The Hillsborough banners that gave a voice to Liverpool fans

Peter Carney's banners have been nicknamed the Scouse Bayeux Tapestry

Ninety-seven Liverpool fans lost their lives as a result of a crush at the Hillsborough disaster on 15 April 1989. In the years since, one fan's banners have been giving a voice to fans in the city's fight for justice.

Thirty-three years ago, overcrowding occurred on the terraces of Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough stadium at the start of the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.

It remains the UK's worst sporting disaster with a jury at an inquest later ruling that they were unlawfully killed.

Among those attending the match in the Leppings Lane end, where a barrier gave way under the throng, was Peter Carney.

He was there with four friends and would be carried out unconscious.

Hundreds of fans rushed on to the Hillsborough pitch to escape the terrace crush

He said: "It was a beautiful day. I remember a fella walking round selling sunglasses shouting 'A pound a pair to keep out the glare'.

"I didn't really sense the enormity of what was happening until I was in the pen. I got turned round as we went down the tunnel and I lost my footing."

Mr Carney said it was only when he got on the terrace and he was facing "back the way I'd gone in" that he knew "something really bad was going on".

"There were bodies on the floor in front of me. The crush was getting worse and worse," he said.

"Fear is the word [to describe how I felt]. I tried to distract myself by looking at the different stands and the hills beyond."

He said the game kicked off but he was "gasping for air" and worried about his pregnant wife who was not at the match.

"It just blacks out then," he said.

Flowers, scarves and hats laid in tribute to the Hillsborough victims covered the pitch at Anfield

When Mr Carney regained consciousness, he was back outside the ground having apparently been carried to safety.

As his vision and hearing came back into focus, indistinct noises transformed into something more familiar - police sirens.

The match had been abandoned with less than 10 minutes played as fans streamed on to the Hillsborough turf in a desperate effort to reach safety. Some turned advertising hoardings into makeshift stretchers to help the injured.

The tragedy claimed the lives of almost 100 supporters, the youngest a 10-year-old boy, Jon-Paul Gilhooley.

After being seen at a nearby hospital, Mr Carney, a council youth worker, returned home.

The following day, after laying floral tributes at Anfield, he devised an idea for a banner.

Taking three pieces of cloth he had intended to use for one marking Liverpool FC's centenary, he instead created a memorial to those who had lost their lives at Hillsborough.

Words from the club's anthem, You'll Never Walk Alone, were placed alongside a Liver Bird and representations of the league titles and European Cups the club had won.

Peter Carney's original memorial banner quickly struck a chord with Merseysiders

Made over three days in the week following the disaster and measuring 10ft by 24ft (3m by 7.3m), it was hung at Anfield alongside thousands of floral tributes, shirts and scarves.

"It names the victims," Mr Carney said. "They are the people the message is to - you'll never walk alone, we'll always be thinking of you. That's something people connected to immediately."

Initial police briefings and some media reports had directed blame for the crush towards Liverpool supporters themselves with allegations "drunk and ticketless" fans had forced their way into the stadium.

The coroner at the original inquest in 1991 said he would not hear any evidence relating to deaths beyond 15:15 because he believed all the victims had died, or suffered fatal injuries, by then. Their deaths were ruled accidental.

With the city aggrieved, Mr Carney's banner - and a second one made ahead of the 20th anniversary in 2009 - gave voice to a decades-long fight for justice as the victims' families sought legal recognition that their loved ones had not been responsible for causing their own deaths.

Photographs of the victims were displayed as families attended a Hillsborough Justice Campaign press conference in 2016

Both banners have "iconic status among Liverpool fans," said Graham Smith, vice-chair of the Spirit of Shankly supporters' group, which has described them as "the Scouse Bayeux Tapestry".

"The first commemorates the victims and the second is maybe more focused on the survivors and those affected by it. It's two different takes on You'll Never Walk Alone."

He said you could not "overstate the politics of this", adding that in the 1980s fans were "living through real deprivation" and Hillsborough became a "focal point for the anger and the view that the establishment had abandoned the city".

"The banner was like a confluence of all those events. It spins off into things like the Iron Lady banner for [Hillsborough campaigner] Anne Williams, which is flown regularly."

He said banners accompanied by "thousands of people singing You'll Never Walk Alone with the four sides of the ground holding scarves up. It creates a visible intensity."

The Iron Lady banner waved at Anfield pays tribute to the work of Hillsborough campaigner Anne Williams

Mr Carney said he would like to donate the original banner to the Museum of Liverpool and concentrate on displaying its replacement, which he describes as a "continuing story".

Recently updated with the name of the 97th victim, Andrew Devine, who died last year, he also wonders whether it could somehow be turned into an interactive resource with QR codes linking to testimonies from the families of those who lost their lives.

He said: "Like life, it's changing as it goes. It also includes the names of some of the survivors who've since died.

"It has flowers in it when I display it, which trigger your sense of smell and represent the people who went to the ground the week after. That's the community aspect of it.

"It's deliberately got different textures so the word Hillsborough is made of a knotted cotton. It's all strands around the letter H - it's meant to look rough.

"Also, the colours are really strong. That came from the idea of re-finding my senses when I regained consciousness."

Campaigners, including Margaret Aspinall, reacted with joy when the High Court quashed the original accidental death verdicts

The original inquest verdicts were quashed following the 2012 Hillsborough Independent Panel report, and new hearings were ordered.

After a 27-year campaign by victims' families, the behaviour of Liverpool fans was exonerated in 2016.

Jurors agreed fans played no part in the disaster and they were unlawfully killed following a series of failures by police, the ambulance service, as well as defects in the stadium.

The jury found match commander Ch Supt David Duckenfield was "responsible for manslaughter by gross negligence" due to a breach of his duty of care.

Ex-Sheffield Wednesday club secretary Graham Mackrell, who was found guilty of a health and safety charge, is the only person to be convicted of an offence relating to the tragedy.

Thirty-three years on from the disaster, season-ticket holder Mr Carney's second banner is again on show at Anfield.

From there, it will head to London where it is featured in a new exhibition at the Design Museum devoted to the inventors, engineers and fans who have shaped the sport.

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