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| National Stadium Lima Peru |
I started reading my newspapers via the internet as I usually daily in
my home studio in Sydney, and after checking the news in newspapers in London
and Madrid, I opened the newspaper El Comercio of Lima Peru , and stayed as the vulgar Peruvian called, 'One
Piece', to read the news that the derby between Universitario and Alianza, a
fan died having been thrown from the stands into the ground . I kept looking at
the screen and not reading anything because my mind back as if nothing 48 years to stay in 1964,
at which time occurred one of the worst tragedies in a football stadium,
worldwide.
I drives the desire to share with others the personal experience of having been in the National Stadium on Sunday May 24 playing seeing our selection, and witness the atrocities and tragedies that took place, and that should never happen.
Kierkregard Soren says life can only be understood looking back, but can only be lived forward, and I think that tragedy valuable lessons have been learned, but knowing as sports fanaticism is no guarantee that it will not come to suffer similar situations in the future.
My story begins with my usual desire to go to the stadium as a big fan of football, and be at the "Colossus of José Díaz", named for its proximity to a street of the same name, in the district of Santa Beatriz, I expected that Sunday.
I was at that time 16 years old , and not the reason why I decided to bring my brother Hugo who was only 10 years. I was studied as internal inside the Leoncio Prado Military Academy, located in the Pearl District in the call at the time the constitutional province of Callao, and had returned from my night out.
The stadium at the time, had a large expanse of concrete to park the car, and it had been identified in several football courts ( fulbito floor,) so that the boys often played their games (partidazos).
Every time I attended to watch football games, the stadium both at the podium facing the south and to the north, both popular, was full of parked cars, as well as the West, and all the streets around the stadium . The party faced the east grandstand, was the avenue Paseo de la Republica, also full of parked cars.
I decided to go early to buy tickets, and the queue was huge, well after the queue to be doing, I find that I hardly had tickets, so I had to buy "resale" and to top it off, were for popular north, which I never would, and where the unrest began.
The year 1964 was a year moved to the U.S. war and Viet Nam, with disastrous results for both nations. And I'd like to refresh your memory with a summary of some developments in that year:
• Jan. 18: in EE. UU. Announced plans to build the Twin Towers (World Trade Center) in New York.
• Jan. 20: in EE. USA launches the band's first album "The Beatles.
• February 1: in USA the British rock group The Beatles first attains the first place in the playlists, with the song "I Want to Hold Your Hand".
• March 14: A jury in Dallas Texas, USA declares Jack Ruby guilty of murdering Lee Harvey Oswald, who in turn was believed that in 1963 President Kennedy was assassinated.
• April 7: in USA IBM introduced the first model of the 360 series computer
• April 16: The British government sentence to 307 years in prison to 12 men who carried out the "Great Train Robbery" (stole 2.6 million pounds in used notes on the train from Glasgow to London in August 1963) .
• April 17: New York, the American company Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Mustang in the first Car Expo
• 24-25 May: in Lima (Peru), after a football match against Argentina, the fans fight because of the arbitrator's decision: 319 dead and 500 wounded.
• June 12: In South Africa, the racist government life sentence for Nelson Mandela, African National Congress leader, and seven others in Robben Island Prison.
• July 8: the U.S. Army. Announces that the casualties in Vietnam amounted to 1387, including 399 dead and 17 missing in action.
• July 31: Ranger 7 sends the first close-up pictures of the moon (images are thousand times sharper than any taken with a spotting scope).
• August 7: U.S. Congress passes a law (the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution), giving President Lyndon B. Johnson broad powers to decide on attacks against U.S. forces in Vietnam.
• August 16: aided by USA UU., General Nguyen Khanh defeat the head of state Vietnamese Duong Van Minh and establishes a new constitution and a pro-US puppet government.
• August 28: in USA. The American singer Bob Dylan makes them try marijuana for the first time to members of the British group The Beatles.
• September 29: Mafalda comic strip created by Quino, sees the light for the first time in Argentina.
• October 1: in Japan launches the Shinkansen, a high-speed train between Tokyo and Osaka.
• October 5: 23 men and 31 women escape to West Berlin through a narrow tunnel under the Berlin Wall.
• October 12: The Soviet Union puts the Voskhod 1 into orbit. It is the first ship with a crew of several people (3 astronauts of the Soviet Union) and without spacesuits.
• October 14: The leader of the U.S. civil rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
• 14-15 October: Nikita Khrushchev is deposed as leader of the Soviet Union. I replace Alexei Kosygin and Leonid Brezhnev
Nobel Prizes
• Literature: Jean-Paul Sartre.
• Peace: Martin Luther King.3
I drives the desire to share with others the personal experience of having been in the National Stadium on Sunday May 24 playing seeing our selection, and witness the atrocities and tragedies that took place, and that should never happen.
