Hillsborough verdicts reached

[M18CTID]

crime report for 2 CCTV video tapes that went missing from locked & alarmed control room at Hillsborough
= huge cover-up

Fucking hell, never seen that before.

 

[paulchapo]

Well done to all those brave people who fought so hard for their loved ones who died in such a horrible way just going to watch a football match.That it has taken 27 years to get the truth out of the lying gutless bastards is beyond belief,it just goes to show how hard they fight to protect their own!

For those not around or too young at that time to remember, football fans and the working class were considered utter scum by the Thatcher government and add Northern.....and scouse.... football fans into the mix and they would have happily exterminated the lot of us. They covered it up and lied,aided and abetted by Murdoch's rags because people like us didn't matter or count in their world.

People can slag off the Scousers and mock them but I doubt any other group of people would have fought against all the odds for so long and not given up. It is just a pity half of the bastards who contributed to this are now dead. The ones left should be fast tracked into the dock and suffer, just like their lies made those families suffer all these years!

 

[trotsky]

It really could have been any club at the time.
Every decision made by officials seems to have been the wrong one.Even at the very beginning the choice of ends was wrong.
Appalling to try and cover it up and then to take so long to reveal the truth. Just imagine if a similar tragedy had happened at our semi-final last night and then we had to wait until 2043 for the truth to be discovered.
Some matters are above football rivalries

 

[FanchesterCity]

But Taylor didn't say there were no ticketless fans and that none had been drinking. What he did say was that there were clearly fans who had been drinking and even a minority that were the worse for drink. However he concluded that this played no significant part in the events that transpired. In fact, here's exactly what he did report:



The number of fans in the Leppings Lane pens was estimated to be pretty consistent with the number of tickets sold. The HSE estimated a range with a maximum of 10,124 in the Leppings Lane terrace compared to the 10,100 tickets sold. Their best estimate was 9,724. Had there been 2,000 more than there should have been, then you could have said that fans jibbing in may have played a significant part. But at the very most, there were possibly a couple of dozen extra people inside. More than likely there were actually less than the capacity of that area of the ground. But even if there were fans who'd had a drink or two, and who had jibbed in, does that justify or excuse the deaths of those 96 people?

If there was an incident at City - I would expect about 10-20% will have had a drink, and at a cup semi-final or final (day trip out) the figures will be higher still. It was all too easy to play the 'lager louts' card and for people to buy into it.

Any decent planning for a major event will (or should) take into account factors such as those arriving without tickets, and the availability of alcohol around the venue etc - it's all standard stuff now, and was even back then. Failure to anticipate it is negligent - however, I don't believe the police failed to anticipate it, they just used it as an excuse after the fact. They failed to recognise that the throughput of the turnstiles was insufficient and that the design of the Leppings Lane 'wedge / funnel' was highly conducive to congestion unless cordons were put in place.

Quite perversely (in hindsight) in league matches they used to fill the pens up one by one, but in Cup Semi-Finals they let the fans 'find their own level' - although in reality it was nigh on impossible to find their own level and few fans were aware it was possible (via small gates at the back of the pens to get into the adjacent ones). It seems rather strange in retrospect that they did more careful management of the pens when it was less necessary - but it all seems to bloody obvious now, it clearly wasn't so obvious at the time :-(

Forest had 29K tickets and 60 turnstiles. Liverpool had 23K tickets and 23 turnstiles. The Forest turnstiles where spread out across two entire sides of the stadium, whilst the 23 for Liverpool were all crammed into a funnel shaped concourse - converging at the turnstiles. It's little wonder they poured into it like water and caused crushing outside of the ground.

 

[FanchesterCity]

The basic truth was revealed in 1989 in the Taylor report.
All that's new is more detail on the precise nature and timing of the deaths (which in many cases still leaves a lot of uncertainty, but at least they have as much evidence as they could hope for - which they hadn't previously). They also now know a lot more about the behaviour of SYP during the aftermath. But as far as the basic facts of the disaster and where the blame lay, that was established in 89.

