The extinction of Pityus Mancityus

Manchester City’s stunning Premier League triumph was achieved in typically Madchester style. As someone wrote in the aftermath, the second half of their final game at home against Queens Park Rangers was a microcosm of their season. Comfortably winning the league, then almost throwing it away before finally snatching it back at the end.  It was an astonishing climax to a wild ride and probably just as well they won as the alternative would have been one calamity too far for a side renowned for its ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

It was an expensive triumph. Abi Dhabi's Sheik Mansour has poured almost a billion pounds into his expensive toy but he has achieved his first target of winning the Premier League within four seasons. As well as their expensive assemblage of players, Mansour also recruited a hardnosed winning manager in Roberto Mancini who took Inter to three Italian titles before adding the English crown to his collection. The talk now is of moving forward to collect European silverware, a task that fellow billionaire Roman Abramovich has found beyond him in his reign as Chelsea moneybags – though he has one more chance in Munich this weekend.

As a Liverpool fan, I remain a fully paid up member of ABU (Anyone But United) for at least one season.  I have to say I enjoyed the way the title was snatched from Manchester United’s grasp on Sunday. I thought they were a poor team but I thought the same in 2003 and 2011 when they also managed to win the league. Sir Alex Ferguson has long ago proved himself the best manager ever to grace the British game and time after time he has come up with the goods to coach United sides in the fine art of grinding out victories.

I might be persuaded to leave ABU if City put together a run of title successes but I’m not convinced that will happen. I certainly wouldn’t bet against United coming back next season, having just lost out on goal difference this year. Defensively they are almost impregnable while the ageless pair of Giggs and Scholes will be back for another season, playing as well as ever. Wayne Rooney appears at the peak of his considerable powers well supported by the likes of Hernandez and Valencia though their midfield needs bolstering.  The memory of that 6-1 shellacking at Old Trafford (the size of the victory ultimately decided the title) should be enough motivation to do better next time round.

City meanwhile may struggle to keep up the momentum next season and could be distracted by a longer European campaign.  They will have money to spend in the summer but there will be much to spend it on with bad boys Tevez and Balotelli and relative failure Dzeko all likely to move on.  They also rely too much of Yaya Toure which is great when he is on the park, but a risky policy as shown when he limped off injured against QPR. Like United however, Mancini has drilled them into a formidable defensive unit with Kompany and company backed up by Joe Hart who has the chance to earn back the good name of English goalkeepers that was lost around 20 years ago. 

Chelsea and Arsenal will continue to flip around for third and fourth with Tottenham there or thereabouts. Redknapp has proved a shrewd acquisitor of talent in the transfer market with Van der Vaart and Modric both inspired signings while developing the considerable talents of Bale before the inevitable transfer to Old Trafford (or maybe the City of Manchester stadium). I’m not sure if Newcastle’s season is a one-off or they are back in the mix. Papiss Cisse was a sensation at the end of the season as was Demba Ba at the start and getting them both to click at the same time will be crucial to their chance.

My own team Liverpool look an absolute shambles and it is probably just as well they did not win the cup final as a second trophy would have disguised the fact it was their worst season in living memory. The fact is if they keep their 2012 form into next season, they would have to be among the relegation candidates. Their new stadium plans are in disarray, King Kenny’s crown is in tatters and they are a long way from getting back into the Top Four let alone making a title challenge. Gerrard is looking past it, Suarez and Carroll is not working, and none of Downing, Adams or Henderson have risen to the challenge. It’s difficult to see anything but hard times for the Reds in 2012-2013.

God Speed

Like most people who enjoy football, I was shocked to hear about the death of Gary Speed. Aged just 42, he enjoyed a successful playing career and settled into management exceedingly well as he knocked Wales into shape. He was found hanged at home on Sunday morning and while Cheshire Police say there is no suspicious circumstances, an inquest will be held into his death. Whatever the coroner finds, Speed’s death is an enormous tragedy that must be devastating and inexplicable for his wife and two teenage boys. Friends of the family say his marriage was happy and Speed was not depressed.

Just a day before he died, Speed exhibited no sign of problems when he appeared as a guest on the BBC’s Football Focus. Speed was in a “gaggle of Garys” with fellow former Leeds United player Gary McAllister. Both men won the old (and last ever) First Division with Leeds in 1992. It was the only time either would win the championship. Leeds slowly fell from grace and both Garys would move on to many other clubs. Speed started his professional football career at Leeds in 1988, aged 18. But as he said in Football Focus “If I wasn’t playing somewhere I’d had to move and go play somewhere else.” Speed would spend eight years at the club before bowing out with a League Cup final defeat in 1996.

Speed supported Everton as a boy, so they were a natural fit to follow Leeds. Everton boss Joe Royle paid £3.5 million and Speed repaid the debt by scoring 11 goals from midfield to be the club joint leading scorer. But lack of goals was Everton’s problem that year and they finished 15th. Joe Royle resigned at the start of the following season bringing club hero Howard Kendall back. Though Kendall made Speed his caption, the pair did not get on and he played his last game for the club he loved in January 1998. Famously he told a journalist “You know why I’m leaving, but I can’t explain myself publicly because it would damage the good name of Everton Football Club and I’m not prepared to do that.”

Though never a flashy player, he was hard-working, versatile and rarely injured – attributes that made him saleable. Newcastle paid £5.5m for him and he played in successive cup final defeats in 1998 and 1999. By 2004, Speed was 34 years old and a hardened veteran of the game who had broken the record for the most number of premiership games. But he still had much to give. Bolton paid £750,000 to buy him. Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd took the money with mixed feeling saying it was always difficult to let a player like Gary go. “He is one of the best of the best,” Shepherd said. “He is totally professional and he always gave 100%.”

Speed spent another three successful years at Bolton rising to first team coach when Sam Allardyce quit. His 20 year tenure at the top table finally ended when he accepted a move to then Championship side Sheffield United. His love of the game made him a crucial member of that side until a rare injury finally ended his playing career in November 2008. He scored 109 goals in 677 games. Fans called him the "model professional". He continued as a coach for United and was appointed manager just after the start of the 2010-2011 season. He lasted til Christmas when he landed the job of manager of his country.

Speed was a Welshman by quirk. His brothers and sisters were all born in England but his parents had Gary at Mancot, Flintshire, five miles from Chester. Speed played for Flintshire Schoolboys and cemented his Welshness with games for the youth and under 21 teams. He made his national debut in 1990 in a friendly against Costa Roca in front of just 5,000 fans at Ninian Park, Cardiff. Speed was a 76th minute substitute in a 1-0 win. He went on to take the outfield record with 85 caps scoring 7 goals. Wales never played in the finals of a major tournament in that time.