Kierkregard Soren says life can only be understood looking back, but can only be lived forward, and I think that tragedy valuable lessons have been learned, but knowing as sports fanaticism is no guarantee that it will not come to suffer similar situations in the future.
My story begins with my usual desire to go to the stadium as a big fan of football, and be at the "Colossus of José Díaz", named for its proximity to a street of the same name, in the district of Santa Beatriz, I expected that Sunday.
I was at that time 16 years old , and not the reason why I decided to bring my brother Hugo who was only 10 years. I was studied as internal inside the Leoncio Prado Military Academy, located in the Pearl District in the call at the time the constitutional province of Callao, and had returned from my night out.
The stadium at the time, had a large expanse of concrete to park the car, and it had been identified in several football courts ( fulbito floor,) so that the boys often played their games (partidazos).
Every time I attended to watch football games, the stadium both at the podium facing the south and to the north, both popular, was full of parked cars, as well as the West, and all the streets around the stadium . The party faced the east grandstand, was the avenue Paseo de la Republica, also full of parked cars.
I decided to go early to buy tickets, and the queue was huge, well after the queue to be doing, I find that I hardly had tickets, so I had to buy "resale" and to top it off, were for popular north, which I never would, and where the unrest began.
The year 1964 was a year moved to the U.S. war and Viet Nam, with disastrous results for both nations. And I'd like to refresh your memory with a summary of some developments in that year:
• Jan. 18: in EE. UU. Announced plans to build the Twin Towers (World Trade Center) in New York.
• Jan. 20: in EE. USA launches the band's first album "The Beatles.
• February 1: in USA the British rock group The Beatles first attains the first place in the playlists, with the song "I Want to Hold Your Hand".
• March 14: A jury in Dallas Texas, USA declares Jack Ruby guilty of murdering Lee Harvey Oswald, who in turn was believed that in 1963 President Kennedy was assassinated.
• April 7: in USA IBM introduced the first model of the 360 series computer
• April 16: The British government sentence to 307 years in prison to 12 men who carried out the "Great Train Robbery" (stole 2.6 million pounds in used notes on the train from Glasgow to London in August 1963) .
• April 17: New York, the American company Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Mustang in the first Car Expo
• 24-25 May: in Lima (Peru), after a football match against Argentina, the fans fight because of the arbitrator's decision: 319 dead and 500 wounded.
• June 12: In South Africa, the racist government life sentence for Nelson Mandela, African National Congress leader, and seven others in Robben Island Prison.
• July 8: the U.S. Army. Announces that the casualties in Vietnam amounted to 1387, including 399 dead and 17 missing in action.
• July 31: Ranger 7 sends the first close-up pictures of the moon (images are thousand times sharper than any taken with a spotting scope).
• August 7: U.S. Congress passes a law (the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution), giving President Lyndon B. Johnson broad powers to decide on attacks against U.S. forces in Vietnam.
• August 16: aided by USA UU., General Nguyen Khanh defeat the head of state Vietnamese Duong Van Minh and establishes a new constitution and a pro-US puppet government.
• August 28: in USA. The American singer Bob Dylan makes them try marijuana for the first time to members of the British group The Beatles.
• September 29: Mafalda comic strip created by Quino, sees the light for the first time in Argentina.
• October 1: in Japan launches the Shinkansen, a high-speed train between Tokyo and Osaka.
• October 5: 23 men and 31 women escape to West Berlin through a narrow tunnel under the Berlin Wall.
• October 12: The Soviet Union puts the Voskhod 1 into orbit. It is the first ship with a crew of several people (3 astronauts of the Soviet Union) and without spacesuits.
• October 14: The leader of the U.S. civil rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
• 14-15 October: Nikita Khrushchev is deposed as leader of the Soviet Union. I replace Alexei Kosygin and Leonid Brezhnev
Nobel Prizes
• Literature: Jean-Paul Sartre.
• Peace: Martin Luther King.3
After recalling some of what happened in that year we return to the
spectacle of football that existed at that time, helped by the news story of
Jaime Pulgar-Vidal Otálora:
On May 7, 1964 amateurs selections from Peru and Ecuador in Lima opened the South American qualifying matches for the Tokyo Olympics of that year. That match ended 1-1. Victor "Kilo" Lobaton scored for Peruvians. Just over two weeks later, a new goal Kilo but no joy unleashes the tragedy.
Seven South American teams vying for two spots the Tokyo Olympics. Besides Peru and Ecuador, were amateur teams from Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile and Brazil.
During their next matches, Peru Colombia thrashed 3-0 on May 10 and won 2-0 to Uruguay on 17 March. Then came the afternoon of May 24, 1964. It was Sunday. So it was that 47, 157 fans packed the National Stadium four stands of Lima.
That day is going to face selections Peru and Argentina. The Argentineans had played four games consecutively defeating Colombia, Ecuador, Chile and Uruguay. They were the favorites to win the first tournament, so I thought that Peruvian and Brazilian dispute the second berth.
