“WE don’t want it to be forgotten, that is the main thing. It is not about us, it is about all the people who died.

“He was just one who was important to us, but there are a lot of people still suffering.”

Wilf and Doris Whelan are unable to forget the events of April 15, 1989, when 96 Liverpool Football Club fans, including their 19-year-old son Ian ‘Ronnie’ Whelan, lost their lives.

Yesterday, Wednesday, marked the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, when the former St Oswald’s Primary School, St John’s Secondary School and Priestley College pupil, of Duckworth Grove, Padgate, along with David Benson, aged 22, of Hall Nook, Penketh; 19-year-old Colin Ashcroft, of Strawberry Close, Locking Stumps; and Eric Hughes, aged 42, of Barmouth Close, Callands, was crushed to death.

Wilf and Doris remember clearly how their son, a junior clerk at BNFL Risley, had set off early for the FA Cup semi-final clash between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on an official Liverpool Supporters’ Club trip – stopping to drop a rose on his girlfriend’s doorstep before he caught a train from Warrington to Liverpool.

Doris, aged 62, said: “He was football mad, he wanted to be a journalist. He became friendly with Clive Tyldesley and went to meet him when he was working for Radio City.

“He would have loved to have been a sports reporter. His English teacher used to say his work was like reading the back pages of a newspaper."

“He was always a big Red and that’s why the nickname ‘Ronnie’ caught on, after the Liverpool captain, Ronnie Whelan.

“People used to ring and say: ‘Is your Ronnie in?’ and I would say: ‘Oh, you mean Ian’. He used to love it I think,” said Doris.

She was in Bristol visiting family when news of the disaster broke.

Wilf, aged 66, said: “I heard about it and I switched on the TV, my daughter Kerry was upstairs listening to the game and she was very upset.

“To me the police failed in their duty that day.

“They didn’t organise things like they did in the years before, they had a new man in charge, less officers on duty and they just let the crowd build up.

“It wouldn’t have been so bad if they had covered the one entrance directly into the full pen with a line of officers and directed the fans into the empty ones.

“They should have foreseen what would happen once they opened that gate.

“Later they showed us a film of our son, we could see him because he had a Scotland top on.

“He actually fell down and the crowd stepped back to pick him up. Next thing you know we could see him with a blue shirt going forward over the crowd.

“The police said that was it then, he never came back because all the crowd at the back of them just blocked everything up.”

Doris returned to Warrington and the parents spent the night calling a disaster emergency line.

Wilf said: “He had two ID cards on him, his supporters’ club badge and a bank card, and it still took the police until 4am the next morning to tell us.”

The couple drove to Sheffield around 7am to identify their son, only to be met by more insensitivity.

Wilf said: “We didn’t know what was going on, we had to look through a glass window and there were lots of other families coming to find bodies.

“We were interviewed and there were about a dozen police officers asking ‘had he been drinking’ and ‘had he been on drugs’.

“They were just trying to put him down all the time.”

Doris added: “The police treated us like criminals. You don’t realise at the time what is going on.”

The couple say friends and family including parishioners at Padgate St Oswald’s Church, Liverpool Football Club’s players and their wives and the Hillsborough Families Support Group helped them deal with their loss.

Clive Tyldesley, Ronnie Whelan and Jim Beglin came to Ian’s funeral, with Ronnie Whelan agreeing his name could be inserted on Ian’s gravestone.

And Ian’s sister Kerry and her husband, Edward Seddon named their 19-month-old child Matthew Ian Seddon after his uncle.

Yesterday they took a private mass at Padgate St Oswald’s Church before visiting Ian’s grave at Fox Covert cemetery and attending the Anfield memorial.

But they are determined the fight for justice will go on.

Doris said: “We’ve had all the inquests and the trial and nobody has ever been brought to justice – they got off scot-free – and nobody has ever said they are sorry.

“We just hope nothing like that ever happens again because we don’t want anybody to have to go through what us and the rest of the 96 families went through.”

Wilf added: “We don’t want to appear bitter but these are the actual facts.

“A little bit of thought that day would have saved a lot of lives.

“We must not forget about what has gone on in the past 20 years and this can help people remember how easily tragedy can strike.”


Yesterday, Wednesday, Warrington Borough Council’s Town Hall flag was flown at half mast to mark the 20th anniversary of the disaster.

Warrington rallied to support those affected by the tragedy in the aftermath of the disaster. Greenall Whitley brewery made a £10,000 donation to the Liverpool FC Relief Fund, while groups including Golden Square shopping centre, Warrington Town Football Club and Woolston Leisure Centre launched fundraising initiatives.


Click here to read about the three other victims from Warrington

Click here to view a timeline of how the tragic events of Hillsborough unfolded

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