Hillsborough - 30 years on

On April 15th 1989, 96 Liverpool supporters went to the FA Cup semi final against Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough and never came home. It was one of the biggest tragedies in modern sport and it has had huge implications on the city of Liverpool and football as a whole.

Since that fateful day in Sheffield, fencing at football grounds have been removed in order for seating to be put in place. During the 1990's, all major European clubs had all seater stadiums to prevent such tragedies from happening. There has been two major inquiries since then in the Taylor Report (1990) and the Hillsborough Independent Panel (2012) . In the following weeks after the disaster, Police led false stories about what happened on the day, which has resulted in the families of the victims pleading for justice. Blaming of Liverpool fans continued to persist, even after the Taylor report came to a conclusion that the South Yorkshire police were to blame. It took until 2016 for the supporters to be ruled as 'unlawfully killed' due to 'Grossly negligent failures by police and ambulance services to fulfil their duty of care to the supporters'.

The effect on Liverpool since 1989 has been extraordinary on and off the pitch. Before the disaster, Liverpool were the dominant force in English football by winning 18 league titles and 4 European cups. By this stage in history, they were far clear of their competitors in terms of honours. It took the club a long time to recover from this, with Kenny Dalglish resigning as Manager just two years after the disaster. He stated that he was worn out in the role and the pure devastation of the events was too much for him. Despite the club winning the league in 1990, as the decade played out Liverpool had been overtaken as the major force in English football by Manchester United and Arsenal. 2002 was the first real title challenge the club mounted since the disaster, and the club are still waiting to the land the holy grail of a first league title since 1990.

The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster Inquiry was overseen by Lord Justice Taylor looking at the causes of what happened on that fateful day. The report said that the failure of police control was the main cause, and it recommended that all major stadiums should have seats and that this would be a requirement for the top two division in English football. It stated that this should be in place by the start of the 1994/95 season.

Manchester United and Arsenal were first to act on this rule by replacing their old stands by the summer of 1992. Liverpool and Aston Villa demolished their main stands by 1994. Due to teams complying with the report it made football grounds a lot safer. There is no denying that Liverpool suffered as a club during 1989-94 with damaging league positions and loss of star players proving a difficult era for the merseyside giants. After Kenny Dalglish left the club in 1991, Graeme Souness took over from the hot seat in the hope he could restore pride and continue the legacy in which Dalglish and his predecessors left behind.

Unfortunately for the club, this roll of the dice failed. The scotsman made a major re organisation in the squad in the hope of restoring Liverpool back to the glory days and to nullify the emerging threats of Arsenal and Manchester United. He managed to nurture young stars such as Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler but the new signings failed to gel as Liverpool finished 6th, their worst league finish since 1980. A damaging and arguably fatal blow was when Souness conducted an interview for the Sun following an FA Cup semi final against Portsmouth. The Sun famously blamed the Liverpool fans for the Hillsborough tragedy. Fans reacted furiously to this due to the boycotting of the national newspaper since the disaster. Souness apologised but has since admitted that he should have resigned there and then. Following abysmal finishes of 6th and 8th in the following two seasons he resigned as manager.

Roy Evans was appointed as manager in a return to Liverpool's famous 'boot room' strategy. This had overseen the clubs most successful era during the 70's and 80's under Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley. He took over a side that was mid table and bereft of confidence since Kenny Dalglish's departure. Liverpool restored pride in his first campaign by finishing fourth, as they set out to close the gap to the top sides. In 1995 Evans signed Stan Collymore for a british record fee as Liverpool were tipped by many to win the Premier League title. Liverpool came 3rd but many people felt the reds were back amongst the country's elite.

As the 1990's came to a close, families of the victims were still seeking justice as a new investigation was performed by Lord Justice Stuart-Smith. When the report was presented in February 1998, he concluded that there was insufficient evidence for a new inquiry into the disaster. This was criticised by many and most people felt that the wrong conclusion was made.

During the early and mid 2000's, Liverpool on the field still struggled to find domestic success in terms of the league. However the treble winning side of 2001 and the remarkable comeback against AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League Final proved to be a successful era for the club. This followed with an Fa Cup the following season but they failed to add to their trophy cabinet during the rest of the decade.

It took 11 years for the next major investigation to take place as the families were still seeking justice for their loved ones. On 12th September 2012, it published its report and simultaneously launched a website containing 450,000 pages of material collated from 85 organisations and individuals over two years.

The findings concluded that no Liverpool fans were responsible in any way for the disaster and that it's main cause was a lack of 'police control' There were subsequent apologies including from the former editor of the Sun, Kelvin McKenzie for making false accusations under the headline "The Truth". However this apology was widely discredited by Liverpool fans as it was seen to be "Shifting the blame once again". After this investigation. the Hillsborough Families Support Group called for new inquests for the victims.

On the pitch, Liverpool were suffering their worst domestic finishes since the early 1990's, as a lack of funding in the club and a consistency of selling their best players had led them to 6 finishes outside of the top 4 in seven seasons between 2009/10 and 2015/16. However they nearly landed their first top flight title since 1990 in 2013/14 as they came an agonising two points behind champions Manchester City.

Fresh inquests were to be held following an application on 19th December 2012 by the Attorney General Dominic Grieve. In April 2016 the fans finally got their plea for justice as the jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing in respect of all 96 victims. Now approaching the 30th anniversary of the disaster, Liverpool are on the crest of a wave and enjoying some of their best seasins in recent times. Back to back top four finishes in 2016/17 and 2017/18 as well as reaching the Champions League final last term, the club are mounting a serious title challenge in 2018/19 as they are vying for the title once again with Manchester City. A first league title in 29 years would be the most fitting tribute for the 96 victims, three decades on.