Hillsborough: A survivor's story

Apr 15 2008 By Damian Kavanagh, Liverpool supporter

The crowd pressure was ever increasing and the lads on the crush barrier behind me were really struggling. This was as bad as I'd ever experienced and was getting worse. It didn't feel like a surge, more like steadily increasing overcrowding. I'd been to loads of matches when the crowd pressure had been uncomfortable and where at times you had no control over your own movement. There had been many occasions when people had fainted or were just so overwhelmed that they were pushed upwards over the heads of the crowd, then ferried down by outstretched hands to the front of the Kop for the St John's ambulance gang to look after them - though I'd never been in that state myself.

A man immediately behind one of my shoulders who looked about 30ish to me with slightly long mousy hair and a dark blue shirt was asking us to help push him back under the strain. He was trying to get under the crush barrier... "Come on lads, help us here, push me back". We tried to lean backwards towards him while he pushed at our backs but our movements were restricted and he couldn't make any progress against the crowd behind him anyway. He asked us to kick the soles of his shoes - so he could maybe spring over the barrier - but it was no use, he wasn't going anywhere.

A man immediately behind my other shoulder, again 30 something and maybe with a moustache, was in pain and couldn't even try to help himself any more. He was wearing a wind cheater style jacket (I seem to remember white, yellow and grey markings on it). He was just pleading, "Please... please... please..."

Maybe six feet in front of me a fella said "Come on lads, let's get this young girl out" and people tried to help. She looked maybe 12 years old or so, with dark hair. I can't say I know what happened to her.

The singing had well stopped around me by now, with everybody here struggling. There were cries for help, cries of pain and cries to the police just a matter of yards in front of me to open the gates at the perimeter fence. The police were ignoring the requests and as I caught the eyes of one myself I made a point of shouting at him to open the gates. He just looked at me, pointed behind me and mouthed at me to get back, which of course was totally impossible. It appeared as though a gate down at the front had sprung open under the pressure but it looked to me as though the police were pushing the crowd back in.

I could tell from the crowd noise around the ground that the teams had come out and I remember thinking "Oh no, they're gonna kick-off". The problems behind the goal needed to be sorted out first! I couldn't actually see which way we were kicking as my head had been pushed forward and I was facing downwards for a time. I missed the match kick-off and all of the action which by this time wasn't a priority for me, though I knew which way we would be kicking as both teams would want to finish the match attacking the goal which their own supporters were behind.

I had no idea that Peter Beardsley had hit the crossbar until I read it in the Echo some days later. I have heard that he was worried this action had caused a further surge in the crowd but all I can say is that from where I was, things were obviously beyond that by then and to my knowledge it had neither hindered nor helped matters.