I realised that we don't even have a thread to commemorate the victims of the Heysel tragedy. For obvious reasons, I think that would be proper at this time.
No Liverpool bashing, no arguments, no finger-pointing.
----------------------------------------------------------------
The horror of Heysel scarred in the mind
Liverpool meet Juventus on Tuesday for the first time since one of the sport's greatest tragedies 20 years ago. For one grieving Italian the memory is painfully fresh
The spring of 1985 also happened to be the springtime of Alberto Guarini's life. His 21st birthday was weeks away, he had just won the local mixed doubles tennis championship with his sister Paola and he was deeply in love with his girlfriend Stefania - they were contemplating marriage - whom he had followed to university at Bari. There he had studied dentistry and just passed his exams. And to cap it all, his beloved heroes, the mighty Juventus, were in the European Cup final to face the great Liverpool, whom Alberto esteemed and admired.
Alberto's father, Bruno, had promised him a gift - any gift - as reward for passing the exams and in Alberto's mind there was no doubt: he and his father would travel together from their little town of Mesagne in Puglia, southern Italy, to Brussels for the game.
That fateful day would be the last of Alberto's life - and that of 38 others not unlike him, some younger, mostly older. The third, lethal, charge by mobs of drunken Liverpool supporters across the terracing at Heysel Stadium into the terrified, fleeing Italians, trapped Alberto and his father against a terrace barrier close to the wall at the edge of the stand.
"When the English came running at us, Alberto was caught," Bruno Guarini remembers. "He shouted at me: 'I don't know whether to go under or over it.' I shouted back for him to go under. His last words were, 'Papa, mi stanno schiaccando' - daddy, they're crushing me. I remember it all, like a film right up to the last moment, when the film stops and I don't see it any more. At night, though, I awake suddenly and I see it again."
The film stops because Bruno Guarini, badly injured, lost consciousness. When he came to, he says: "The Red Cross had arrived. I was bruised all over black and blue. I insisted to them that I look for Alberto before going with them and eventually I found him - dead. The Red Cross wanted to take me away but I could not leave his side. I simply put his identity card in his pocket, then they took me to hospital. We had flown to Brussels together singing on the plane. And I flew back with the body of my son."
It is strange, on the eve of next Tuesday's surreal and emotive fixture at Anfield, to walk the streets of Mesagne's lovely baroque historic centre with Bruno and to recall that I myself had seen - in panorama though not in detail - the death of his son and 38 others in the fated Z block at Heysel. I was close to the halfway line, above the slaughter. This was the stand for which Guarini had requested - and been promised - tickets, in which he and his son would have been safe, until the allocation was switched at the last moment by the travel agency which flew them from Brindisi.
Strange to recall the nightmare of that day and night: the carpet of broken beer bottles and cans in the centre of Brussels and around the stadium; those three charges into the small group of Italian fans, whose main contingent was at the other end of the ground - the third across open terracing into the fleeing crowd - and the fateful collapse of the wall, bodies tumbling down and the whooping and war dancing that followed among the English.
I first met Bruno Guarini 15 years ago. At that time, five years after his death, nothing had changed in Alberto's room. By his bed lay a Juventus magazine; in a cupboard hung his clothes and the Juventus shoulder bag in which he had taken a packed lunch to Brussels that day, and which returned with his body.
Now that part of the Guarinis' house is largely closed up but Alberto's trophies remain, a row of them, for the tennis and football tournaments in which he had been so successful. The walls of the bedroom are now lined with photographs - of his smile, his hopes and handsome youth.
"They say that time passes and heals," reflects Guarini now. "But time does nothing. It all remains before my eyes as though it were yesterday. I can see the look in his eyes, I can hear his voice. For the rest of you, for the fans even, time passes. But for a father who lost his son it all stays locked under my skin and never heals."
What has changed is that Alberto's sister Paola has married, lives next door and has given birth to a son, Gabriele, now two years old. "He is my joy," says his grandfather. A little Alberto? "Of course."
As for Tuesday's game, Guarini has decided to watch it. "I will do so for Alberto. I'm going to imagine him sitting by my side. It's the way he would have wanted it."
