Description
Matthew Siddle seemed destined to become a professional footballer.
His earliest memories were of practising with a ball outside his home, and by the age of eight he was moved up from a lower year at school to play for the senior team. Before long he was playing for amateur teams, with the ambition to one day play professionally for Liverpool.
“Scoring a goal was an amazing feeling. Seeing the net of the goal bulge and hearing your teammates cheer behind you was a great sensation. Your goal rewarded the efforts of the entire team so everyone was happy with you, especially if you’d scored a really crucial goal in a critical game. It was one of the happiest times of my life.”
However, Matthew’s destiny takes a different turn when he finds himself at the heart of the Hillsborough disaster, struggling for his own survival and seeing the injuries and deaths of fellow football supporters first hand. The trauma of the event has severe consequences, turning Matthew’s dream of becoming a professional footballer into a delusion. Soon he finds himself in hospital, fighting for his emotional and physical freedom…