The match between Peru and Argentina would not end and instead would become the fourth tragedy in a football stadium in the world.
The first of January 1902, 25 fans died in the Ibrox Park stadium in Glasgow Scotland.
On July 3, 1944 were 7 dead in gate 12 River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires.
Another 33 deaths stopped a fight between fans, which occurred on March 6, 1946 at the stadium Burnden Park, Boldon England.
Okay, now back to our story: Spectators who came to the stadium that day expecting a good performance of Peruvian team with which you could improve the chances of reaching Tokyo. We must remember those four years ago, the Peruvian team was able to classify the Rome Olympics, so all local fans hoping for a new classification.
In that year 1964 the president of the Peruvian Football Federation Teofilo Salinas appointed Brazilian Marinho de Oliveira as coach of the youth team and the team that would struggle to qualify for the Olympic Games in Tokyo. The equipment that conforms to the pre-Olympic was mainly amateur teams from Lima and provinces. It is understood as amateur players who did not have a professional contract. Three players from that roster were rented on their computers: Luis Zavala and Oscar Rios coming from University and Enrique Grau Casaretto Atletico de Piura. Chumpitaz then played in the second division defending the shirt of the neighborhood unit No. 3. Ramon Mifflin played in team reserveCentro Iqueño.
Peru formed with Barrantes, Angel Guerrero, Javier Castillo, Hector Chumpitaz, Armando Lara, Sanchez, Enrique Rodriguez, Luis Zavala, Enrique Casaretto, Innocencio La Rosa and Victor "Kilo" Lobaton.
Ernesto Duchini, the Argentine coach, that day the court ordered to Cejas, Morales, Bertolotti, Perfumo and Pazos; Malleo, Mori and Cabrera; Dominguez Manfredi and Ochoa.
I lived in 240 to Joaquin Bernal Height 22 Arenales Avenue, and that Sunday I went with my brother in the direction of the stadium at about 10 am, and left using line 9 bus traveling along the avenue Petit Thouars.
This important avenue of Lima is named after a French sailor and hero of our city. Abel-Historicly speaking , Nicolas Bergasse du Petit Thouars was commander in chief of the French squad observer of the war in the South Pacific in January 1881. And being imminent entry into Lima Chilean army faced the Chilean navy officers. For Peruvian historiography, Petit Thouars went to the Commander in Chief of the Chilean Occupation Forces, General Manuel Baquedano González and the Chilean navy Commodore Galvarino Riveros, warning that they should control their troops and prevent further outrages as in Chorrillos, Barranco and Miraflores of 13, 14 and January 15, 1881, otherwise he would have to use the firepower of the squad located in Callao neutral and sink the ships of the Chilean navy.
Well, my brother and I were on our way to the stadium, and from several blocks away you could see the amount of people coming from all four sides of the stadium, and many came through the Park of the Reserve, and it was obvious that many of they could not enter, as even ticket scalpers were no more tickets to sell. Grasp the hand strongly Hugo, and gave the tickets collector, and started up the wide concrete steps to try to achieve a good location. While climbing, you could see the sides’ bathrooms and tunnels that drew you to the different levels that had the stadium, and in this case that were popular in the north. There were places where you could eat a bowl of dry beans with beef and other at halftime of games.
As we enter the stadium early to get a good spot a little higher almost half and the left side of the platform, which was not very familiar to me.
My brother had long eating everything that vendors offer, although I had brought some fruit. At that time beer was sold in bottles, and when you listen to the seller shouted, chicken broth!, Was indeed pure alchol drink (pisco )and other spirits more, the bread with turkey was indeed fried sweet potato bread.
People, including us do not stop the selection bar, singing, jumping and shouting.
So the time came when the players appeared for the tunnels with t-shirt ( rojiblanca). The uproar was full, bursting rockets that lifted a joke and party dress the stadium. On the other Argentines appeared tunnel
The two teams played relatively modest, since after all many of them have not completed the necessary experience, although most of them stand out in the near future. You also can not deny that between Peruvian and Argentine teams were always a lot of rivalry. It had been those days when club teams, as River, Boca and national team (Albiceleste )"walking" when they played here and easily defeat us (goleaban) in our and their stadiums. There is no denying, however, that they have a senior football than us, because they hold the titles speak for themselves.
But back to the stadium: official assistance to that game gave a figure of 47.197 fans and a million box office 22, 273 soles.
The expectation of the fans was very big and needed only a draw to become actually qualify for the Olympics, but it was Argentina who won the first conquest.
Missing half hour and Argentina went ahead on the scoreboard. In their previous three games, the Argentines had only ever received one goal and had tied a meeting. The situation was complicated for homeowners who, however, were still in search of equality.
