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ripe |
- up in the mountains -
Registered: Jun 2002
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[CALCIO]Tra pochi giorni...per ricordare...
That afternoon of May 29 of the year 1985, I was as assistant productor at the Control Room of RCTV in Caracas. We were waiting for to telecast live from Bruxelles to all Venezuela the Final Match JUVENTUS-LIVERPOOL of the European Champions Cup. I had just given all kind of informations and data to the three Venezuelan speakers waiting in face of the cameras at the panel of the TV studio. Among my data there were the two initial lineups:
JUVENTUS: Tacconi; Scirea; Favero, Brio, Cabrini; Bonini, Tardelli, Platini; Briaschi, Paolo Rossi, Boniek. Trainer: Trapattoni LIVERPOOL: Grobbelaar; Lawrenson; Neal, Beglin, Nicol; Hansen, Dalglish, Whelan; Rush, Walsh, Wark. Trainer: Fagan. REFEREE: Daina (Switzerland).
RCTV was one of the 60 TV stations, which telecasted live the match. Eurovision had informed that among the 60 Countries there were Venezuela, Pakistan, South Africa, China, India, Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico and for the first time Australia. The World audience was estimated over 1.100.000.000 of telespetactors.
It was 11,00 in Venezuela, 17,00 in Bruxelles when over 60.000 people began to go to the stadium, a lot of them just a little drunk. Many policemen in the streets following the fans. All people was going to the "Heyzelstadion", an old-fashioned building surely unfit for such a great sporting event. Its choice done by UEFA was one of the heavy causes of the tragedy.
After 18,00 the spectactors entered and searched the sector indicated in their tickets. Black-and-white fans went to the right sectors, reds fans to the left ones. There were no many policemen in the Heyzelstadion, but nobody seemed to be worry. And that was an other heavy cause of the tragedy: not sufficient anti-hooligans force. At their sectors, far away the ones from the other ones, the fans displayed their flags and began to eat wuersteln and to drink beer waiting for. Then they began to sing their usual clan's chorus, repeating their different slogans.
There was a sector, the "Z" sector, near the Liverpool's sectors, better said, near the worst hooligans' group came from Liverpool. This sector was to be occupied by Belgians, by single people, not identified as member of any supporters groups. People who had bought his tickets just as last arrived. But among the last arrived people there were many Italians. They were little families, couple of fiancees, single persons, who not being members of organized Juventus fan clubs, have bought his tickets by means of individual requests. To sell to Italians tickets of the "Z" sector was the first fatal error, the principal cause of the tragedy.
And the tragedy won't last long than ten minutes. At 19,00 an hour before the announced kickoff of the match. The stadium was full of warsongs, deafening choruses, fireworks and ambiguous lights. Flags were waved, animosity was growing, in spite of the apparent separation between the two organized groups of fans, supporters and hooligans.
But there was that "Z" sector too much near to the hooligans, exactly at the opposite site of the Juventus fans' sectors. This "Z" sector was not protected, because there were only "two" disarmed policemen. What for a tremendous error of planning! It was too obvious for somebody of the hooligans to realize a pair of "juventini" in the contiguous sector with a little green-white-red flag, a pair of black-and-white scarfs, a child's voice saying Italian words...
The rage's explosion was inmediate, the criminal impulse, and above all the cowardly certainty of the possibility to fight against a defenceless, unarmed "ennemy". The weak separation was destroyed in a few seconds, and the hunderts of hooligans attacked with all kind of arms the poor spetactors of the "Z" sector. There was no reaction, no one of the hooligans was injuried, the dead were only Italians (even one who travelled from Venezuela) and Belgians. 39 murdered persons in ten minutes. Skulls massacred, bodies trodden, childs suffocated, 39 murdered by the worst, the most cowardly assault ever performed by hooligans in a Football's stadium. A shame! Imagine it: there were even some imbecile policemen who struck all the poor spetactors, who got, to escape of the hooligans' assaults, to reach the pitch. A shame!
