But you never hear of this because the tragedy is taboo. It was only brought into the open when Liverpool and Juventus were drawn together in the Champions League quarter-final in 2005, at which point the Merseyside club, after consultation with their Italian counterparts, announced it would be a game of friendship. Before the first leg at Anfield, Liverpool supporters held up a mosaic to form the word amicizia. Some of the visiting Juventus fans applauded. Most, it seemed, turned their backs in disgust. And while the rejection of the olive branch met with a little consternation on Merseyside, Liverpools supporters know all too well about the type of apology that comes too late, brought by events, to sound truly sincere.
Heysel is an unspeakably awkward subject for Liverpool perhaps more, perhaps less, for the anguish the club and the city endured four years later at Hillsborough. It is a black mark and it will be there forever. Supporters of rival teams chant Murderers and the Liverpool fans have little response. On one infamous occasion at Goodison Park in 2008, the away fans responded by singing 2-0 to the Murderers. I know that this was somewhere between a knee-jerk response and an attempt to reclaim that offensive description, but it sounded awful. Were they listening in Turin? You would hope not.
For many years, Liverpool s response to Heysel was woefully inadequate. I was shown a copy of the clubs official yearbook for 1985/86. There were two articles about the tragedy on page three, but they were both of the Lets put this behind us, improve the matchday Anfield atmosphere and look to restore the clubs good name variety. There was no direct reference to what had happened. There was no hint of an apology. Later there was a round-up of the previous European Cup campaign, in which 1985/86 was identified as a watershed because it would be Liverpool s last for some time.
