Hillsborough - The Search for Truth

[Sky Blue]

I was only 17 at the time. As a neutral, I didnt enjoy the experience - which is why,fortunately, I turned down the chance to go the following year.................

17 at the time you say ??

Hmmmmm? Posted after the FA Cup win in 2011

Im 52yrs old. I was at the '81 Final stood next to an old boy of 8oyrs bedecked in City memorabelia who cried when we lost. He made me promise I'd think of him when we won it again - never knew his name.
I thought of him at the final whistle...................and couldnt keep the tears in. Rest easy now mate.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

I was only 17 at the time. As a neutral, I didnt enjoy the experience - which is why,fortunately, I turned down the chance to go the following year.................

17 at the time you say ??

Hmmmmm? Posted after the FA Cup win in 2011

Im 52yrs old. I was at the '81 Final stood next to an old boy of 8oyrs bedecked in City memorabelia who cried when we lost. He made me promise I'd think of him when we won it again - never knew his name.
I thought of him at the final whistle...................and couldnt keep the tears in. Rest easy now mate.

Maybe he's a Time-Lord.

 

[Sky Blue]

I was only 17 at the time. As a neutral, I didnt enjoy the experience - which is why,fortunately, I turned down the chance to go the following year.................

17 at the time you say ??

Hmmmmm? Posted after the FA Cup win in 2011

Im 52yrs old. I was at the '81 Final stood next to an old boy of 8oyrs bedecked in City memorabelia who cried when we lost. He made me promise I'd think of him when we won it again - never knew his name.
I thought of him at the final whistle...................and couldnt keep the tears in. Rest easy now mate.

Maybe he's a Time-Lord.

Nah, just a shit liar...

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

17 at the time you say ??

Hmmmmm? Posted after the FA Cup win in 2011

Maybe he's a Time-Lord.

Nah, just a shit liar...

There's no good reason he can't be both.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

But nobody is going to convince me that a large contingent of fans didn't travel to that match without a ticket, or outrageously drunk, or for the express purpose of causing trouble - and that created the conditions for this disaster to happen. I see that happening today all the time. Regardless of what reports claim, if people with no business being there weren't there, this would not have happened.

Well thank goodness we have clear-sighted people like you who can see through cynical government cover-ups and whitewashes such as the Taylor Report and the Hillsborough Independent Panel, which have duped the vast majority of people, including the victims' families.

By the way - just in case your obvious lack of brain cells prevents you from seeing it, I was being sarcastic. You're an utter arsehole of the highest order for coming out with something like that, against all the documented evidence to the contrary. Sorry if that's harsh but I really don't know what else to say.

 

[CheethamHillBlue]

Call me a liar IF YOU were there - but you cant because you weren't and im not lying.

Nobody is accusing you of being a liar. It's more a case of you not being able to remember clearly.
Maybe your mindset was distorted by the fact you were either 17 or nearly 30 based on another of your posts.
Just sit back and let people with an open mind on what REALLY happened decide the full facts.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

All sides of this are looking to place absolute blame on somebody. In my opinion the blame is to be shared. As mentioned, nobody deserved to die, and nobody intended anybody to die. But nobody is going to convince me that a large contingent of fans didn't travel to that match without a ticket, or outrageously drunk, or for the express purpose of causing trouble - and that created the conditions for this disaster to happen. I see that happening today all the time. Regardless of what reports claim, if people with no business being there weren't there, this would not have happened. Add the Police's complete mismanagement of the situation and subsequent cowardice and we have Hillsborough.

The police fucked it up enormously, but ticketless fans created the dangerous conditions to begin with. There are no innocent parties when 96 people die at a football match.

I think you are missing the point. Whenever a crowd of people converge there will always be a capacity for matters to develop in an unexpected and unfortunate way. It is difficult to see how anyone could argue otherwise.

In a civilised, sophisticated society we have mechanisms and institutions in place to manage this. This event was not unexpected and its location would have been known for some time. Moreover there had been, as has been alluded to, issues at this venue in previous years. It is the job of those institutions, (whose controlling minds are well paid from public funds and who enjoy greater powers than other citizens) to ensure that all reasonable steps are taken to ensure that the event passes off safely.

The fact that things went wrong should be expected, rather than seen as some intervening, wholly unpredictable, uncontrollable force. The fact that SYP failed to deal with it is the issue here, not what manifested on the day.

It seems to me that there was nothing in what has been alleged against the Liverpool fans, even taken at its highest, that should allow SYP to hide behind, as some sort of get out of jail card. As I previously said, with power comes responsibility, or rather it should.

The Police were the only meaningful contributory factor, because they had the power to prevent it happening and failed, and comments about a few pissed up football fans, which happens at every game, in no way militates against that.