We began to receive (and with us, all the other TV station of the World) live images from Bruxelles, twenty minutes "after" the tragedy. What we were receiving it was the reaction of the Juventus sectors, after to have noticed something wrong of the tragedy. There were a lot of "juventini" trying to get the Liverpool's sectors to revenge for the murdered action of the hooligans. But the policemen placed between the opposite sectors were sufficient to halt their assaults. Nevertheless these first live images via satellite gave a totaly false first impression of what was happening. Not to me, because I was hearing from the first moment via radio all the details of that tremendous evolution of the facts. Our telecast could be truthful, thanks my direct translation of the report of the witness. I can assure you, it was the most dramatic moment of all my career of social comunicator. The words were stones, the number of the dead was a kind of increasing horror's cry. The magnitude of the tragedy was filtered during dozens of minutes. The sector of the press was trying to know the number of the dead. But it was not so easy. The UEFA and Belgian authorities tried to minimize what was happened. In the meantime the bodies of the died persons were recovered and lined up in a hidden corner of the stadium, while the injuried (They will be ...275!) were lined up on the pitch helped by fortuitous doctors because there wasn't neither one sufficient medical guard. Other cause of the magnitude of the tragedy. An impressive detail: a man of Ancona, Dr. Giovanni Venuti, was lined up among the murdered bodies, till he could recover consciousness by himself, and run away... A shame!
The UEFA and Belgian authorities had no planes to dislodge the "Heyzelstadion". It was necessary to gain time to try to organize it. The crowd must remain absolutely divided and must wait for a logical operation to leave by separate ways their sectors. To gain time it was necessary to play the game, but the players of Juventus and Liverpool were against this no merciful idea. It was a very difficult action of persuasion to get the "OK" of all the players. Prime ministers Bettino Craxi and Margareth Thatcher had to intervene by phone's calls. Finally the two captains Phil Neal and Gaetano Scirea take the microphon to announce the game will be played. It was 21,29 by night in Bruxelles, 15,29 in Caracas. We remained on the air, as all the World. Only the German television ended its telecast. But the decision of the authorities was the correct one. It could have been a mayor tragedy to cut the event and let all the crowd go out in the Bruxelles streets. How many murdered peoples more could have been?
Play the game was cruel, but logical.
At 21,39 began the game. It was played during the first twenty minutes without special agonistic spirit. Very friendly. Somebody will say then that it was all prepared to let Juventus win the Cup. I don't think it. After the first phase they played a professional game, where perhaps the black-and-white players showed a mayor moral participation. Nevertheless the decisive penalty was a dubious call of the referee Daina. It happened at 57' when Gillespie, who had replaced Lawrenson, faulted as last man the running Boniek, who had been assisted by Platini. The riplay will show that the fault was a meter before to enter into the penalty area. Not for Daina (far away from the place): it was penalty! Platini realized and celebrated it as the victory's goal. The Juventus Goal Number 100 scored in a Champions Cup's game. The Goal which gave the first Champions Cup to the Black-and-white Club of Turin.
But only a few hours later Platini apologized his joy. And the Juventus players with him, aware of the prize of human victims payed...
The official declaration of Margareth Thatcher was: "There are no words, there are are no possible justifications; the blame is entirely for England!" Thatcher called to come inmediately to Downing Street from Mexico City, where they were, FA President Frederick A. Millichip and General Secretary Edgar A. Croker for a delicate confrontation with her Government. And two days before the UEFA's decision to ban England (June 2), the English Government anticipe (May 31) its own exemplary decision about a kind of auto-exclusion at all Eurocups of all English clubs.
Civil, Military and Sporting Belgian Authorities envolved in the responsibility of the Final Match organisation were found guilty. The history then ended with a serie of difficult trials against only a little number of those hundreds of hooligans, some people identified by witness and by multimedial evidences.
It will remain an unquestionable fact, that in Liverpool are living till today a lot of those murders, who have never payed for his criminal participation to the bloody tragedy of the Heyzelstadion. People who were there and who are trying to justify his qualms of conscience, speaking with cheek about a supposed provocation by those poor victims of Sector "Z".
Nevertheless the most significant consequence was on the contrary the friendly relations between the two clubs Juventus and Liverpool. More strong as before, based over the reciprocity of esteem and admiration and over the sacred memory of the innocent dead.
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«And if you ever smell christian blood up in the mountains, then get your axe and chop them down!»
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ripe
