I'm really not sure it did from what I've seen, but I'll bow to someones superior knowledge on the matter if they can argue otherwise. It seems to me that the real cause of the tragedy, as you say, was nothing to do with those fans and would have occurred regardless of only ticket holders being there due to the shoddy standard of policing and unsafe nature of the stadium.
Hillsborough Inquests verdict - 96 Unlawfully Killed.
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I'm really not sure it did from what I've seen, but I'll bow to someones superior knowledge on the matter if they can argue otherwise. It seems to me that the real cause of the tragedy, as you say, was nothing to do with those fans and would have occurred regardless of only ticket holders being there due to the shoddy standard of policing and unsafe nature of the stadium.
Exactly
This is true. I do agree with SalfordRed1960 that ticketless fans could often be a problem. But for me it was a whole catelogue of circumstances. Traffic Delays causing fans to arrive late. A bit of panic because the match had started. Clueless police who just opened one gate. That gate gave onto a single tunnel which led to the central 2 pens. There was no way of fanning out to wider areas of the end. The pens were already full and so the concentration of fans caused the crush. The pens were built as part of Maggies push to curb terrace violence and pitch invasions, so there was no escape for the poor souls at the front. These safety issues had been pointed out to SWFC (their chairman had called it bollocks).
Other things too. Why put the Liverpool fans in that end of the ground. They clearly had a bigger following the Forest and the opposite end (spion kop) back then was fecking enormous. This had been the case in 77 when I was there for the Semi Final against Leeds. We were herded into the corner and I was fecking near crushed to death, while the Leeds fans were sat in groups on the terrace the other end eating pies and drinking beer. Health and safety was second best to traffic flow and police convenience.
Even with today's verdict completely exonerating the Liverpool fans, there are those who still think they have to shoulder some of the blame.
Ticketless fans didn't cause this. Alcohol didn't cause this. The police caused this.
Ticketless fans didn't cause this. Alcohol didn't cause this. The police caused this.
It shouldn't have happened, the victims should never have been blamed, and it shouldn't have took 3 decades for them to get their justice. I only hope that the families can find some solace in the fact that their loved ones' reputations haven't been tarnished by the lying authorities and press.
To defeat the British state, after a 27 year war, is truly remarkable. This should resonate far beyond football for anyone fighting injustice anywhere.
People didn't die the previous year when the same match was played between the same teams at the same venue, & both clubs had the same ends. So these so-called ticketless fans didn't contribute anyway to the tragedy for the simple reason there wasn't that many of them. I know this for a fact because I purchased 3 £6 tickets for the Leppings Lane End just 24 hours earlier at the club's ticket office. There was no mass rushing of the gates or the turnstiles. There was just a slow build-up of fans arriving at pretty much the same time in a very tight & compact area. The previous year saw a different police operation which was overseen by an experienced officer. A filter system was incorporated by the police which focused on getting as many fans as possible into the ground as early as possible, thus helping to reduce the risk of what happened 12 months later. Poor police leadership & planning was a key factor in what occurred that day.
Not helped by the experienced officer in '88 being transferred to Barnsley because his superior simply took against him.
I've read that the "contributing" test started from a baseline of how would a large football crowd visiting an unfamiliar stadium be reasonably expected to behave. In effect the Jury concluded that the same crowd going into a stadium equipped to deal with large crowds and being managed by a police force and ground staff used to dealing with them would have been OK.
In other words, they weren't violent. disorderly, exceptionally drunk. They weren't hooligans with a blood lust bent on getting into a fight with opposition fans or the police. They were just football fans going to a match.
From what I gathered he took against him in part because the officer, conscious of the danger, kept radioing in emergency calls - deemed too many, presumably causing the chief to take a break from his beer and do some paperwork.
Yep. Stupid to have a pop at him over nothing.
If anything, he deserves abuse for the boring nature of his tweets
Totally agree.
Human nature being what it is, i.e. the game had started, gate opened, fans want to see the match, it would have been natural to push your way in. Once the gates were opened control was lost. No different to people trying to push themselves onto the tube in London during rush hour once the door opens. I remember when United got Arsenal at Villa Park (the year we ended their treble hunt) we were caught up in traffic getting to Villa Park, when we arrived, there was an enormous rush and pushing to get in. We missed the first 5 mins. Like I say Human nature. That is why I thought strange they thought human nature of fans was not contributing once the gates had been opened by the police. Like others have said, bigger picture, if hooligans had not existed there would not have had the cages, and then this type of tragedy would not have happened.
We genuinely have one of the most integral Police services in the world. The events around Hillsborough were shocking but let's not tarnish over one hundred thousand Constables that keep us safe daily, based on an incident most of them wouldn't have even been in service for please.
