26 years since the biggest football tragedy: 96 Liverpool fans died, and 766 were injured

Tomorrow, April 15, 1989, marks 26 years since a major football tragedy, writes the Patria News Agency. April 15 will be remembered as the date of the biggest tragedy in English football, but also one of the biggest football disasters that have ever occurred in the world.

During the FA Cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, 96 Liverpool fans died, and 766 were injured. Most died from the consequences of a human stampede after being literally crushed against the fence separating the fans and the pitch.

Since a large number of fans from both clubs were expected, the media asked everyone planning to come to the stadium to do so well before the start of the match scheduled for 3 PM. However, between 2:30 PM and 2:40 PM, a larger group of Liverpool fans formed outside the stadium, desperately trying to get in before the referee's whistle.

Due to the bottleneck at the entrance, the number of increasingly nervous fans grew by the second, and the police did not decide to open additional entrances until the last moment. When they finally did, almost 5,000 people rushed through the gates uncontrollably.

The disaster was inevitable. The already overcrowded "cage" became too tight, and those who had the best seats, right by the fence along the pitch, suffered the worst.

The official investigation, known as the "Taylor Report," concluded that the cause of the Hillsborough disaster was the failure of police control. The FA issued a decree banning metal fences in English stadiums, as well as stipulating that only all-seater stadiums could exist in England.