It was that poor record (just the one famous World Cup appearance in 1958) that Speed set about addressing when he was made manager in December last year. After a rocky start with defeats to Ireland and England, he slowly began to turn things round with four wins in the last five outings (narrowly losing again to England at Wembley). With Speed promoting promising young players, expectations were high when the 2014 world cup fixture list was announced last Wednesday. "This is such a well-balanced group that we knew everyone would be looking for an early advantage," Speed said on the day. "As always, there had to be some give and take, but I am very glad that we did not have to use the June qualifying dates”.

Four days later Speed was inexplicably dead sending the football world into mourning. Even the usually ultra cynical Guardian “Fiver” was shocked. His death was up there with any 'stop all the clocks' news they had ever heard, Glendenning and Ronay said. “On Saturday, we watched the Wales manager joshing along with his old mucker Gary McAllister on the Football Focus sofa,” the Fiver said. “24 hours later we were among hundreds of thousands of football fans numbed with total disbelief by the astonishing revelation that he was dead". Gary Speed was as the Fiver said, a great man gone at a preposterously young age, leaving behind a wife, Louise, and two sons, Tommy and Ed.

Billy Costine's Flight of a Magpie

I stumbled across this great story in the English Newcastle Chronicle this evening about a man from my home town of Waterford. His name is Billy Costine, he’s 58 years old and his autobiographical book called The Flight of a Magpie is about to be published in the next few months. The reference to Magpies is about Newcastle United Football Club, a side Costine has had a near-lifetime association with. (photo via Newcastle Chronicle of Billy Costine and Peter Beardsley)

Costine has been a Newcastle fan for 50 years. With little cultural affiliation between Waterford and Newcastle, the reason a boy in the south-east of Ireland becomes a fan of a club in the north-east of England takes a bit of explaining. In 1961 aged 8, Costine played the table top football game Subbuteo with his brothers. The game was created 16 years earlier, by British game designer and RAF veteran Peter Adolph who had an interest in both football and ornithology. Adolph wanted to call his creation “hobby” for the Eurasian hobby, a type of falcon. His request was turned down by patent officers because of the wider meaning of hobby so instead he called it by a part of the bird’s Latin name “falco subbuteo”.

The etymology would have been unknown to most boys of Costine's generation, but the game itself was legendary. It was a rite of passage for many boys growing up in Ireland and Britain - including myself about ten years later. Costine played endless games with his brothers until they tired of the standard red and blue colours of the two playing teams. “My brother David said we could send away for other teams,” Costine told the Newcastle Chronicle. “I looked at the small brochure, which featured all the teams in the first division, and saw this team with black-and-white stripes".
The Magpie, he said, was born there and then.

In 1961 it wasn’t easy for a boy in Waterford to become a Magpie. There was no Internet in those days and no access to English television. There were English newspapers available but they tended to concentrate on the big London, Manchester and Liverpool clubs. Instead, Costine became addicted listening to the BBC on short wave radio. Every Saturday afternoon, he would tune in to hear about the progress of Newcastle’s games and listen to the final results read out at 5pm. He became a passionate fan and soaked up every scrap of information he could find about his heroes.

It would take 15 years before he could see them in the flesh. The cost of a flight in those pre-Ryan Air days was prohibitive and getting there by train and ferry was an enormous and time-consuming undertaking. By 1976 however, Costine was making money. He was a glass cutter at Waterford Crystal during a time when the workers there were acquiring significant union muscle. In 1976 A friend from the factory pulled some strings to get tickets to a Liverpool-Newcastle clash at Anfield. Billy hoped to see his heroes get revenge for their cup final defeat to Liverpool two years earlier but he was to be disappointed. His first Newcastle match ended in a 2-0 loss to the Magpies.

Billy went home undeterred, delighted he had finally seen the team he loved and dreaming of when he could finally watch them at home in Newcastle. It would take another 11 years for this wish to become a reality. Costine finally got to see St James Park in 1987. The Newcastle manager at the time was another Irishman with a long and loyal association with the club. Iam “Willy” McFaul arrived as a player in 1966 from Northern Irish football and served as coach, assistant manager and then manager until he was sacked 22 years later. Costine arrived a year before McFaul was ousted and had laid the groundwork with a letter to the manager. McFaul arranged for Costine to meet the team.

As Costine he left the dressing room, Billy spotted his heroes – Joe Harvey and Jackie Milburn. Both men had played football for Newcastle in a golden era in the 1950s. This was before Costine’s time but it didn’t stop him from absorbing either the mythology or the moment. “I remember like it was only yesterday,” he said. “There I was, stood between two of the greatest names ever to play for the Magpies, while Willie McFaul took the most prized picture I own.”

Since then, Billy travelled to Newcastle for the last home game of every season. He has become a well-known figure around the ground and has forged friendships with several ex-players such as John Anderson and Bob Moncur. Over the years he met most of the Newcastle greats including Alan Shearer, Paul Gascoigne, Malcolm McDonald, Peter Beardsley, Kevin Keegan and Bobby Robson. His connections got him a job with the club as a talent scout with a brief to cover Ireland hunting for promising young players for the Newcastle United Academy. “To do a scouting job for the club I have supported since I was eight years old was a dream come true,” Billy said. “Most of the boys I helped send over on trial have been capped at schoolboy level and up for Ireland.”

Costine has turned his story into a book but it hasn’t been an easy path to publication. Costine was made redundant as the state of Waterford Crystal deteriorated and he got a job driving buses for Bus Eireann. In 2005 he was involved in an accident in Cork and accused of careless driving. Costine blamed the accident on the poor quality of the bus and he was vindicated after an inquiry found other drivers too had experienced power surges in Bus Eireann buses.

Then Costine got into a row with his former publisher Francis de Roelman, also of Waterford. Costine claimed he had given de Roelman €5,000 in a contract to publish the book and he provided the publisher with a manuscript as well as photos and memorabilia to illustrate the book. De Roelman said he had not been paid and kept the manuscript and memorabilia. The District Court awarded the case to Costine but de Roelman appealed to the Circuit Court. In February last year, Circuit Judge Olive Buttimer affirmed the decision to grant €5,000 and costs to Costine for breach of contract for failing to publish his life story. The Court also ordered de Roelman to return the manuscript and memorabilia. The Flight of a Magpie is now due out in May, fittingly at the end of the football season.

