David Conn has been named as football journalist of the year at the MBNA Northwest Football Awards. The judging panel said the Guardian writer Conn had been selected “in recognition of his standout investigative work relating to the Hillsborough disaster”.
Conn has written about the disaster for 20 years and covered the 2014-16 inquests extensively for the Guardian. “I would like to pay tribute to the Hillsborough families for the love that they demonstrated for their relatives who died and for their strength and loyalty in pursuing justice for 27 years,” he said.
Andy Burnham MP praised Conn, making particular mention of an article on the 20th anniversary of the disaster in 2009 about the families’ continuing fight for justice, which led him to call for all the documents relating to Hillsborough to be disclosed. That led to the establishment of the Hillsborough independent panel report of 2012, the quashing of the first inquest and the new inquest which produced the verdict of unlawful killing and exonerated the Liverpool supporters this year.