Opinion | Fresh light thrown on darkest day of British game

How fitting that today  Liverpool play their first game since the Hillsborough truth was finally exposed against Sunderland in the aptly named Stadium of Light.

Britain’s triumphant summer of sport came to a flag-waving end  this week with a victory parade by the country’s Olympians, nicely topped off with  Andy Murray’s historic win at the US Open.

But the celebrations were  overshadowed by the findings of the latest Hillsborough tragedy inquiry that exposed the shameful catalogue of lies, unforgivable cover-ups and catastrophic incompetence that led to the deaths of 96 Liverpool supporters on that  sun-kissed but death-filled day of April 15, 1989.

Any soccer fan  remembers where he or she was and what they were doing when news filtered through of the unfolding hell on the Leppings Lane End terraces at Sheffield Wednesday’s ground, where Kenny Dalglish’s Reds were  to scheduled to play Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forrest in an FA Cup semi-final.

In those days, news travelled more slowly, which made the  inaccurate headlines and reports all the more damning as there was more than enough time to check the facts (The Sun newspaper was most culpable and took the scheming police at their word – it will never again find an audience on Merseyside despite its grovelling this week).

Back then, games were taped and  shown  as highlights in the evening. But there were previews, half-time reports and a wrap at full-time. On TV, the scene  suddenly switched from the pundits in the studio to the commentators at Hillsborough.