The reign in Spain is mainly plain

And so a World Cup that began as African, and then turned South American before becoming European ended up as Spanish in a tense but always absorbing final overnight in Johannesburg. Nelson Mandela delighted fans by turning up but not as much as Barcelona midfielder Andres Iniestra did by scoring the game’s only goal deep into extra time consigning the Dutch to their third final defeat.

One punter on Twitter said after the game a Dutch victory would have been a Scorsese award: given purely for their work in the 1970s – this is a little unfair on Martin Scorsese whose more recent films Gangs of New York and The Departed are on a par with anything he did in his earlier career but the point is well made nonetheless.

Holland (never the more geographical correct Netherlands) were the great side of the 1970s with Johan Cruyff at the centre of most of their brilliance. But they never won anything at national level being undone by their own arrogance in 1974, 1976 and 1978 losing to the hosts and winners of the tournament each time. 1978 was a particularly tragedy when Cruyff decided for political reasons not to go to Argentina. What better rebuff to the junta generals would have been for him to lift the trophy in front of them.

The defeat of the current Dutch crop is no tragedy, being nowhere near as good as the total football side of the 1970s. The current vintage is a competent if workmanlike team epitomised by the starring role of Liverpool’s much maligned workhorse Dirk Kuyt. They beat Brazil which was perhaps the biggest shock of the entire World Cup. But otherwise they were like Brazil’s 2006 conquerors France, tough to beat and lucky but not worldbeaters themselves.

And in terms of sporting disappointment, they are only the second best of the month compared to unknown Frenchman Nicolas Mahut who lost his Wimbledon tennis match to equally obscure American John Isner in a record breaking three-day 11-hour contest 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7-9), 7-6 (7-3), 70-68. I can’t begin to imagine how Mahut felt at the end of that final 183rd game after they shared almost a thousand points between them.

But even Wimbledon reminds us of the World Cup with a Spaniard Rafael Nadal carrying off his second crown. His fellow countrymen – and they are countrymen, despites their catalogue of Catalans - one nilled their way to the World Cup final and repeated the dose one last time to deservedly take the crown. I congratulate them on their first title, a magnificent achievement especially outside their own continent.

As convincing European Champions in 2008 they went in as the favourite side from the northern hemisphere, but few people thought they could get past Brazil or Argentina to win outside their own continent. More still (myself included, I must admit) wrote them off after their opening shock loss to unrated Switzerland. The defeat was occasion for great angst in Madrid and Barcelona yet two games later they were back on track having won the group while the Swiss packed their bags for home.

The group win was crucial. It meant they avoided Brazil in the round of 16. Instead they won a tense Iberian derby before squeezing past a Paraguay side that was just delighted to be in the quarter finals. Germany was a different kettle of pescado having thrashed Australia, England and then Argentina but Spain passed them to death to deservedly win before repeating the dose against the Dutch.

Perhaps it is appropriate that the most Africanised country in Europe (and the one closest geographically) should triumph in Africa though the players probably won’t feel that way. But this victory may do what 50 years of oppression under Franco could not: seal a farrago of nationalities into a nation. Though it was a Castilian Iker Casillas who lifted the trophy (and in the process joining Dino Zoff in the pantheon of goalkeeping greats), it was a Catalan backbone that sealed the win. And the celebrations would have been just as great in Basque Bilbao and Galician La Coruna as they were in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Seville. Viva Espana.

I'm hearing only bad news from Radio Africa

I remember at the Italia 90 World Cup when Cameroon got to the quarter finals and were unluckily beaten by England everyone saying it was only a matter of time before an African side won the World Cup. The breakthrough would come some time in the next 20 years. What no one predicted was that Cameroon’s 1990 performance would be remain an African high water mark, equalled only by Senegal who also went out in quarter-final extra time in 2002.

Things have gone backwards since then. With one round of the group matches left to go in the first ever African World Cup, it remains a distinct possibility that no African side will make it through to the last 16. South Africa, Ivory Coast and Nigeria are almost certainly out already. Algeria has some hope in the group of sleep but will probably lose to USA. That leaves Ghana who top their group currently ahead of Germany and Serbia. However their lacklustre performance against a poor ten-man Australian side suggests that they will probably lose to Germany and allow Serbia to grab the other place with a win or draw against Australia.

Just about the one African innovation of note in this World Cup is not the football but the vuvuzela. The infamous horn has split sporting fans across the world who either love it for its ability to get the fans involved or, more usually hate it for its incessant one-pitched drone which drowns out every other noise in the stadium. Problems with the vuvuzela were identified as early as the 2009 Confederation Cup which acted as a dress rehearsal for the hosts. FIFA boss Sepp Blatter went on the record saying he didn’t want to ban the vuvuzela saying “we should not try to Europeanise an African World Cup.”

As with most things Blatter says, this was hypocritical bullshit. It had nothing to do with anti-colonialism and everything to do with office politics. There is certainly no long history of the vuvuzela’s use in Africa or elsewhere. Plastic horns first emerged in Mexico in the 1970s and were seen at the Argentina 1978 World Cup. They didn’t become popular in South Africa until 20 years later. With its dangerously high sound level and closeness to the frequency of human speech, the horns are detestable and Blatter probably hates them as much as anyone who is not playing them. What the FIFA President was really saying is that he was not prepared to risk African votes deserting him during the 2011 presidential election.

But while Blatter is busy buying votes, the tournament he runs is starting to gather pace after a slow start. The first week saw a succession of negative games and 1-0 scorelines. Desperately poor and uneven refereeing didn’t help. The code’s complete refusal to use technology to help the refs leaves it looking a laughing stock compared to the range of facilities available to rugby, cricket and tennis umpires.

This is especially ludicrous now that the referees and assistants are wired up to talk to each other. It would not take long to talk to a fourth or fifth official in the stands with access to replays, goal-line incidents and offside decisions. The oft-quoted excuse that it would “interrupt the flow of the game” beggars belief especially when considering how many interruptions currently exist when players fall over under the slightest provocation.

But back to the football itself. I’ve mentioned the problems with Africa, but Europe does not seem in much better health. A European team has never won the competition outside its home continent and this statistic is likely to continue in South Africa. Germany looked strong against Australia only to fold against Serbia. Meanwhile Italy, France and England all lack a cutting edge. Favourites Spain inexplicably lost to Switzerland and may find it impossible to recover from the shock of that loss. The Dutch look the best of the Europeans so far but don’t really have the aura of trophy winners.

The same cannot be said of Brazil and Argentina. Both sides have aura in abundance and won their games easily. With the right amount of fortune they should end up playing each other in the first all-South American final since 1950 (or 1930 if you are being picky and say there was no actual final in 1950) and the first ever final between these two old foes. It would be hilarious to watch Diego Maradona pick up another world cup trophy, despite all his obvious flaws and apparent madness. I suspect Brazil have slightly too much guile to make that happen, but it is Argentina and its current on-field genius Lionel Messi that have my heart as we head into the next few fascinating weeks.

