Hillsborough - Gone but never ever forgotten

Steel City for one day became Merseyside
No blots on the horizon point to trouble
The Red machine is in full swing
All conquering on the road to the double

Through the peak district to Sheffield
Fans savour “God’s own County”
Famed Woodhead and Snake passes
Amongst the finest of all in Blighty

On the banks of the River Don
To Hillsborough they rejoice and head
Built 9 decades prior to the year
Soon to be a shrine to the dead

Red Battalion of 13 arrives in port
Grobelaar, Ablett, Nicol, Staunton
Beardsley, Aldridge, Burrows, Whelan
Barnes, Houghton, McMahon, Rush, Hansen

At 2.55pm there are shrieks of delight
Witness all too customary a scene
Led out by Ray Lewis – the Hillsborough ref
King Kenny’s champs take to the green

3:00pm signals further gladness
Big match kicks off with a flourish
Heaving Leppings Lane End, opposite the Spion Kop
Human pen where many will perish

No stewards where it mattered
As ticketed Reds wielded their gold
With the carnival very much in full flow
Death’s shrill voice, calls out cold

A moral free Police Chief on call
“Deceitful” Duckenfield the security host
Ham-fisted Superintendent Murray
Responsible for the control post

“Dishonest” Duckenfield the rookie
Held critical sway over blameless fates
Yet still gave that fateful order:
Instructing; "Open the gates"

Despite a lucid view of the Leppings pen
Culpable of gross duty evasion
“Deceitful, dishonest” match commander
Mistook all for a pitch invasion

In streamed an abundance of ticketed Reds
Adding to an already burgeoning number
Intensity, panic, horror set in
The Police obstinate in their slumber

Asphyxiation took hold and ribs shattered
“Please Bruce (Grobelaar), help us!” they exclaim
As Beardsley struck the bar
Ray Lewis whistled the end of the game

The whistle set in motion a nightmare
All beheld an abominable crush
The carnival fizzled out with a whimper
Death mingled with the huge onrush

Paramedic Tony Evans blocked entry
“They’re fighting”, the Police scowled
As ad hoardings became makeshift stretchers
“Shan’t abandon the dead” another growled

Death’s stench, permeated in abundance
Owl’s gym resembling an ER ward
Powerful and all encompassing
Lone, distant, grief stricken voices roared

Trevor Hicks and his teenage daughters
In memory evergreen
Sarah and Victoria captured forever in time
Everlastingly 19 and 15

For Jon Paul, Stevie G’s cousin
3:06 the dead whistle blown
Paul Harrison senior amongst the deceased
And the rest will never be unknown

94 confirmed dead on the day
Football watched with bated breath
95 the figure four days later
Wee Lee Nicol succumbed to death

Switched off from life four years later
Number 96, Anthony David Bland
“Matter of life and death” a world away
It’s still “Justice”, the families demand

22 years and questions unanswered
Resolve is now rock iron mould
Malicious falsehoods add fuel to the fire
But justice is best served cold

Never forget the screams
The denials, the lies, the sorrow
You’ll never walk alone
Not yesterday, today or tomorrow.

For the victims and their families
Number 7
© Emdad Rahman
www.football-poems.com