Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy and with it the debut of the ESPN 30 for 30 “Hillsborough,” which will be come to be known as one of the definitive pieces of work on the disaster. Sunday saw Liverpool FC defeat Manchester City in what was an extremely emotional game/day.
The glorious victory now put the first championship in 24 years right in the grasp of Liverpool FC In the words of the New York Times:
For although there is an easy story line to seize upon — a city still mourning a vast tragedy finds inspiration in the chase for an unexpected championship — the truth is a bit more complex. Put it all together, and it isn’t so much a Hollywood cliché as an overwrought headline writer’s dream.
But to juxtapose those two circumstances, it seems, gives short shrift to the sentiment many fans have lived with.
New inquests into the Hillsborough Disaster are underway, and with it, hopefully more exoneration for the brand name that came to be associated with the Liverpool FC fan. The original narrative of the tragedy tried to pin the horrific events on drunken hooligan Reds supporters; while the truth was as far from that as possible.
And today, and what we saw especially on Sunday, was a Liverpool FC team poised to have the greatest glory of any team in a generation. But again these two polarities of emotion are not really linked that deeply. Only superficially connected. Well, I’ll let Professor Phil Scraton explain it a lot better than I can. Because he seriously knows more about Hillsborough than any man alive.
“I don’t think winning the league would add a different dimension or anything like that because then the suggestion would be that if they were doing badly, it would diminish the impact of the 25th anniversary. The truth is that the 25th anniversary is a massive moment because of where the campaign for justice is at this moment — and that is the case whether the team is doing well or not.”
So it’s best to compartmentalize somewhat in this situation. Or at least tread very carefully at all times. Even Steven Gerrard, the Liverpool FC captain whose 10-year-old cousin died at Hillsborough, has been reluctant to speak on the subject.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also a frequent guest on national talk radio. Banks is a former contributor to NBC Chicago and the Washington Times, who’s been featured on the History Channel. President Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)