Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher met members of the Football Association’s hierarchy, club bosses and even football correspondents in the days after one of football’s worst incidents to gather views on what should be done to tackle hooliganism.

The Heysel Stadium disaster of May 29, 1985 – the European Cup Final between Liverpool and Italian club Juventus in Brussels, Belgium ­– left 39 dead and 600 injured.

It shook football to the core and prompted those in the game to call for drastic action.

In the immediate aftermath Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher issued a statement saying: “Those responsible have brought shame and disgrace to their country and to football”, later saying it had left everyone “worse than numb”.

She also wrote to the Belgian and French leaders, telling them, “no words can adequately express the horror and revulsion” of the events.

The government and football authorities had long struggled to combat the hooliganism that threatened to consume the national game in the 1980s, and files released by the National Archives in Kew, west London reveal a sense of despair over the issue.

On March 11, 1985 – two days before disgraceful scenes at a match between Luton Town and Millwall left around 80 injured – Ted Croker, the FA’s general secretary, admitted in a letter to Minister for Sport Neil Macfarlane that despite concerted efforts, “no panacea to crowd problems has emerged”.

He said: “Virtually every suggestion put forward has been tried before. God forbid that we ever admit publicly that hooliganism will remain part of football for the foreseeable future, but I fear that that is the conclusion one must reach and therefore deterrents must be continually sought.”

Croker also told him he believed the action the FA was able to take “can do no more than scratch the surface of this problem”, and looked forward to hearing the government’s own proposals.

The stance drew condemnation from the Prime Minister’s press secretary Bernard Ingham, who said to her in a memo: “My own view is that the FA and the FL (Football League) should be roasted; should be told in no uncertain terms that it is their game and they must act to make it wholesome; that the Government requires them to come back within a month to tell you what they propose to do for the 1985-1986 season.”

But the Heysel disaster in May 1985 prompted immediate action.

In the aftermath Thatcher held urgent discussions with ministers, the FA hierarchy, Liverpool chairman John Smith and Oxford United chairman Robert Maxwell, as well as journalists who had been at the disaster.

Those responsible have brought shame and disgrace to their country and to football

In a meeting on May 30, she suggested to Macfarlane that, in the likelihood of English clubs receiving a lengthy ban from European competitions, “it might be best for the Football Association itself to volunteer to withdraw English participation”.

She also called for the fast-tracking of a Bill to legislate on having alcohol in sports grounds.

The following day Maxwell, the former MP, Oxford United chairman and owner of the Mirror Group, warned Thatcher in a private meeting against expecting too much from the FA and the FL, saying they were “internally divided, had no machinery and no resources and their ability to implement anything was extremely limited”.

He also urged that the FA should withdraw English clubs from European competition before they were excluded by Uefa, that police should take “full responsibility” for policing grounds, rather than being “hired agents” of clubs, and that the FA’s levy on transfer fees should be raised from five per cent to 15 per cent, with the proceeds going towards ground safety. And he also suggested a committee be set up involving the FA, the FL and the Minister for Sport to look at the way forward for football, volunteering to chair it himself.

In a letter on June 2 to Thatcher, the FA, the FL and the chairmen of all football league clubs, Maxwell called for emergency powers to be voted in. He wrote: “We have procrastinated long enough ... As the chairmen of the League Clubs, the ultimate responsibility is ours. We must not duck it. Even if we wanted to, the government and the nation would not allow it.

“I would wish to propose at our annual general meeting on Friday, June 7 that the League Management Committee be voted emergency powers for the next 90 days – effectively, into the start of the new season – to take whatever action, however drastic, to restore confidence in our national game and in co-operation with the government to help resolve the crisis of violence.”

In a further meeting, Liverpool chairman Smith told Thatcher he had decided to withdraw the club from European competition even before the announcement of a ban, but lambasted the policing of and arrangements for the match as “totally inadequate”.

There was “substantial evidence” of National Front (NF) activity at the match, he said, and he was accosted himself by six NF hooligans who “claimed to be proud of their night’s work”.

Smith said he endorsed a ban on visiting spectators and would consider the introduction of membership cards.

But bosses from the FA told the prime minister they were sceptical about such a scheme, which they though could be too easily abused.

Football journalists from the BBC, national newspapers and the Press Association also told Thatcher they thought hooligans were “for the most part unreachable”, saw themselves as “alien and outcast” and people whose aspirations were measured in “territory won and injury and damage caused”.

They suggested that hooliganism was a “social phenomenon rather than a football phenomenon”, and so would reappear elsewhere, which Thatcher suggested might make it more easily controllable.

The impact of Heysel was felt by football for years to come. English clubs were banned from European competition for five years – six for Liverpool – but the disaster also accelerated efforts to fight hooliganism and improve safety in sports grounds.