Hillsborough disaster still casts shadow over football
Tragedy’s 30th anniversary passes with families still seeking answers.

It was a bright spring afternoon in south Yorkshire, and spirits were high.
As fans arrived for a hotly anticipated cup tie between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, there was a carnival atmosphere in the Victorian terraces of the Sheffield suburb of Owlerton.
An hour later, the mood would change to one of heartache and chaos never seen before, as a devastating crush would leave 96 Liverpool fans dead and 766 injured.
It is 30 years today since the Hillsborough disaster, the worst disaster in British football history.
And three decades on the families of those killed are still seeking justice.

Questions still remain unanswered about the reasons for the tragedy, and in particular the police's handling of the crowds on the day.
It changed forever the way fans watch football, with the legendary huge standing areas such as the Kop, the South Bank and the Holte End consigned to history.
It wasn't the first crush at Hillsborough. Eight years earlier, there had been an incident at a cup semi-final between Wolves and Tottenham Hotspur, but although a number of supporters were injured, there were no fatalities. It led to the ground being removed from the FA's list of grounds suitable for semi-finals, but it was reinstated in 1987 following changes to the ground.
Liverpool and Forest had met at Hillsborough for the previous year's semi, and on that occasion British Rail had chartered three trains to bring fans to the ground. However, for the 1989 game, a single dedicated train was considered sufficient, resulting in 350 Liverpool fans arriving at the ground at 2.20pm. Roadworks on the M62 also delayed many fans, creating a bottleneck outside the stadium as kick-off approached.

The previous year, Liverpool fans had been located in the Spion Kop, the larger area at the eastern end of the stadium, as their team traditionally had the larger following. However, for this game they decided to allocate the Kop and the South Stand to Forest fans, who would be arriving at the game from the south, and allocated the smaller North Stand and Leppings Lane end to Liverpool supporters.
To keep the rival fans apart, a number of turnstiles were closed, meaning that all Liverpool fans were directed through the gates at the Leppings Lane stand.