Richard Wade

ABSTRACT:
The Hillsborough Disaster which occurred on 15th April 1989 and resulted in the deaths of 96 Liverpool Football Club supporters was not only the worst disaster in British sporting history, but an event which has left a profound and unhealthy legacy in terms of how the event has been assessed in academia. Those who have published influential work on the tragedy have,
for reasons set out in this article, generally been from the political left and have focused upon the blunders of authorities, in particular the police, on the day of the disaster itself. Whilst these criticisms are to a large extent justified, the result has been an unwillingness to put Hillsborough into the correct historical context and as a result a number of myths have been propagated regarding the long term causes of the disaster, with a politicised narrative emerging in which many of the arguments made cannot be sustained under closer analysis. This article argues that not only are many of these arguments incorrect, but that a new approach should be taken in assessing the long term causes of the Hillsborough Disaster and that the period after 1989, during which significant developments changed the face of football in Britain, should not be allowed to distort our views of these long term factors.