 

[johnnytapia]

But Taylor didn't say there were no ticketless fans and that none had been drinking. What he did say was that there were clearly fans who had been drinking and even a minority that were the worse for drink. However he concluded that this played no significant part in the events that transpired. In fact, here's exactly what he did report:



The number of fans in the Leppings Lane pens was estimated to be pretty consistent with the number of tickets sold. The HSE estimated a range with a maximum of 10,124 in the Leppings Lane terrace compared to the 10,100 tickets sold. Their best estimate was 9,724. Had there been 2,000 more than there should have been, then you could have said that fans jibbing in may have played a significant part. But at the very most, there were possibly a couple of dozen extra people inside. More than likely there were actually less than the capacity of that area of the ground.

But even if there were fans who'd had a drink or two, and who had jibbed in, does that justify or excuse the deaths of those 96 people?

Nowhere do I talk about justification or excuses for the deaths of 96 people. Your words, not mine. Read what Taylor said. Lots of "estimates" in there. Lots of "majority of fans" "the general feeling" "most people" etc. You talk of "estimated" ..."pretty consistent", "estimated ranges" .And yet, and yet, for those of us who were attending matches in those days, those of us who knew what fans would and could do to get into a ground, I think we know that, whilst nobody deserved to die at a football match, all the finger pointing at SYP and SWFC, it kind of glosses over the reality of football then. Sorry, I don't buy it. And nor, judging by the conversation in and around the ground last night, do the "majority" (to coin a Taylor specialism) of City fans who were of a similar ilk to the Liverpool fans that day.

It was a shocking event. But let's not lose a grip of reality. And the reality was "the sheer number of fans anxious to gain entry".

 

[FanchesterCity]

Abso

Nowhere do I talk about justification or excuses for the deaths of 96 people. Your words, not mine. Read what Taylor said. Lots of "estimates" in there. Lots of "majority of fans" "the general feeling" "most people" etc. You talk of "estimated" ..."pretty consistent", "estimated ranges" .And yet, and yet, for those of us who were attending matches in those days, those of us who knew what fans would and could do to get into a ground, I think we know that, whilst nobody deserved to die at a football match, all the finger pointing at SYP and SWFC, it kind of glosses over the reality of football then. Sorry, I don't buy it. And nor, judging by the conversation in and around the ground last night, do the "majority" (to coin a Taylor specialism) of City fans who were of a similar ilk to the Liverpool fans that day.

It was a shocking event. But let's not lose a grip of reality. And the reality was "the sheer number of fans anxious to gain entry".

Absolutely wrong

Yes, they had all the normal attributes of a set of fans, and that, you're correct.
But it was not the sheer number of fans anxious to gain entry that caused the disaster - it was the normal number of fans for a semi final, exhibiting all the same behaviours as previous matches, however the policing changed and the the allocation of ends was highly dubious.
The turnstiles could not cope - even if there were 23K nuns - the throughput was insufficient and it was inevitable that queues would (and did) form. The congestion was not managed and the wedge shape of Leppings Lane made it all the more dangerous.
You're assigning common attributes of fans in those days to the cause of the disaster. They weren't.

 

[1.618034]

a great summary by david conn who was rightly applauded by families yesterday

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2016/apr/26/hillsborough-inquiry-anatomy-of-a-disaster-video?CMP=share_btn_fb

The thing with Duckenfield and the opening of the gate that really grates, that really, really makes me angry (as someone who's completely detached from the whole thing) is that when he/they (the police) realised what was happening, he told the FA (Graham Kelly, I believe, who visited the police control box) that the gate was forced by the fans. Now I can accept the man panicked. Faced with such a horror unfolding and being responsible in some way for it, well, you might try to empathise with him knowing with hindsight his lack of experience, after all, he can't be blamed for any lack of experience. But to tell that lie to the FA is beyond comprehension to me. What kind of human being would do that? I don't know. But to be in such a position of high public office and to do that on that of all days is something that beggars belief.

