I had planned today to continue my blogging on diet, but with the publication of today’s Hillsborough report and the shocking revelations within it I feel compelled to write about it.

I am a Liverpool fan, I was nearly 16 at the time of the disaster in 1989. I was enjoying watching one of the most exciting Liverpool sides ever, managed by Kenny Dalglish, and with players like Barnes, Beardsley Aldridge and Rush in the side. It was a lovely sunny Saturday afternoon, I was getting ready to listen to the match on the radio, excited by the prospect of playing Forest for the second year running in the FA Cup semi-final. These were the pre-Premiership days, the days before Sky, before all seater stadia, before the hype, before the huge salaries. So the game wasn’t televised, it took place on a Saturday afternoon at 3pm.

As normal on a Saturday afternoon, I was in my room was the radio on ready for to listen to the football. The game had kicked off, and after 6 minutes a report came in to say that the players had been taken off the pitch because of crowd trouble. My immediate reaction was to think it was some stupid fans causing trouble, but I assumed it would be quickly sorted, the players would be back on the pitch and the game underway again.  It then started to  become clear that this wasn’t a few fans causing trouble, this was serious, at which I pointed I turned the TV on to watch the pictures being shown on BBC Grandstand. The horror then stated to unfold as we started to hear that people were dead. Like so many people, I was in complete shock and disbelief.

I was glued to the TV for the rest of day and evening, trying to find out what actually happened. I remember crying at the sight of all those scarves, shirts, flowers at Anfield which had become a shrine, a memorial to those who had died. I remember the shock I felt at seeing the Sun’s “The Truth” headline, the admiration I felt for the Liverpool players and staff who visted the families of those who died, who attended all the funerals, the sense of catharsis when the referee blew the whistle to signal the end of the 1 minute’s silence at Liverpool’s first competitive game after the tragedy, against of all teams Everton – never had a minute’s silence been so impecably observed, never have I heard a crowd roar so loud as then.

Today was the first time though that I looked at the tragedy with a slightly different perspective.  Listening to and reading all the press coverage, understanding the scale of the cover up, which some are saying is the biggest in UK history, feeling a sense of disgust and anger, I thought about  the disaster from the perspective of a parent. I’m a parent of two beautiful girls, one of whom bought a Liverpool shirt recently, and I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to have been a parent to have lost your child in those circumstances. Losing a child must be the most horrific thing anyone could go through, but to lose a child in the circumstances that occured at Hillsborough, that cannot be fathomed. And then 23 years later, to hear that your child could possibly have been saved if only they’d allowed ambulances onto the pitch, to hear that evidence was doctored to protect the cock ups made by those whose jobs was to ensure the safety of the supporters, I’m just stunned by the dignity shown by the families who have suffered for so many years. I think I would still be full of rage.