Music
06 Apr 18

Manic Street Preachers release tribute track for Hillsborough disaster ahead of 29th anniversary

Welsh rockers Manic Street Preachers have paid tribute to the victims of the Hillsborough disaster, in the lead up to the 29th anniversary, in a poignant new single ‘Liverpool Revisited’.

'Liverpool Revisited' comes on the upcoming album 'Resistance is Futile', their 13th studio album since forming in Wales in 1986.

Frontman James Dean Bradfield said "It’s about the ‘Justice For The Victims Of Hillsborough’ campaign. That campaign fought the entire British establishment to get to the truth, and they finally got there with their ruling.

“When the ruling came out of the High Court, we were just about to do a gig at the Liverpool Echo Arena, and Nick (Wire, bass guitarist) had a day down on the waterfront where he just took loads of Polaroids and wrote loads of poetry, as he does. Nick wrote this song in its entirety. [...] When he gets into the flow of doing a song on his own, it does just flow."

On April 15 1989, a human crush occurred at Hillsborough football stadium in Sheffield, during the 1989 FA Cup semi-final between Nottingham Forrest and Liverpool. 96 attendees were killed, and 766 were injured, making it the worst disaster in the history of British sports.

In the immediate aftermath, the press were fed stories by the police, suggesting that football hooliganism and excessive drinking by Liverpool supporters was the main cause of the disaster. The Sun newspaper posted a notorious front page reading, "THE TRUTH - Some fans picked pockets of victims, Some fans urinated on the brave cops, Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life." The foundation-less claims led to a boycott of The Sun newspaper in Liverpool which is still very much in place today.

The second inquest was held from April 1 2014 to April 26 2016. In the end, it ruled that fans were unlawfully killed due to grossly negligent failures by emergency services to fulfil their duty of care. It was also found that the design of the stadium had aided the crush and that supporters were blameless for the dangerous conditions. In June 2017, six people were charged with several offences including misconduct in public office, manslaughter by gross negligence and perverting the course of justice for their actions .