Rafa Benitez and Liverpool about to part company

The final chapter of one of Liverpool FC’s worst seasons in recent memory is about to written as manager Rafael Benitez accepts a payoff of to leave the club by “mutual consent”. The terminology masks an unusual sacking. In the end it came down to a lack of money for players. New chairman Martin Broughton told Benitez this week there was no money to sign new players during the summer break. In truth, Benitez deserves to go but the terms of his contract made getting rid of him a difficult and expensive challenge. For a club with Liverpool’s current financial difficulties (a debt of £351m) it had to be handled with care.

Not that care is a word often associated with Liverpool’s owners Thomas Ollis Hicks and George N Gillett Jr. Both are billionaires with extensive interests in US sporting franchises. The pair came together to buy Liverpool for £218.9m in 2007. The pair claimed that silverware and a new stadium were their highest priorities but they failed with both of these objectives instead saddling the club with increased debt. Fans that initially supported their bid ahead of a Dubai alternative quickly lost faith in them sparking protests against their continued ownership. Hicks and Gillett have finally agreed to sell up but Hicks did little to endear himself when he said he expects to make four times the money he paid for the club when it is sold.

The convenience of having “the yanks” as the bad guys took the heat off Benitez despite the club not winning any silverware during the last three years of his regime. Brought in from Valencia with great fanfare, Benitez quickly gained hero status after the 2005 Champions League win followed by success in the 2006 FA Cup. But man management issues and Benitez’s notorious aloofness forced several key players out of the club. The low point came this season with the club finishing seventh and exiting the Champions League at the group stage. The 50-year-old manager signed a renewed five-year contract in March 2009 which entitles him to a £16m severance fee (likely to be bargained down to £3m in the current negotiations).

Benitez’s contract is one of the club’s many major financial failures of recent years. The club’s recently published 2008-2009 annual financial report shows the extent to which the club has fallen on hard times during the GFC. The report shows the club posted a before tax loss of £52.8m despite finishing second in the league last season and reaching the Champions League quarter-final stage. The club paid £40m on interest payments alone with creditors owed £472.5m. The club is no nearer to building its badly needed 60,000 seater replacement for Anfield despite spending £45.5m on the project in the last two years.

The accounts also showed the club paid £4m in severance fees to former chief executive Rick Parry when he left at the end of the 2008-2009 season – easily the largest such fee in British football history. The sum was negotiated with previous chairman David Moores around the time Hicks and Gillett entered the bidding to buy Liverpool in 2007. Parry and Benitez never got on and the pair argued over responsibility for the club’s transfer budget.

If Liverpool’s finances look bad in the annual report, matters are only likely to get worse once this season’s efforts are taken into account. The lack of Champions League football will be a massive blow both in TV rights and the hook to attract top players. It is likely that Benitez’s departure will be followed by the club’s major on field stars. Fellow Spaniard 26-year-old Fernando Torres is easily the juiciest attraction. Benitez bought him from Atletico Madrid in the summer of 2007 for £25 million but his performances for Liverpool and Spain in the 2008 Euros have sent his value soaring to £60-70 million. A good world cup could add another ten million to his asking price. Given his injury record (he has missed half of the last two seasons), Liverpool may feel it is good value to cash in, though the club supporters who idolise “Nando” would not be impressed.

Club captain Steven Gerrard could also be on his way out. Gerrard has never made any secret of his desire to achieve high honours in the game and given the significance of his recent birthday (he turned 30 on Sunday), he may have come to the conclusion he is never going to win a championship medal with Liverpool. A big money move to Chelsea or Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid may also be looked on favourably by Liverpool’s management given Gerrard’s age and waning influence last season. Spanish goalkeeper Pepe Reina may also see his future lying elsewhere once his mentor moves on.

While selling such high profile players will bring big money into the club, most of it would be spent servicing debt rather than buying replacement players. Attracting new talent, both on and off the field will be difficult as the club’s cachet starts to wane. It is likely that like neighbours Everton, Liverpool are heading towards a period of steep decline as the game’s wealth becomes entrenched in London and Manchester.

Time to ditch the Salary Cap

The fallout continues from the latest Australian rugby league salary cap breach which has seen champions Melbourne Storm hit with the largest punishment in the code’s history. The Storm were stripped of their 2007 and 2009 premierships, not allowed to compete for points this season, forced to return $1.1m in prize money and fined $500,000. Their breaches included $1.7m in salary over five years for the News Ltd owned team. News Ltd CEO John Hartigan has distanced himself from the fraud and former Club boss and now rugby Melbourne Rebels boss Brian Waldron has fallen on his sword as the supposed “architect” of the rorts. (photo:Getty)

However there are a lot of questions unanswered. As many commentators have pointed out, the case brings into question ownership of Australian sporting teams. There are also obvious conflicts of interest between News Ltd as owners and media reporting on the issue. It seems difficult to believe that senior administrators such as Hartigan are as innocent as they portray themselves especially as News have admitted it does not have a “satisfactory explanation” as to what the players’ agents knew and when.

But questions much also be asked about the efficacy of the salary cap system itself. None of this would have occurred if there was no salary cap and it has been of dubious benefit in keeping the competition open and clubs from falling into financial ruin. The salary cap is an American import. In the US sports administrators first brought in salary caps in the 1980s to avoid the ruinous escalation of player salaries and competitive imbalance leading to boring games. The positives also include the ability of smaller clubs able to keep their star players.

But some experts have viewed salary caps as a collusive resort by clubs to maximise league revenues by controlling labour costs at the expense of less competitive balance within the league. Although European football also has dangers of competitive imbalance and financial instability it never followed the American example. As the University of Zurich noted in a 2008 paper, The labour relations approach employed by the hermetic American major leagues is not feasible within the European association-governed football pyramid. Another key difference is European clubs are treated as win-maximisers and not as profit-maximisers in sports economics literature: Kesenne and Jeanrenaud argue the most important divergence between the USA and Europe is that American clubs are business-type companies seeking to make profits, whereas the only aim of most European clubs so far is to be successful on the field. However in recent years UEFA and the clubs have begun exploring options due to the general perception that competitive balance in European club football is declining and a large number of clubs are accumulating ever-increasing debt.

