In the space of four years in the 1980s, a total of 191 people died in three stadium disasters at Bradford, Heysel and Hillsborough.(CNN) -- For Antonio Conti, time stopped on the evening of May 29, 1985.
He had taken his Juventus-supporting daughter Giusy to watch the Italian club play English team Liverpool in the 1985 European Cup final in Brussels at the Heysel Stadium.
It should have been a time for celebration. Father and daughter watching the most prestigious club game in European football in the traditional climax to the season.
Instead, Conti's memories of Heysel are of mayhem and death.
"It was 19:25 CET when everything happened," Conti told CNN. "When I woke up half an hour later I was among dead people, and at that moment I remembered where I was.
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"I looked for my daughter until I saw a shoe under a blanket and I understood that she was dead."
For the modern European football fan used to watching matches in bright, shiny all-seater stadiums, it is almost impossible to imagine attending a football game and dying there.
But in the space of four years in the 1980s, nearly 200 people lost their lives in three horrific European stadium tragedies. First, on May 11 1985, just over two weeks before the Heysel stampede, came a devastating fire at the Bradford City Stadium fire on May 11, and then there was a deadly crush at another English ground -- Hillsborough -- in 1989.
It is only in the last few months that Britain's political and civil institutions have begun to be held to account for the reasons behind the death of 96 people during an FA Cup match at Hillsborough, which has long cast a shadow over the city of Liverpool.
Four years earlier at Heysel, Liverpool had been involved in another stadium tragedy as 39 fans -- 32 from Italy, four from Belgium, two from France, one from Northern Ireland, the youngest just 11 years old -- were killed in a stampede before the European Cup final against Juventus.
"For me that cup will always be covered in death," wrote Juve defender Antonio Cabrini in his autobiography "Io Antonio." "The cup of death".
Forgotten story
Heysel is a story of "incompetence, violence, cover-up, shame and lies," writes Professor John Foot -- the author of the authoritative history of Italian football, "Calcio."
"It's also a story of forgetting," adds Foot. "Many people have an interest in not remembering what happened that night: the players, many fans, the Belgian politicians and police forces."
Foot's analysis is shared by Rosalina Vannini Gonnelli, who lost her husband in the tragedy and whose 18-year-old daughter was injured that night 27 years ago.
"Is there anyone who gives a damn?" questioned Gonnelli. "News has to be on the front page, then everyone forgets. My daughter will carry that with her for her whole life.
"I'm happy that sometimes there is someone who remembers the tragedy.
"Many, many years have passed. People had forgotten soon after it happened, so now there's no way. The 39 angels will always be in the memories of their loved ones."
Journalist Francesco Caremani was an Italian who cared, and in 2003 he wrote a book about the tragedy -- "The Truths of Heysel -- Chronicle of a Tragedy Foretold."
Caremani was a friend of Otello Lorentini, who was head of the now disbanded Association for the Victims of Heysel.
Lorentini's son Roberto was a doctor who died at Heysel. Roberto had resuscitated a boy before being crushed to death, an act that saw him posthumously awarded a civic medal for his bravery.
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"Before my book nobody had listened to the victims. It was the first chance that they had had to speak about the night of the Heysel disaster, of the process and the battle for justice," said Caremani.
When Roberto Lorentini died in 1985, his son Andrea, who is now a sports journalist, was just three.
"I'm angry and bitter because it's impossible to die for a football match," said Andrea. "There isn't logic for what happened in Brussels."
Sector Z
There are close parallels between Hillsborough and Heysel -- disasters waiting to happen at two dilapidated stadiums, which hosted major games with poor ticketing arrangements and "negligent policing."
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Heysel Stadium's Sector Z terrace had grass poking through the crumbling concrete. Flimsy wire-netting separated the Liverpool and Juve fans while a minimal police force battled to keep control of thousands of fans. A police force whose walkie-talkies had no batteries.
