Heysel Stadium disaster

The Heysel Stadium disaster was an accident that occurred due to football hooliganism in which a retaining wall of the Heysel Stadium in Brussels collapsed on May 29 1985 during a football match between Liverpool F.C. from England and Juventus FC from Italy. 39 people were killed, mostly Italian Juventus fans. The match was the final of the 1985 European Cup tournament.

About an hour before the scheduled kick-off time, Liverpool fans breached a fence separating the two groups of supporters and charged. Juventus fans retreated, putting pressure on a dilapidated wall, which collapsed on top of them. The game was played despite the disaster. Liverpool were later banned from all European competitions for six years and all other English clubs were banned for five years.

The disaster has been called "the darkest hour in the history of the UEFA competitions."Quote from UEFA Chief Executive Lars-Christer Olsson in 2004, uefa.com

Background

In May 1985 Liverpool were the premier football team in Europe, having been European Cup champions in four of the previous eight seasons. They had again reached the final, and were looking to defend the title that they won by defeating Roma the previous year. Again they would face Italian opposition. Juventus, for their part, were the reigning Cup Winners' Cup holders, and had a team comprising many of Italy's 1982 World Cup winning team, plus the mercurial Michel Platini of France, winner of the Ballon d'Or (awarded to European footballer of the year) in 1983, 1984 and 1985. These were the two finest teams in Europe.

Earlier, in January, Liverpool had visited Turin to play Juventus in the European Super Cup. Juve won the game 2â€"0. There should have been a second match at Anfield, but Liverpool couldn't find time in their schedule for the return leg, and so it was postponed until after Heysel, and was never played.

1984 - Liverpool vs. Roma

The previous year against Roma the final had coincidently taken place at Roma's Stadio Olimpico in Rome. Liverpool won the cup on penalties. After the match, gangs of Roma fans assaulted Liverpool supporters who were making their way back to their hotels. Many fans were attacked, stabbed and slashed. The appalled Roman press reported that this was not simply a reaction to the defeat, but that Roma fans had stowed weapons in their cars before the game, and had rushed to get them upon the final whistle .

Liverpool's local radio station Radio City also experienced this violence first hand. Many Liverpool supporters were attacked by gangs of Roma fans when they approached the local bus station. Drivers refused to take Liverpool fans on their buses in case they were attacked and many English fans who had been refused travel, sought refuge in the British Embassy. Eventually, a volunteer driver agreed to take Liverpool fans on a bus through the city, dropping people off at their respective hotels. Police outriders were required at the front and rear of the bus to protect it. Radio City had a news crew on the bus and interviewed fans who had been stabbed and beaten. None of this violence received any news coverage in the UK national press, but it did in Italy. The only UK paper to publicise this violence was the local Liverpool daily paper The Liverpool Echo, under the headline "The Ecstasy and the Agony".

It has been alleged that after the events of Rome 1984, English hooligans put aside their differences for when Liverpool met Juventus in the 1985 final, and sought to exact revenge. These claims included rumours that many of the most notorious English hooligan firms were there, including MIGS from Luton, Bushwackers from Millwall, the ICF from West Ham and the Gremlins from Newcastle. It is now generally accepted that these were indeed just rumours .

May 29, 1985

Built in 1930, the Heysel Stadium was outdated and, in retrospect, not a suitable venue for a match such as the European Cup Final. Large parts of the stadium were crumbling. Even at the time many felt the ground was patently unsafe for football, with Liverpool Chief Executive Peter Robinson urging UEFA to use another venue .

The stadium was crammed with 58–60,000 supporters, with more than 25,000 for each team. The two ends behind the goals comprised all-standing terraces, each end split into three zones. The Juventus end was O, N and M. At the other end Liverpool were allocated X and Y, with the Z section (to one side) being reserved for neutral Belgian fans. The idea of this large neutral area was opposed by both Liverpool and Juventus , as it would provide an opportunity for fans of both clubs to obtain tickets from agencies or from ticket touts outside the ground and thus create a dangerous mix of fans.

At the time Brussels had a large Italian community, and many expatriate Juventus fans bought the section Z tickets . Added to this, many tickets were bought up and sold by travel agents, mainly to Juventus fans. A small percentage of the tickets ended up in the hands of Liverpool fans.

To add to the tension, the Liverpool X and Y sections were overcrowded after many fans managed to get in without tickets, and most of the fans had been drinking all day . The situation, especially taking into account the events of 1984, was volatile.

Confrontation

At approximately 7pm local time, an hour before kick-off, the trouble started . The Liverpool and Juventus supporters in sections Y and Z stood merely yards apart. The boundary between the two was marked by temporary chicken-wire fencing and a central thinly-policed no-man's land . It is unclear who started throwing missiles; some reports say Juventus fans, but most say Liverpool fans. Either way missiles began to be exchanged across the divide. One often-quoted source of the missiles was the crumbling stadium itself, fans could literally pick up stones from the terraces beneath them.

As kick-off approached, the throwing became more intense. A group of Liverpool fans charged across the terraces, through and over the wire fence into section Z causing the Juventus fans to retreat. The terrified fans had no way out, panicking they stampeded into the side perimeter wall, near to the corner flag. The ageing wall could not withstand the pressure and collapsed.

It was at this point that the majority of the deaths occurred - 39 people died, and a further 600 were injured . Bodies were carried away on sections of iron fencing and laid in piles outside, covered with giant football flags. As police and medical helicopters flew in, the down-draught blew away the modest coverings. The situation was chaotic.

What then followed were two full hours of rioting at the Juventus end of the stadium, fully recorded and documented by the continuing pan-European TV coverage of the event. In retaliation for the events in section Z, Juventus fans ripped up pieces of concrete and tore down the perimeter fences at their end of the stadium, before advancing down the stadium running track towards the Liverpool supporters seeking confrontation, with only police intervention stopping their advance.

The Juventus fans fought the police with rocks, bottles and missiles for two hours. At one point a Juventus supporter is clearly seen on the TV pictures to fire a handgun at the police (later verified as being a starting pistol). Another spectator was seen being beaten by the police before a Juve fan threw a chunk of concrete which hit him squarely on the back of the head. Later, a group of Juventus supporters on the terraces unfurled a banner which read "Reds Animals". When the game eventually kicked off, riot police were still fighting a pitched battle with Juventus supporters, and maintained their presence around the entire pitch for the duration of the game.

39 victims

39 football fans died in the tragedy, 32 Italian fans of Juventus FC, 4 Belgians, 2 French and an Irishman.{|valign="top"|
* Rocco Acerra (29)
* Bruno Balli (50)
* Alfons Bos
* Giancarlo Bruschera (21)
* Andrea Casula (11)
* Giovanni Casula (44)
* Nino Cerrullo (24)
* Willy Chielens
* Giuseppina Conti (17)
* Dirk Daenecky
* Dionisio Fabbro (51)
* Jacques François
* Eugenio Gagliano (35)
* Francesco Galli (25)
* Giancarlo Gonnelli (20)
* Alberto Guarini (21)
* Giovacchino Landini (50)
* Roberto Lorentini (31)
* Barbara Lusci (58)
* Franco Martelli (46)