ABSTRACT
On a sunny day on 15th April 1989, thousands of soccer fans made their way to the Football Association (FA) Cup semi-final at Hillsborough football ground in Sheffield, England. The FA Cup semi-final is held at a neutral ground, where both sets of fans Liverpool FC and Nottingham Forest FC would be away from home. Hillsborough is the home ground of Sheffield Wednesday FC. It is an old ground, built in 1965, with terraces for 10,100 people to stand at the Leppings Lane end of the ground, accessed by 7 turnstiles (see Appendix 8). Hillsborough was highly regarded as a soccer venue:
Yet, at this perfect venue, 95 (later 96) people lost their lives – 89 victims were male, 7 female; 39 were under the age of 20 (the youngest 14); 39 were between the age of 20 and 29 years and only 3 were over 50. In the majority of cases the cause of death was crush asphyxiation, due to compression of the chest wall against other bodies or fixed structures so as to prevent inhalation. Six cases were due to traumatic asphyxiation (Taylor LJ, 1989, p 18). A total of 730 people were injured and thousands were traumatised, including soccer fans, bereaved families, emergency personnel and police officers.