Like European football clubs, Australian sporting clubs were also considered win-maximisers for most of their existence. Matters began to change in the late 1980s as first Australian Rules and then Rugby League began to move to national competitions. In 1987 the then Victorian Football League (renamed to AFL in 1990) brought in the cap as the Brisbane Bears and West Coast Eagles joined the competition. Up to then the biggest Melbourne clubs Carlton, Essendon and Collingwood had dominated the competition and the salary cap was seen as an equalisation policy (as well as a means of ensuring the poorer Melbourne clubs would survive in a national setting).

The then NSW Rugby League competition (renamed NRL in 1995) also brought in a salary cap in 1990 after the Brisbane Broncos, Newcastle Knights and Canberra Raiders had taken the league beyond the Sydney suburbs. Unlike the AFL however, the NRL has to deal with the problem of players leaving to play in lucrative overseas markets but the league believes this is an acceptable price to stop richer clubs dominating. The problem is, however, it does not completely stop that domination. In the last 12 years, Melbourne and Brisbane have won three times each – and it is no coincidence both clubs are owned by News Ltd.

The fact remains that in both AFL and NRL codes the history of the cap has been most honoured in the breach. The new Sydney Swans breached the VFL cap in the very first season and were fined $20,000 for doubling the cap. In NRL there have been 13 known breaches in 20 years involving multiple clubs. In AFL there have been at least 16 breaches in the 23 years of its existence and there have also been breaches in the next level down including most recently in the South Australian SANFL when Norwood was fined $50,000 and excluded for 12 months from registering any players outside its promotional boundary zone after a serious breach of the 2008 cap.

Like many good ideas, the salary cap is one prone to the law of unintended consequences. As sport becomes big business, its owners and controllers will stop at nothing to achieve success. It is all too easy to avoid scrutiny and the Storm debacle was only uncovered by accident. In my view, it is time to remove the cap. It won’t affect lower income clubs who can barely reach the cap ceilings now and it will drive more honest behaviour in the big clubs and patrons will get to judge exactly how much their stars are earning. As in every other occupation, the market should be best judge of salaries not the administrators.

Togo bus attack puts Cabinda independence movement in the spotlight

The Confederation of African Football says it is satisfied with Angolan Government assurances on security after the Togo team bus attack on Friday in the northern province of Cabinda. The attack which killed three people including the team’s assistant coach and wounded two players has left the football world in shock and thrown light on one of the world’s more obscure long-running separatist conflicts.

Cabinda is officially part of Angola but the Atlantic enclave is geographically separated from the rest of the country by the Democratic Republic of Congo to the south. Europeans have been in Cabinda since the 16th century trading for palm oil and timber. Portugal, Holland and England all established trading posts along the coast leading to squabbles between them over sovereignty. The matter was resolved in 1885 with the Treaty of Simulambuco which awarded the colony to Portugal.

At the time Angola was directly to the south, and also part of the Portuguese Empire. But when the genocidal Belgian king Leopold II wanted a path to the Atlantic Ocean for his sprawling Congo Free State, Portugal granted him the land south of Cabinda to the mouth of the Congo. Cabinda continued as a Portuguese colony until the 1970s. In the 1960s an independence movement called the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) was formed to fight against colonial rule.

When the Portuguese junta collapsed in the Carnation Revolution of 1975 so did its rule of the colonies. In January 1975 Portugal signed the Alvor Agreement with Angola granting it independence. Cabinda was included in the agreement though FLEC was excluded from the negotiations. Similar to East Timor, FLEC proclaimed Cabindan independence from Portugal in late 1975. But just as in Timor, a big neighbouring power launched an invasion. Angolan forces quickly took over the towns and the poorly armed FLEC fled to the mountains.

But unlike Fretelin in Timor, FLEC was unable to keep a cohesive centre. It split in several splinter groups, some of which sided with the South African-backed UNITA rebels in Angola. There are now about a dozen separatist groups demanding independence for Cabinda. But with 80 percent of Angola’s oil off the Cabinda coastline there was little chance Luanda would willingly cede to enclave demands. And when Angola was awarded the rights to host the 2010 African Cup of Nations Cabinda’s Estadio Chimandela was selected as one of the four grounds to hold the games.

Togo were due to play Ghana in the first game in Cabinda tomorrow night. The team were travelling by bus with a security escort from mainland Angola through the DRC and into Cabinda. The team bus had just crossed the border into Cabinda when it came under heavy gunfire. The driver was killed immediately leaving the bus stranded and officials and players cowered under their seats. The attack lasted half an hour and two others died, the team’s assistant coach Hamelet Abulo and a Togolese journalist.

Initially Togo’s captain and star player Emmanuel Adebayor said it was likely Togo would withdraw from the tournament. "I think a lot of players want to leave,” he told the BBC. “I don't think they want to be at this tournament any more because they have seen their death already.” But in the last 24 hours, the players have announced a change of heart and say they will play. The game will go ahead in Cabinda. Initially it also seemed likely that the ground would be pulled as a venue. But the Confederation of African Football (CAF) announced today games would be held in the enclave’s 20,000 seater stadium.

Angola’s leaders have been in severe damage control after this high profile attack. According to a statement released in the name of the Prime Minister Paulo Kassoma, Angola “considers the incident in Cabinda as an isolated act and repeated that the security of Togo’s team and the other squads is guaranteed.” But they may not be able to live up to their words. One of the independence factions claimed responsibility for the attack with an ominous warning signed by FLEC's secretary general Rodrigues Mingas. “This operation is just the start of a series of planned actions that will continue to take place in the whole territory of Cabinda.”

Steven Wells

In the frenzy to report on the mortality of celebrities, the death of Guardian football writer Steven Wells barely merits a mention. But with his passing, the world has lost a fine sportswriter. Wells died on Tuesday of lymphatic cancer. He was 49.

For examples of his work see here. Reprinted below is my favourite.

On the FA's respect campaign:

"Refs are like traffic wardens — incredibly valuable public servants who are soft targets of a dumb, unthinking sheep-like consensus. And just as traffic wardens perform a vital task in keeping the planet-raping speedophile car filth in check, so referees are crucial to the very existence of the sport.

"That's why I cringe whenever I hear some triple-chinned has-been former red-card magnet deride a ref for 'thinking he's the most important person on the pitch'. The ref is the most important person on the pitch — the most important person in the entire sport.

"Undermine the authority of the ref and the entire structure of the sport collapses. And what rushes to fill the vacuum? The Corinthian values of the millionaire brats who play the game? The free-market amorality of the owners? The bumbling blazered bureaucracy? Only the referee remains pure of motive and entirely dedicated to the fundamentals of the game.

