25/03/2026
When the families started coming into Anfield after Hillsborough, the Candy lounge stopped being just another room in the ground.
It became the place they came to sit, talk and grieve.
Kenny Dalglish’s wife Marina and the girls set up a tea-urn on the bar at the back.
May and the cleaning ladies were helping out.
And all day the relatives kept coming in.
That was the part Kenny Dalglish never forgot.
Anfield had turned into a place of solace for them.
Somewhere they could come and be around people who understood exactly what Liverpool meant to the ones they had lost.
And even in the middle of all that, some of the relatives were still making little remarks about the people they were there for.
“He’d be gutted if he knew we’re in here.”
“He’s a miserable sod but he’ll be happy now that he can look down from heaven and watch every game for nothing.”
That was what stayed with Dalglish.
Because at that stage some of them still did not even have a body to grieve over.
Many of the bodies had not been returned.
Dalglish listened to story after story.
Trevor Hicks told him about the choice no father should ever have to make.
Whether to go with one daughter in the ambulance or stay with the other lying on the pitch.
So Dalglish told them the only thing he really could.
“Just tell us if there’s anything we can do in any way, shape or form.”
Some wanted a bit of Liverpool kit.
So they raided the kit room.
Some wanted a book, or an old programme, or just something with the Liver Bird on it.
So they emptied the store-room as well.
