hellozz. i'm in my room now, on a wednesday afternoon and it's raining outside.. haha i'm home now with time on my com for once in a long time cos i have night shift ambulance run today. i was on the ambulance the whole of yesterday from 8am-9pm.. good to have a weekday afternoon to myself... so i'm just really relaxing.. i was supposed to watch the liverpool chelsea match last night or rather early this morning but i couldn't wake up. i just took a short nap at 1030pm and set my alarm at 1130pm but who am i kidding. i guess i never learn my lesson that once i go to sleep at night after 10 plus i never wake up till the morning. haiz. but anyway, i woke up eagerly this morning to check the score and alas 4-4. i would think that if i had watched the match, i would have been so heartbroken cos like liverpool were in with a shout after the first half leading 2-0. only to go back down to 2-2, and then later losing 3-2, kuyt and lucas scored to make it 4-3 and we were back in with a shout againn only to finally succumb to lampardo's goal. 

but like what rafa benitez said, we can stand with our heads held high, and though i'm sad we're out, i really love liverpool's fighting spirit and i'm so glad my heart belongs to a club as great as this. so come on you reds! hopefully this match can spur us on to be more hungry for the premier league and hopefully we can win our remaining matches and hopefully man utd slips up somehow cos they'll be too tired playing FA cup and Champions league haha.

anyway talking about how great liverpool is, this brings to me the hillsborough tragedy. for many of you, like me, i dun think u know much about the tragedy. today marks the anniversary of the hillsborough tragedy or sth like that. so i went to read up about it. basically, in 1989, liverpool fans went to watch an FA cup semi final match between liverpool and nottingham forest at hillsborough, sheffied wednesday's stadium i think. silly thing is the police allocated 21000 seats to nottingham fans and 14000 to liverpool fans, even though there were more liverpool fans. what happened was that there were road works leading to the stadium so there was a jam and so many fans were like late. and they were all late together. so they were all trying to squeeze into the stadium. the screwed up thing was that the stadium's entrance was like very inefficent as in u know the turnstile thingy. i think got very little of those. so there was like a bottleneck effect and many pple were squeezed together. then the police went to open another gate or sth from the side. so liverpool fans went in from there. but inside the liverpool area there were a lot of pple alr, the police needed to direct the fans to another sector. cut long story short, all the liverpool fans in a small area surrounded by fans meant that a lot of pple were crushed. it got so bad that pple started climbing out of the fence. many pple were suffocated standing. can u imagine how bad that was. 

anyway, i think the police was quite responsible for it cos they were really quite idiotic. some newspapers came out blaming liverpool fans, but having read so many reports, the truth of the matter was that liverpool fans were helping one another during this disaster, while for some reason or another, police were turning away ambulances that came to help. (i read this on wikipedia)

what really moved me was the response from liverpool football club. the manager kenny dalglish made sure liverpool was represented at every funeral of the 96 fans who died. he talked to all the family members and made sure that he was there for them. 

this is what david moyes said about the incident. 

DAVID MOYES, Everton Football Club manager
It was a tragic day and something I will always remember. I think I was playing at Shrewsbury when news filtered through on the day of the disaster. I just felt shock and horror at what had happened. 
  
When I was a supporter myself I remember going down to the front and experiencing the feeling of being crushed. I didn't enjoy that, but I always felt people around me would help and support me. Coming from Glasgow I was brought up with the Ibrox disaster and the Hillsborough disaster is another one which should never have happened. 
  
Kenny Dalglish is a great man and he did everything in the right manner in the aftermath. What can you say to families that have lost loved ones? They see them go to a football match but at the end of the day they don't come home. For all the rivalry we have between clubs, nothing is more important than life. On that day they were just supporting their team and it is such a tragic loss. 
  
Everyone at Everton Football Club is behind the families and we will certainly observe any silence for anyone connected with Liverpool.

and this i got from wikipedia:

The Hillsborough disaster touched not only clubs in England but clubs around the world as well.^[24] For example, on 19 April 1989 (the Wednesday after the disaster), a European Cup semi final between AC Milan and Real Madrid was played. The referee blew his whistle 6 minutes into the game to stop play and hold a minute's silence for those who lost their lives tragically at Hillsborough. Half way through the minute's silence, the A.C. Milan fans sang Liverpool's "You'll Never Walk Alone" as a sign of respect.^[25][26]

As a result of the disaster, Liverpool's game against Arsenal was delayed to the end of the season and eventually decided the league title. The Arsenal players brought flowers onto the pitch and presented them to the Liverpool fans around the stadium before the game.

Celtic F.C. fans produced a banner featuring The Liverpool crest and the Celtic Crest with a flame in the middle surrounded by the words Justice For The 96, You'll Never Walk Alone . Liverpool supporters subsequently unveiled a banner at a 2006 Champions League match reading Welcome to Paradise .^[27]

On the 11 April 2009 Liverpool fans sang a passionate version of "You'll Never Walk Alone" as a tribute to the upcoming anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy. This was prior to their home game against Blackburn Rovers (which ended in Liverpool winning 4-0) and was followed by the former Liverpool player, now at Blackburn, Stephen Warnock presenting a memorial wreath to the Kop showing the figure 96 in red flowers.

Everton F.C.'s supporters laid down flowers and blue & white scarves in memorial of the Hillsborough disaster to show their respects. Everton are one of Liverpool's rivals.

wow i really love the response from AC milan and Real Madrid. For all the times where football rivalries get ugly, it's moments such as these where you realise that good can come out from humans too. and like wow these kind of human spirit is worth it's pot of gold (is this a correct expression?). anyway i prayed today and asked God again why does such disasters have to happen. but i guess, you can ask why does 911, tsunami, earthquakes have to happen. though painful, i guess these events to bring out the best in humanity, when we help one another recover from losses and tragedy. whatever it is, we must recognise the fragility of life i guess and not take anything for granted.

oh and did u know the flames on both sides of the liverpool crest was put in after the tragedy to remember the incident and the people who died. i didn't know that.. and ohh, there's something called the eternal flame at the anfield stadium to remember the fans. it has not ever been vandalised, even though it's located at the away fans area. wow that's quite amazing.

i'm so glad i support an amazing club. though i know so little, i think liverpool have the best fans in the world. yeahhh

Come on you Reds! You'll never walk alone