Hillsborough disaster shared tribal grievance against the rest of society. The deaths of more than 50 Liverpool football supporters at Hillsborough in 1989 was undeniably a greater tragedy than the single death, however horrible, of Mr Bigley; but that is no excuse for Liverpool's failure to acknowledge, even to this day, the part played in the disaster by drunken fans at the back of the crowd who mindlessly tried to fight their way into the ground that Saturday afternoon. The police became a convenient scapegoat, and the "Sun" newspaper a whipping-boy for daring, albeit in a tasteless fashion, to hint at the
John Smith (chairman of Liverpool FC) of shirt sponsorship in British football in the early 1980s. As well as overseeing Liverpool's glories of the 1970s and 1980s, he also oversaw the Hillsborough disaster in April 1989, which claimed the lives of 96 Liverpool fans at an FA Cup semi-final tie. John married Doris Mabell Parfitt in 1946, and remained married to her until his death in 1995. Smith was knighted in 1989 "for services to sport". John Smith (chairman of Liverpool FC) Sir John Wilson Smith (6 November 1920 – 31 January 1995) was the former chairman of Liverpool F.C. from 1973 to 1990. John Smith