Mesagne is typical of the towns across central and southern Italy from which those in Z block largely came - those unable to get tickets for the Juventus end of the stadium. Not a wealthy place by any means, it lies on a low plain of deep red soil which stretches back inland from the port of Brindisi on Italy's "heel". Many inhabitants work the land around; its few factories package olives and artichokes and process tomatoes into pasta sauce.
Here Bruno Guarini grew up as a fanatical Juventus fan, a zeal inherited by his son. Bruno worked as a representative for the pharmaceutical industry, Alberto opted for dentistry while Paola trained as a pharmacist. Paola was instructed on May 29, 1985 to ensure a video recording of the match in Brussels.
Alberto could not have been more excited. He had called repeatedly from Bari to ensure that his father had secured good seats. "And of course Alberto knew Liverpool," says Guarini. "They were famous, a wonderful team, and we presumed the fans were like us, just crazy about football." Alberto knew England, he had been on three English language courses, twice in London, and had been happy there.
His mother Lucia, however, was nervous about the trip to Brussels as she had been during Alberto's studies, "not because of the hooligans, just because it was so far away".
Bruno and Alberto took the plane: "It was like a festival, flags and singing." Paola set the tape and switched on the television. Then came reports of trouble in the crowd; Lucia switched it off.
"We arrived early at the stadium and saw the English drunk out of their minds, bare torsos in the heat," says Guarini. "I said to Alberto, 'We'll go far away from them near the wall'. It was the worst decision because those close to the English were the ones to escape.
"Yes," he says. "I know all the excuses. It was a terrible stadium and I cannot believe that Uefa could choose it for a final between the two biggest teams in Europe, each with thousands of fans. I also cannot believe we were allowed to buy tickets in the same end as the English when our people - and there are some bad ones among them too - were at the other end. And the police: they were non-existent. There was no protection, no line to separate the fans.
"But does any of this justify what happened? Does this justify killing people? They call this a 'tragedy' like an earthquake or natural disaster but it wasn't a tragedy, as we say, it was a carnage."
"It was," says Lucia quietly, "the hand of man."
"For 50 years," says Guarini, "I'd thought of England as a civilised country. A civilised people. But what shocks me is that we've heard nothing from Liverpool or its supporters, no apology or solidarity, nothing to say they did anything wrong."
Whatever the sentiment may or may not be on Merseyside now - especially in the wake of the horror at Hillsborough - Alberto's memory lives on in Mesagne. There is an Alberto Guarini foundation managed by Guarini's best friend, a banker, Gino Sconosciuto, which for many years sponsored a dentistry place at Bari University for a local student otherwise financially incapable of taking it. Recently the foundation has switched to fund a post at Lecce University to take part in research into excavations beneath Mesagne, which illuminate the history of the pre-Roman Messapi people who populated the region from the 18th century BC.
Moreover the tennis court on which Alberto and his sister used to play is now called the "Campo Alberto Guarini" and each year in Mesagne the foundation organises a tennis and football tournament with trophies bearing Alberto's name.
The cemetery in Mesagne lies adjacent to the town centre. Here family tombs are arranged like miniature buildings along a grid of little streets. That of the Guarini family is of stone, lined inside with white marble. Alberto's grave is below that of his grandparents, both of whom outlived him. On it is a photograph, the last of him to be taken, by his girlfriend Stefania, his arms folded, smiling from the marble. Below it is the Greek letter Alpha next to his birthdate and Omega next to the date 29.5.85.
"This is my second home," says Guarini, pointing to the plot beneath Alberto's "which awaits me."
Flowers are replaced here twice a week. Guarini contemplates his son's picture with eyes that change in a flicker from animation to a distant, heartbroken stare. Outside, drops of heavy rain clunk against the ironwork.
Fifteen years ago Guarini had drilled his forefingers into his temples and said: "Heysel, that world will drive me mad." Now, here, he reflects: "I think all the time, if only I had given him some other gift. If only the plane had not taken off because of the weather. If only..." And he repeats: "For a father to have his son and watch him die is the greatest sorrow. But to lose your son in that way, killed by those people, is beyond sorrow. It is something time cannot cure, not even 20 years, it leaves you dead in your heart."
