Posted by It is exactly 19 years today since staunch fans of Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko left their homes to catch a glimpse of what their clubs has in-stored for them at the Accra Sports Stadium.
127 of them didn’t make it back home, the rest who made it back home have never been the same since. Some lost vital parts of their body, those who made it back home without any physical injury have had to live with the trauma of the ghastly incident since.
The incident occurred after Ismael Addo scored twice in the final 15 minutes of the game to give Hearts the lead for the first time. Kotoko had taken the lead in the 60th minute through Lawrence Adjei.
The fans believed the goal shouldn’t have stood because the linesmen had signaled for an infringement on a Hearts player. The referee played the game on and it resulted in a goal.
The Kotoko fans started to register their displeasure by pulling off chairs and hurdling projectiles onto the field.
Things went sideways after the police failed to control the crowd. They started firing tear gas into the crowd. Panic and a stampede ensued as fans tried to escape. In their attempt to escape 127 soccer fans died and many injured. One of the worst stadium disasters to ever hit world football.
The day remains the darkest day in the history of Ghana football. Since then, May 9th has served as a day to commemorate the 127 lives lost and also serve as a painful reminder to the living on the need to behave when they visit the stadium.
As part of this year’s anniversary and special edition of Sports Check, GhanaWeb Sports editor, Daniel Oduro caught up with some of the survivors of the disaster to recount how events unfolded.
He also interacted with relatives of some of the victims of the May 9 Stadium disaster.
Below is the interview with some of the survivors and relatives of some the victims