Somebody's made the point already, probably more than one, but there was a feeling at the time of an us versus them mentality regarding fans and the police, and it comes not only from the football violence through the 70s and 80s, but also from the social unrest and cultural scenes of the time, the coal strike, the steel strikes, race riots, illegal raves, etc. They were really militant times, and the police were used not as they are now, as a community service, but as strike breakers and as hooligan/rave stoppers, and generally in a way that verged at times on the paramilitary. It's interesting to see the footage posted on page 17 of this thread, footage seen at the inquiry, of fans on the pitch at Hillsbrough. I saw a Liverpool fan approach a policeman, he was pointing to the terrace and it was pretty evident he was urging the policeman to help in someway, trying to tell him there were people being crushed, and the policeman pushed him back towards the crowd. The thin blue line that must not be crossed. The defence that must not be breached. The pitch that must be protected. That policeman would've just seen a loud Liverpool fan getting in his face, shouting, screaming, and thought I'm not dealing with this shit, away you go, back to the rest of the "mob". It'd be interesting to know how others might've reacted to that in his position, at that time, in the context of the recent history. Would they have listened and said, "Blimey sunshine, people getting hurt, let's come and have a look," or would they have pushed him back with the others, out of the way? I feel for the coppers there that day, for those on the pitch, trying their best to deal with the fuck up created by their superiors. I feel for them also for being put in the position of having to doctor their statements to a more "convenient truth", to possibly have to choose between doing that or losing their careers. But, like Duckenfield choosing to tell that lie, could they not have thought balls to my career, in a case like this the truth is more important?

Maybe there's more to it than that, I don't know.

Good post. Great questions. Who knows..?

You're right that the biggest crime of all was that that lie went straight to the top within 24 hours and became "The Truth" that not only The Sun but the government (same thing?) peddled for so many years and is the reason we now have compulsory all seater stadia, compulsory membership schemes, restrictions/bans on the consumption of alcohol, "bubble" games...

Unfortunately that "Them and Us" attitude still prevails. Football supporters are still treated as an under class and probably always will be. Maybe that's why we go?

 

[shackattack]

They never coped okay though as the mini invasion at the spurs v wolves semi final there a few years previously proved. A severe warning that was not heeded. The FA and Sheffield Wednesday themselves must surely be made to explain how the game was played in a stadium that had no current safety certificate.

 

[FanchesterCity]

At previous semi-finals they had a different guy in charge and more police. They also had cordons on the Leppings Lane end to prevent crowd congestion. In 1989 they abandoned those cordons and reduced the number of police. That helped to cause the congestion at the turnstiles.
Additionally, the tickets asked fans to turn up at least 15 minutes before kickoff which was nowhere near enough time and had misleading instructions on the tickets - plus colour coded signs on the turnstiles that were placed too low to see when a crowd formed.

Hillsborough hosted 5 semis in the 80's and two of them involved crushing at Leppings Lane. The prior one was a Spurs semi in 1981 which involved broken arms, legs and ribs and spillage onto the pitch.

In effect they'd skirted with danger before - and this time, they compromised on safety even further - and disaster struck. It was more a case of 'had gotten away with it' in the past.

They weren't pushing and shoving per se... 5000 people were being funnelled into an area smaller than a tennis court and thus the footage on TV shows the crowd in the funnel cram packed. It was here that the outside crushing was happening.

This is the problem with large crowds, especially if there's a bottleneck... a few people at the back trying to get nearer results in the people in front moving forwards and so forth... which ultimately leads to crushing at the front. The people at the back don't realise they are doing it. and once they do, then can no longer move back because they are now penned in too!

That's why the police had used cordons in the past to keep the congestion clear.

it really isn't that swathes are all deliberately pushing and shoving, but it is true that people in a queue inch forward and try to get nearer the front as best they can. It's just what crowds do. You can't blame water for flowing like water, or crowds for flowing like crowds - you have to put a valve in place to control it (and the police removed the valves!)