Q5: Why do Liverpool football club have a bad relationship with the Sun newspaper?
Answer: Because of the report about the Hillsborough disaster by the Sun in 1989.
15th April 1989, the Hillsborough disaster was happened at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield during the game Liverpool F.C. vs Nottingham Forest F.C. (FA cup semi-final match). 96 people died and 766 people were injured by this incident.
Situation: About 30 minutes before the game started, the standing room behind the goal was full of Liverpool F.C. supporters. However, people tried to enter to the stand, and lots of people were waiting outside. So, security guards and police opened the admission gate. As a result, people were pressed to the wire netting between the pitch and the audience. About 6 minutes after the game began, the referee was aware of that situation, and stopped the game. Some people escaped somehow, but others couldn't, and this incident took a lot of victims.
(News Reports of Hillsborough Football Disaster April 15th 1989 Part one, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z2HDjuu8Cw)
The Sun newspaper reported about the Hillsborough disaster on 19th April 1989 (4 days after the incident happened).
The headline: THE TRUTH
Subheadings: Some fans picked pockets of victims
Some fans urinated on the brave cops
Some fans beat up PCs giving the kiss of life
In the report, there were some stories of Liverpool fans at the Hillsborough disaster.
"Drunken Liverpool fans viciously attacked rescue workers as they tried to revive victims of the Hillsborough soccer disaster, it was revealed last night.
"Police officers, firemen and ambulance crew were punched, kicked and urinated upon by a hooligan element in the crowd.
"Some thugs rifled the pockets of injured fans as they were stretched out unconscious on the pitch.
"Sheffield MP Irvine Patnick revealed that in one shameful episode a gang of Liverpool fans noticed that the blouse of a girl trampled to death had risen above her breasts.
"As a policeman struggled in vain to revive her, the mob jeered: 'Throw her up here and we will **** her'"
The story went on: "One furious policeman who witnessed Saturday's carnage stormed: 'As we struggled in appalling conditions to save lives, fans standing further up the terrace were openly urinating on us and the bodies of the dead."
A 'high-ranking' police officer was quoted as saying: "The fans were just acting like animals. My men faced a double hell - the disaster and the fury of the fans who attacked us.
(7 Jul 2004. What the Sun said 15 years ago,http://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/jul/07/pressandpublishing.football1)
Those were written with no evidence, so Liverpool supporters were enraged, and began to refuse to buy the Sun newspaper. In July 2004, the Sun run an article of apology, and James Murdoch who is News International's executive chairman apologized in 2011. However, most Liverpool supporters did not forgive, and have continued the boycott.
(24 February 2012. Liverpool's 23-year boycott of The Sun newspaper, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-17113382)
(11 Jul 2011. BBC iPlayer, Boycott of The Sun newspaper,
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