"Which is why the Respect campaign doesn't go far enough. The referee should be omnipotent and beyond question. Even when the ref is wrong — totally wrong, magnificently wrong, egregiously, almost-certainly-been-bribed catastrophically wrong — the ref is right. We need to instill a culture where to challenge a ref's authority is considered the sporting equivalent of picking one's nose in front the Queen.

"We should tool the refs up ... with tasers. Let's make the players wear undergarments laced with a filigree of superconductive wiring. One word of dissent, one raised eyebrow, the slightest suggestion of a smirk, one tiny gesture of sarcastic applause and the offending player is dealt a brief but instructive agony. This could be particularly effective with those players feigning injury. Bzzzzzzt! Get up. Bzzzzzzzzt! Get up. Repeat as needed."

"But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Respect needs to start in the commentary box and the backpages of the tabloids. All you old lags, all you wannabe Motsons, all you catcalling conveyers of cowardly consensus — show some respect for the game and shut your stupid mouths. The damage you do to the very fabric of the sport every time you undermine the ref is incalculable."

Setanta’s little helper: The rise and fall of a satellite broadcaster

My initial reaction was to laugh on hearing Irish pay television operator Setanta was in trouble. After all “Satan-ta”, as I preferred to call them made me pay for sporting content I used to watch for free. In the late 1990s, football games such as Ireland’s world cup qualifiers and Old Firm derbies were suddenly hoovered up by a company that knew they had a captive audience of football-starved Irish and Scots in Australia and made them pay through the nose to watch them. They made a lot of money out of it as the only way of following the games was either Setanta’s way or the information superhighway. So when I heard they were on the verge of bankruptcy this week, my first reaction was “good riddance”. But I was wrong.

Setanta fill a niche. It’s not their fault that greedy game rights owners decided they could get better deals for their products with the television networks. The founders of Setanta realised long ago that there was a gap in the market that they could fill. Two young Dubliners in London, Michael O'Rourke and Leonard Ryan, got into the game back in 1990 when they filled a gap on British television. Ireland were playing a crucial game in their first World Cup against the Ruud Gullit-led Netherlands in which both sides needed to get a result.

But the thousands of Irish fans in England had no way of watching the game. England were in the same group and playing at the same time. Both the BBC and ITV refused to show Ireland’s game. So O’Rourke and Ryan bought the rights to the game cheaply and charged west London dance hall patrons £10 to watch. The pair broke even after 1,000 Irish fans turned up.

The experience made them realise there was money to be made from the Irish Diaspora. O’Rourke and Ryan spent the next 10 years slowly buying rights for sports fans living away from home, developing niche channels in Britain, America and Australia. Ryan called the early days a “fight to stay alive”. Their clients were Irish bars in San Francisco and Sydney to whom they sold All-Irelands, Six Nations rugby and Irish football internationals.

In 2005 they made their first major breakthrough in Britain by buying the rights to the Scottish Premier League. It then struck south of the border by launching a successful joint bid with ITV to get the rights to FA Cup matches and England internationals for four years from 2008, effectively knocking out all of the BBC’s live football in the process. Setanta also won a three-year contract to show live Premier League games. Suddenly Setanta was second only to Murdoch’s Sky Sports in the UK. By 2007 another Murdoch outlet, The Times, was saying the pair were worth £35m each.

But the Australian media magnate was not taking the cheeky Irish challenge for granted. Sky had the monopoly on the Premier League since its inception and did not take kindly to the EU competition ruling in 2006 that insisted it be broken up into six television packages and no one company could have all six. Setanta won two packages giving it the right to broadcast 46 live games every season. But when the packages were rebid earlier this year, Sky upped the ante and won five out of the six for 2010/2011 onwards. In the middle of a global recession, Setanta suddenly had just 23 expensive games a year and Sky had ensured the Irish company were left with the least attractive games. It also had 1.2 million customers when it needed 1.9 million to break even. It didn’t help Setanta were shortly due to pay the English Premier League £30m. They also missed a £3m payment to the Scottish Premier League last week. The knives were out.

On Wednesday Setanta were forced to post a message on its website telling customers that it is not accepting new customers as it "attempts to secure the future of the business". On the table are a range of options, including spinning off its profitable US and Irish subsidiaries. They need additional capital of about £100m to plug the funding gap. But its City backers including private equity houses Doughty Hanson and Balderton, have refused to make more than £50m available.

Setanta is now looking for other companies to buy into it and has held talks with BT and ESPN. At the moment, ESPN is officially ruling itself out as a potential buyer. However this is likely to just be a bargaining position as the American cash rich sportscaster is keen to expand its UK sports portfolio. ESPN also bid for the English Premier League rights beyond 2010 but lost out to Setanta and Sky. If Setanta does default, the Premier League rights will revert to the holders who will try to find other buyers. ESPN is owned by Disney which is an even larger media company than Murdoch’s. Their actions may be well worth watching in the next few weeks as the big guns fight over the likely corpse of an Irish player that got too big for its boots.

Protecting the FA Cup: the media and Australian football

The European football season is drawing to a close with tonight’s FA Cup final at Wembley between Everton and Chelsea. I say tonight as the game kicks off at midnight Brisbane time. It starts at its traditional 3pm time in London, which is about 50 minutes away as I write. The FA Cup may have lost its lustre in recent years due to the massive money poured into the Premier League and the Champions League but it still has a host of rich traditions befitting the oldest cup competition in the world. Curiously that tradition is honoured here in Australia as the cup final is one of the sporting events “protected” as a television free-to-air event until the end of 2010.

And so SBS will show the game and talk up the local angle as “our Tim Cahill” versus “Aussie” Guus Hiddinck. They delight in the fact the FA Cup sits on an anti-siphon list alongside World Cup, the Olympics, the Ashes, the Melbourne Cup, the grand finals, the Wallabies, Wimbledon, netball, and the V8s. There is something about that list that says much about Aussies, their sport, and also their debt to Britain. In many ways it is absurd that the FA Cup is on the list. How come legislation demands that English football’s second best trophy must be broadcast to 20 million while local football makes do with two million on Pay TV?

Yet it is fair to say the banishment does not seem to be doing the local competition any harm. The A-league is thriving after 4 seasons and here in Brisbane, the crowds at Suncorp for the recently renamed Brisbane Roar are catching and matching the league Broncos and the rugby Reds. Locals will flock to any successful sporting venture and as long as the Roar can afford to play in the wonderful football venue that is the revamped Lang Park, they will do well.

