Perhaps like many who watched football in the days when safety was a peripheral concern and fans were crowded into inadequate spaces, I have often woken in a cold sweat. As the crowd rolled and swayed, and occasionally surged forward, I struggled to suppress a rising sense of panic. There was an ethereal quality to attending football games, a sense of oneness with fellow fans that could quickly give way to trepidation. The crowd seemed to have a mind of its own, outside the control of any of its component parts. I was certainly not surprised when, in my late teens, I read about a crush at Hillsborough at an…

Source: The Times December 02, 2019 09:00 UTC