 

[East Level 2]

The point about ticketless fans being an issue is tricky to evaluate.
The majority who died were crushed at the front of the terraces. Anybody arriving late and rushing the gates (original story) or forcing their way through gates opened by the police (corrected story) would probably have survived whether they had tickets or not.
Liverpool fans have a reputation for travelling to games without tickets. Certainly this was claimed at the time, and again after the more recent CL final in Athens where many got in the stadium because there were no proper turnstiles. Whether this was true in the late 80s is another matter.
What we do know, or at least what those who went to away games in the 70s and 80s know, is that Liverpool fans could be a right set of tw*ts.
But we also know they had been playing in semi-finals on a regular basis for two decades before Hillsborough so their reputation and behaviour patterns would have been know to the police who should have been aware of problems likely to be caused.
The design of the approach to the Leppings Lane end used to have a funnelling effect that created problems so the approach to the turnstiles should have been regulated. There were problems at the same end with Liverpool fans being crushed (but not fatally) in the previous season, and eight seasons earlier Spurs fans had similar problems.
The police should have known about this and acted accordingly. It seems to me that the crushes of 1981 and 1988 were ignored by everybody concerned simply because nobody was killed.
The police, the FA and the ground licencing authority (Hillsborough didn't have a safety certificate according to several reports) all have a lot of questions still to answer.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

The point about ticketless fans being an issue is tricky to evaluate.

It is in one sense but actually quite easy in another. While your post doesn't come anywhere near the level of utter stupidity that our Chelsea fan demonstrated there are a few misconceptions in it.

First, although we will never know how many travelled without tickets, Taylor was quite clear that from all available evidence the number of people inside that part of the ground closely matched the number of tickets issued. He concluded that it was impossible to discount the fact that ticketless fans had gained entry but, if they had, the numbers were minimal and they played no significant part in the events of that day.

You also mentioned 1988 and looking at the policing that game is interesting. The commander of that operation CS Mole, had a well-developed plan that involved a heavy police presence on the approaches to Leppings Lane. They were checking tickets, intercepting touts and generally ensuring that the flow of people was regulated. So they'd hold up the crowd if the area around the turnstiles was getting congested.

Also, as I've said above, the tunnel to the central pens was closed off at 2:45pm as it was felt it was getting crowded. People did report it was a bit of a crush in those central pens but no one was injured or killed, probably as a result of that action. However, in early 1989, Mole was removed as Gold Commander and replaced by Duckenfield, who had no experience of these sort of events, when Murray, Mole's deputy, would probably have been the more obvious candidate.

Duckenfield completely ignored Mole's operational plan and pared down the police presence on the external approaches, as well as failing to ensure the crowd build up in the central pen was monitored and controlled.

 

[St Helens Blue (Exiled)]

All sides of this are looking to place absolute blame on somebody. In my opinion the blame is to be shared. As mentioned, nobody deserved to die, and nobody intended anybody to die. But nobody is going to convince me that a large contingent of fans didn't travel to that match without a ticket, or outrageously drunk, or for the express purpose of causing trouble - and that created the conditions for this disaster to happen. I see that happening today all the time. Regardless of what reports claim, if people with no business being there weren't there, this would not have happened. Add the Police's complete mismanagement of the situation and subsequent cowardice and we have Hillsborough.

The police fucked it up enormously, but ticketless fans created the dangerous conditions to begin with. There are no innocent parties when 96 people die at a football match.

I think you are missing the point. Whenever a crowd of people converge there will always be a capacity for matters to develop in an unexpected and unfortunate way. It is difficult to see how anyone could argue otherwise.

In a civilised, sophisticated society we have mechanisms and institutions in place to manage this. This event was not unexpected and its location would have been known for some time. Moreover there had been, as has been alluded to, issues at this venue in previous years. It is the job of those institutions, (whose controlling minds are well paid from public funds and who enjoy greater powers than other citizens) to ensure that all reasonable steps are taken to ensure that the event passes off safely.

The fact that things went wrong should be expected, rather than seen as some intervening, wholly unpredictable, uncontrollable force. The fact that SYP failed to deal with it is the issue here, not what manifested on the day.

It seems to me that there was nothing in what has been alleged against the Liverpool fans, even taken at its highest, that should allow SYP to hide behind, as some sort of get out of jail card. As I previously said, with power comes responsibility, or rather it should.

The Police were the only meaningful contributory factor, because they had the power to prevent it happening and failed, and comments about a few pissed up football fans, which happens at every game, in no way militates against that.

I am the one of the polices biggest supporters however you are spot on mate.
The only people to blame for this are the police-Not so much the constables on the ground,I believe they tried there hardest to help but moreso the fucking senior ranks in the control room etc who conspired to cover this up. Telling police officers to change there statements etc is simply criminal.
All they had to do was block the tunnel leading to the 2 central pens in the leppings lane yet they didn't.
We all get drunk at football matches.Good policing,and all seater stadia prevent things like this happening again.