Movie of the Week: ESPN 30 from 30 Soccer Stories: Hillsborough

The debut entry in ESPN 30 from 30 Soccer series is a brilliantly crafted, devastating account of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. Ninety three Liverpool supporters died on the 15 April 1989 when they were crushed against the fence due to overcrowding in the pens behind the goalposts for the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. An additional three supporters died later in hospital.

Director Daniel Gordon investigates how and why the disaster happened, he details the process by which the Liverpool fans themselves were falsely blamed for the disaster leading to a 25 year battle  by the relatives of the victims to have the truth revealed. He reveals that there was a systematic program of altering statements by police and other relevant witnesses to hide the shortcomings of police management that was largely responsible for the disaster that day. Gordon explores how this program was aided and abetted by a mass media campaign spearheaded by Rupert Murdoch's The Sun newspaper, whose false headlines and allegations were as confronting as any of the visual images presented in the film, leading to a boycott of The Sun in Liverpool that has lasted to this day.

This is a captivating film. Daniel Gordon uses a mix of interviews with the leading players, including several of the police officers who haven't spoken in public before about their experiences, along with the use of footage from the day to explain in chilling clarity just what went wrong. The relatives who are interviewed are articulate, thoughtful and impressive witnesses who have a story to tell that is important and moving. Gordon does them justice. The film shows confronting scenes of people being crushed, not in close up, but clearly visible. This adds to the drama and tension one feels while watching this film and is critical to helping the viewer understand what happened that day. It is not exploitation.

The tragic irony of the disaster was that, due to an unrelated police scandal, the former police superintendent of the area, Brian Mole, had been transferred out of the position only 3 weeks before the disaster. He had a long and successful history of managing stadium events at Hillsborough, and was well aware of the possible difficulties involved with that management.  His successor, David Duckenfield, did not have this experience and it led him to make a series of highly criticised decisions and non decisions that contributed to the disaster.

At the time, it was common to have supporters at the each end of the field standing and watching in the game in unseated terraces. Due to problems with soccer hooliganism, these terraces had high fences at the front, preventing easy access to the pitch. At Hillsborough, fences dividing the terrace into four pens had also been installed, preventing free movement across the terrace which had been the standard way for people who were feeling crushed to get out. Gordon explores the parade of errors made by the management of the stadium and the police in dealing with the problems involved with the entry to the ground and to the management of the spectators at the Leppings Lane end of the ground, problems that had been apparent to the extent that there had been a near fatal crush at the same end just 8 years before.

The game had been going for 6 minutes when it became clear that there were problems in the pens and play was suspended. As the scale of the disaster became obvious, the head of British Football Association went into the police box, he was told by Superintendent Duckenfield that Liverpool fans had drunkenly broken into a side gate and flooded the pens with people. The side gate had been ordered open by Duckenfield himself, in response to frantic requests from officers outside afraid that people were going to be crushed to death trying to get in. This lie was the foundation of the allegations that Liverpool fans were drunk and that the disaster was their fault.

Gordon investigates the allegations along with the attempts to discover the truth in detail. This is headed by the pivotal contribution of Professor Phil Scraton, an articulate, authoritative interviewee,  whose research led to discoveries which contradicted the official account of events, demonstrating that the official account had been 'sanitised' at best and criminally altered at worst. These discoveries led to an overturning of the original inquest and to the opening of new inquests into the 96 deaths. Therese inquests are continuing at time of writing and the film is not currently available for viewing in the United Kingdom as a result.

Daniel Gordon has created a definitive documentary, a superb account of the Hillsborough disaster that will surely move and anger most people who watch it. This is not a great documentary, it's a  great film. 9/10.

At the time of writing, the film was available here