The state is quickly becoming a fulcrum of power in the game. The league is expanding to 10 clubs in 2009 and both newcomers are monied Queenslanders. In rugby-league mad Townsville, Don Matheson has put his cash behind the Fury and in an inspired move have brought God to North Queensland. God in this case is Liverpool legend Robbie Fowler. However Robbie Fowler performs in a Fury shirt, he has already been a success. Fowler's media coverage has been huge and the move will guarantee every Liverpool fan in North Queensland will go and watch him play. If Fowler can last half a season, the gamble will be confirmed as an overwhelming success.

Meanwhile down on the Gold Coast, Liberal National Party powerbroker Clive Palmer is financing Gold Coast United (a rare departure from American style team naming). Palmer is, or was before the recession, a billionaire who is putting together a very handy football team. Gold Coast have brought Australian international Jason Culina back from Holland to lead the team. Culina will be an integral part of Pim Verbeek’s team in the South Africa World Cup so this is a significant coup for the league. While Culina does not have Fowler’s drawing power at the gate, he has the capability to be the best player in the A-league.

While I have cringed at the continued reliance on the marquee player system, I can appreciate it serves as an economic safety salve from a salary-capped league. The clubs have a cap of $2 million in wages for 20 to 22 staff. However they may also have a 23rd player who’s salary is not counted in the $2 million. Curiously, no team may have more than four internationals (including the “marquis”) though it does not say what happens if a fifth player is capped during their stay at the club.

The system has attracted several players past their best such as Juninho and Dwight Yorke, though Yorke in particular was successful (and returned to play premiership football for Sunderland under Roy Keane). It has also attracted Australian internationals such as Craig Moore, Ned Zelic and John Aloisi with varying degrees of on-field success. But they have all added much needed lustre to the league. The A-league is working hard off the successful template of the J-league founded in 1993, it was the eleventh best attended league in the world by 2006.

Australian football could well overtake the J-League by the time it is also 13 years old. Its move into Asia opens massive investment potential overseas. It is also slowly breaking down the traditional power structures of AFL in the South and Rugby league in the north. Last week, the Sydney Morning Herald reported how football was even taking hold in remote Aboriginal communities. The Borroloola Cyclones travelled a 1000km to Darwin to play in the Arafura Games in Darwin and caused the upset of the tournament with a 4-0 win over the Northern Territory under-16s. Whitefella coach Glen Thompson noted how the natural speed of the Indigenous locals was ideal for the game. "I'll make a brave prediction … soccer will eventually overtake Aussie rules up here because it is a global game," said Thompson. "When you make the national Aussie rules team, where can you go? Ireland to play some bastardised form of the game?"

Rugby league also suffers from lack of international legitimisation with just three countries any good at it. Union has more competition but the game they play in heaven remains attached to the colonies back on Earth. Melbourne remains passionately wedded to its footy, but is not immune to the world game. The Victory are the most successful A-league team and get 50,000 to their home matches. With Pim Verbeek's national team needing just one point in three games to qualify for South Africa 2010, globalisation is marching on here in relentless fashion. Expect also the 2011 Cup Final to be siphoned off to the highest bidder, and no-one to be terribly upset. Less clear is tonight’s result and I’m going unconvincingly for Chelsea on penalties after two hours of 0-0.

The Hillsborough Disaster: “They're killing us, Bruce, they're killing us”

Today’s article commemorates the 20th anniversary of Britain’s worst football disaster: the Hillsborough tragedy which claimed the lives of 96 Liverpool fans. The facts in this article are mostly drawn from the official Taylor Report (attached in zip file) as well as the personal recollection of Liverpool's then goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar.

On Saturday 15 April 1989, Liverpool were drawn to play Nottingham Forest in an English FA Cup Semi-Final. It was a repeat of the 1988 semi between the same two clubs and the FA chose the same neutral venue that was a “success” the previous year: Hillsborough, Sheffield. However Liverpool fans were not pleased. South Yorkshire police would only agree to the 1989 game if they repeated the 1988 arrangement where Liverpool fans were held in the smaller “away” end of the ground so they could be funnelled quickly back to the motorway westward to Lancashire.

As a result Liverpool were allocated 24,000 tickets compared to Forest’s 30,000, despite the fact that Liverpool’s average home attendance was substantially higher than the Nottingham club. And because there was less standing room at the away end, Liverpool’s allocation was more expensive as well as smaller (the game cost £12 to sit and £6 to stand). Liverpool had tried to switch ends in 1988 but police were adamant. They said it would have involved rival supporters crossing paths and “creating a risk of disorder”. And when the two teams were drawn to play again in 1989, police held to the previous year’s precedent saying “any change would lead to confusion”.

However the one key change that did lead to confusion was in the South Yorkshire constabulary itself. In 1988, policing was the responsibility of veteran Chief Superintendent Brian Mole but he was replaced as local commander just three weeks before the 1989 game. His replacement was newly promoted Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield. On the day, the new man at the helm had control of 1,122 police officers (38 per cent of South Yorkshire’s total force). However Duckenfield had not personally policed a match at the ground in ten years before the game.

Sheffield Wednesday (Hillsborough's owners) also had 376 stewards on duty on the day. They were assisted by a computerised operation which issued a warning pulse when any section of the ground got to within 15 percent of its permitted capacity. However what the system could not do was monitor the distribution of fans in each pen within the section. Unlike the Kop end where the Forest fans stood, the away end at Leppings Lane was divided into pens so that home and away fans could be segregated in the event where both had to be accommodated at that end of the ground. Although in theory it was the stewards (representing the owners) who were responsible for seating arrangements at the ground, in practice it was police who managed it. And police procedure was to let the fans “find their own level” within the pens.

It was a warm sunny Spring Saturday that greeted those fans as they approached Hillsborough that day. The 3pm kickoff was a 54,000 sell-out and many more people came to Sheffield without tickets. Although some Liverpool fans drank heavily before the game, there was no sign of any alcohol trouble. The mood was good-humoured. An hour before the game, Forest fans greatly outnumbered Liverpool inside the ground. The one train from Merseyside arrived at 2pm and its 350 passengers were escorted to the ground by police. By now, those who drove to Sheffield were also in the area and the crowd was becoming congested in the narrow streets around Leppings Lane. There was no longer a separate queue for each turnstile but one great phalanx of people across the whole approach area.

But there was still no sign of panic. Police monitoring the situation on video cameras at 2.30pm still reckoned they could get everyone inside the ground in time for the 3pm kick-off. In any case, as Superintendent Duckenfield reminded his officers, a delay could only be authorised in the event of fog on the Pennines or traffic jams on the motorway. It would not be countenanced, he said, just because fans were arriving late to the ground - even in large numbers.

