A Conversation for The Heysel Stadium Tragedy, 1985

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Post 1

AgProv4

I was at university in Norwich at the time, and what was felt really, seriously, keenly locally was that for the first time ever, Norwich City had performed well enough in the domestic leagues to qualify for European competition. First time ever. There was massive local pride in the Canaries and great excitement at the city hosting European competition. Then the ban of all English clubs from European fixtures happened. Norwich was not a happy city and there was a lot of expressed resentment at Liverpool for bringing this about and dragging in the blameless. (Fan violence only ever seemed to happen at local derbies with Ipswich, but that's a different story. If you were in the know, you avoided the city centre if a match with Ipswich Town was on).

Terribly sad story, but what sticks in the mind was the photo of the Italian fan who'd somehow got a handgun into the stadium and was photographed brandishing it aggressively. how the Hell did that happen? It wasn't all one-sided Liverpool violence by any means and we didn't see Juventus barred from European competition...


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