Thursday, April 09, 2009

Easter football - remember the 96

I note with some interest that there will be a march by Liverpool fans before the visit of Blackburn Rovers on Saturday. This being April, I thought it might be to do with the impending 20th anniversary of Hillsborough, but it isn't. It's to put pressure on Justice secretary and Blackburn MP Jack Straw to free Michael Shields, the lad who was jailed for chucking a brick at Martin Georgiev in Bulgaria. I don't know enough about this case to know that a Bulgarian court got it so wrong, but everyone else seems to be an expert on it. What is certain is that 96 innocent people died at Hillsborough, the trauma still runs deep and all football fans should mark it at the date closest to the day of the game.

I won't be there, I've been invited to Deepdale to watch the Preston v Blackpool local derby. Real football rivalry this one. Looking forward to catching up with old pals who support both teams and to seeing the transformed Deepdale, the ground on which I first saw professional football back in 1971.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The 96 were remembered immaculately by everyone at Anfield today. Well done and thankyou to Blackburn Rovers and their fans.

Michael Taylor said...

Pleased to hear it Nick.

Sounds like our team came with no expectation of getting anything from the game whatsoever.