'The dam burst': how the Kop's 'Justice for the 96' chant propelled Andy Burnham to fight for Hillsborough justice

The afternoon of 15 April 2009 was meant to follow the familiar script of every Hillsborough anniversary service: subdued, respectful, mournful. Instead, it became the day the Kop's voice finally cracked open the door to justice. As a newly published extract from Brian Reade's book The Kop: A Fan's History of Football's Most Famous Stand (Quercus, £25) recounts, a single chant of "Justice for the 96" — aimed squarely at a stammering cabinet minister on the Anfield turf's doorstep — set in train the events that would eventually deliver the truth about Britain's worst sporting disaster.

Since dawn that day, visitors from as far afield as Australia had been laying flowers, scarves and messages underneath Anfield's Eternal Flame. But on the 20th anniversary of the disaster, there was an edge in the air. An hour before the service began the Kop was already full, and by the time Reade had walked with the families from the meeting place in the Centenary Stand to their seats at the front of the Kop, 29,000 people inside Anfield stood to give them the loudest and most heartfelt of ovations.

Wounds still gaping, anger still raw

Two decades after 96 Liverpool fans died at the FA Cup semi-final at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough stadium, a new generation had been born and reached adulthood — yet, as Reade writes, the wounds were still gaping and the anger still raw at the lack of any admission of guilt from above. The players of '89 took their seats behind the families to warm applause, their furrowed brows and downcast expressions hinting at the mental scars they had carried since being forced to turn from athletes into bereavement counsellors on that day in 1989. They were joined by the current stars, including Steven Gerrard, who lost his 10-year-old cousin Jon-Paul Gilhooley in the disaster, and Jamie Carragher.

After 20 years, you would have thought all the crying had been done, but when 96 candles were lit in the Kop goalmouth and the names of the dead were read out by clergy, streams still flowed down cheeks. The two-minute silence was accompanied by cold sweats and weak limbs, broken only by babies' cries. Outside, the city's buses, trains and ferries had come to a standstill, and church bells signalled its end — a comforting sign to the families that the wider world had come to a halt to remember a day it should never forget.

'I wanted to give Andy a chance'

Into this charged atmosphere walked Andy Burnham, scouse-born, an Evertonian and then secretary of state for culture, media and sport, controversially invited to speak by Margaret Aspinall, who had lost her 18-year-old son James at Hillsborough and was by then chair of the Family Support Group. "We had never allowed an MP to speak at the service because we hadn't really had any meaningful support from any of them," she told Reade. "But I wanted to give Andy a chance."

Burnham agonised over whether to accept, knowing that Gordon Brown's Labour government had nothing new to offer the families. But the man who, on the day of the disaster itself, had been at Villa Park watching Everton play Norwich in the other FA Cup semi-final, knew he would never forgive himself if he bottled out of giving the speech. His main worry was whether he could get through it without breaking down.

Boos, jeers and a chant that spread across Anfield

He started well. When he told the Kop that Britain's worst sporting disaster was "man-made" and praised the actions of the fans that day, he received nods of approval and a ripple of applause. But when he said he had brought a message from the prime minister that the victims would never be forgotten, for the first time ever at one of these memorial services pockets of the Kop began to boo and jeer — a shout of "When do we get justice?" and a scream of "Hypocrite". Burnham, startled and tongue-tied, stared nervously at the stand, unsure what to say for the best. Then, from the back of the Kop, a chant of "Justice for the 96" broke out, quickly spreading across the rest of the stand and the entirety of Anfield.

The message was simple: words are easy, actions hard. Here was a senior member of a Labour government that had been in power for 12 of the 20 years since the disaster and had ruled out the possibility of a fresh inquiry. Aspinall, sitting directly in front of Burnham, recalled the tension: "I was on eggshells throughout Andy's speech. When the Kop began chanting for justice our former chairman Trevor Hicks looked at me as if to say: 'What have you done, Margaret? Let's say something.' But I thought: 'No, let them carry on, don't say anything. Let the Kop tell the government and the country how angry we all feel.'"

Her instincts proved right. The dramatic scene of a cabinet minister being barracked during a memorial service led every news bulletin for the rest of the day and made every front page the next. Burnham, wisely, nodded at the Kop with an "I get it" expression — and took the lesson to heart. "When the first justice chants rolled off the Kop, I was not surprised, as I half-expected them," he later told Reade. "And, actually, I wanted the country to hear them. The people on the Kop that day were right to barrack me. I don't hold anything against anyone who shouted at me. It helped me find the political courage to do something."

From chant to 'unlawful killing'

Burnham urged Brown to heed the Kop's calls and, despite some cabinet opposition, the prime minister backed him. By the end of 2009 a Hillsborough Independent Panel had been set up, appointing experts to scrutinise hundreds of thousands of unseen documents relating to the disaster. Its final report in 2012 highlighted a litany of calamitous mistakes by police and emergency services, showed how dozens of lives could have been saved and revealed a massive cover-up. The then prime minister David Cameron was forced to give a grovelling apology to the families and to Liverpool fans from the floor of the Commons, the original inquest verdicts of "accidental death" were quashed, and new inquests put in place. In 2016 they returned 96 verdicts of "unlawful killing" and exonerated the fans of all blame.

"We would never, ever have got the verdicts of 'unlawful killing' without the support of the Kop," said Aspinall. "The fans played a vital part over the years in supporting us and getting accountability. But the turning point definitely came when those chants of 'justice' came at Andy Burnham. That day the Kop changed everything."

A banner of thanks on the Kop

Five years later Burnham was invited back to address the 25th anniversary service. This time it was not snarls, boos and chants of "hypocrite" that greeted him on the Kop but a banner that read "Thank You, Andy Burnham". "Five years ago things changed, not because of me but because of all of you," he told them. "You made your voices heard and thank God you did. Your voices carried off this Kop into every living room in the land and into the heart of the establishment. I knew you were right and they were wrong. With that chant of 'justice' the dam burst. You were asking the most profound question about our country and how it is run. How can it be that an entire city shouted injustice for 20 years and no one was listening? There is still an uncertain road ahead but the country is with you now. The families will prevail because of all of you. You have made this city stronger and you will make our country fairer. You have given hope to people the world over. What was your call five years ago is my call today; justice for the 96."

Burnham's enduring place in football's debates

Burnham has remained one of football's most politically engaged voices in the years since. According to Guardian reporting published in late September 2026, he has reignited a campaign to allow fans to drink pints in view of the pitch at English matches, arguing football supporters are unfairly singled out compared with cricket, rugby and horse racing — a proposal backed by the Football Supporters' Association and the Premier League but opposed by the UK Football Policing Unit. His place in Anfield's history, though, was secured on that April afternoon in 2009, when the Kop turned boos into the chant that changed everything.

The Kop: A Fan's History of Football's Most Famous Stand by Brian Reade is published by Quercus, priced £25.