The boys practically started pressuring and attacking, sometimes without order, but with great vehemence. The forwards looked for the goal and the whole team is now going forward. Of course it was a different time and a different style of game, stopping the ball more, with fewer surprises for the tips, plus we had a great front facing a great defense and a better team for having a better preparation for this event.
The people in the stadium began to get nervous. Missing a few minutes to the end of the match and Argentina went ahead in the score.
Suddenly, in seconds, an event sparked joy, then anger and finally, tragedy.
There are played forty minutes after the break and Angel Eduardo Pazos the Uruguayan referee annulled a goal from Victor "Kilo" Lobaton. Apparently this was because the Peruvian had ironed the ball before the defender Andres Bertolotti. It was a big mistake, considering that no defender injured in the act of pushing the ball into the goal Argentinian.
The disallowed goal enraged more than 47,000 fans came to the stadium that evening. Since all the claims tribunes came increasingly became angrier.
The fans that had filled the north stand push off the fence. In the eastern grandstand, fans began to pull the wooden seats until they got out bolts anchored to the floor. Then they started to throw the pitch where players were still either team.
In the popular south campfires further warming the atmosphere, I was enraged by what he considered an unfair arbitration.
In the chaos that occurred in the stands, the referee decided to finish the game the due to lack of safe. At that moment, Victor Campos Melasio, better known as Black Pump(negro bomba) , jumped onto the field and ran for the judge to attack him. In 1964 weighed 95 kilos so it was necessary to throw police dogs to stop him.
The police caught the perpetrator and reduced it as giving him a fierce beating unevenly. This further enraged fan who wanted revenge not only against the referee Pazos, but also against the police at that time were rather encouraging s disorder.
Edilberto Cuenca was the following entry swells in the same spot where he jumped onto the pitch pump Black: the corner of the stands of the east and south.
Right there made its appearance one of the protagonists of the tragedy. The police chief, Jorge de Azambuja commander gave the order to fire tear gas against the stands. He fired two against east, south and two against many against the north stand.
While the referee and the Argentine players were escorted to the dressing room by police amid a hail of bullets, some officers threw tear bombs into the stands to try to contain the anger of the fans.
More bombs were dropped north because there were more fans enraged. In an attempt to calm the situation, Azambuja, reputedly hard and inflexible in the population, came to the north stand. The fans saw it, they violated more.
It was here where I grip my brother and started walking with determination, pushing people standing euphoric screaming and we get to one of the tunnels out into the street, hurried down the stairs of cement, but with the good fortune that the door if it was open, not like what happened with other stadium gates were closed, as death traps.
Very agitated and frightened we went walking back to Arequipa Avenue and then take Arenales Avenue, and soon we would be saved and unharmed so compelling experience.
I remember people in the streets commented about what happened, and I hear somebody say that there was already a dead man. I exclaim in wonder is it possible for someone to die to see a football match?
We talked about home of more than 50 people, which I could not understand and accept that reality less. Sure, I really did not know the gravity of what happened, because I was careful or intuition, even I do not know, having chosen to leave on time, and especially through the open door.
If that door had been closed, and people would come down like a stampede, as in other outlets, there my brother and I would have been killed for sure, as in other forums.
In stage the smoke produced by the bombs caused not only ocular discomfort but panic. Thousands of fans tried to gain the street. Others were thrown from the stands at the podium intermediate floor between climbing through advertisements.
Those who tried to leave the stadium they found that the doors were locked enclosure. Those who arrived after the first continued to press in an effort to escape the tear gas.
The stampede occurred harrowing scenes. Tens and hundreds of fans fell to the ground and were trampled by the horde. Some of them stopped to look for relatives fallen and immediately joined the list of those who ended up lying on the floor and trampled.
Player Hecttor Chumpitaz Hector, who fielded by Peru, said that after the facts were in the locker room two hours before leaving the stadium.
That afternoon, outside the stadium had been thousands of fans who could not enter after failing to localities.
Some say it was because of them that the doors were closed. Others claim that the head of the doors was the stadium to watch a car race that took place nearby., That day competition was at the race run six hours Peruanas car in the Champ de Mars, located less than a kilometer from the national stadium.
The race ended at 3pm so many fans who attended the race were encouraged to take a leap into the stadium colossus of José Díaz.
Either way, the fans found a wall in its path. A metal grid where they found death.
In an official document from the then Civil Guard, said that t was responsible for "Communist agitation" of the facts. A report by the investigating judge of the 6th Court, Benjamin Cisneros, however blamed the government. This report was lost in the typical bureaucratic way our legal system wrong.
Gradually getting the official death toll. At first did not exceed one hundred. However, the bodies were still being counted and stacked on each other forming columns of up to two meters high.
The bodies of the unfortunates were reaching hospitals Worker of May , at the Morgue and Public Assistance Grau Avenue. Those that were identified were scored his name on a tape that was placed in his mouth.
Many who remained unidentified were in the hospital gardens. The situation was a national tragedy. For the media requesting help and support of doctors and nurses and blood donors.
