Sheffield Wednesday must listen to fans to get to the bottom of a West Brom supporter's tragic death, writes IAN HERBERT - yet, it seems fair to say that the Owls do not take criticism well

Mark Townsend was not one to shout about things, but he could reflect with some satisfaction on life as he headed into West Bromwich to board a coach to watch his team play at Sheffield Wednesday 10 days ago.

His career in the Midlands motor industry, where he started in the paint shop of the Longbridge Rover plant, had taken him all the way to a foreman’s position, troubleshooting in the manufacture of BMW V8 and V12 engines for Jaguar Land Rover and Rolls-Royce at Birmingham’s Hams Hall plant.

He drove a BMW 3 Series — gun metal grey — and 41 years after starting out as a 16-year-old YTS lad, there was the prospect of finally retiring to the home he and wife Marion had been building in her native Donegal.

‘The windows and roof are on. He was thinking that by the middle of next year, that move would come,’ his brother, Steve, reflects. There had been no health scares.

There was nothing to suggest that the day of the Wednesday match would be any different. He was out of the house by 7am, leaving Marion — whom he met while on secondment at BMW’s Steyr plant in Austria — to plan her day.

The supporters’ coach left West Brom town centre at 7.30am and, though Steve was not with them, his nephew Matt — Steve’s son — was. A fry-up at Wetherspoons in Barnsley, messages exchanged on the WhatsApp group they call ‘Promotion Party’ and into Hillsborough for the 12.30pm kick-off, chanting and cracking jokes in the Leppings Lane end. Matt took a selfie of them both, which we publish here.

It was, by Matt’s estimate, just before Wednesday scored a 23rd-minute goal to go 2-0 up that Mark complained of feeling hot and was sitting down when everyone else was standing. It was a moment or two later, Matt says, that Mark slumped on to his nephew, his head ‘flopping’ as he describes it in the handwritten note that he has since written about the terrible hour which ensued.

Matt held on to Mark’s head and asked the fan next to him to summon a steward to help. Other fans in the row behind helped to hold Mark up and ‘take his body weight’, as Adrian Bates, sitting in the seat behind, describes it.

Adrian and his son spent time — two minutes, Adrian says — trying to clear space for first aid to be given and it was an Albion fan two rows back, a doctor, who stepped in. An off-duty paramedic also arrived to give her help, attempting CPR. A third fan — a young man — also assisted with CPR.

I have seen half a dozen of the written testimonies of those who witnessed what happened next and, if they do form a correct and accurate account, then Wednesday will have questions to answer about the stewarding that followed and the time it took to reach Mark. Wednesday, who responded immediately to my inquiry, have provided a detailed, very different account.

Adrian describes having difficulty making himself understood to a steward, then finding one who said she would need to find a supervisor to radio the control room, from where medical help could be called.

Adrian’s account puts the time of that supervising steward’s arrival at 10 minutes after Mark’s slump. He says that on 15 minutes ‘we saw the first stadium medical assistance arrive’.

Another witness, an occupational health officer who says he is a council health and safety manager, describes in his statement seeing a supervising steward radio for help, at his own request, five minutes after first hearing calls for ‘medic’ and ‘help now’. He says a paramedic arrived with a defibrillator after nine minutes.

Steve Townsend heard his son’s panic on an open mobile phone line as he tried to direct Matt and keep him calm.

In his written testimony, Matt describes being unable to make himself understood to a steward, and then shouting at a second to move faster, as he went for a supervisor. The health-officer witness describes how he offered to take the first medical officer’s defibrillator out while he applied pads to Mark’s chest.

He says that two ‘shocks’ were applied to Mark, but there was not enough battery for a third and that a second defibrillator was then connected to the pads. Amid the chaos, Wednesday fans chanted ‘stop the game’.

There are reports of a fan, Shaun, heading over the advertising hoarding and towards the pitch in an attempt to stop it and being marched out. More testimonies of this kind have been gathered by the West Brom podcast, The Liquidator.

Wednesday’s response to Albion fans’ complaints about the speed of the response came in a press release published on Sunday.

The club said that ‘advanced paramedic care was on the scene providing treatment’ within three minutes of the control room being notified, which was just over a minute after the nearest steward was alerted.

Wednesday, who from this season outsourced medical healthcare provision to private company Lamda Medical after a tendering process, told me that the number of medics — unspecified — at the game exceeded the number recommended in the Sports Ground Safety Guide, known as the Green Guide. South Yorkshire Ambulance Service also attend.

The club told me that their investigation into Mark’s death, including study of CCTV footage and interviews with staff, told them that ‘just over a minute’ elapsed between the first steward being alerted and the control room being notified. 

It then took a further two minutes and 58 seconds for the first medic to reach Mark. Medical professionals say a five-minute response time is vital.

Wednesday say it is standard practice for supervisors, not stewards, to have radios to reach the control room.

They say it is at the referee’s discretion to stop the match because of a medical emergency, and that doing so can create disturbances in the treatment of fans.

EFL protocols state that in the event of a medical emergency the game should continue, unless the welfare of the supporter is ‘specifically affected by the continuation of the match’. Wednesday say Hillsborough has 27 defibrillators, an above average number.

I have written here twice before in the past year about the state of Hillsborough, reporting which, I believe, fairly reflected the experiences of Newcastle supporters, squashed before a cup tie in scenes which later resulted in the capacity of the Leppings Lane stand being reduced.

I and my Mail Sport colleagues have been banned from the stadium ever since because of that reporting. It took a Freedom of Information request to obtain the minutes of Sheffield Council’s Hillsborough safety committee. It seems fair to say that Wednesday do not take criticism well.

I would hope the club, who have expressed their condolences, actively seek the testimony of Wednesday fans as part of an investigation which they do not limit to their own people.

I would hope West Brom fans who provide testimony are not castigated for it, as Newcastle fans were. Ultimately, a coroner’s inquest will consider the events.

Mark’s brother Steve certainly wants to know more.

At his home in the north Birmingham suburb of Kingstanding, he sat in the still of Monday morning, remembering some great away trips he and his brother enjoyed — Derby’s Baseball Ground and Stoke’s Victoria Ground sprang to mind — and golden afternoons at the Hawthorns, with Matt there, too. The Brummy Road End. Row LL. Seats 184, 185 and 186.

‘We’ll never sit together there again,’ he says. ‘It will never be the same there again.’