Steve Townsend: No families should suffer like mine after Mark's death at West Brom game

Mark Townsend went to watch his beloved West Bromwich Albion with his nephew Matthew at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough Stadium on September 28. He did not come home.

He died later at Northern General Hospital in the city after a heart attack. His heartbroken family and friends are preparing his funeral at Sandwell Crematorium today (Friday, October 25).

Mark's brother and best friend Steve, Matthew's dad, wants the failings he believes played out that fateful early afternoon to come to light and be resolved. Steve, 51 and six years younger than his brother, believes Hillsborough's Leppings Lane end is not fit for purpose and should be demolished. The ordeal took place in the same stand as the disaster that led to the loss of life of 97 men, women and children, mostly Liverpool supporters, attending an FA Cup semi-final in April 1989.

With the funeral and coroner's inquest at a date to follow, a thorough investigation will ensure all the distressing details of what went on high up in the stand are revealed. The clubs have vowed to co-operate in any investigations.

Statements will be gathered by the coroner from key eye-witnesses of the event. Steve has seen several dozen from those in and around the row his brother and son were sat.

"One of the statements I've seen from one of the guys working on our Mark, from one of the Albion fans, I read his and it knocked me out of kilter," Steve says in an interview with the Express & Star.

Mark's autopsy in Sheffield was brought forward a couple of weeks ago and his body returned to Oldbury, where he lived, two Mondays ago.

Father-of-three Steve grew up and attended Albion games with Mark for the best part of 40 years. They shared music taste – Paul Weller for Mark and The Smiths for Steve – and loved nothing more than to meet with Matthew for a mixed grill and a pint at the Sportsman before home games to "put the world to rights" before taking their seat in the Birmingham Road stand.

Steve's will now is that a failure of any protocol for such serious emergencies be addressed.

"The first failing is the stewards. There was only one with any form of communication and he was nowhere near," he adds. "Two of the first three stewards hardly spoke a word of English and just stood there, stunned and petrified.

"The organisation to clear the gangways to allow the paramedics up. I know Leppings Lane, it's really narrow to get up and the room next to seats is next-to-nothing.

"Every statement I have disputes Sheffield Wednesday's statement of three-to-four minutes (response time).

"There doesn't seem to have been any protocol. No planning or infrastructure to delegate who does what, or to clear gangways for access."

A Wednesday statement stated a paramedic response time of three-to-four minutes from radio contact. Countless Albion supporter eye-witnesses state between 10 to 15 minutes for paramedics to meet Mark, who was being treated by three medically-trained Albion fans, one an off-duty paramedic, one off-duty doctor, and an experienced trained first-aider.

Steve knows it took at least 10 minutes for paramedics to reach his brother as he has the call logs saved from his son, initially at 12.58pm until 1.10pm, when there was still no official aid.

He wants to know why a defibrillator took so long to reach his brother and why oxygen took longer still, until he was taken to the concourse. Witness accounts claim there was not sufficient space in the gangways to properly carry the stretcher down.

Steve claims, from accounts, a net was put up around his brother that barely covered him – "you could see everything going on under the net." Some stewards held coats to further cover, but it is said the stewards' manner was wholly inappropriate, including "laughing and joking", according to nine eye-witnesses, including Steve's son Matthew.

He wants to know why paramedics, either those outsourced privately or those called from Yorkshire medical services took so long to reach his brother. Why it took so long for any stewards to successfully communicate the severity of the situation and also why the game could not pause, despite several thousand away fans frantically waving and chanting. Match officials and some players were clearly aware of the situation.

Aligned with EFL rules, all clubs should have a matchday medical plan in place, featuring crowd medical teams. Protocol now is not to stop the game during a medical episode as most can be tended to while action continues. But those groups – and the match officials – can still pause the match.

Steve cannot understand why, particularly with the finances involved with Championship football in this country, the care his dying brother received from those in place to ensure spectator safety was not sufficient.

It took some time for Sheffield Wednesday to reach out to the family. They finally did so a couple of weeks ago, via Albion, asking for address details.

"By that stage it's nothing but a token gesture," Steve reflects. "I did the decent thing and asked Marion, Mark's wife, and my mum and they said if it was within a couple of days we'd have graciously received them, but in my mum's own words 'it sounds like something a solicitor has told them to do now'.

"The way they have handled it it feels like there is no meat around the bones. Like the gates have been closed and they are keeping tight-lipped. If there was the bare-minimum of duty of care they've just about scraped by it. They haven't gone over and above."

Mark leaves behind wife of 11 years Marion and parents Eileen and Tony. The whole family has struggled to come to terms with his sudden tragic loss of life.

