The People of Liverpool v. The Sun Newspaper: Why Does the War Continue?

On April 15th 1989 one of the worst disasters in English football history took the lives of 96 Liverpool supporters.

Four days later The Sun Newspaper printed an article on the tragedy, accusing drunken Liverpool supporters of causing the riot that led to the deaths.

The headline the paper chose to use that day was "The Truth".

The story accompanying this headline claimed that "drunken Liverpool fans viciously attacked rescue workers as they tried to revive victims’ and ‘police officers, firemen and ambulance crew were punched, kicked and urinated upon’ as well as reported ’pick pocketing from the dead’."

A quote, attributed to an unnamed policeman, claimed that a dead girl had been abused and that Liverpool fans "were openly urinating on us and the bodies of the dead."

An official inquiry in to the disaster stated the "failure of police control" was the major contributing factor to the deaths.

An incredible amount of evidence that has surfaced since the incident took place has proven the headlines reported by the tabloid to be so incredibly far from "the truth".

19 years later and many people have continued their war against the newspaper.

My Story

As a Liverpool supporter of many years I had obviously heard of the Hillsborough disaster, but what I am ashamed to admit is I never knew anything of what really happened up until a few months ago.

I knew that people had lost their lives, but I did not have the slightest clue as to the size of the scandal that surrounded the disaster.

I certainly knew nothing of the involvement from the media and the hatred vented towards The Sun in particular.

As soon as I was informed of what had happened my immediate reaction was utter shock that I had spent so many years buying the newspaper.

I stopped buying it straight away without another thought.

The reason for this article

Ashamed of the fact I knew absolutely nothing about such an important part of the history of the club I have dedicated my life to, I began to read anything and everything I could find about the Hillsborough disaster.

After some serious time dedicated to staring at my computer screen and one slightly annoyed girlfriend later, I came to the conclusion that maybe I had jumped the gun in regards to my boycott.

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