1984/85: The Season that Shook English Football, Part Two - Heysel
It Was What It Was : The Football History Podcast
The Overlap
4.9 • 667 Ratings
🗓️ 23 May 2025
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to It Was What It Was, the football history podcast. This, co-hosts Jonathan Wilson and Rob Draper focus on the 1984/85 season that changed English football, with Part One focussing on the numerous fan violence incidents then the tragedy of the Bradford fire as 56 fans lost their lives.
Today, in part two, Tony Evans, former sports editor at The Times and author of 'Two Tribes' and 'Far Foreign Land' joins the show to talk about Heysel.
In this episode, Tony Evans shares his harrowing experiences and poignant reflections on the Heysel Stadium disaster of 1985, when 39 football fans tragically lost their lives during the European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus. The discussion covers the chaotic events leading up to the disaster, the atmosphere in Brussels, and the aftermath, both immediate and long-term, for football and fan culture.
Don't miss this in-depth exploration of one of the darkest days in football history.
00:00 Introducing the Podcast and Special Guest Tony Evans
02:15 Liverpool in 1985: A City and Club in Turmoil
02:30 The Violent Year: Football and Social Unrest
05:09 The Day of the Heysel Disaster: Personal Accounts
07:46 Chaos in Brussels: The Build-Up to Tragedy
16:57 The Collapse: Mismanagement and Miscommunication
27:45 The Aftermath: Reactions and Reflections
30:35 The Aftermath of the Tragedy
31:43 Personal Recollections and Impact
32:26 Documentary Insights and Victim Stories
34:56 Chaos and Confusion at the Stadium
38:25 The Decision to Continue the Game
49:08 Reflections on Fan Behaviour and Consequences
51:27 The Broader Context and Political Reactions
53:48 Long-term Changes in Football Culture
58:38 Concluding Thoughts on the Tragedy
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before 6am on May 30, 1985, on a.m., |
| 0:10.0 | on a ferry limping across the channel, Robert, a big Ulsterman, woke me. |
| 0:15.0 | He handed me a beer, shivering and in the throes of the worst angle for it experienced a date shook me head. |
| 0:26.0 | You'll need it, he said. He led me to a television where the news was about to stir. |
| 0:30.7 | Forty-two Italians killed in a riot at Heisel, the presenter said. |
| 0:36.1 | When the news spread on the boat, there was silence and head-shaking. The enormity was overwhelming. How did it happen? |
| 0:38.6 | The unspoken question perplexed to everyone. |
| 0:41.5 | Instead of admitting our unculpability, |
| 0:44.0 | seeing how our bad attitudes and fear created a situation where people would die, |
| 0:48.1 | we immediately found other guilty parties to blame and put the victims out of our minds. |
| 0:53.1 | Hillsborough brought some empathy for those who died at |
| 0:55.5 | ISIL, be even that was paltry to the point of insult. Now the dead reached across two decades |
| 1:01.1 | to knock people out of complacency. Welcome to It Was What It Was, the Football History Podcast. I'm |
| 1:06.9 | Jonathan Wilson and with Rob Draper. And today we're joined by a very special guest, that voice |
| 1:10.7 | you've already heard, |
| 1:11.1 | which you may recognize, |
| 1:12.4 | that of the former supporter of the Times, |
| 1:14.5 | the author of two tribes. |
| 1:16.1 | I don't know what it is, |
| 1:16.9 | but I love it and probably most relevant |
| 1:18.3 | for today's purposes, |
| 1:20.0 | Far Foreign Land. |
... |
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