Blogs & Opinion


The raw reality

Jones blogs after an emotional show last Thursday

David Jones Posted 26th September 2012 view comments

We had an amazing response to last week's show on Hillsborough.

What surprised me above all was how many people contacting us weren't aware of the horrors that unfolded at that FA Cup semi-final on April 15, 1989.

Perhaps the passage of time had blurred memories, or perhaps for some, the 96 has just become a number that connects Liverpool fans to English football's worst disaster.

Fitzmaurice: spoke with emotion on the Footballers' Football Show

Fitzmaurice: spoke with emotion on the Footballers' Football Show

It was certainly our intention, after the publication of the truth a fortnight ago, to find some historical context by making our viewers live that dark day again through the shocking recollections of those who were there and lived to tell the tale.

At times the show was difficult viewing, but I can assure you it was much more harrowing for our guests to experience again.

Footballers' Football Show
9.30pm, Thu, Sky Sports 2 HD

Our thanks again go to Steve Rotheram MP, Ray Houghton who was brave enough to join us and in particular to Neil Fitzmaurice.

Neil is a comic actor of some repute but the man who spoke so candidly and with such raw emotion about what he went through as a 19-year-old on his first away trip was the real deal.

The podcast is still available and I hope as many people as possible take the chance to listen for themselves.

This week there is so much more to discuss on The Footballers' Football Show.

John Terry's relationship with the FA continues to dominate the sport's news agenda while last week's claim by a government select committee that homophobia is a bigger scourge to our game than racism has been given little attention, until now.

Meantime the Stoke manager Tony Pulis, fuming after a late defeat at Chelsea, says we don't talk enough about the dark arts of diving. We're listening Tony.

And hopefully you'll agree we have a fantastic line up. Ugo Ehiogu is not long out of the game, the outspoken former Palace owner Simon Jordan still has a lot to say and completing the trio is Gillingham's charismatic man of the moment Martin Allen.

Wish me luck!

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