Bridget Gordon
Writer | Advocate
Liverpool are, obviously, not the only football club to have direct and long-lasting experience with tragedy and loss. But Hillsborough— and the subsequent cover-ups and investigations and campaign by the families to get the truth out— has become an indelible part of the club and everyone connected to it. You can’t separate it or compartmentalize it; being a Liverpool fan means screaming at the top of your lungs after Mohamed Salah’s goal against Chelsea, and also having your hands shake when you remember that ninety-six of us went to an FA Cup semifinal 30 years ago and never came back. They’re all bound up together, and us with it. Millions of Liverpool fans around the world, the vast majority of whom did not know the victims and do not know their families, who cannot possibly comprehend what the tragedy did to this city, are nonetheless charged with carrying part of that insurmountable grief with them, forever.