Today is the 14th anniversary of the Hillsborough Football Disaster. Seems a long time ago, and it is for most. For a few thousand people the events of 14 years ago are still like an open wound. Time never healed, the mourning process was overshadowed by the fact that those responsible for the disaster were never bought to justice.

There will be a small march from the Hillsborough Justice Campaign Shop/Office in Oakfield Rd Anfield to the Living Flame Memorial on the corner of Anfield Rd. Anyone's welcome, and it's a simple respectful march, no shouting or slogans, just a dignified walk. It's only a 10 minute walk to the Memorial, and those gathered will stop and listen to a few words being spoken. Then there's a mass inside Anfield. There's always a lot of fans gather in the pubs and that around Anfield, have a drink for old times sake, even a few laughs. Any Red is always made welcome; anyone who believes in Justice is made welcome. The March will begin at 2.45pm, and the Hillsborough Justice Campaign headquarters will be open from 11am onwards.

If you want to send messages to the families and survivors, they ARE still active, I know the issue seems quiet right now but wait till things pick up. This is not finished by a long shot. This Country, whilst pretending to be some bastion of Justice, is, in many ways, as bent as any tin pot third world dictator's hellhole. If we were civilised, we would not resort to cover ups and denials.

The Hillsborough Justice Campaign is all that's left to fight on in Liverpool. There are individuals who help from all over, but the support from the Council here is pathetic. They want to forget it, so do Liverpool FC, so do the FA and the Directors of Sheffield Wednesday who allowed their death trap of a stadium to be used. South Yorkshire Police? They too join the queue to the amnesia clinic. Or the queue to the bank as they cash there compensation cheque for 'stress'.

It's hard for us to forget the deaths of 96 people who went to a football match and came home in coffins. Or the hundreds injured and thousands traumatised. It's impossible for the families or survivors to forget.

In 1989 there was no real fight as such. The families were immediately controlled by the state and that influenced the initial legal proceedings and the actual campaign for 'Justice' as it was at the time. Many of you will have heard of Trevor Hicks, he became the long standing chairperson of the Families campaign (no survivors allowed) and was also one of the people who, in 1998, dealt with the Sun Newspaper. He wanted to do a deal with them, and at that point, the more proactive families, left, or were kicked out, and formed the Hillsborough Justice Campaign. Many thought Hicks had gone too far with the Sun episode, but he had also previously made claims that the establishment was something he was not only willing to deal with but that he was actually a part of it. An 'establishment man' as he called himself.

Trevor Hicks was in effect the 'leader' for the first 10 years of the campaign for Justice. All he done, in some peoples opinion, was make a few more solicitors richer and dilute the campaign's proactiveness. Millions were wasted, people got sick of the road to nowhere and now we find that there are stronger cases which were not bought forward. The case of Anne Williams is the most important and strongly backed up case there is. Anne was the first person to be kicked out of the families group. She wasn't a trouble maker and was definitely not what you may term a 'militant' or even remotely politically affiliated to anything. She was a bereaved mother who was suspicious that her evidently strong case was not championed.

In 1998 a change happened. There was a new group formed to fight for Justice: the Hillsborough Justice Campaign. This wasn't some political front or manipulation engineered by the local 'rent a mob', it was and still is, a genuine group controlled by the Families and Survivors of the disaster. They formed to become more 'pro-active' and judging by the way the issue of Hillsborough had been forgotten by most of the country, it was obvious that staying quiet was getting the families and survivors nowhere.

Sadly, a few of the campaigners passed away themselves. People like John Harrison, Joe Glover, Maureen Church and Alfie Langley were people who were very much fighters, but in a two year period all of them passed away, and no matter what anyone says, I will always blame Hillsborough for those premature deaths. A lot of people killed themselves over the years as well. Hillsborough took its toll year by year as the bereaved and injured were left to fall by the wayside.

You can read the first two chapters of Anne Williams's book 'When you walk through a Storm'

She was the woman whose lad was alive at 4,00pm when they said everyone had died by 3.15. Kevin's last words at 4.00pm on April 15th 1989 were "Mum". He was 15.

His mum is still fighting for justice, read it here......

One memory stands out for me. It happened on Wednesday April the 19th 1989. The Sun newspaper put out a front page headline which went as follows............

My Father was at the game, and admittedly the Sun was popular in Liverpool then, to the point that my mother actually bought it.

The paper was delivered that day and I can picture my old man still setting fire to it, tears in his eyes. I helped him, I watched it burn and stamped on the ashes with him, kicking them so they should scatter in the wind. If only it was Murdoch we were burning.

Later on, the shops in the local Town Center were relieved of all copies by a massive angry crowd of women. The men of these wives, the sons or brothers, were the ones the Sun accused of killing our own. Hundreds of copies of the paper were burnt. Newsagents phoned up to cancel orders and for ages there was a hatred of the Sun, still is, but a new generation needs reminding of why we hate them, and why we must fight them still.

Even as the Funerals went on, the Journalistic Filth from the Sun were scampering around the gravestones. A man still alive today, Dave Church, who lost his son at Hillsborough, would tell you how this happened.

I was there as Dave stood outside the Labour Party conference in 1999, snubbed by his own MP whilst yuppies and businessmen bypassed him and his wife waiting in the freezing cold outside. I knew then the Labour Party offered nothing for us. That the common man and common woman were at the back of a long fucking queue indeed. We could all tell a hundred similar tales, or a thousand.

But, all is not lost. There are still things going on and it's important to remember that this campaign, although local in its nature, is backed by people from all over the World.

Go to the excellent website of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign to find out the latest news and to research the matter.

Don't think it's just a football thing. It's about social injustice and the Hillsborough Justice Campaign has shown solidarity with many campaigns itself.

Had someone apologised on April the 16th 1989, and admitted that the safety arrangements were not as they should have been; there could have been 14 years of heartache prevented.



PS Thanks for nothing to Claire Sweeney who appeared on the SCUMS (Sun Newspaper) website today the 15th of April, and presumably the paper itself today. She also supported the SCUMS patronising 'give a quid to an Iraqi kid' campaign. She should be ashamed of herself for allowing herself to be used in this way by a paper which insulted Merseysiders to the extreme. Clair Sweeney herself spoke out in the Echo when Kevin Keegan joked about Scousers and stolen cars, Clair said "What he has said is an insult", yet she cosys up to a paper which accused us, not jokingly, of killing our own and robbing the dead and pissing on them. Get your priorities right Clair, your looking like a hypocritical two faced cow from where I am.

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