I read it was unrelated to policing football. There was a junior PC who kept on radioing in his concerns while out and about doing his day job (unrelated to Hillsborough or football policing, just doing his normal day to day job). A load of his colleagues decided it would be a good wheeze to dress up in balaclavas pretending to capture said PC in a faked armed robbery. The experienced officer (Chief Superintendent Brian Mole), who got moved to Barnsley, was the boss of all these people - the junior PC and the other idiots - but did not take strong (enough for his boss) action against them. His superior, Chief Constable Peter Wright, took exception to this light handed approach, and took matters into his own hands, eventually culminating in some of those police officers who faked the armed robbery being fired and other serious repercussions. It was at that point that Wright, allegedly, took a disliking to Mole and got him shipped off to Barnsley as a punishment, whilst bringing in the inexperienced Duckenfield. The story is here in more detail, with more damning commentary about Peter Wright's involvement in both causing the disaster through poor leadership and then covering it all up afterwards: http://www.theguardian.com/football...-deadly-mistakes-and-lies-that-lasted-decades
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Yes, the Duckenfield-Mole switch is what came over most from that Guardian article for me
what does puzzle me is that for all the talk of a cover-up - SYP were allowed to succeed with it I suppose
Taylor had explicitly stated in the original report that fans were not to blame
that 1st inquest = bent as a £ 3 note, imo
Taylor had explicitly stated in the original report that fans were not to blame
that 1st inquest = bent as a £ 3 note, imo
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That was an excellent read. The part at the end where the off-duty policeman, who tried to give the Hicks sisters mouth-to-mouth, was very moving:
At the end of his evidence, Greaves asked if he could say a few words. A big man with a moustache, overcome with emotion, he then read something he had prepared, to a rapt courtroom. “Just mere words cannot comfort Trevor or Jenni Hicks, or remove their sense of loss, pain and utter devastation,” he said. “But I would like to take this opportunity to say to them that I did my very best for Sarah in the circumstances. I could not have done more. For the time I was with Sarah, Sarah was with someone who cared. Sarah was not alone.”
Really pleased for them. Twenty-seven years is a hell of a long time to have to watch the memory of your loved ones slandered. The truth is public knowledge now though.
I'm so very very happy for the families of the Hillsborough tragedy and my prayers go for the dead on that unfortunate day.
May they all Rest in Peace and my prayers go for all of them.
May they all Rest in Peace and my prayers go for all of them.
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I remember watching this unfold on TV, and just not believing what I saw. Then following the families fight for the truth over all those years. What they need now is justice. RIP to the victims and total respect to the families.
Fantastic news for the families and all those effected. Hopefully those responsible will be prosecuted and the 96 can finally rest in peace.
Huge respect to the people who pursued the truth and justice for so many years despite having skids put under them for so many years.
It's brilliant news yet equally heart wrenching and enraging that it's taken this long. Fair play to the families for continuing the fight. For me, partisan rivalries have no relevance when it comes to this disaster. I think most fans who remember the days of terraces have always had nothing but empathy for what those Liverpool fans went through.
http://www.theguardian.com/football...-deadly-mistakes-and-lies-that-lasted-decades
The video and CCTV footage in this story is shocking.
The empty stands either side of where so many died is inexcusable.
What an utterly sad waste of life and so entirely preventable.
It must be horrible to have lost someone or to lived through that and then watch the lies and deception of the past 27 years unfold.
Justice for the 96 - football fans
The video and CCTV footage in this story is shocking.
The empty stands either side of where so many died is inexcusable.
What an utterly sad waste of life and so entirely preventable.
It must be horrible to have lost someone or to lived through that and then watch the lies and deception of the past 27 years unfold.
Justice for the 96 - football fans
It's kind of frustrating that even after 27 years, everything that has come to light in the meantime and today's verdicts, there are still people who'll argue that the fans contributed to what happened.
It'll also be worth remembering the outpouring of emotion today from the families involved when we next hear Hillsborough chants from any of our supporters. This is why that sort of thing is so unacceptable. It's still understandably very raw for the families, the club and probably the city itself too.
It'll also be worth remembering the outpouring of emotion today from the families involved when we next hear Hillsborough chants from any of our supporters. This is why that sort of thing is so unacceptable. It's still understandably very raw for the families, the club and probably the city itself too.
Am I missing something? What's he done?
He got absolutely slaughtered in the replies and rightly so. Apparently he is a LFC club ambassador.
Amazed to learn that Kelvin Mackenzie still works for The Sun. I'd have thought they would have dropped him years ago...
What a brilliantly written, but hauntingly terrible article. What those people, on the day and for the 27 years following, have gone through beggars belief.
If the British Authorities are sincere in wanting to atone for these wrongs, there have to be prosecutions and real accountability following this. Jft96.
I was living in the UK at the time, watching it live on tv. It was gut wrenching to watch.
It was at the tail end of an era where football fan violence was still an issue and sadly at the time I bought into the reports it was caused by fans. That makes me angry, partly because I fell for it and partly because it was such a shitty thing for the authorities to do. So very glad that today the families of the fans get an official recognition that their loved ones were not to blame.
I would have all respect for the families if they saw this as having achieved what they set out to do, but if I was them I'd be pushing for an inquest into the role the media and the government played in the cover up. The rabbit hole goes way deeper than one negligent/incompetent police force.
I agree but there seems little point when, as we know from experience, the authorities would only be 'investigated' by their associates or, at very best, those rendered effectively powerless to punish any wrongdoing. And at the end of it, the old 'lessons have been learned/moves to ensure this never happens again' bollocks will be rolled out for yet another encore.
I'm assuming that tweeting about a lad farting, at a time when a decision had been reached on jf96, hasn't gone down too well.
I strongly suspect you're right for the time being, if simply because there's no way a Tory government is ever going to launch any sort of credible inquiry into something that could seriously implicate the Thatcher regime and therefore weaken the party's position
Most of tomorrows papers will have Hillsborough on the front page, not The Sun though. I wonder if they'll mention it at all.
Appalling newspaper. And what makes it worse is that they've always masqueraded as the friend of the man in the street.
I read their article earlier. No mention of their denial or an apology.
Yes, just seen that Sun front page on the BBC, what the papers say. Bloody hell. I guess if they'd led with it we'd have all called them hypocrites, but to drop it from the front page entirely. Incredible.
Also, how they think Cameron being on What'sApp is a bigger story than the Hillsborough verdict is laughable at the very least.
Not on The Times' front page either. Murdoch ...