Matthew, 21, was attending his first away match of the season with his uncle. They tended to take in half-a-dozen trips a season as a trio when they could and attended all home games.

He returned to work as an apprentice carpenter at Queen Alexandra College in Birmingham on Tuesday. Steve is off work from the BMW national factory plant at Hams Hall in Coleshill until at least early November. He works the tracks and Mark, who also worked at the BMW base, was a process supporter. He helped build engines including for brands such as Rolls Royce.

It is a very difficult time for the family. Steve's wife Joanne is currently in a wheelchair after a stroke and his dad Tony has Alzheimer's and requires the care of wife Eileen. The family have rallied together at their Harborne home while they thought it made sense for Marion, who is from Donegal in Ireland, to spend some time with family there.

"Matt's not terrible, but not brilliant. He took time off work, same as me, to get his head around things," Steve says.

"My mum's hands are full with dad. He kind of knows something's gone on but I don't think he fully grasps it. So that's a bit of a groundhog day. I'll be there for mum and give her a hug every morning.

"It's been hard, I try to find half an hour every day to stand outside and get my head straight. I don't think it's really sunk in.

"Matt said when we went to the (Middlesbrough) match 'it just feels like he's on a different shift to you dad, or he's popped to Ireland with Marion'. It will take some getting used to, it's very surreal, very numb.

"We thought it was right for Maz to be with family in Ireland to get away from it for a while."

A few days after Mark's passing Albion hosted Middlesbrough at The Hawthorns. The club placed a 'Mark 57' blue-and-white striped home shirt over his seat in the Brummie Road and Steve and Matthew were permitted early entrance to have a moment of reflection well ahead of kick-off. In the game there was an applause from all four stands, players and officials in minute 57.

Marion, plus two of her siblings, Eileen, Tony and Joanne were invited in the Tony Brown Suite and were very taken by the applause.

But something else, pre-match, left a lasting affect, as Steve speaks of the sheer class of Albion's handling of the situation from figureheads at the top of the club including owner Shilen Patel, who was in the country at the time, managing director Mark Miles and director of communications Ian Skidmore.

"We had a good chat for 20 minutes and a bit of a cry," Steve says of the pre-match reflection.

"We walked down to meet Ian Skidmore and as we walked across the pitch John Homer (Supporters' club chairman and respected Albion fan and historian) gave the most resounding rendition of The Lord's My Shepherd. I'd managed to keep it together pretty well until then.

"I can't thank him enough for it. It was beautiful, as touching as all four sides applauding in the 57th minute. Both will stay in my mind for a long time."

Steve adds: "Shilen was an absolutely beautiful gentleman. He knelt on the floor between my mum and dad and chatted to them for 15 minutes. He spoke at length with Marion and her sister for 20 minutes.

"Mark and Ian, I can't thank them enough for what they've done for us. They've been on the phone at any time. The way the Albion have handled themselves, you would have thought they were in the wrong for the effort they've put in to make sure the family are OK. A proper family-feel, from the stewards to the guy looking after the table where my mom and dad and Marion were sitting, his name was Billy. My wife, who is in a wheelchair, says he was lovely all the way through. Everyone was blown away by how we were treated."

Steve and Mark's mum, Eileen, sent the club a card to thank them for their care.

Since Mark's passing, Sheffield Wednesday supporter Richard Crisp pleaded guilty at Sheffield Magistrates' Court to sending communications of an indecent or offensive nature in the wake of the incident. His sick post also mocked the deaths of Liverpool supporters. Crisp, who was sacked by his employer, will be sentenced in January.

"He had no choice but to plead guilty," Steve adds. "Unfortunately every club seems to have an idiot. Unfortunately there's a sick side of the world where people think they are bulletproof from behind a screen.

"His actions have cost him his job and many other things. To throw in the 97 Liverpool fans...that was one of the saddest days in football ever. To make a joke about those and my brother dying in that ground. It spoke volumes when he was asked and gave no comment."

Otherwise the family have been heartened by the love from wider football fans, including more than £2,000 raised from a crowdfunder launched by a Wednesday fan. "Football fans get a bad press in general," he says. "People revert to the 1980s, but I've had messages of support from Falkirk to Torquay United, the length and breadth of the country and fans abroad. Rivalries go out the window."

Today will see Mark's funeral cortège pass The Hawthorns at 12.30pm where staff will greet it with a guard of honour before an open service at Sandwell Crematorium on Newton Road at 1pm. It is open to those who wish to pay their respects. The wake will take place at The Old Cross in Oldbury and Steve has promised the pub will be decked out blue and white.

"It's heartbreaking," Steve says. "The circumstances we've lost Mark. For the facilities and training not to be there, for the basic training in CPR, a defibrillator at two-and-a-half grand, it costs nothing."