[AlanG]

Reply I read elsewhere which allows copying and distributing
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At about 6 o’clock yesterday evening I got a call from R telling me that The
S*n were about to publish an apology. The news left me a bit dumbstruck; I
told Robbie I’d get back to him once I had a think about it. Once I had done
this I spoke to a couple of other members of the HJC and discussed what we
thought was going on, and what had caused such a dramatic change of heart.
It really did not stack up.

Was it the success of the boycott? Was it that they had become fed up of
their feeble attempts to increase circulation in the area? Was it the Rooney
influence? Was it a reaction to continued opposition in the area? I suppose
that I thought the Rooney influence had been the straw that had finally
broken the camel’s back, seeing Evertonians turn on their modern day hero as
a result of his association with this vile rag.

The people of Liverpool have long lived with the reality of negative press
coverage but the attacks made on Liverpool fans on 19th April 1989 went far
beyond any of their predecessors. Media attacks on the City were frequent,
and those made on the Militant local authority of the mid-80s were too
numerous to mention. At this time football in general and football fans in
particular were “out of vogue� and were also seen as ‘fair game’ for the
nation’s press attacks. It is interesting that Liverpool as a City, and
football fans as a group, had also been continuously attacked by successive
Tory governments during the 1980s.

Hillsborough was the worst day of my life. Sat in the North Stand I saw
youngsters trying to administer the kiss of life to dying men, women and
children, whilst police officers stood idly by. The South Yorkshire Police
stood in front of the North Stand in case there were a pitch invasion,
whilst youngsters died on advertising hoardings behind them. An ambulance
that entered onto the pitch at the Kop end of the ground was denied access
to the Liverpool fans by those self same officers.

The aftermath of the disaster is well documented - incompetent police, an
inadequate antiquated football ground, a ‘national’ attitude which saw fit
to treat successive generations as football fans as animals and a Football
Association which saw fit to align itself with a cover up rather than
represent the interests of fans. At the heart of this attempted cover up was
the nation’s press.

The police immediately realised that their organisation was inadequate, and
drew together the press to perpetuate their lies and conspiracy. On the
afternoon of the disaster the BBC reported that a door had been broken down
by Liverpool fans. Graham Taylor of the FA inferred that the police had not
ordered the gates to be opened on Radio 2. The secretary of Sheffield
Wednesday Football Club reported that “at 2.50 there was a surge of
Liverpool fans at The Leppings Lane end of the ground�. The seeds for the
cover-up were sewn as Liverpool fans lay on the turf dying and dead.

As we turned up to pay our respects to the dead at Anfield over the
following days, the nation’s free press assembled to gather evidence against
us. The fact that people had died because they were seen as potential
criminals rather than citizens by the country's police forces was never
seriously examined. The myth of ticketless fans storming a gate continued to
be perpetuated by the bloodhounds in league with the South Yorkshire
onstabulary.

The S*n was not alone in its condemnation of Liverpool but its headlines do
need to be considered:

'THE TRUTH'

"SOME FANS PICKED THE POCKETS OF VICTIMS, SOME FANS URINATED ON THE BRAVE
COPS"

"SOME FANS BEAT UP P.C. GIVING KISS OF LIFE".

These was the actions of an organisation trying to rewrite history, hand in
hand with the British authorities. That one headline still perpetuates, in
parts of this country, the myth that The Hillsborough Disaster occurred as a
result of drunken football hooligans and not as a result of inadequate
policing, a senile FA and a “penny pinching� football club. It was this
perpetuation of the lies and propaganda of the authorities which made the
lives of the families and survivors all the more unbearable.

It has been said that The S*n was not alone in its condemnation of Liverpool
fans, but it must emphasised that they were by far the most vocally vehement
in their condemnation. Furthermore, they stood alone in their defiance of
the published findings of the Justice Taylor Report and their continued
condemnation of Liverpool fans, and their refusal to publish a retraction of
their original article. To point to half hearted admissions of impropriety
(imposed by the Press Commission) as heartfelt apologies I find both
offensive to the intelligence Liverpool fans, and completely disrespectful
to the trauma faced by the bereaved families.