No Liverpool bashing, no arguments, no finger-pointing.
----------------------------------------------------------------
The horror of Heysel scarred in the mind
Liverpool meet Juventus on Tuesday for the first time since one of the sport's greatest tragedies 20 years ago. For one grieving Italian the memory is painfully fresh
The spring of 1985 also happened to be the springtime of Alberto Guarini's life. His 21st birthday was weeks away, he had just won the local mixed doubles tennis championship with his sister Paola and he was deeply in love with his girlfriend Stefania - they were contemplating marriage - whom he had followed to university at Bari. There he had studied dentistry and just passed his exams. And to cap it all, his beloved heroes, the mighty Juventus, were in the European Cup final to face the great Liverpool, whom Alberto esteemed and admired.
Alberto's father, Bruno, had promised him a gift - any gift - as reward for passing the exams and in Alberto's mind there was no doubt: he and his father would travel together from their little town of Mesagne in Puglia, southern Italy, to Brussels for the game.
That fateful day would be the last of Alberto's life - and that of 38 others not unlike him, some younger, mostly older. The third, lethal, charge by mobs of drunken Liverpool supporters across the terracing at Heysel Stadium into the terrified, fleeing Italians, trapped Alberto and his father against a terrace barrier close to the wall at the edge of the stand.
"When the English came running at us, Alberto was caught," Bruno Guarini remembers. "He shouted at me: 'I don't know whether to go under or over it.' I shouted back for him to go under. His last words were, 'Papa, mi stanno schiaccando' - daddy, they're crushing me. I remember it all, like a film right up to the last moment, when the film stops and I don't see it any more. At night, though, I awake suddenly and I see it again."
The film stops because Bruno Guarini, badly injured, lost consciousness. When he came to, he says: "The Red Cross had arrived. I was bruised all over black and blue. I insisted to them that I look for Alberto before going with them and eventually I found him - dead. The Red Cross wanted to take me away but I could not leave his side. I simply put his identity card in his pocket, then they took me to hospital. We had flown to Brussels together singing on the plane. And I flew back with the body of my son."
It is strange, on the eve of next Tuesday's surreal and emotive fixture at Anfield, to walk the streets of Mesagne's lovely baroque historic centre with Bruno and to recall that I myself had seen - in panorama though not in detail - the death of his son and 38 others in the fated Z block at Heysel. I was close to the halfway line, above the slaughter. This was the stand for which Guarini had requested - and been promised - tickets, in which he and his son would have been safe, until the allocation was switched at the last moment by the travel agency which flew them from Brindisi.
Strange to recall the nightmare of that day and night: the carpet of broken beer bottles and cans in the centre of Brussels and around the stadium; those three charges into the small group of Italian fans, whose main contingent was at the other end of the ground - the third across open terracing into the fleeing crowd - and the fateful collapse of the wall, bodies tumbling down and the whooping and war dancing that followed among the English.
I first met Bruno Guarini 15 years ago. At that time, five years after his death, nothing had changed in Alberto's room. By his bed lay a Juventus magazine; in a cupboard hung his clothes and the Juventus shoulder bag in which he had taken a packed lunch to Brussels that day, and which returned with his body.
Now that part of the Guarinis' house is largely closed up but Alberto's trophies remain, a row of them, for the tennis and football tournaments in which he had been so successful. The walls of the bedroom are now lined with photographs - of his smile, his hopes and handsome youth.
"They say that time passes and heals," reflects Guarini now. "But time does nothing. It all remains before my eyes as though it were yesterday. I can see the look in his eyes, I can hear his voice. For the rest of you, for the fans even, time passes. But for a father who lost his son it all stays locked under my skin and never heals."
What has changed is that Alberto's sister Paola has married, lives next door and has given birth to a son, Gabriele, now two years old. "He is my joy," says his grandfather. A little Alberto? "Of course."
As for Tuesday's game, Guarini has decided to watch it. "I will do so for Alberto. I'm going to imagine him sitting by my side. It's the way he would have wanted it."
