Football Poets

Hillsborough – Gone but never ever forgotten

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Steel City for one day became Merseyside
No blots on the horizon point to trouble
The Red machine is in full swing
All conquering on the road to the double

¶ 2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Through the peak district to Sheffield
Fans take pleasure in “God’s own County”
Famed Woodhead and Snake passes
Amongst the finest of all in Blighty

¶ 3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 On the banks of the River Don
To Hillsborough they rejoice and head
Built 9 decades prior to the year
Soon to be a shrine to the dead

¶ 4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 So the Red Battalion of 13 arrives in port
Grobelaar, Ablett, Nicol, Staunton
Beardsley, Aldridge, Burrows, Whelan
Barnes, Houghton, McMahon, Rush, Hansen

¶ 5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 At 2.55pm there are shrieks of delight
Witness all too customary a scene
Led out by Ray Lewis – the Hillsborough ref
King Kenny’s champs take to the green

¶ 6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 3:00pm signals further gladness
Big match kicks off with a flourish
Heaving Leppings Lane End, opposite the Spion Kop
Human pen where many will perish

¶ 7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 No stewards where it mattered
As ticketed Reds wielded their gold
With the carnival very much in full flow
Death’s shrill voice, calls out cold

¶ 8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 Above all, a moral free Chief on call
“Deceitful” Duckenfield the security host
And ham-fisted superintendent Murray
Responsible for the control post

¶ 9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 “Dishonest” Duckenfield the rookie
Held critical sway over blameless fates
Yet still gave that fateful order:
Instructing; “Open the gates”

¶ 10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 Despite a lucid view of the Leppings pen
Both culpable of gross duty evasion
The “Deceitful, dishonest” match commander
Mistook all for a pitch invasion

¶ 11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 In streamed an abundance of ticketed Reds
Adding to an already burgeoning number
Intensity, panic, horror set in
The Police obstinate in their slumber

¶ 12 Leave a comment on verse 12 0 Asphyxiation took hold and ribs shattered
“Please Bruce (Grobelaar), help us!” they exclaimed
As Beardsley struck the bar
Ray Lewis whistled the end of the game

¶ 13 Leave a comment on verse 13 0 The whistle set in motion a nightmare
All beheld an abominable crush
The carnival fizzled out with a whimper
Death mingled with the huge onrush

¶ 14 Leave a comment on verse 14 0 Paramedic Tony Evans blocked entry
“They’re fighting”, the Police scowled
As ad hoardings became makeshift stretchers
“Shan’t abandon the dead” another growled

¶ 15 Leave a comment on verse 15 0 Death’s stench, permeated in abundance
Owl’s Club gym resembling an ER ward
Powerful and all encompassing
Grief stricken distant lone voices roared

¶ 16 Leave a comment on verse 16 0 Trevor Hicks and his teenage daughters
In memory evergreen
Sarah and Victoria captured forever in time
Everlastingly 19 and 15

¶ 17 Leave a comment on verse 17 0 For Jon Paul, Stevie G’s cousin
3:06 the dead whistle blown
Paul Harrison senior amongst the deceased
And the rest will never be unknown

¶ 18 Leave a comment on verse 18 0 94 confirmed dead on the day
Football watched with bated breath
95 the figure four days later
As wee Lee Nicol succumbed to death

¶ 19 Leave a comment on verse 19 0 Switched off from life four years later
Number 96, Anthony David Bland
“Matter of life and death” a world away
It’s still “Justice”, the families demand

¶ 20 Leave a comment on verse 20 0 20 years and questions unanswered
Resolve is now rock iron mould
Malicious falsehoods add fuel to the fire
But justice is best served cold

¶ 21 Leave a comment on verse 21 0 Never forget the screams
The denials, the lies, the sorrow
You’ll never walk alone
Not yesterday, today or tomorrow.

¶ 22 Leave a comment on verse 22 0 Number 7
© Emdad Rahman