The article in question was not a decision taken in isolation by McKenzie,
but no doubt he was duly rewarded for taking the blame for it being so. It
was part of the establishment cover up of the facts of Hillsborough. The S*n
did, however, go far, far further in their condemnation of Liverpool fans
and their perpetuation of the establishment lies. Editorial decisions are
not taken in isolation by any organisation, and the likely affects of such
an article would have been weighed up with pros and cons. The fact is though
that The S*n vastly underestimated the response of the people of Merseyside,
and they further underestimated the longevity of the opposition to their
vile rag.

The boycott of the rag was not organised by the HJC, the HFSG, LFC or any
organisation. It was an instanteous reaction from the people of Liverpool.
The grieving people of Liverpool awoke that morning to the most disgusting
headlines imaginable. The boycott belongs to these people, reds and blues
alike, and the boycott soon spread to reds and other football fans the
length and breadth of the country.

The thing which hit the S*n hardest, and still continues to hit home, is the
fact that up to 200,000 Merseyside people boycotted this once popular rag
overnight. This is why they have made continuous attempts to try to recover
part of its once vast circulation on Merseyside. The Souness episode, the
20p advertisements and their attempted dealings with LFC, as well as the
recent episode with Peter Kilfoyle, a local MP, highlight how desperate they
are to win back some of their circulation in the Merseyside area. They have
failed over the past fifteen years in their attempts to influence Liverpool
fans, so it becomes increasingly clear that the Rooney episode is clear
“divide and conquer� tactics.

Devoting more column inches to Liverpool FC than any other national
newspaper had failed so the new tactic was drawn up - a new national hero,
dressed in blue but based on Merseyside, an opportunity too good to miss. I
don’t wear the stories coming out of the Rooney camp; in any case his
advisers should have known better, given that one Kenny Dalglish is an
employee of his agents. This really should have been handled far better and
with far more dignity.

In exactly the same manner as it was in the dark days following the
disaster, the reaction of the Everton fans to Rooney’s decision to sell his
story to this rag was exemplary. In fact I would even go as far as they have
been quicker to condemn him than many reds were when Souness acted in a
similar manner.

I have no doubt that as proprietor of the rag and part of the establishment,
Rupert Murdoch was party to the decision to run this story. Make no mistake
the boycott of The S*n hits Murdoch. Some people ask shouldn't we boycott
all of Murdoch's media interests? The fact is that other arms of his media
empire did not attack Liverpool fans in the same way as The S*n, so to
extend the boycot to these organisations would be seen as unfair. To extend
the boycott only serves to dilute it and weaken its effectiveness.

At about 9pm Sheila Coleman from the HJC called me to confirm that the
features editor of the S*n had been in touch. He had started by declaring
that the apology would be the front page lead of the paper, a decision
obviously quickly reversed. He then went on to share the content of the
apology; started as such and then running into a defence of themselves and
Mr Rooney, before moving onto an attack on their perceived rivals and a
thinly veiled attack on the people of the City of Liverpool. After the call
I felt a bit down as I shared the information with others. I don’t really
know why, I had no reason to expect anything else from these lying bastards.

So yesterday evening I found many questions racing through my head. Would
this be a breakthrough that has considerable influence towards the road for
justice? I should have known better. How could a major conspirator in the
fight against justice expose the establishment conspiracy? They could not,
they have continued to treat the people of the City of Liverpool with
contempt.

The opening few lines of the article appears to constitute an apology, but
even in there is the thinly conceiled lie that “We gladly say sorry again
today: fully, openly, honestly and without reservation.� Expounding the myth
that they had apologised for their actions.

Then comes their attack on you and me “Sadly, for some people in the city of
Liverpool, forgetting — never mind forgiving — is impossible.� I can’t
forgive them and I won’t forget them. Why should I?