Nicki Wood

A schoolboy holds a leather ball in a photograph on a bedroom wall the bed is made, the curtains drawn as silence greets the break of dawn. The dusk gives way to morning light revealing shades of red and white which hang from posters locked in time of the Liverpool team of ’89. Upon a pale white quilted sheet a football kit is folded neat with a yellow scarf, trimmed with red and some football boots beside the bed. In hope, the room awakes each day to see the boy who used to play but once again it wakes alone for this young boy’s not coming home. Outside, the springtime fills the air the smell of life is everywhere violas bloom and tulips grow while daffodils dance heel to toe. These should have been such special times for a boy who’d now be in his prime but spring forever turned to grey in the Yorkshire sun, one April day. The clock was locked on 3.06 as sun shone down upon the pitch lighting up faces etched in pain as death descended on Leppings Lane. Between the bars an arm is raised amidst a human tidal wave a young hand yearning to be saved grows weak inside this deathly cage. A boy not barely in his teens is lost amongst the dying screams a body too frail to fight for breath is drowned below a sea of death His outstretched arm then disappears to signal thirteen years of tears as 96 souls of those who fell await the toll of the justice bell. Ever since that disastrous day a vision often comes my way I reach and grab his outstretched arm then pull him up away from harm. We both embrace with tear-filled eyes I then awake to realise it’s the same old dream I have each week as I quietly cry myself to sleep. On April the 15th every year when all is calm and skies are clear beneath a glowing Yorkshire moon a lone Scot’s piper plays a tune. The tune rings out the justice cause then blows due west across the moors it passes by the eternal flame then engulfs a young boy’s picture frame. His room is as it was that day for thirteen years it’s stayed that way untouched and frozen forever in time since that tragic day in ’89. And as it plays its haunting sound tears are heard from miles around they’re tears from families of those who fell awaiting the toll of the justice bell. © Dave Kirby 2002 #liverpoolfc #ynwa #lfc #premierleague #anfield #liverpoolfans #salah #lfcfamily #championsleague #diaz #slot #weareliverpool #lfcfans #nunez #vandijk #kopites #arneslot #jft97