Horrors of Hillsborough tragedy left indelible mark on George Hamilton

April 15, 1989 was the day George Hamilton went to cover an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough and, with John Giles, ended up on air for two hours reporting live for RTÉ on an unfolding disaster that would take the lives of 96 people.

“I remember it was a beautiful spring day and everything was normal as far as our build-up was concerned,” George recalls. “Producer David O’Hagan and I were staying in Manchester and drove to Sheffield that morning to meet up with John at the ground and then we all went up to the commentary position on the roof. It was a high tension afternoon, great excitement, big crowd, terraces swaying — everything you’d expect,” he says in an interview in a special Irish Examiner Euro 2016 magazine, with tomorrow’s edition.

“My initial reaction when I saw people spilling onto the pitch was that there was some sort of trouble in the crowd but I didn’t want to say what it was because I didn’t know. I mean, the same thing had happened in Dalymount Park (at the overcrowded Ireland-Italy friendly in 1985) and might have had the same result — except that Dalymount didn’t have the fences and people were able to get out of the way.