But tragedy was not over. Fans who escaped, came enraged and some attacked and killed three policemen. One was thrown from a platform to the street, another was lynched and a third died kicked.
Some argue that what happened outside the stadium was not the product of goal disallowed by the judge Pazos but also the climate of political tension that was felt in Lima at the time.
There was looting, theft, fire. Many lost their vehicles. The Goodyear factory was burned by the mob. In the city, the police regained control only in the evening hours. Some argue that many more died in the streets, but those bodies were missing.
Such was the degree of shock that the government that Presided Fernando Belaunde had to suspend constitutional guarantees for about a month.
Two days after the tragedy, the police caught the Black Pump(negro bomba) .
The official death toll threw 328. The wounded exceeded four thousand. It was in fact the worst tragedy in a soccer stadium in South America. After that unfortunate episode National Stadium closed its doors about six months and when he returned the fans to watch football in their stands had already removed the area that surrounded the entire bottom. And its initial capacity of 53,000 fans was reduced to 45,000.
Although the party did not end, to Argentina was awarded the victory and the championship was canceled. The Argentinians were located in the top of the standings so classified Tokyo. Brazil and Peru played game months later to define the second South American representative to Tokyo.
On June 7, Brazil won 4-0 to Peru. And I leave out. Peru would pass the "bill" to the Argentine a few years later and eliminate them from Mexico 70 world, with several of those players turned into experienced novice players.
But that pre-Olympic defeat meant nothing next to the absurd death they found 328 football fans.
The Black Pump, pimp and criminal, never imagined that his action would cause the worst tragedy in a football stadium in Peru.
Never again, since that unfortunate afternoon, closing the doors on a football stadium. Sometimes, the best lessons are obtained during the worst misfortunes. However, learning the cost was far too high. 328 people would not never home. A tragedy mourned each neighborhood Lima. A fact that should never be repeated.
They committed too many security flaws and excesses of the police authority in the stadium that evening.
A couple of incidents leading up to the tragedy went unnoticed by the media and the authorities. In the match against Uruguay played many fires were lit in the stands as an early warning of intolerance swollen that it worsened after the draw with Ecuador stoning generated result to both teams. The match between Colombian and Uruguayan culminated with a barrage of stones thrown at the Charruas.(Uruguayans) .
And how pathetic of all is that the Argentines had a disastrous performance at the Olympic Games being eliminated in the first round of the contest, and even if he had come in that contest champion, what happened in the National was unjustifiable and unacceptable.
The 1964 Tokyo tournament made history not because of what happened in the Games but for the tragic events in Lima during the qualifying match between Peru and Argentina, the afternoon of May 24, 1964.
I had to return that night to military school located in Callao, so when I approached the entrance, in the prevention guard, officers and students of the day, scored my name, because it was feared that another student had lost their lives, as they knew that many would attend the stadium that day, not to miss the show, and inadvertently, life also.
Today I am a mature 63, and I question myself, which could be the underlying reason for this tragedy. Why an individual can be filled with a wild passion and foment chaos, disorder and death of his fellow man?
And I mean not only the behavior of so-called 'black bomb, who at the time believed to be right to attack the referee. Many people rise to the tragedy, including the police force that mistakenly management obligations to safeguard the security of those who made up the spectacle that fateful afternoon.
Football, inexplicably, is the sport in which the public appears to be more susceptible to radical change in your mood according to the development of the party and the outcome.
Not much use to us the fact that we know for sure that many fans go to the field to vent in football tensions over their daily lives. Knowing that there are fans in the stands to jump out of it, when the referee whistles against his team, cannot condition arbitrations.
In seconds the "amateur" fan deformed, drastically changes your mood and character: joy, sadness, helplessness, frustration, anger, is become aggressive and the accumulation of adverse reactions and even positive, cause hysteria exploding the violence.
We often see that vandals, gang thugs, contaminated by hatred and contempt, infiltrated between the bars and entertainment groups are dominating the stadiums to force and violence by moving away from the stage to the real football fans.
Football stadiums, especially the first division should have a security department with a security director
I agree with the experts on the prevention of violence in football stadiums, that security in football stadiums currently depends heavily on private security cooperating with public safety in the prevention of criminal acts, but we believe in not too distant future will have this responsibility exclusively by implementing increasingly popular approach that the organization must ensure the security of the premises in which they develop this and any other mass event.
With affection,
Ruben
On May 7, 1964 amateurs selections from Peru and Ecuador in Lima opened the South American qualifying matches for the Tokyo Olympics of that year. That match ended 1-1. Victor "Kilo" Lobaton scored for Peruvians. Just over two weeks later, a new goal Kilo but no joy unleashes the tragedy.
Seven South American teams vying for two spots the Tokyo Olympics. Besides Peru and Ecuador, were amateur teams from Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile and Brazil.