"I felt a lot of anger and bitterness towards UEFA that allowed such an important match to be played in an inadequate stadium," said Conti. "The curved sector where we were should not have been open to the public, because it wasn't up to hosting 15,000 people.
"In that sector there were hooligans as well and the police weren't able to keep order."
Then came the charge of the Liverpool fans.
"There are dozens of points that are usually offered to explain the context, but the context does not begin to excuse anything," writes Liverpool fan Tony Evans, football editor of British newspaper The Times.
"No amount of context could. That stampede might have been considered standard terrace fare, a token act of territorialism and intimidation, but it led innocent fans to flee in terror.
"Some tried to climb a wall to escape. The wall crumbled. Thirty-nine people were crushed to death. The world was appalled. Turin went into mourning. Liverpool and their supporters were left with the stigma and the stain."
With corpses lying in the stadium car park, UEFA ordered the game to go ahead for the sake of public safety. Juventus won the final 1-0 thanks to a penalty from Michel Platini, who is now president of the European governing body.
"I was at home watching the match on television, but I had the feeling that something terrible had happened to my loved ones," said Gonnelli. " I spent the whole night at Pisa airport waiting for them to come back."
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Platini's celebration after scoring the penalty was widely criticized, though he justified playing the game by arguing that if it had not gone ahead, it "would have been the end of football."
Another relative told CNN that Juventus had always wanted to put a veil over Heysel to forget this page in the club's history and that the Serie A side's then president Giampiero Boniperti should have handed the European Cup back.
Juventus insist that the club has never forgotten the suffering of the family victims and that the disaster's anniversary is always religiously marked.
A commemorative monument was unveiled in the main courtyard of the club's headquarters shortly after the disaster, and there was a dedication to the victims at the opening of Juve's new stadium last year.
"The families of the victims are always welcome at the club, our museum and the stadium and they can come for free," said a Juve spokeswoman.
Liverpool FC also marks the anniversary of the tragedy, with flowers placed on the memorial plaque and flags flown at half-mast, while its website features stories of remembrance.
The right punishments?
In the aftermath of Heysel, then UEFA president Jacques Georges and general secretary Hans Bangerter were threatened with imprisonment, before being given conditional discharges.
Albert Roosens, the former secretary-general of the Belgian Football Union (BFU) and Johan Mahieu -- who was in charge of policing the stands at Heysel despite having never supervised a football match before -- were given six-month suspended prison sentences for negligence.
"Heysel is the tragedy of the century," said Caremani. "UEFA and Belgian institutions are the guilty ones -- they chose that stadium and it was the worst stadium in Europe for a final of the European Cup.
"UEFA, the Belgian institutions, England and Italy try to forget about it. They don't care about the victims. It is only after Heysel that UEFA took responsibility for stadium safety."
Conti added: "The Italian state, the Italian Football Federation and Juventus took little interest in the case."
That critique of establishment inertia might strike a chord with those relatives of the Hillsborough tragedy who have campaigned so tirelessly for the true story of their family members' deaths to be told.
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In the aftermath of Heysel, 25 Liverpool fans were subsequently extradited from the United Kingdom and, after a five-month trial, 14 were found guilty of voluntary manslaughter in April 1989 -- the same month of the Hillsborough disaster -- with each of them serving a year in jail
English clubs were excluded from Europe for five years, with Liverpool handed an extra year's ban.
"The anger at the hooligans of Liverpool is still very strong, unspoken, but very strong, both among the relatives of the victims -- who know the history very well -- and especially among the Juventus 'ultras' -- who know it a little 'less well,' " said Caremani, before adding: "but everyone knows very well UEFA and Belgian institutions' responsibilities."
Lasting shadow
Last month the family of victims of the Hillsborough disaster received an apology from British Prime Minister David Cameron for the long delay in giving answers to all those affected by "one of the greatest peacetime tragedies of the last century."
