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Top 100 momentsNo. 54

Soccer

Hillsborough

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Ninety-seven Liverpool fans die in a crush at an FA Cup semi. The Taylor Report rebuilds English grounds — and the sport has to admit how it treated its own.

April 15, 1989, FA Cup semi-final, Liverpool against Nottingham Forest. Too many people are pushed into the Leppings Lane pens. The match is stopped. Ninety-seven people will die. The first stories blame the fans. The truth, established over years of fighting, is a failure of control, design, and honesty.

Lord Justice Taylor’s report leads to all-seater stadiums in the top divisions. Fences come down. Clubs that had treated supporters as a crowd to be penned have to treat them as customers with a right to leave alive.

English soccer’s modern grounds are safer because of Hillsborough. The families had to drag the record into the light. That is part of the moment too.