During their next matches, Peru Colombia thrashed 3-0 on May 10 and won 2-0 to Uruguay on 17 March. Then came the afternoon of May 24, 1964. It was Sunday. So it was that 47, 157 fans packed the National Stadium four stands of Lima.
That day is going to face selections Peru and Argentina. The Argentineans had played four games consecutively defeating Colombia, Ecuador, Chile and Uruguay. They were the favorites to win the first tournament, so I thought that Peruvian and Brazilian dispute the second berth.
The match between Peru and Argentina would not end and instead would become the fourth tragedy in a football stadium in the world.
The first of January 1902, 25 fans died in the Ibrox Park stadium in Glasgow Scotland.
On July 3, 1944 were 7 dead in gate 12 River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires.
Another 33 deaths stopped a fight between fans, which occurred on March 6, 1946 at the stadium Burnden Park, Boldon England.
Okay, now back to our story: Spectators who came to the stadium that day expecting a good performance of Peruvian team with which you could improve the chances of reaching Tokyo. We must remember those four years ago, the Peruvian team was able to classify the Rome Olympics, so all local fans hoping for a new classification.
In that year 1964 the president of the Peruvian Football Federation Teofilo Salinas appointed Brazilian Marinho de Oliveira as coach of the youth team and the team that would struggle to qualify for the Olympic Games in Tokyo. The equipment that conforms to the pre-Olympic was mainly amateur teams from Lima and provinces. It is understood as amateur players who did not have a professional contract. Three players from that roster were rented on their computers: Luis Zavala and Oscar Rios coming from University and Enrique Grau Casaretto Atletico de Piura. Chumpitaz then played in the second division defending the shirt of the neighborhood unit No. 3. Ramon Mifflin played in team reserveCentro Iqueño.
Peru formed with Barrantes, Angel Guerrero, Javier Castillo, Hector Chumpitaz, Armando Lara, Sanchez, Enrique Rodriguez, Luis Zavala, Enrique Casaretto, Innocencio La Rosa and Victor "Kilo" Lobaton.
Ernesto Duchini, the Argentine coach, that day the court ordered to Cejas, Morales, Bertolotti, Perfumo and Pazos; Malleo, Mori and Cabrera; Dominguez Manfredi and Ochoa.
I lived in 240 to Joaquin Bernal Height 22 Arenales Avenue, and that Sunday I went with my brother in the direction of the stadium at about 10 am, and left using line 9 bus traveling along the avenue Petit Thouars.
This important avenue of Lima is named after a French sailor and hero of our city. Abel-Historicly speaking , Nicolas Bergasse du Petit Thouars was commander in chief of the French squad observer of the war in the South Pacific in January 1881. And being imminent entry into Lima Chilean army faced the Chilean navy officers. For Peruvian historiography, Petit Thouars went to the Commander in Chief of the Chilean Occupation Forces, General Manuel Baquedano González and the Chilean navy Commodore Galvarino Riveros, warning that they should control their troops and prevent further outrages as in Chorrillos, Barranco and Miraflores of 13, 14 and January 15, 1881, otherwise he would have to use the firepower of the squad located in Callao neutral and sink the ships of the Chilean navy.
Well, my brother and I were on our way to the stadium, and from several blocks away you could see the amount of people coming from all four sides of the stadium, and many came through the Park of the Reserve, and it was obvious that many of they could not enter, as even ticket scalpers were no more tickets to sell. Grasp the hand strongly Hugo, and gave the tickets collector, and started up the wide concrete steps to try to achieve a good location. While climbing, you could see the sides’ bathrooms and tunnels that drew you to the different levels that had the stadium, and in this case that were popular in the north. There were places where you could eat a bowl of dry beans with beef and other at halftime of games.
As we enter the stadium early to get a good spot a little higher almost half and the left side of the platform, which was not very familiar to me.
My brother had long eating everything that vendors offer, although I had brought some fruit. At that time beer was sold in bottles, and when you listen to the seller shouted, chicken broth!, Was indeed pure alchol drink (pisco )and other spirits more, the bread with turkey was indeed fried sweet potato bread.
People, including us do not stop the selection bar, singing, jumping and shouting.
So the time came when the players appeared for the tunnels with t-shirt ( rojiblanca). The uproar was full, bursting rockets that lifted a joke and party dress the stadium. On the other Argentines appeared tunnel
The two teams played relatively modest, since after all many of them have not completed the necessary experience, although most of them stand out in the near future. You also can not deny that between Peruvian and Argentine teams were always a lot of rivalry. It had been those days when club teams, as River, Boca and national team (Albiceleste )"walking" when they played here and easily defeat us (goleaban) in our and their stadiums. There is no denying, however, that they have a senior football than us, because they hold the titles speak for themselves.
But back to the stadium: official assistance to that game gave a figure of 47.197 fans and a million box office 22, 273 soles.