In the next 35 minutes it all went horribly wrong. As is usual, most fans wanted to congregate in the central pens behind the goal. By 2.50pm these two were seriously overcrowded although the wing pens still had plenty of room. Meanwhile the crush outside the gates grew worse as more people arrived. The seven Leppings Lane terrace turnstiles could not process the numbers quickly enough as people outside fretted they would miss the kick-off. As the pressure grew, some women and children began to faint.

At 2.45pm police outside the ground called for reinforcements. Appeals to the crowd to stop pushing were ignored. There were now 5,000 people trapped in the phalanx in the narrow area outside the ground. A constable radioed his superiors asking for the game to be delayed. His request was turned down. Seriously worried that fatalities could occur, a superintendent outside the ground requested Duckenfield three times for the gates to be opened. At 2.52pm Duckenfield finally acceded to the request.

In the next five minutes 2,000 people stormed through the central gate and most them headed straight on to the central pens. It didn’t help there was a subtle downward gradient easing their passage in that direction. Fans spoke of being swept off their feet and could not resist the push towards the already overcrowded pens. At 2.54pm the two teams emerged onto the field creating a great surge of anticipation among the crowd. Most fans in the two central pens were uncomfortable and many were in distress. Some were already finding it difficult to breathe. Still the flow continued through the tunnels. Those at the very front were being crushed against the perimeter fencing and began asking for the gate to be opened onto the field. In the deafening noise, police patrolling the perimeter did not realise there was a problem and ignored their requests.

More gates were opened outside the ground under intense pressure of the people outside, some of whom did not have tickets. The game kicked off on schedule at 3pm. Fans crushed inside the central pens began climbing the fence to escape to the less crowded pens. Others attempted to climb onto the field but were pushed back by police fearing a pitch invasion. Near the front, those weakened to the point of collapse were now dying on their feet.

At 3.04pm Liverpool striker Peter Beardsley struck a shot against the crossbar at the other end of the ground. The Liverpool fans roared and began surging forward again. Normally after a surge, the fans retreat but this time there was nowhere to retreat to. The force of numbers smashed two crash barriers in one of the central pens and propelled many fans into the front fence. But police watching on video cameras assumed it was an attempted pitch invasion. So instead of summoning ambulances, they called for dog handlers.

Finally one senior policeman, Superintendent Roger Greenwood realised something was going horribly wrong. He tried in vain to ask those at the front to move back. When he saw that was impossible, he radioed his superiors for the game to be abandoned. The control tower did not receive the message and he signalled wildly with his hands. Finally without waiting for further orders, Greenwood ran on to the field and told the referee to stop the game.

Unbelievably the game was almost six minutes old before it was called off. The damage had already been done. The steps towards the central pens were congested with bodies alive and dead. Fans on the upper tier dragged up those they could. Police called in to preserve public order suddenly found a catastrophe on their hands. They were confronted with victims who were blue in the face and incontinent. Their mouths were open, eyes starting and vomiting. The dead and injured were laid out on the field. As the scale of the carnage unfolded, fans turned their hostility towards the police and began shouting abuse, spitting at them, and assaulting them. Press photographers who took photos of the dead were also a target.

Although St John’s Ambulance staff were on the scene, there was no public address call for doctors and nurses until 3.30pm. There were only six stretchers in the ground so fans improvised and tore down hoardings to take casualties off the scene. Throughout all of this Superintendent Duckenfield stayed in the control room, unaware of the scale of the disaster until he got the request for a fleet of ambulances. His boss Assistant Chief Constable Jackson was attending the game and went to the control room to ask Duckenfield what was happening. The Superintendent could not tell him. Jackson had to go down to ground level to find out for himself.

Duckenfield also deliberately withheld giving information out over the public address system for fear of everyone leaving together hampering rescue efforts. The problem was that the Forest fans assumed the problem was because Liverpool fans were causing trouble and began taunting them. This further infuriated Liverpool fans on the field who rushed towards the Forest end. Their path was blocked by a row of police officers who stood on the halfway line who otherwise did nothing. Those needing help regarded the actions of these passive policemen as further insensitivity.

Still the confusion continued. When fire officers arrived at the ground, no one knew why they were called. One Police Inspector told them “I don’t really think we need you”. And by the time they arrived on the field with resuscitation cylinders and cutting equipment, it was too late. At 3.56pm Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish spoke to the restive crowd and called for calm. After another fifteen minutes the game was officially abandoned and the entire stadium emptied in an orderly fashion. By 4.30pm ambulances had taken 172 people to two nearby hospitals.

Meanwhile, the Sheffield Wednesday gymnasium was transformed into a makeshift morgue and casualty clearing area. As more bodies were piled in, the atmosphere became gradually more chaotic and harrowing. Recriminations and scuffles broke out as people looked for missing relatives and friends. There was an atmosphere of utter shock. 95 people died on the day and one died four days later. All were Liverpool fans. Another 765 people were injured. Of those dead, blood samples showed that only six had more than 120 milligrams percent of alcohol.

Liverpool goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar was the closest person on the field to the tragedy as the game kicked off. From behind his goal, anguished fans shouted at him for help while he prepared to take a goal kick. He could hear them say: "They're killing us, Bruce, they're killing us.” As Grobbelaar took the kick he wondered who was killing them. He looked around and saw the frightened faces through the fence and asked a policeman: 'Is there any chance that you can open the gate here?” But Grobbelaar had to concentrate on the game as Forest shot went towards the corner flag. Grobbelaar takes up the story:

“I went to retrieve it, and I said to the policewoman - I thought it was a policeman - 'Get the effing gate open. Can't you see that they need it'? And there were screams coming at the time. I kicked the ball upfield, and I went back and said, 'Get the fucking gate open'. I turned back and the ball went out of play on the left, and that's when I shouted to the referee. The policeman came on to the field, and the game stopped."

The Hillsborough disaster would ultimately revolutionise the game in England. Barely two days later, the Thatcher government set up an inquiry under Lord Justice Taylor with a remit to “"to inquire into the events at [Hillsborough] and to make recommendations about the needs of crowd control and safety at sports events". Taylor heard evidence from families of the bereaved, supporters, the football association, Sheffield council, Sheffield Wednesday staff and their insurers, police, fire and ambulance authorities, and a consultant engineer.

After 31 days, the Taylor Report recommended all top division stadiums in England and Scotland phase out their perimeter fencing and concrete terraces, and become all-seater. By the 1996 European Championships in England, the game and its grounds had changed utterly. 96 people had paid the ultimate price to make the game safer for all of Britain’s millions of football fans. Their sacrifice, while preventable, was not in vain.