At the Spion Kop end a shot from Peter Beardsley hit the Nottingham Forest crossbar. At the Leppings Lane end, behind the Liverpool goal, spectators crushed against the perimeter fencing were fighting for their lives. Seconds later the 1989 FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough was abandoned and the way English football was watched, presented, and financed changed for ever.

Even at a relatively short distance of 10 years it is hard to believe that 96 fans died, with many more injured, because in order to see a game of football people were packed into a steel cage on a small stretch of terracing which became a death trap. Yet in 1989 the notion that a big match could be staged in fence-free, all-seat stadium was equally unthinkable.

At the time of Hillsborough the hooliganism which had plagued English football since the late sixties was on the wane. Yet the thinking behind the way crowds should be controlled still took its cue from the worst-case scenarios which had persuaded then British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, that compulsory identity cards for fans were the answer.

Lord Justice Taylor's inquiry into the disaster changed all that. The Taylor Report not only came out against ID cards, it compelled football clubs to rethink their entire attitude towards spectators. Before Hillsborough, even in the late eighties, fans were regarded as terrace fodder. Now they became customers to be wooed and cosseted and no longer expected to suffer facilities which belonged to the thirties.

Since Hillsborough the nature of football-watching has changed along with the make-up of crowds. Families have returned, attracted by all-seat stadiums and no longer put off by the risk of exposing young children to violence.

Given the youth of those who died at Hillsborough, and the fact that they were guilty of nothing more than wanting to get a good position behind a goal, this is a tragic irony. It is also the case that the prices demanded by most Premiership clubs for watching matches in comfort and safety have effectively excluded much of what used to be regarded as the hard core of the game's support.

Since Hillsborough, at board level, the tendency towards share flotations has made rich men even richer. A few have done very well out of football's boom and, given the Sun's warped reporting of the terrible events of April 15th, 1989, the Government's blocking of Rupert Murdoch's attempt to buy Manchester United could hardly have been more aptly timed.

Hillsborough is, after all, still a recent and bitter memory.