The tragedy of Heysel that could not stop the running of the match!

Events from the football field and the history of champions, unlike any other.

“The show must go on”, is the title of a song of the legendary group “Queen” written by the guitarist of this group Bryan May in 1991. The song shows the efforts of the singer Freddie Mercury who continues to perform despite approaching the end of his life , although his HIV/AIDS diagnosis had not yet been made public, and despite ongoing media speculation that he was seriously ill.

This is also the case at the “Heysel” stadium in Brussels in the final match of the Champions Cup in 1985 between Liverpool and Juventus. Regardless of the terrible tragedy and its dimensions that were happening, that match had to be developed and played until the last minutes, regardless of the fact that many of the fans, especially from the Italian side, had lost their lives and could not imagine that May 29 that year would have been for them the last day of their life, precisely from a football match!!! Therefore, the images, which were shown by the Rai television channel, left the impression of a war battle. Barrels, dead bodies, collapsed walls
and stairs. A slaughterhouse!

Inside the steps of the stadium, people were dying. Inside the stands of the stadium there are people who do not understand what is happening. Even within life, the show must go on, as in this valid case for a final football match as well as the death festival of Luigji Tenko in 1968.

Luigji Tenko, was the singer who was found to have committed suicide in one of the hotel rooms in San-Remo

The singer who was found dead in the hotel room during the well-known “San-Remo” festival……even then the show went on! And the match took place under the same motive “The show must go on”. Juventus won 1-0 with a penalty kick. Bonjek stumbles outside the area and Platini turns the 11-meter into a goal, more or less in a small consolation for the Italian fans.

In this case, few people are interested in celebrating or analyzing the victory for the Italian team, which in most cases, especially in Serie “A”, has managed to succeed. But this is a tragic story that we will tell next. Tragic! Then isn’t it better to stop and reflect at least before death because no one can understand the great pain of another without experiencing it themselves?! On the contrary, May 29, 1985 is the night when the stadium barriers turned into barrels, lost shoes, sticks, and other items, collapsed railings, piles of stones as monuments for some who would never return to their homes that night.

A Rai chronicle of the time begins the story like this: “It all started when a group of wild Liverpool fans were led by Juventus fans…” / “You can see a pile of corpses…among them there are also children…oh my God” 39 fans, almost all Italian, lost their lives there in the “Z” sector of Heysel. Many families or groups of friends have secured tickets in this sector, which was actually intended for the Belgian public. …..

In the background you can hear the verses sung by F. Merkuri: “Empty spaces, what are we living for? / Abandoned places, I guess we know the score, on and on / Does anybody know what we are looking for? / Another hero, another mindless crime / Behind the curtain, in the pantomime / Hold the line / Does anybody want to take it anymore? / The show must go on, yeah / Inside my heart is breaking / My makeup may be flaking / But my smile, still, stays on….” To separate the fans in this stadium built in the 30’s there was a wire net and only… five policemen! When, an hour before the start of the match, a former English soldier who has just arrived from the war for the Falkland Islands, Malvinas, leads the group of hooligans against Juventus fans, at that moment no one can do anything. The prominent Italian sports commentator Bruno Pizzul, assigned to chronicle the match, says: “The stand intended for Liverpool fans is almost completely empty because most of them have gone to Juventus.

Then a battle broke out among them, after all that battery, several surrounding railings were knocked down, opening a path for many of the spectators to go down to the field of play” In the showcase is the most important trophy of European clubs, the Champions Cup. . Juventus plays its third final. The first two have been disappointments. It’s like the Albanian saying “the third truth”! It seems like a curse, but sports and football at this moment before human life don’t even count at all. But the bosses say: “Show must go on”! However, the match will take place only after ensuring public order!

Here are the two captains of the teams, Gaetano Shirea and Fil Nill, come out on the field and address the public through the loudspeakers… Okay, “the show must go on” / “Inside my heart is breaking My makeup may be flaking / But my smile, still , stays on….” In fact, no one knows the reason for the decision to hold that match against the victims. Only the local police and UEFA executives know it.

The audience in the “Z” tribune does not understand anything, on the contrary. Gianmarco Trevisi, Rai’s journalist and envoy for that match, says: “I remember that the voices of the two captains somehow calmed the crazy crowd, or at least that’s how the impression was created. But what we were reasoning among our colleagues was that if he is dead, the match could never take place”

But…. Inside life in the world of the capitalist system, the bosses decide: “the show must go on”! G. Trevisi continues: “On the contrary, we learned and saw with our own eyes that there were dead people when we were returning by bus to Turin.” In the morning, when we stopped on the highway in the part of Paris, the relatives were informed about the losses, and only at that moment, everyone who was on the bus where I was, began to perceive something of the tragedy” “Good evening! In the Brussels mortuary there are 39 corpses, while in the hospital there are 268 injured, some of them very serious. At the same time, the police in Turin are on a mission. Our camera is there and as always in such cases a family must be informed: the husband, the father will not return” – This is a part of the “TG – telegiornales” chronicle of the evening!

