First published in The Times, April 17, 1989

Liverpool football ground Anfield has long revelled in the cliche of ``the cathedral of English soccer''. Yesterday they turned it into a real cathedral, and the goal at the Kop end became a high altar. It was a most extraordinary and affecting sight.

Throughout the morning people had been making pilgrimages to Anfield. Soon after breakfast, the big wrought-iron gates were decorated with wreaths and red and white scarves of Liverpool supporters: a football follower's vernacular tribute.

At 11.30, the crowds milling about the ground had grown so large that the decision was made to open the ground to the public. People flowed in and the procession continued in an unbroken crocodile throughout the day as they came in to fill the Kop goal with bouquets and wreaths and to festoon the netting with scarves.

Tragedy on the terraces

• 'Mayhem' after gate was opened

• 'We watched them die, innocent figures, lying prostrate and crushed on the green grass'

• Doctors attack 'total chaos' of rescue effort

Police in 'open gate' inquiry

• The man who opened the gate

• Force condemned for failing to avert turnstile disaster

• Senior officers were not willing to concede fault

Mother tells of losing husband and son as she witnessed crush on TV

• Names of the supporters who died are released

• Liverpool welcomes vindication of fans' behaviour

• Thatcher hears of heroic courage

Anfield Kop becomes silent focus of city's mourning

• Thousands at requiem mass as Liverpool mourns deaths

• Sombre lessons soccer failed to learn

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• Thousands at requiem mass as Liverpool mourns deaths

• Sombre lessons soccer failed to learn

Football grounds are jolly, rowdy places, and Anfield has a reputation for out-jollying every ground in football. A hushed and bewildered atmosphere in such a place was bizarre and shocking. Grief, inarticulate and inexpressible, had taken the place over. The railings at the Kop end were decorated with thousands more bouquets. Mostly red ones, or red and white ones, naturally. ``Deepest sympathy'', said the messages; ``For all the departed souls'', ``In memory of the fallen members of Kenny's Army'', Kenny being Kenny Dalglish, the Liverpool manager. Another said: ``So sorry''.

Of course, many of those who filed into the ground had lost relatives or friends in the disaster. Many others did not yet know, but feared. It was awesomely quiet, an occasion made sadder by its shuffling, sniffing dignity. And of course, among the tangled web of red scarves, there was plenty of blue: blue for Everton, the city's second football club. In most places in England, neighbouring football clubs are hated rivals. One of the city of Liverpool's many aspects of pride and singularity is that the rivalry between Liverpool and Everton has somehow remained unstintingly good-humoured.

One of the biggest wreaths on the gate is blue and white, and says: ``We share your grief''. Perhaps only other Liverpool people can fully share it. Liverpool is a strange place; it is the only truly foreign city in England. It prides itself on its uniqueness, on the way it is cut off from the rest of the country. In a perverse way it even prides itself on its unemployment problems: opposing fans ritually taunt them with a chant to the tune of Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah: ``What's it like to have no jobs?''

Liverpool Football Club is the symbol and totem of its city, in a way that no other football club manages. London teams exist on fierce tribal boundaries, Manchester United constantly strives to be Team England, but Liverpool Football Club is the private love object of this self-regarding city. It is only four years since Liverpool's last football disaster: when 38 people were killed in the European Cup final at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels. But this horror had no Liverpool deaths. It was Liverpool's shame: something to hush up and live down. This is something different. There is no shame: this is shock and unalloyed grief.

Both Liverpool local radio stations cancelled their Saturday night pop shows and played sombre orchestral music through the night, interrupting this with the police emergency numbers and the number of the Samaritans. Liverpool has the biggest collection of Sunday morning park football teams in Europe: every match was cancelled yesterday. Some of the mourners left footballs in the Kop end goal. At this moment no one in Liverpool wants to kicka football again.