and Fulham's Hammersmith and Putney Ends, so I speak from experience.





The Terraces


Back and forth
Up and down
On our way
To the league crown

Up and down
Back and forth
We travel the land
East to west, south to north

Pleasure and pain
Crushed on a barrier
Pain intense
Like a Harrier

Crushed on a barrier
Pleasure and pain
Watching from the open
Come snow, sun or rain.

Falling down the steps
Then pushed back up
Craning our necks
To check on our luck

Pushed back up
Then off down again
We scored - waves of ecstasy
Intense as a train


But why do we do this?
Each and every week?
It's not rewarding
But it's pleasing
But we are often compared unfavourably with sheep.

We follow our team as a dog would follow us
We feel our victories and losses
They affect us day-to-day
And they pull your and my emotions to shreds
Each and every way

We aren't even safe
And we aren't any more
They went the way of the dodo
Are grounds safer? Certainly so.
But has it taken away
What was vital to us all
That feeling of pleasure and pain
With its power to enthral

Yet on that one day, the line became blurred
Pain took over, and it happened behind a fence.
Ninety-six lives were lost, that we must not forget
Yet it was not our fault
Twas the fault of a fence
Bring us back please, before we are forgotten for good.
We were, and still are, part of this great game.
Like the lives of the dead, our loss will be the greatest shame.






In memoriam of the ninety-six men, women and children supporters of Liverpool Football Club who tragically lost their lives at, or as a result of the crush on the Leppings Lane End terraces at Hillsborough Football Stadium, Sheffield, home of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, on the occasion of the Football Association Challenge Cup Semi-Final, on the Fifteenth Day of the Fourth Month, April, of the Year 1989 Anno Dommini. You'll Never Walk Alone.
Also, tribute is paid to the bravery of the Hillsborough Survivors, those who were in the crush, but survived. They still fight for justice and an apology from the old bill. May you never walk alone, either.
To find out more about Hillsborough, enter 'Hillsborough Disaster' into Google.



Zarn"no further comment from me required"iwoop