96

There's a poignancy about this anniversary falling so closely before Margaret Thatcher's funeral. It's due to assorted ironies. It was under Margaret Thatcher that grounds in England started to be made safe. Seats stopped great waves of people sweeping down the terraces. Those evil fences - designed to keep hooligans off the pitch (and I note that "hooligan", like so many of those names on the Hillsborough Memorial, is a word of Irish descent). They created pens in which a slaughter could happen. They were there to keep back the worst in a working-class society - and there were some terrifying specimens behind those bars, right across the country - but they killed some of the best. They're all gone now. They had to go.

In the aftermath, the innocent were blamed, their memory tarnished. Even now, we're waiting for proper justice. Most of those responsible for the smears and shaming are, this morning, thinking it's quite a nice day - they being retired comfortably - to mow the lawn. I hope they remember and repent.

Back to Mrs Thatcher - it was her paper that did the blaming, at least one of her MPs that helped out. A police force lied to us. Did she know? Maybe we'll find out more now.

But of course, this isn't really about her, or her lackeys. It's about them - the 96 - most so terribly young - who died that day in 1989. They never walked alone. They never have . They never will.