15th April 1989
I'm not always the best at remembering times, dates and places. When people talk about 'JFK' moments I sometimes wonder how they possibly remember such detail. But I do remember the circumstances 23 years ago. I was at a football match.
10 years old, and 8 months into my first season with a proper season ticket I was with my dad at the game. Oldham v Sunderland, a game that finished. It finished 2-2, and I now know carried very little significance for either side, but for the 10 year old me every game was a huge event.
I sat in my seat in the Martins Stand, a stand that no longer exists at Boundary Park, the stand I spent so many hours of my formative football supporting years. Gazing down on the hallowed plastic turf, it was the sounds and smells of those years that I still hold to this day. The heady mix of pastry, mixed with 5,000 musty coats, bovril and a cloud of cigarette, cigar and pipe smoke.
Pushing through the tight corridor that ran below the stand, Waggon Wheel (which was huge in those days) and spearmint tab chewing gum in hand I'd turn to my left and head up towards the light at the top of the concrete staircase. That small staircase seemed to be soundproofed, the buzz of noise hitting me as emerged from the gloom.
I was always aware of the mass of blue metal that surrounded the terraces. Indeed, I doubt I'm alone in having many fond memories of the cages and barriers at games, especially for those of a similar age. Many a time the back overhang of the perimeter fence made a fantastic climbing frame in my early days stood on the Chaddy End. To me, the mass of metal at a football ground was a playground, not a potential death trap.
Even in the relatively small crowds at Oldham I'd stood on the same terrace in previous seasons and felt the surge of the crowd as one of our hero's on the pitch fired a shot fizzing into the net. Allied to the joy of a goal, the surge of the crowd was an exhilarating experience.
Still I stood that day in the relative comfort of the upper tier of the Martins Stand, looking down on the home terrace, the Chaddy End and on the fans massing together. I made my way up to my solid, squeaking seat. Shortly after, the game with Sunderland started.
Less than 10 mins into the game I noticed for the first time my dad speaking with the gents around us. I heard something, "Liverpool and Forest", I knew it was the FA Cup semi-final that day...had someone scored dad? An incident on our pitch took my attention. What was going on? The click and buzz of transistor radios seemed to be louder than I'd ever heard during a game before. Normally that was a sound saved for half-time.
Back to the game, a chance, a tackle I was in the moment. More strange conversations, phrases like "has a wall collapsed?", "on the pitch", "fans injured" caught my attention again. What's happened dad? Nobody really knew, a mass of half conversations becoming rumour and crackly transistor signals couldn't convey a clear story. My dad wasn't sure what to tell me, too many differing stories.
Something had gone wrong, we both knew that much for sure.
At some point an announcement came over the PA system with some news from the FA Cup Semi-Final match. There'd been a crowd incident, people were dead and injured. I could hear the tone of the conversations change around me.
None of us truly knew what had happened, but we immediately knew that 30 miles away, at a football match just like ours, some people wouldn't be walking away from Hillsborough stadium.
96 didn't.