In the dressing rooms, on the contrary, the news arrives but distorted. There is talk of one dead person, maybe two, but certainly not of the dozens that were actually counted. Platini was in the shower when UEFA made the announcement that both teams should go on the field. “The show must go on” They are told that there is a risk that both fans may come into contact with each other and only the ball can avoid such a thing. Not only that, but the show should not stop, this is what UEFA and “Eurovision” think, which has decided to broadcast the match… “I knew that the match would take place, but I could not communicate it to the public. How do you think a mother would feel who learns that she has lost one of her two sons and the fate of the other is still unknown”? Journalist Bruno Pizzul will say later. Pizzul himself will not express even the slightest emotion when Platini will score 1-0. At the end of the match, the Italian TV announcer will say: “For this victory, the fan celebrates, the sportsman, but not the person with a wounded soul …. However, the Juventus fans let themselves be excited and happy for their victory and as they listen, oh how much it hurts”! A group of animals celebrate …. what was left there that night to celebrate? It was the night when the barriers of “Heysel” turned into barrels, and the trophy was given to the winners without ceremony in the dressing rooms, without the presence of journalists and televisions.

It was a cynical thing to broadcast that match, not to watch it at all on television…. “There was such an idea that it should not be broadcast on TV, but what would be said? To interrupt the communication at that moment completely suddenly means to panic thousands and thousands of people in Italy. I was told by the director, not to insist too much on the history of the dead, because the situation was being created like this, a big panic, preoccupation….” his witness B. Pizzul will continue.

The players of that winning team do not speak fondly of that night. They say that there is nothing to add when everything has already been said. A feeling of guilt that Platini will one day consume in a joke as an elegant self-criticism: “When the acrobat crashes, the clowns come in”

It is not true that time erases the feeling of guilt and this applies to everyone. The “circus” did not stop even 18 years ago in San Remo when the singer Luigji Tenko sang “Ciao amore ciao” one night before he changed his life… the festival continued and at the end the trophy was given to the winner. “Guardare ogni giorno / Se piove o c’è il sole Per saper se domani / Si vive o si muore E un bel giorno dire basta e andare via / Ciao amore” – these were the lines of that song that prophesied the fate of the late singer who committed suicide in the hotel room. And even then, death could not stop the San Remo festival in a modernized and “civilized” world where the tragic loss of human life is actually a punishment for the whole society, the environment that surrounds it, for all those who are part of it. of a world that has devoured them and does not stop them anymore!

Cynicism and stupidity were not exhausted only during that night. Giuseppina Conti from Areco, died at the age of 17. The Belgian health institution in Brussels asked her family for a refund for the ambulance expenses. The mind is waiting for you, in the capitalist world nothing is free, especially health costs as much as the hairs on the head. In many stadiums of Serie “A” the fans and those present started the protests in the address of the slaughter that had happened by loudly quoting “Heysel”, “Hysel”, “Heysel” – Brussels.

Newspaper “Sporti Popullor” – June 4, 1985 (p. 4)

On a wall in Rome appeared a large banner 20 meters long that read: “West, in Brussels minus 39” (L’estero, Brussels , less than 39). It is true that it was deleted after two hours, but it was already making its rounds in the world’s media. The dark well of cynicism was not only in that Brussels stadium, but the “spectacle” was also present in others that were not stopped. And here is the Queen’s song again: “Show must go on” “Friendship” was read on the contrary somewhere only on the license plate of the “Liverpool” stadium under the emblem of the two clubs that played that “cursed” match. Hugs do not bring anyone to life, however they teach society to live better and to feel somewhat friendlier.

                    Photo report of the tragedy in Heysel, Brussels
  

  

  

  

  





 

  

  
  
  

TABLE
May 29, 1985 “Heysel” Stadium in Brussels
In the presence of 58,000 spectators
Juventus – Liverpool 1-0
Scorer: Platini (60` pen.)
Referee : Daina (Switzerland)

Substitutions : (Juventus) Briaschi for Prandelli (85`), Rossi for Vignola (89`)
(Liverpool) Lawrenson for Molby (2`), Walsh for Johnston (46`)

JUVENTUS: Tacconi – Favero, Brio, Scirea, Cabrini – Tardelli, Bonini, Boniek, Platini – Rossi, Briaschi.
Tr. : Giovanni Trapattoni.
LIVERPOOL : Grobbelaar – Neal, Lawrenson, Hansen, Beglin – Nicol, Dalglish, Wark, Whelan – Rush, Walsh. Tr : Joe Fagan.

(Copyright ) 

By Pjerin Bj.  | The exclusivity on this page is dated August 2, 2023.

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Sports Vision + / The  Hour of The Champions
Material and information used in building thi article: “I numeri primi” F. Graciani’s show on Radio Rai. Newspapers and various online world media about the “Heysel” case.
Pictures taken from a video copy of the 1985 final and “courtesy of Google”