I don't want any sympathy from any one. But I'll tell you what the sort of tweets that I got from @kentriley do to people like me
You go through spells where you don't think about what happened. You live with it. You even cope with stuff like the trials and the disappointment. But Hillsborough hangs around. It trails you. It sneaks up on you
And then some idiot triggers everything. You go a few weeks, even months without nightmares and then a prick on twitter sets you back years. One Arsenal fan seven or eight years ago tweeted 'you should have died at Hillsborough' and the impact was horrible: on me and the family
It affected my sleep, my work. I had flashbacks and terrible nightmares. They come and go but the gaps between them get wider. Then someone does something like tonight
My heart has been speeding and I'm still shaking. Someone texted me @kentriley number and I left a message. I hope my voice tells him the pain he's inflicted
It's destabilised me. THIRTY-FUCKING-TWO YEARS ON. And that's not good
And worse. He's accused me of lying. Right from the start, almost everyone accused us all of lying. For years, people would say to me, 'go on, you can tell me the truth. You were all drunk and broke down the gates. I used to go the match. I know.' And I'd want to kill them
Instead I went home and cried. And tonight, it's particularly painful. This afternoon I went to the Covid Memorial and wrote the names of two mates on the wall. I thought of them surviving Hillsborough and dying in the pandemic
Then I look at twitter - at the end of a boycott about online abuse - and find this. This fool has no idea how badly this has affected me. Thanks @kentriley
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