The expectation of the fans was very big and needed only a draw to become actually qualify for the Olympics, but it was Argentina who won the first conquest.
Missing half hour and Argentina went ahead on the scoreboard. In their previous three games, the Argentines had only ever received one goal and had tied a meeting. The situation was complicated for homeowners who, however, were still in search of equality.
The boys practically started pressuring and attacking, sometimes without order, but with great vehemence. The forwards looked for the goal and the whole team is now going forward. Of course it was a different time and a different style of game, stopping the ball more, with fewer surprises for the tips, plus we had a great front facing a great defense and a better team for having a better preparation for this event.
The people in the stadium began to get nervous. Missing a few minutes to the end of the match and Argentina went ahead in the score.
Suddenly, in seconds, an event sparked joy, then anger and finally, tragedy.
There are played forty minutes after the break and Angel Eduardo Pazos the Uruguayan referee annulled a goal from Victor "Kilo" Lobaton. Apparently this was because the Peruvian had ironed the ball before the defender Andres Bertolotti. It was a big mistake, considering that no defender injured in the act of pushing the ball into the goal Argentinian.
The disallowed goal enraged more than 47,000 fans came to the stadium that evening. Since all the claims tribunes came increasingly became angrier.
The fans that had filled the north stand push off the fence. In the eastern grandstand, fans began to pull the wooden seats until they got out bolts anchored to the floor. Then they started to throw the pitch where players were still either team.
In the popular south campfires further warming the atmosphere, I was enraged by what he considered an unfair arbitration.
In the chaos that occurred in the stands, the referee decided to finish the game the due to lack of safe. At that moment, Victor Campos Melasio, better known as Black Pump(negro bomba) , jumped onto the field and ran for the judge to attack him. In 1964 weighed 95 kilos so it was necessary to throw police dogs to stop him.
The police caught the perpetrator and reduced it as giving him a fierce beating unevenly. This further enraged fan who wanted revenge not only against the referee Pazos, but also against the police at that time were rather encouraging s disorder.
Edilberto Cuenca was the following entry swells in the same spot where he jumped onto the pitch pump Black: the corner of the stands of the east and south.
Right there made its appearance one of the protagonists of the tragedy. The police chief, Jorge de Azambuja commander gave the order to fire tear gas against the stands. He fired two against east, south and two against many against the north stand.
While the referee and the Argentine players were escorted to the dressing room by police amid a hail of bullets, some officers threw tear bombs into the stands to try to contain the anger of the fans.
More bombs were dropped north because there were more fans enraged. In an attempt to calm the situation, Azambuja, reputedly hard and inflexible in the population, came to the north stand. The fans saw it, they violated more.
It was here where I grip my brother and started walking with determination, pushing people standing euphoric screaming and we get to one of the tunnels out into the street, hurried down the stairs of cement, but with the good fortune that the door if it was open, not like what happened with other stadium gates were closed, as death traps.
Very agitated and frightened we went walking back to Arequipa Avenue and then take Arenales Avenue, and soon we would be saved and unharmed so compelling experience.
I remember people in the streets commented about what happened, and I hear somebody say that there was already a dead man. I exclaim in wonder is it possible for someone to die to see a football match?
We talked about home of more than 50 people, which I could not understand and accept that reality less. Sure, I really did not know the gravity of what happened, because I was careful or intuition, even I do not know, having chosen to leave on time, and especially through the open door.
If that door had been closed, and people would come down like a stampede, as in other outlets, there my brother and I would have been killed for sure, as in other forums.
In stage the smoke produced by the bombs caused not only ocular discomfort but panic. Thousands of fans tried to gain the street. Others were thrown from the stands at the podium intermediate floor between climbing through advertisements.
Those who tried to leave the stadium they found that the doors were locked enclosure. Those who arrived after the first continued to press in an effort to escape the tear gas.
The stampede occurred harrowing scenes. Tens and hundreds of fans fell to the ground and were trampled by the horde. Some of them stopped to look for relatives fallen and immediately joined the list of those who ended up lying on the floor and trampled.
Player Hecttor Chumpitaz Hector, who fielded by Peru, said that after the facts were in the locker room two hours before leaving the stadium.
That afternoon, outside the stadium had been thousands of fans who could not enter after failing to localities.
Some say it was because of them that the doors were closed. Others claim that the head of the doors was the stadium to watch a car race that took place nearby., That day competition was at the race run six hours Peruanas car in the Champ de Mars, located less than a kilometer from the national stadium.
The race ended at 3pm so many fans who attended the race were encouraged to take a leap into the stadium colossus of José Díaz.
Either way, the fans found a wall in its path. A metal grid where they found death.
In an official document from the then Civil Guard, said that t was responsible for "Communist agitation" of the facts. A report by the investigating judge of the 6th Court, Benjamin Cisneros, however blamed the government. This report was lost in the typical bureaucratic way our legal system wrong.
