1984 AND 1985 EUROPEAN CUP FINALS
END OF THE INNOCENCE Football Editor of The Times — and lifelong Red — Tony Evans looks at the two infamous European Cup finals that changed Liverpool fans forever
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T had to happen one day, but no one was prepared for it on March 18, 2005. At the quarterfinal draw, Liverpool came out first and then Juventus. Twenty years on from Heysel and the 39 deaths at that European Cup final, the two sides were facing each other for the first time. How the teams could have failed to engineer a match before, to find some level of rapprochement, seems ludicrous but no one wanted to think about what happened in Brussels two decades earlier – not Uefa, the clubs or their fans. The only people who kept what happened to the forefront of their minds were the families of the dead, who had been fighting for recognition and justice to no avail. In 1985, there were a few attempts by the people of Liverpool to reach out to Turin. Peter Hooton was instrumental in
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bringing over a group of young Italians to the city, where they were treated to a cruise on the Mersey, with John Peel as disc jockey and The Farm performing live. The crowd was emotional and keen to put the youngsters from Piedmont at ease. However, it was a night of outstanding drunkenness and featured the sort of shenanigans that sent Peel back to London shaking his head in amazement. There was no violence, but the inebriated abandon probably confirmed every prejudice the Turin teenagers had against Scousers. Others tried to build bridges, too, but without the clubs involved, it was an uphill task. Otello Lorentini, whose son Roberto died at Heysel, had long campaigned for the clubs to play a friendly match in tribute to those killed. Roberto was a doctor and was giving one of the injured mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation when the wall collapsed and the tumble of brickwork and people came smashing down. Like the other 38, Roberto had been forgotten by the world at large. Most of us had reached an accord with ourselves over the years. It was easy to rationalise for Liverpool supporters. The fault lay with Uefa for scheduling such a big game in a stadium that was so transparently ill-equipped to hold it. A wall collapsed. If the wall had done its job, no one would be dead and the past 20 years would have been very different. It had been said a million times on Merseyside and any debate ended with a shrug. The twentieth anniversary was due in May, at the end of Champions League final week, so there had been some stirrings of regret and remembrance, but it was hard to think too much about Heysel before April 15, when we had our own disaster to mourn. Now the draw had left us with no choice. Heysel had emerged from a collective memory lapse but, if fate and Uefa had kept Liverpool and Juventus apart, most people would have been happy to ignore the issue for another 20 years. It was time to face up to the past. But before we got to Brussels, or Turin, there was Rome. In this place of so many historic events, what happened to us in the Eternal City changed the nature of Liverpool’s support in Europe and had consequences that were still rumbling on in Istanbul. Rome has never been a centre of football power. Before 1980, Lazio and AS Roma, the city’s largest clubs, had won the domestic title just once each. Riot police on the Heysel pitch, 1985 So it was unfortunate that the