Cameron's apology and the publication of an independent panel's report revealing serious failings by police and emergency services was a major breakthrough for the Hillsborough campaigners after their many years of battling to get to the truth.
"I feel solidarity with the Hillsborough victims -- only those who experienced it can understand,' said Gonnelli.
The truth about Hillsborough might have taken 23 years to finally seep out but in the interim, English football fans saw vast improvements to the stadia in England as a direct result of the disaster. All-seater grounds in the top leagues were enforced on the back of recommendations made in Lord Taylor's report of 1989.
No longer would fans go to a football match in fear of their lives.
But was that the case in Italy?
Caremani's concern is that stadium organization in Italy still remains a problem.
'Italy has not learnt the lessons in the way England did," he said.
"Italian hooligans are very fascinated about English hooligans. It was the model for Italy. English stadiums are really the best in the world, or most of them are.
"We have not learnt the lessons of stadium safety and organization -- the Taylor report is a totem for me. But it came after Hillsborough. Why not after Heysel?"
Additional reporting by Chiara Martini
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Thirty-nine fans -- 32 from Italy, four from Belgium, two from France, one from Northern Ireland, the youngest just 11 years old -- were killed in a stampede before the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus at the Heysel Stadium in May 1985.
In the decade before Heysel there had been a history of trouble surrounding English supporters at European matches on the continent, notably Tottenham Hotspur in Rotterdam in 1974 and 1983, Leeds United in Paris in 1975 and Manchester United in Saint-Etienne in 1977. Violence had also ominously flared between English and Italian supporters when Liverpool played Roma in the 1984 European Cup final in Italy's capital. Liverpool won the game on penalties.
Sixty-five years after its construction in 1920, Heysel was crumbling. The outer wall was made of cinder block, and fans who didn't have tickets were seen kicking holes in it to get in. Heysel's Sector Z terrace had grass poking through the crumbling concrete while flimsy wire-netting separated the Liverpool and Juve fans.
Michel Platini, who is now UEFA president, scored Juve's winning goal in a 1-0 victory, though he was criticized at the time for celebrating. "On that far away spring day I was a player who had not yet turned 30, happy go lucky, like many supporters who on that day made it to Brussels for the love of Juve and who unfortunately never returned, having been ripped away from their loved ones that cursed night," the Frenchman said in 2010.
"For me that cup will always be covered in death," wrote Juve defender Antonio Cabrini in his autobiography. "The cup of death."
Heysel is a story of "incompetence, violence, cover-up, shame and lies," writes British historian John Foot -- the author of the authoritative history of Italian football "Calcio."
"I'm happy that sometimes there is someone who remembers the tragedy," Rosalina Vannini Gonnelli told CNN. "Many years have passed. People had forgotten soon after it happened, so now there's no way. The 39 angels will always be in the memories of their loved ones."
"Whenever I think of Heysel, the first image that springs to mind is the expression on Joe Fagan's face as the terrifying scenes of crowd violence escalated to the point where the game that had been his whole life no longer meant anything. At the end, he looked a broken man," wrote former Liverpool defender Alan Hansen of the club's manager in his autobiography "A Matter of Opinion."
Liverpool met Juventus in a competitive match for the first time since that fateful day in 2005's Champions League quarterfinal tie. Liverpool won 2-1 on aggregate and went on to to win the European Cup after beating AC MIlan on penalties in Istanbul.
Striker Ian Rush, right, spent one season at Juve in 1987-88 between two spells at Liverpool. Before the first leg of the 2005 quarterfinal at Anfield, Liverpool supporters held up a mosaic to form the word "Amicizia" (friendship). Some of the visiting Juve fans applauded, but many turned their backs in disgust. There is also a Heysel memorial plaque at Liverpool's Anfield Stadium.
Juventus officials insist the Serie A club has never forgotten the victims of the Heysel disaster. "The families of the victims are always welcome at the club, the museum and the stadium -- for free," said a Juve spokeswoman.
