johnny on the spot
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Great stuff from Andy Burnham in parliament.
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Hillsborough verdicts reached
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MancunianCitizen
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The fans behaved like 'old fans do'. What stabbing and murdering each other. The tension between the 'old fans' and the Police massively contributed to the disaster. The atmosphere at the games, during those times, was unbearably intimating. If football fans during that period were all well behaved, the general public wouldn't have believed the Police or the media. However, because the whole nation knew how supporters behaved the story seemed totally plausible. We were banned from Europe during that period because we behaved like animals. I remember the Police literally treating us like animals, because that's how we behaved. It's like we've completely forgotten how we were.
Look no one will argue that fans back then were out of control well I won't anyway from what I've seen on YouTube and what my Dad and Grandad have told me they were some horror stories back then and to be honest I really don't blame people for believing the fans were to blame at first but the people that still believe that now rather have an agenda or are sorry to say completes idiots.
I was at that match - there was a fatal accident en route and thousands of blues dropped on Anfield pretty much simultaneously just prior to kick-off. While the severity of the situation was nowhere near what it was at Hillsborough it was still quite hairy and the behaviour of Merseyside police that night - particularly in light of what had gone on at Hillsborough all those years before - was a fucking disgrace. Not to mention that stark refusal to put the kick-off time back.
I arrived at the stadium 5 mins before KO and walked through an empty turnstile. I was amazed the next day to read of the problems faced by City fans. I'm absolutely not saying I disbelieve anyone, I just can't for the life of me understand how I got in so easily!
mancityvstoke
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when you got into the stand was it packed with the aisle's full too? I got in 15 minutes after kick offI arrived at the stadium 5 mins before KO and walked through an empty turnstile. I was amazed the next day to read of the problems faced by City fans. I'm absolutely not shying I disbelieve anyone, I just can't for the life of me understand how I got in so easily!
MancunianCitizen
Well-Known Member
I arrived at the stadium 5 mins before KO and walked through an empty turnstile. I was amazed the next day to read of the problems faced by City fans. I'm absolutely not saying I disbelieve anyone, I just can't for the life of me understand how I got in so easily!
Our coach got caught in traffic so I expected as soon as we got there we would go straight in as late arrivals walked to the away end to see City fans all over the place waiting to get in, It wasn't scary at first just waiting to get in then one of the stewards thought it would be a good idea to push City fans back that angered the fans even more some of Blues I was talking too said they had been there for quite a while then the police added to it as well, Just general incompetence from stewards and police is what caused most of the problems.
Kenny Clements Perm
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Mate, are you telling me that game was completely different to all the other games during that period. It's horrible what happened that day; of course it is. That policeman should have never had ordered for the gate to be opened, but his judgment was based on his own experiences of dealing with football fans. Even if the football fans had, in this instance, behaved impeccably, their behaviour leading up to the disaster had an indirect effect. Remember this was at a time when football fans were accidentally murdering other fans. I'm not a policeman but I can imagine the pressure they were under. They were dealing with tens of thousands of individuals, who (even though not the case at Hillsborough) had a consistent ability to riot.
are youLook no one will argue that fans back then were out of control well I won't anyway from what I've seen on YouTube and what my Dad and Grandad have told me they were some horror stories back then and to be honest I really don't blame people for believing the fans were to blame at first but the people that still believe that now rather have an agenda or are sorry to say completes idiots.
Slightly off topic, they interviewed the Hillsborough match referee on Talksport earlier. He mentioned that he also refereed the City v spurs pitch invasion cup tie. He said that at the end of that game the police commander gave him a bollocking for awarding Spurs a penalty after the game was re-started.
MillionMilesAway
Well-Known Member
Mate, are you telling me that game was completely different to all the other games during that period. It's horrible what happened that day; of course it is. That policeman should have never had ordered for the gate to be opened, but his judgment was based on his own experiences of dealing with football fans. Even if the football fans had, in this instance, behaved impeccably, their behaviour leading up to the disaster had an indirect effect. Remember this was at a time when football fans were accidentally murdering other fans. I'm not a policeman but I can imagine the pressure they were under. They were dealing with tens of thousands of individuals, who (even though not the case at Hillsborough) had a consistent ability to riot.
are you
What point are you trying to make here?
Fans weren't angels back in the 80s - everyone knows that.
But fan behaviour was not the cause of the Hillsborough disaster - multiple factors all together, including poor decisions by various police officers, ambulance services, stadium operators were, and the image built up on it was aided and abetted, proabbly knowingly, by tabloid filth and politicians.
So, what is your point?
FanchesterCity
Well-Known Member
Crowd behaviour was what it was - it's was a known quantity and that is what the authorities were tasked with controlling.
If you host a Take That concert, you can expect a lot of screaming women, so you might like to consider reallocating some of the men's loos to women etc - i.e. there's a pattern of behaviour.
If you host a cup final at Wembley between two North West teams, you can predict that the M6 will be full of supporters.
In the same way, they KNEW 25K Liverpool fans would be arriving. Yes, some would have had a drink in a pub before the match (like many of our fans do today). Maybe a few would be drunk, maybe some would be aggressive - that's 'normal' for a crowd of 25K. It would almost certainly have been the same amongst the Forest fans. The whole drinking thing was a red herring used by SYP. Look at how many have a drink at City at half time - loads! - but if anything happened and the police then started to say 'they'd had a drink' - you'd be fuming at the implication that was a factor.
