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Daniel Gordon: I do make a lot of sports documentaries, but to me the human stories behind sports are always the most interesting thing.I was actually meant to be at Hillsborough on the day of the disaster. I was going to be a steward – a volunteer selling programmes. Now I'm relieved I didn't manage it, because my mates who were there selling programmes were in the gymnasium [used as a makeshift mortuary for the deceased] counting their money, when everyone came in.
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I wanted the story to tell itself. Viewers aren't getting guided by a helping hand; they're just seeing the story unfold before them. I think that's especially important for a story of this magnitude. It helps that we've got Professor Phil Scraton in there [who wrote the book Hillsborough – The Truth and led the Hillsborough Independent Panel]. He is almost the narrator, he fills in a lot of gaps without being scripted. But when you include a traditional narrator you have to decide what kind of voice you will have. But I didn't want a voice. I wanted a story.I was surprised by your decision to include the voices of police officers in the documentary, and I was surprised by how candid they were about their experiences. Why did you decide to include the police given how controversial their roles were in the disaster? How did you persuade them to be so candid?
I wanted a truthful account of Hillsborough, and for me that had to include police officers. The Taylor Report of 1989 noted the heroic deeds of junior officers in "ghastly" circumstances, and they were let down by the senior command. I felt it was important to tell their stories too.
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I was hugely surprised by the extent they were willing to share details like that. He was an ex-squaddie, ex-miner and a former police officer. He was a very tough cookie. I thought it was very brave of him to tell me about his breakdown.It was also clear that he needed to talk about Hillsborough. I have a friend who was at the other end of the ground who says he still can't block those images out. People can't just get over Hillsborough and move on.The police showed signs of PTSD, and in the macho environment of South Yorkshire Police at the time there was no help for them.The person in charge of the day was David Duckenfield. Before Hillsborough, Duckenfield hadn't had any experience of policing football matches. The documentary could have portrayed him as a man who was simply out of his depth, but instead he comes across as hubristic and arrogant. What was your impression of him?
People do stupid things in the heat of the moment, and if he had admitted early on that he'd made a mistake, people might have accepted that despite the horrific nature of the deaths. But he didn't – he was very defensive during the Taylor Report in 1989. In fact Lord Taylor criticised him for his evasiveness.
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The actual day has never been explored in that level of detail before, and I think in order to show what went wrong and the complexities of that, the day does need to be deconstructed forensically.
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On a personal note, a lot of the shots were taken from the part of the ground where I would sit to watch Sheffield Wednesday. It felt very familiar; like I was there. I wanted to make the viewers feel like they were there too.What role did the city of Liverpool itself play in the disaster?It was really horrific – the utter chaos and desperation
At the time, Liverpool was being beaten down by the Thatcher government, and – as a consequence – by society at large. Thatcher famously said that there was no such thing as society, only individuals and their families. And the Guardian's David Conn observed that cities like Liverpool were a threat to that belief, because there was community and people were organised. It would have been easier for Thatcher if Liverpool had been a broken city. There was a lot of sneering at the Hillsborough campaign because of the way Liverpool as a city was viewed.
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Hillsborough should make us a lot more sceptical of authority. Doreen Jones was a member of the community who trusted the police. Her son was a PhD student, and the police implied he was a drunken hooligan who had caused his own death and the deaths of others. We should take time to learn more about what we're being told, instead of simply reacting.Hillsborough is also a story of institutional complacency. In 1981 there was a crush at Leppings Lane, which was remarkably similar to what happened in 1989. The chairman of Sheffield Wednesday said the idea that people could have been killed was "bollocks". He didn't like the fact that police had allowed fans to escape the crush by sitting on the perimeter of the pitch because it looked untidy. The warning signs were there and they were ignored.
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The initial coverage of Hillsborough was horrific. The Sun headline "The Truth" is notorious, but nearly every paper ran similar stories. There are people who still believe the police's version of events. I think they don't want to believe the police could fit them up. They want to retain faith in the system. Without that, what do you have?Perhaps it goes back to that feeling of, "it could have been me." People wanted to think that the fans must be to blame, because if innocent people can be treated in that way, we could all be treated in that way. But I also think stereotypes of working class people as a "tanked-up mob", to quote Bernard Ingham [Thatcher's press secretary], came into play. It was divide and rule.The establishment closed ranks over Hillsborough too. The Hillsborough Independent Panel found that Thatcher refused to welcome the findings of the Taylor report because it was critical of the police.
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It was hard, but also rewarding. One day we interviewed seven or eight family members for about 11 hours, and by the end of it I felt broken. But that was one day for me; they've had to deal with it for 27 years. No one could ever imagine what they've been through. A double tragedy: first the loss, and then the lies.
I built personal relationships with family members, I've become very close to them. I will be watching the documentary with Doreen Jones in Liverpool next week [the mother of Hillsborough victim Richard Jones, who died with his girlfriend Tracy Cox. Stephanie, Doreen's daughter, was also at Hillsborough and survived]. She is wonderful. In the documentary, she talks about the fact that she wasn't allowed to cuddle her son because he was the property of the coroner. She says, "I brought him into the world. I needed to see him out. I needed that." It brings tears to my eyes.Hillsborough isn't just 96 people, it's 96 generations – it has rippled through generations. Every family will have had relatives who died before justice was done. Some children of survivors and victims who weren't even born at the time have taken up the fight since.Dan Davies was a survivor who spoke publicly about Hillsborough for the first time in the documentary. When the inquest verdict came through, he was the first person I called because I knew he was working in London and wouldn't be in the court. We just cried on the phone. It was amazing.Hillsborough airs on Sunday 8th May, 9pm, BBC Two More on VICE:A Hillsborough Lawyer Explains the Verdict: 'We Will Never Work on a Case Like it Again'What Does Liverpool Think of Thatcher's Funeral?Londoners are Ruining LiverpoolShe wasn't allowed to cuddle her son because he was the property of the coroner