Mesagne is typical of the towns across central and southern Italy from which those in Z block largely came - those unable to get tickets for the Juventus end of the stadium. Not a wealthy place by any means, it lies on a low plain of deep red soil which stretches back inland from the port of Brindisi on Italy's "heel". Many inhabitants work the land around; its few factories package olives and artichokes and process tomatoes into pasta sauce.
Here Bruno Guarini grew up as a fanatical Juventus fan, a zeal inherited by his son. Bruno worked as a representative for the pharmaceutical industry, Alberto opted for dentistry while Paola trained as a pharmacist. Paola was instructed on May 29, 1985 to ensure a video recording of the match in Brussels.
Alberto could not have been more excited. He had called repeatedly from Bari to ensure that his father had secured good seats. "And of course Alberto knew Liverpool," says Guarini. "They were famous, a wonderful team, and we presumed the fans were like us, just crazy about football." Alberto knew England, he had been on three English language courses, twice in London, and had been happy there.
His mother Lucia, however, was nervous about the trip to Brussels as she had been during Alberto's studies, "not because of the hooligans, just because it was so far away".
Bruno and Alberto took the plane: "It was like a festival, flags and singing." Paola set the tape and switched on the television. Then came reports of trouble in the crowd; Lucia switched it off.
"We arrived early at the stadium and saw the English drunk out of their minds, bare torsos in the heat," says Guarini. "I said to Alberto, 'We'll go far away from them near the wall'. It was the worst decision because those close to the English were the ones to escape.
"Yes," he says. "I know all the excuses. It was a terrible stadium and I cannot believe that Uefa could choose it for a final between the two biggest teams in Europe, each with thousands of fans. I also cannot believe we were allowed to buy tickets in the same end as the English when our people - and there are some bad ones among them too - were at the other end. And the police: they were non-existent. There was no protection, no line to separate the fans.
"But does any of this justify what happened? Does this justify killing people? They call this a 'tragedy' like an earthquake or natural disaster but it wasn't a tragedy, as we say, it was a carnage."
"It was," says Lucia quietly, "the hand of man."
"For 50 years," says Guarini, "I'd thought of England as a civilised country. A civilised people. But what shocks me is that we've heard nothing from Liverpool or its supporters, no apology or solidarity, nothing to say they did anything wrong."
Whatever the sentiment may or may not be on Merseyside now - especially in the wake of the horror at Hillsborough - Alberto's memory lives on in Mesagne. There is an Alberto Guarini foundation managed by Guarini's best friend, a banker, Gino Sconosciuto, which for many years sponsored a dentistry place at Bari University for a local student otherwise financially incapable of taking it. Recently the foundation has switched to fund a post at Lecce University to take part in research into excavations beneath Mesagne, which illuminate the history of the pre-Roman Messapi people who populated the region from the 18th century BC.
Moreover the tennis court on which Alberto and his sister used to play is now called the "Campo Alberto Guarini" and each year in Mesagne the foundation organises a tennis and football tournament with trophies bearing Alberto's name.
The cemetery in Mesagne lies adjacent to the town centre. Here family tombs are arranged like miniature buildings along a grid of little streets. That of the Guarini family is of stone, lined inside with white marble. Alberto's grave is below that of his grandparents, both of whom outlived him. On it is a photograph, the last of him to be taken, by his girlfriend Stefania, his arms folded, smiling from the marble. Below it is the Greek letter Alpha next to his birthdate and Omega next to the date 29.5.85.
"This is my second home," says Guarini, pointing to the plot beneath Alberto's "which awaits me."
Flowers are replaced here twice a week. Guarini contemplates his son's picture with eyes that change in a flicker from animation to a distant, heartbroken stare. Outside, drops of heavy rain clunk against the ironwork.
Fifteen years ago Guarini had drilled his forefingers into his temples and said: "Heysel, that world will drive me mad." Now, here, he reflects: "I think all the time, if only I had given him some other gift. If only the plane had not taken off because of the weather. If only..." And he repeats: "For a father to have his son and watch him die is the greatest sorrow. But to lose your son in that way, killed by those people, is beyond sorrow. It is something time cannot cure, not even 20 years, it leaves you dead in your heart."
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