Former Juve defender Fabio Cannavaro attended a memorial ceremony for the victims of the Heysel stadium disaster prior to a friendly international between Italy and Mexico in Brussels on June 3, 2010 -- the 25th anniversary of the tragedy.
A decade after the Heysel disaster the ground was rebuilt and renamed the King Baudouin Stadium.The new ground had a plaque dedicated to the disaster, though it had no names of the victims, before, in 2005, a monument that did include the 39 victims' names was unveiled.
Former Juve striker Alessandro del Piero this year told Italian newspaper Gazzetta Dello Sport that Liverpool made an approach to him while he was in discussions with Sydney FC but he "thought about what happened at Heysel" before opting for a move to Australia. "Liverpool have worked hard to mend their relationship, but for a lot of people it's something that can never be forgotten," added Del Piero.
Both United and Liverpool are have had to endure their fair share of tragedies. United lost an entire generation of young, promising stars in 1958, when a plane carrying the team back from a European Cup match in Belgrade crashed on a snowy runway in Munich -- killing eight players.
The shadow of the 1989 Hillsborough Stadium disaster has loomed large over Liverpool for over two decades. A total of 96 Liverpool fans lost their lives in a fatal crush before and during an FA Cup semifinal against Nottingham Forest. An independent report recently released absolved Liverpool fans of any blame for the tragedy, instead pointing the finger of blame at the authorities.
United and Liverpool have both enjoyed success in the European Cup, now known as the Champions League. In the 1999 final, United stunned the footballing world by scoring twice in injury time to beat Bayern Munich 2-1 and complete an historic league, FA Cup and Champions League treble.
Liverpool pulled off a shock of their own in 2005. At half-time against Italian giants AC Milan in Istanbul, Rafael Benitez's Liverpool found themselves 3-0 down. During an incredible second half, Liverpool scored three times before sealing a fifth European triumph when goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek saved Andriy Shevchenko's penalty in a shootout.
The rivalry between Manchester and Liverpool also spills over into areas of popular culture. Indie band Oasis are arguably Manchester's most famous musical export. Brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher are, however, Manchester City fans.
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By winning the Premier League title at the end of the 2010-11 season, Manchester United became English champions for a record 19th time -- overhauling Liverpool's total of 18.
The rivalry between the two clubs reached new heights last season. Liverpool's Luis Suarez was handed an eight-match ban by the Football Association for racially abusive Manchester United's Patrice Evra. In the return fixture, Suarez refused Evra's hand in the pre-match handshake.
As a player, Dalglish helped Liverpool clinch European Cup glory on three occasions. The last was in 1984, when Liverpool defeated Roma on penalties in the Italian capital.
Dalglish's first spell as Liverpool manager was between 1985 and 1991, including a period as player manager. He guided the team to three First Division titles and two FA Cup triumphs, including a league and cup double in 1986.
After Roy Hodgson was sacked as Liverpool manager in January 2011, the club's supporters were granted their wish as Dalglish returned to the Anfield dugout.
Dalglish spent heavily on his return to management, splashing out on players such as Luis Suarez (R), Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson. His most eye-catching piece of business was the signing of striker Andy Carroll (L) from Newcastle United for a British record transfer fee.
Suarez was central to one of the lowest points of Dalglish's return. The Uruguay striker was banned for eight matches after being found guilty of racially abusing Manchester United's Patrice Evra in October 2011. Liverpool and Dalglish were criticized for their public backing of Suarez.
Against the back drop of a disappointing league campaign, Dalglish guided Liverpool to their first trophy in six years by beating second-tier Cardiff City on penalties in the League Cup final.
Liverpool also reached the final of the FA Cup, but they were defeated 2-1 by European Champions League finalists Chelsea. Dalglish's final game in charge was a 1-0 defeat to Swansea, which condemned Liverpool to their worst ever Premier League season.
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