35 Years Ago Today

[valefan79]

Really can't believe it is 35 years ago today when the Hillsborough disaster happened.  I still remember that day so well being a 10 year-old at Chesterfield watching Vale win 2 - 1 in the promotion season and taking a radio to listen to my other team take on Forest in the FA Cup Semi Final and left in a state of shock as to what had happened.  I still remember the journey back to Stoke and never known a journey home be so quiet as to that one.  I know stadiums now can often be souless and there be no atmosphere but at least we know we are safe there, think back to the grounds when I first started going, they were disasters waiting to happen.

[Old School]

I remember hitchhiking to Wrexham in 1969 when I was a young lad (yes it was safe in those days) in our promotion year. I think the crowd was 19,000 and it seemed that the majority were Vale fans. Back then it was 80% standing with no or very little segregation of fans and absolutely no thought of a crowd limit. As a result thousands upon thousands of Vale fans crammed into a section of the ground that was way way too small to accommodate such numbers. The situation was almost catastrophic with people all around me gasping for breath due to the crush. Luckily the worst did not happen as many hundreds climbed out of the terraces and on to the pitchside to disperse into other areas of the ground. A very close call indeed.

The result was 1-1 with Tommy Mac scoring for the Vale and Johnny James getting sent off. All in all quite a memorable day.

 

[Houston Valiant]

RIP 

[Packmoor_vale]

45 minutes ago, valefan79 said:

Really can't believe it is 35 years ago today when the Hillsborough disaster happened.  I still remember that day so well being a 10 year-old at Chesterfield watching Vale win 2 - 1 in the promotion season and taking a radio to listen to my other team take on Forest in the FA Cup Semi Final and left in a state of shock as to what had happened.  I still remember the journey back to Stoke and never known a journey home be so quiet as to that one.  I know stadiums now can often be souless and there be no atmosphere but at least we know we are safe there, think back to the grounds when I first started going, they were disasters waiting to happen.

Can remember being at chesterfield that sad day myself 

[Jacko51]

My better half heard it live on the radio at Chesterfield.  Does anyone else remember thinking "bloody Liverpool fans causing trouble again"?  Little did we know.

[robf]

15 hours ago, valefan79 said:

Really can't believe it is 35 years ago today when the Hillsborough disaster happened.  I still remember that day so well being a 10 year-old at Chesterfield watching Vale win 2 - 1 in the promotion season and taking a radio to listen to my other team take on Forest in the FA Cup Semi Final and left in a state of shock as to what had happened.  I still remember the journey back to Stoke and never known a journey home be so quiet as to that one.  I know stadiums now can often be souless and there be no atmosphere but at least we know we are safe there, think back to the grounds when I first started going, they were disasters waiting to happen.

That was almost my exact experience. We'd also been to the Chesterfield game and our usual routine was to listen to Sports Report to catch up on the day's action. Instead, we got this series of increasingly awful updates from Hillsborough as we drove back. It was really sobering and my heart does go out to those who lost loved ones that day. What a terrible and avoidable tragedy. 

[philpvfc]

2 hours ago, Jacko51 said:

My better half heard it live on the radio at Chesterfield.  Does anyone else remember thinking "bloody Liverpool fans causing trouble again"?  Little did we know.

Yes, I was at Chesterfield, heard the game was called off and thought it was Liverpool fans kicking off….even Sepp Blatter accused Liverpool fans for crowd trouble.

[ollyandpatch]

Terrible weekend.

We all thought it was hooligans causing trouble when we were watching the Vale at Chesterfield. We had just got back to the car at 5pm and instead of the normal sports report music belting out Alan Green just announced how many had died, it made your hair stand on end.

The following morning I arrived at the Normacot Hotel were I was reffing in the PDSL only to be told the game was off as the managers 10 year old son had died in the tragedy. 

 

[Valient1961]

Never forget that afternoon 😢 I remember going up my mum and dad’s (Norton) with my two kids youngest was only 2 months old and walked in their house and my old man saying there’s trouble at Hillsboro (hooliganism) so he thought, how wrong we were ,I will never forget the pictures on the tv 😢RIP 

[Trumpingtonvale]

4 hours ago, Jacko51 said:

My better half heard it live on the radio at Chesterfield.  Does anyone else remember thinking "bloody Liverpool fans causing trouble again"?  Little did we know.

I recall thinking the same at the game, went from euphoria (didn’t Darren Beckford curl one in from the sideline?) to indignation when hearing whispers that Liverpool fans were on the pitch/‘trouble’ in the stands  etc perhaps understandable following on from Heysel etc.  Then to utter sadness/despair when got back to the car and put the radio on. Disgraceful what happened afterwards regards how authorities (police, government, some media etc) tried to blame innocent football fans.

[Paul6754]

20 hours ago, Old School said:

I remember hitchhiking to Wrexham in 1969 when I was a young lad (yes it was safe in those days) in our promotion year. I think the crowd was 19,000 and it seemed that the majority were Vale fans. Back then it was 80% standing with no or very little segregation of fans and absolutely no thought of a crowd limit. As a result thousands upon thousands of Vale fans crammed into a section of the ground that was way way too small to accommodate such numbers. The situation was almost catastrophic with people all around me gasping for breath due to the crush. Luckily the worst did not happen as many hundreds climbed out of the terraces and on to the pitchside to disperse into other areas of the ground. A very close call indeed.

The result was 1-1 with Tommy Mac scoring for the Vale and Johnny James getting sent off. All in all quite a memorable day.

 

I was at that game OS, went by train which was probably far more dangerous than hitchhiking. At the end of the game the Wrexham fans were stood on a bridge over the train tracks throwing stones down at the Vale fans walking/running from the station buildings onto the waiting train. The bricks were ricocheting off the platform, station buildings and train, it was scary.

Yep it got crammed in the section of the ground behind one of the goals I was in. At the time it was customary for Vale fans to try and "take over" the home end and push the home fans to the side, there was no segregation or control just a mad house.

[Paul6754]

I lived in Nottingham at the time of the Hillsborough disaster and remember going out for a Ruby on the Saturday evening with my wife and a number of Forest fans.

We were all so shocked at the events of that day and found it hard to come to terms with the scale of loss of life at a game of football.