1988-89 in English football

The 1988–89 season was the 109th season of competitive football in England.

The season saw Arsenal win their first league title for 18 years, in dramatic fashion, as they beat defending champions Liverpool 2-0 at Anfield to clinch the title on amount of goals scored. Liverpool had won the FA Cup six days earlier and for the second season running missed out on a unique second double. Third placed Nottingham Forest lifted both the Football League Cup and Full Members Cup. The ban on English clubs was now in its fourth season and UEFA then voted for it to continue for a fifth season.

The season was overshadowed by the Hillsborough disaster on 15 April 1989, which resulted in the death of 94 Liverpool fans (the death total eventually reached 96) in a crowd crush at the FA Cup semi-final.

On 15 April, a crowd crush at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough killed 94 people and injured more than 300. A 95th Liverpool supporter died in hospital shortly after. The final death toll became 96 in March 1993, when Tony Bland died after being in a coma for nearly four years. A subsequent inquiry into the tragedy led to the Taylor Report, in which Lord Justice Taylor of Gosforth ordered that all top division clubs should have all-seater stadiums from the 1994–95 season onwards.

One of the biggest changes in the history of football on television began in this season, as ITV gained exclusive rights to show Football League matches, both in live and highlights form. Most of their coverage was of live matches on Sunday afternoons of top-flight games. They would hold the exclusive rights until 1992, when they lost coverage of the newly formed Premier League to Sky Television.

It ended a long-term partnership with the BBC, who in turn struck up a partnership with the FA for exclusive coverage of the FA Cup. The BBC did not show another live English league match until 2009.

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