18 May 1989
The F.A. Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest was one of RTÉ’s regular Saturday afternoon live English games, so I was watching it. George Hamilton and John Giles, the RTÉ commentary team that day, were quick to mention that the Liverpool supporters’ end looked dangerously overcrowded, and the Liverpool players defending that goal were also pointing it out to the referee. Soon after, the game was stopped, presumably just for a few minutes while the crush would be eased. I think everyone who saw it remembers the solitary small ambulance driving the full length of the pitch, the first sign that something was more seriously wrong, but already looking a hopelessly forlorn and inadequate response. That evening, ninety-four people were dead; the official death toll would stand at 96 until July 2021, when a fan who had suffered catastrophic brain injuries that day died and was ruled by a coroner to be the 97th person unlawfully killed in the Hillsborough disaster.
One of the contemporary responses to Hillsborough was for a number of Liverpool pop personalities to record this collective charity version of ‘Ferry ‘Cross The Mersey’ to raise funds for those affected. It’s a nostalgic and melancholic song anyway, but in this context the opening lines—“Life goes on day after day / Hearts torn in every way”—sound especially poignant. For me the stand-out of this version is Holly Johnson, whose normally reptilian and sneering voice here carries a different emotional heft: pain, empathy, but also a sort of combative defiance. I imagine few people in May 1989 realised just how much combative defiance the victims’ families would require.
