First published in The Sunday Times, April 16, 1989

THE seeds of the tragedy were sown when between 3,000 and 4,000 people arrived at the ground within minutes of the kick-off. There was pandemonium outside and suddenly ticketless Liverpool fans poured into the Hillsborough stadium through an open gate. Others had tickets but entered the ground without the tickets being checked.

Five minutes after the kick-off there was a surge in the crowd and a large number of people were trapped and injured. Many were forced on to the pitch. Liverpool-born Mr Rogan Taylor, chairman of the Football Supporters' Association, said: ``We didn't like the look of the way things were organised when we arrived at the ground. People were allowed to approach turnstiles freely and when that happens at matches where demand for tickets far exceeds supply, you're going to get severe crushing at the turnstiles. ``Far too many people were funnelled into that section of terracing and that caused the crush.''

Gary Stanley, 20, a computer operator in the Anfield ticket office, said: ``It was crazy outside the ground before the kick-off. There was complete madness and somehow the doors were opened. There were too many people in the section and I saw some people crushed against barriers. The arrangements were dreadful. I've still got a full ticket I didn't even have to show it to get into the ground.''

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

Many fans died as they were pushed against the crush barriers at the front of the stand. But dozens of others were killed when they tried to get out at the back. Another issue raised by the tragedy is the use of perimeter fences to cage spectators in. Yesterday there was no escape from the 10ft-high fences. They also prevented fans escaping on to the pitch. Police and fans clawed at the fences but were too late to stop a disaster.

Rescuers from the St John Ambulance Brigade were hampered by the lack of bolt cutters to cut the fencing, according to Peter Wells, 51, who was in charge of the brigade at Hillsborough. They could reach victims through the mesh but could not free them, he said. ``I was helping one young girl in her twenties,'' he said, ``and trying to hold her mouth through the wire mesh to keep her breathing going, but there was nothing we could do. She died. My wife Kathy was working on another casualty, a little boy of about 10. His father was watching as she tried everything to revive him, but a doctor walked past and said: `There's nothing more you can do for him'.''

The emergency medical facilities were clearly unable to handle the scale of the disaster. One oxygen tank was empty and there was no defibrillator machine to give electric shocks to revive heart attack victims. The stand where the deaths occurred was opened in 1966 for the World Cup and has been refurbished at a cost of more than Pounds 1m to meet the requirements of the Safety of Grounds Act.

The secretary of Sheffield Wednesday had pointed out that the capacity of 10,000 standing places was not full and neither corner of the terracingm appeared to be full. Yet Sheffield Wednesday's consultant engineer for safety, Dr Bill Eastwood, after surveying the damaged safety barriers in the stand at the Leppings Lane end of the ground, said that huge sections of toughened steel mesh had been ripped away. One crush barrier halfway up the stand, designed to withstand 400lb per foot, had been bent like a pipe cleaner. Dr Eastwood said: ``Anybody whose chest was against that barrier would have been lucky to survive. It was a steel tube bent like a banana.''