From the archive (2005): Unquiet graves – Two decades after the Heysel disaster

On the 40th anniversary of the football stadium tragedy, The Bulletin delves into its archives to recall the horrific day when a stampede at the European Cup Final in Brussels led to the loss of 39 lives and injuries to more than 600 people. Paul Stump remembers the tragedy.

When Liverpool and Juventus fans met in Brussels on the morning of the European Cup Final on May 29, 1985, it was a balmy, Hoegaarden-all-round-on-the-terrace day in the capital. Only the odd arrest and smashed bottle marred a boisterous, good-natured hubbub among the fans. In Britain, many were savouring the warmth of their gardens when the BBC launched its match coverage.

What followed remains among the most surreal broadcasts ever seen: Terry Wogan’s genial chat-show cutting straight to Liverpool fans frenziedly attacking outnumbered Belgian riot police with a variety of makeshift weapons. The normally dignified and affable voice of commentator Barry Davies cracked: “There are reports that some people have been killed.” Killed? By now, an aghast world knew something was very wrong indeed. In Liverpool, Nessie Shankly, widow of the club’s great manager Bill, turned off the TV coverage to pray for the victims. And still the sun shone serenely as one of Belgium’s most terrible disasters unfolded.

The Heysel tragedy was that before Juventus Turin beat Liverpool 1-0 in the European Cup Final, 39 people – 32 Italians, four Belgians, one Irish and two French – were killed when an unprovoked charge by Liverpool hooligans caused panic among opposition fans in the decrepit stadium’s Sector Z. The scared supporters stampeded, causing a wall to collapse, crushing scores of people. The Heysel farce was to follow.

British reactions were at once disgusted and defensive. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher issued a tabloid-friendly soundbite: “We feel worse than numb”. ‘War’ would be declared on hooligans, she vowed. Liverpool’s local press ran eye-witness accounts. Most were distraught, but some also sought to blame the carnage on provocative Juventus diehards and poor facilities – anything but Liverpool fans. There were stories of looted and desecrated bodies and exultation in the carnage on the ferry home afterwards. Returning fans gave unabashed and apparently unironic victory salutes. They were even cast as victims, merely avenging stone-throwing by Italians after the Merseysiders’ victory over AS Roma in the Italian capital in 1984’s European Cup Final.

Heysel was the culmination of a decade of British football-related violence; the European Game’s governors, Uefa, had had enough and imposed a six-year ban on all English clubs from European competition.

But while Liverpool fans held the smoking gun, Belgian officialdom soon became an accessory after the fact. According to a gendarme interviewed for Lode Desmet’s unflinching documentary Heysel: Requiem pour un coupe finale, Brussels’ then burgomaster Hervé Brouhon was ‘blind drunk’ on hospitality champagne.

But this was nothing to the calamitous breakdown in the chain of command to control a potentially hazardous public order situation. Gendarmerie and police operated separately. The former were woefully commanded with malfunctioning walkie-talkies; their chief, General Robert Bernaert, had to call for reinforcements from a public call-box; only 72 out of 1,000 police on duty were in the 60,000 capacity stadium when trouble broke out at 19.10 and it took until 19.49 for reinforcements to arrive. Many of these were on horseback and couldn’t intervene on the terraces; others tried to restrain Juventus fans escaping the crush and propel them back into it to keep them off the pitch.

For a time, anarchy reigned in and around Heysel. Civic authorities, police and Uefa officials convened hurriedly to decide on whether the match should go ahead; such was the chaos that two dazed fans wandered into the proceedings. Italy’s then-premier, Bettino Craxi, visiting Moscow, pleaded by phone with Brussels city officials for the match to be abandoned. He was ignored.

Police intelligence – an oxymoron that nights – promised an even greater bloodbath in the streets of Jette if the match did not go ahead. “We want football!” chanted the Liverpool contingent. They got it; towards midnight, with the hot streets around Heysel gridlocked with frantic ambulances, Juventus won thanks to a disputed penalty and paraded the European Cup in what remains one of football’s most tasteless spectacles.

If Belgium’s reaction on the night was inadequate, what followed was an imbroglio of buck-passing, back-covering and deceit. Interior Minister Charles-Ferdinand Nothomb and Bernaert were among top-rankers who, aware of the catastrophic failure of the Belgian authorities, tried to get their stories straight. Their alibis were demolished by the subsequent parliamentary enquiry, which in July 1985 strongly criticised those same authorities. It was expected that Nothomb, Bernaert and Brouhon would resign. None did; Nothomb’s intransigence indirectly brought down Wilfred Martens’ government in October 1985. A few months later, he was in the same job in Martens’ next administration, and as adamant as ever that no-one but Liverpool fans were to blame.

In Britain, police forces swung into action to apprehend those caught by press and TV cameras, and hit paydirt – sometimes almost comically so, when clothes worn by perpetrators at Heysel were found on washing lines. But instead of instantly extraditing the 26 suspects, Brussels hesitated. Could not the accused come to Brussels of their own accord?

Finally, a year after the disaster, the Belgian government applied for extradition. All suspects were flown to Belgium, charged, granted bail, tried and, thanks to the vagaries of the Belgian legal system, fled back to England while awaiting sentence. After interminable trials, only 14 served token spells in prison. For others, the wheels of Belgian justice ground even slower. In 1991, for inadequate ticketing and fan segregation, Uefa officials Hans Bangerter and Jacques Georges were tried, the former receiving a 30,000 BF (€700) fine, the latter acquitted. Police top brass Michael Kensier and Johan Mahieu were, respectively, acquitted and sentenced to three months, suspended (with fines of 50 BF or €13). Burgomaster Brouhon was acquitted, but like Belgian FA chief Bert Roosens, emerged from the trial broken personally and professionally. Both died not long afterwards.

Shame clings to everything about Heysel. Take the inhumanity displayed by Uefa officials to players by not informing them of the extend of the disaster. Zbigniew Boniek, Juventus’ cultured Polish forward, said: “The authorities ordered us to play… it was dreadful, stupid. I saw bodies taken away. You can’t play football when people are dying.” Tony Chin, the Liverpool team bodyguard, confesses: “People were flooding over the wall like water. I should have helped but my responsibility was to the Liverpool team. I made the wrong choice.”

Keith Cooper, a Uefa publicity official, tried to stop fans  using advertising hoardings as makeshift stretchers, and is similarly contrite. Even Juventus themselves are not blameless – although one of the richest clubs in the world, they have never offered substantial help to the bereaved families. At the time of writing, no permanent memorial has been established in Turin although one, has, belatedly, been erected at Heysel, now the King Baudouin Stadium.

Of the many words spoken on the 20th anniversary, those of Paolo Rossi, Juventus’ legendary centre-forward who played at Heysel sound the sanest: “It [the Cup] should be given back. Juventus should do that in respect for the dead.”

This article was first published on 26 May 2005.

Heysel disaster: Amid 40th anniversary ceremonies in Brussels, Turin and Liverpool, new documentary underlines human tragedy | The Bulletin

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