Gradually getting the official death toll. At first did not exceed one hundred. However, the bodies were still being counted and stacked on each other forming columns of up to two meters high.
The bodies of the unfortunates were reaching hospitals Worker of May , at the Morgue and Public Assistance Grau Avenue. Those that were identified were scored his name on a tape that was placed in his mouth.
Many who remained unidentified were in the hospital gardens. The situation was a national tragedy. For the media requesting help and support of doctors and nurses and blood donors.
But tragedy was not over. Fans who escaped, came enraged and some attacked and killed three policemen. One was thrown from a platform to the street, another was lynched and a third died kicked.
Some argue that what happened outside the stadium was not the product of goal disallowed by the judge Pazos but also the climate of political tension that was felt in Lima at the time.
There was looting, theft, fire. Many lost their vehicles. The Goodyear factory was burned by the mob. In the city, the police regained control only in the evening hours. Some argue that many more died in the streets, but those bodies were missing.
Such was the degree of shock that the government that Presided Fernando Belaunde had to suspend constitutional guarantees for about a month.
Two days after the tragedy, the police caught the Black Pump(negro bomba) .
The official death toll threw 328. The wounded exceeded four thousand. It was in fact the worst tragedy in a soccer stadium in South America. After that unfortunate episode National Stadium closed its doors about six months and when he returned the fans to watch football in their stands had already removed the area that surrounded the entire bottom. And its initial capacity of 53,000 fans was reduced to 45,000.
Although the party did not end, to Argentina was awarded the victory and the championship was canceled. The Argentinians were located in the top of the standings so classified Tokyo. Brazil and Peru played game months later to define the second South American representative to Tokyo.
On June 7, Brazil won 4-0 to Peru. And I leave out. Peru would pass the "bill" to the Argentine a few years later and eliminate them from Mexico 70 world, with several of those players turned into experienced novice players.
But that pre-Olympic defeat meant nothing next to the absurd death they found 328 football fans.
The Black Pump, pimp and criminal, never imagined that his action would cause the worst tragedy in a football stadium in Peru.
Never again, since that unfortunate afternoon, closing the doors on a football stadium. Sometimes, the best lessons are obtained during the worst misfortunes. However, learning the cost was far too high. 328 people would not never home. A tragedy mourned each neighborhood Lima. A fact that should never be repeated.
They committed too many security flaws and excesses of the police authority in the stadium that evening.
A couple of incidents leading up to the tragedy went unnoticed by the media and the authorities. In the match against Uruguay played many fires were lit in the stands as an early warning of intolerance swollen that it worsened after the draw with Ecuador stoning generated result to both teams. The match between Colombian and Uruguayan culminated with a barrage of stones thrown at the Charruas.(Uruguayans) .
And how pathetic of all is that the Argentines had a disastrous performance at the Olympic Games being eliminated in the first round of the contest, and even if he had come in that contest champion, what happened in the National was unjustifiable and unacceptable.
The 1964 Tokyo tournament made history not because of what happened in the Games but for the tragic events in Lima during the qualifying match between Peru and Argentina, the afternoon of May 24, 1964.
I had to return that night to military school located in Callao, so when I approached the entrance, in the prevention guard, officers and students of the day, scored my name, because it was feared that another student had lost their lives, as they knew that many would attend the stadium that day, not to miss the show, and inadvertently, life also.
Today I am a mature 63, and I question myself, which could be the underlying reason for this tragedy. Why an individual can be filled with a wild passion and foment chaos, disorder and death of his fellow man?
And I mean not only the behavior of so-called 'black bomb, who at the time believed to be right to attack the referee. Many people rise to the tragedy, including the police force that mistakenly management obligations to safeguard the security of those who made up the spectacle that fateful afternoon.
Football, inexplicably, is the sport in which the public appears to be more susceptible to radical change in your mood according to the development of the party and the outcome.
Not much use to us the fact that we know for sure that many fans go to the field to vent in football tensions over their daily lives. Knowing that there are fans in the stands to jump out of it, when the referee whistles against his team, cannot condition arbitrations.
In seconds the "amateur" fan deformed, drastically changes your mood and character: joy, sadness, helplessness, frustration, anger, is become aggressive and the accumulation of adverse reactions and even positive, cause hysteria exploding the violence.
We often see that vandals, gang thugs, contaminated by hatred and contempt, infiltrated between the bars and entertainment groups are dominating the stadiums to force and violence by moving away from the stage to the real football fans.
Football stadiums, especially the first division should have a security department with a security director
I agree with the experts on the prevention of violence in football stadiums, that security in football stadiums currently depends heavily on private security cooperating with public safety in the prevention of criminal acts, but we believe in not too distant future will have this responsibility exclusively by implementing increasingly popular approach that the organization must ensure the security of the premises in which they develop this and any other mass event.
With affection,
Ruben
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