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Two decades on from the Hillsborough disaster John Williams looks back to April 15, 1989 and how the day’s events came to shape the very identity of Liverpool FC

Twenty years. Is it really that long ago? Where exactly did those two decades go? Squandered, in the main, I hear Reds fans say, by Messrs Souness, Evans and Houllier, our chaotic managers, and by various erratic (and worse) board members and owners. The current manager – one European Cup already won, but by glorious default – is trying hard to show he is more than a free-spending complainer and fiddler: a match at last for the fearsome Ferguson. Maybe he really is.

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The experiment with goalline officials shows UEFA is attempting to improve refereeing, even if it will never be perfect. Simon Hart reports

“Football will remain, for the time being, a game for human beings… We will try to improve referees but you will never erase errors completely.” So said FIFA president Sepp Blatter on his March visit to Manchester, not long after the International Football Association Board had confirmed that tests with an extra official behind each goalline would continue. The “five-man” experiment began following FIFA’s rejection of video technology last year and the next testing ground may be a professional league next season – both the Italian and French authorities have already offered their assistance.

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While their footballing principles may stop West Brom repeating 2005’s great escape from relegation, their fans remain steadfastly positive. The visit of the unpopular yet enduringly effective Bolton provides another opportunity to showcase their faith and fragility, and David Stubbs was there

As the West Brom fans enter by the Jeff Astle gate into The Hawthorns, many of them, young and old, male and female, pay tribute to painted images, fastened to the railings, of the hero of 1968’s FA Cup victory that look like they were commissioned by the same artist who does those mirror likenesses of Elvis Presley you get at fairgrounds. One by one, they come up and pat Astle, as if rubbing a rabbit’s paw for good luck. It’s a genuinely moving collective gesture of footballing faith – I’m reminded of the stream of newlyweds who come and pay tribute to the eternal flame dedicated to the Second World War fallen in Moscow’s Red Square.

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Ian Plenderleith examines a selection of websites that remember stadiums from football's past

There’s an online version of a book filled with aerial pictures of Lost Football Stadiums that shows a bird’s eye view on the sites of demolished grounds. Some are shockingly prosaic views of housing projects, industrial estates and supermarkets. To many of us, it seems like sacrilege not just to demolish a ground, but also to leave little or no evidence that it ever existed. Scunthorpe’s Old Showground is nothing but a memorial brick in a wall, while the flats of Leicester’s Filbert Village no more resemble a rural settlement then they do a former football stadium. The preservation of Highbury’s façade is an honourable exception.

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Tom Davies looks at three more clubs in crisis

One of the genuinely encouraging success stories of recent seasons has been Stockport County, rescued by a fans’ takeover three years ago, promoted via the League Two play-offs last year and well placed in League One until a recent slump. However, the realities of running a club to budget could yet overwhelm County, with lingering debts threatening to push the club into administration before the end of the season and a familiar search for investment becoming the priority.

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