If City scored a goal and there was a crush, someone might say 'it's the fans fault for celebrating too enthusiastically'. That's why there are measures put in place to mitigate known behaviours in crowds.
There were traffic delays en-route the the stadium, and there also a football wide tendency for crowds to arrive later then they probably should (still happens today). The police had in the past put out cordons to stop congregation at the Leppings Lane end, but that year, they cut back on the policing, and didn't bother with the cordons. The inevitable happened, and crowds started to congest. This STILL happens today, even at City's modern day turnstiles - you will find the queue congesting at the front then people being a little more spread out towards the back of a queue.
On top of that, the turnstiles did not have the ability to process the numbers of fans in the available time - i.e. they were a bottleneck, and a dangerous one at that.
These were all PREDICTABLE and PREVENTABLE issues that were overlooked or ignored. There had been previous incidents at the Leppings Lane end, but no fatalities, so they had 'gotten away with it' before, so to speak.
When the question is asked 'did the crowd behaviour contribute to the disaster' - the word 'the' is important... i.e. did THE (that) crowd behaviour contribute in a way that another crowd wouldn't, and the answer is no.
Crowds increase danger - and that's where I think some are making the leap to 'crowds increase danger therefore the crowd contributed to the disaster'.
It's like asking 'did the racing car contribute to the death of Ayrton Senna'. It's not asking if racing cars are dangerous (they are), but asking if there was some specific flaw in that specific racing car above and beyond that normal expectation of racing car danger.
And that's what the question really is - 'Did the fans behave in a way that was outside the normal expectations of a crowd of that size' and the answer was no.
The Liverpool fans didn't do anything differently - the police did - they cut back on numbers, didn't implement cordons and didn't delay the kickoff - something they'd done previously when necessary.
On top of that, they then failed to close the tunnel (something which they had done on previous occasions). The crowd did what crowds do - and headed for the tunnel (which is precisely why it had been closed in the past). A surge of fans at the back of a queue has very little understanding of the deadly crush they are causing ahead of them, and by the time they realised it, they couldn't get out because yet more fans were coming in.
If you host a Take That concert, you can expect a lot of screaming women, so you might like to consider reallocating some of the men's loos to women etc - i.e. there's a pattern of behaviour.
If you host a cup final at Wembley between two North West teams, you can predict that the M6 will be full of supporters.
In the same way, they KNEW 25K Liverpool fans would be arriving. Yes, some would have had a drink in a pub before the match (like many of our fans do today). Maybe a few would be drunk, maybe some would be aggressive - that's 'normal' for a crowd of 25K. It would almost certainly have been the same amongst the Forest fans. The whole drinking thing was a red herring used by SYP. Look at how many have a drink at City at half time - loads! - but if anything happened and the police then started to say 'they'd had a drink' - you'd be fuming at the implication that was a factor.
If City scored a goal and there was a crush, someone might say 'it's the fans fault for celebrating too enthusiastically'. That's why there are measures put in place to mitigate known behaviours in crowds.
There were traffic delays en-route the the stadium, and there also a football wide tendency for crowds to arrive later then they probably should (still happens today). The police had in the past put out cordons to stop congregation at the Leppings Lane end, but that year, they cut back on the policing, and didn't bother with the cordons. The inevitable happened, and crowds started to congest. This STILL happens today, even at City's modern day turnstiles - you will find the queue congesting at the front then people being a little more spread out towards the back of a queue.
On top of that, the turnstiles did not have the ability to process the numbers of fans in the available time - i.e. they were a bottleneck, and a dangerous one at that.
These were all PREDICTABLE and PREVENTABLE issues that were overlooked or ignored. There had been previous incidents at the Leppings Lane end, but no fatalities, so they had 'gotten away with it' before, so to speak.
When the question is asked 'did the crowd behaviour contribute to the disaster' - the word 'the' is important... i.e. did THE (that) crowd behaviour contribute in a way that another crowd wouldn't, and the answer is no.
Crowds increase danger - and that's where I think some are making the leap to 'crowds increase danger therefore the crowd contributed to the disaster'.
It's like asking 'did the racing car contribute to the death of Ayrton Senna'. It's not asking if racing cars are dangerous (they are), but asking if there was some specific flaw in that specific racing car above and beyond that normal expectation of racing car danger.
And that's what the question really is - 'Did the fans behave in a way that was outside the normal expectations of a crowd of that size' and the answer was no.
The Liverpool fans didn't do anything differently - the police did - they cut back on numbers, didn't implement cordons and didn't delay the kickoff - something they'd done previously when necessary.
On top of that, they then failed to close the tunnel (something which they had done on previous occasions). The crowd did what crowds do - and headed for the tunnel (which is precisely why it had been closed in the past). A surge of fans at the back of a queue has very little understanding of the deadly crush they are causing ahead of them, and by the time they realised it, they couldn't get out because yet more fans were coming in.
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johnny on the spot
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Some great posts in this thread. Some shit ones as well.