Hillsborough verdicts reached

[cibaman]

The 71/72 (?) season when the North Stand was terraced could be scary when the attendance was over 40,000. When we scored against Arsenal I ended up on the ground, was lucky that a huge bloke next to me yanked me up by the collar before I brought down people surging forward behind me.

 

[jaiguruKun]

And yet you choose to make the point that 23 thousand nuns could have caused turmoil at the turnstiles. Surely, if it were all about the police, the fences etc, you wouldn't need to make that point, because it had nothing to do with the fans.

A simple question: if it were 10/12/15 thousand nuns arriving for a conference with the Pope in that very same ground at the very same time and they all had to be put in the Leppings Lane, how many do you think would have died? If I follow your line of argument (the fans weren't in any way a contributory factor to the deaths of the 96) then the answer will be 96. I'm not so sure a solitary nun would die.

This isn't an anti-scouse thing, a wumming thing. It's the view of many people I know, of many fans I know, City and non-City: the Liverpool fans on that day were a causal link. Not because they were any different to the vast majority of fans (young and male) but because they behaved and acted in a way that is still replicated today, especially for major matches: arrive late; arrive en masse, have a minority who will cause conflict and confusion and who will seek to get in the ground, whatever the time, cost and impact on others. But, as you've said previously, don't take my or any other fan's word for it. Read what Lord Justice Taylor said. To quote your earlier post:

"The more convincing witnesses…including a number of responsible civilian witnesses…attributed the crush to the sheer number of fans all anxious to gain entry." That anxiety wasn't caused by the police, it wasn't caused by the barriers. It wasn't caused by the ambulance service. It wasn't caused by SWFC. The anxiety was caused by the fans. Why? Next time you're at Wembley for a semi or a final, look at the turnstiles as kick off approaches - the queues get rowdier as the late-comers do all they can to surge to get in; as the young and the 95% male fans. many who've been boozing etc push and corral the rest. Notice how the stewards become restless, notice how those without tickets wait for this time - the time when the crowds are at their busiest, when the checks are harder = all this was in play at that semi-final on that fatal day. And to somehow brush all that under the carpet; to imagine that the fans were in no way a contributory factor in their own downfall is, to many I have spoken to, an avoidance of the brutal truth.

It's become almost heresy to take a diametrically opposed view to those that suffered, to the families that lost loved ones. Because we want to believe that the fans all turned up and queued in single file, tickets in hand and on time. They didn't. And that, combined with gross police ineptitude, led to their deaths. It was the (im)perfect storm.

Of course the sheer number of fans was a causal link but that does not equate to their behaviour having contributed to the disaster. You are essentially suggesting that it was the fans fault for being there in the first place which is a vacuous argument.

Even if all the fans had arrived 30 minutes before the match a disaster would still have occurred due to the failure to close off the route to the central pens and not direct them to the emptier ones. It may have changed the timings but the end result would have been the same. Or are you blaming the fans for the actions of the police?

Have you read David Conn's article in Wednesday's Guardian? It could have been any set of fans that day and the end result would have been the same. This is shown by the near misses of '81 and '87 when crushes occurred but disaster averted due to the police being better prepared.

 

[Dubai Blue]

What was the reason for the terrace to be split into pens? Was it just so they could allocate some of them to away fans when needed?

 

[Scaring Europe to Death]

What was the reason for the terrace to be split into pens? Was it just so they could allocate some of them to away fans when needed?

That was the main reason. In fact Old Trafford had been housing away fans in pens since the late 70s.

 

[FanchesterCity]

And yet you choose to make the point that 23 thousand nuns could have caused turmoil at the turnstiles. Surely, if it were all about the police, the fences etc, you wouldn't need to make that point, because it had nothing to do with the fans.

A simple question: if it were 10/12/15 thousand nuns arriving for a conference with the Pope in that very same ground at the very same time and they all had to be put in the Leppings Lane, how many do you think would have died? If I follow your line of argument (the fans weren't in any way a contributory factor to the deaths of the 96) then the answer will be 96. I'm not so sure a solitary nun would die.

This isn't an anti-scouse thing, a wumming thing. It's the view of many people I know, of many fans I know, City and non-City: the Liverpool fans on that day were a causal link. Not because they were any different to the vast majority of fans (young and male) but because they behaved and acted in a way that is still replicated today, especially for major matches: arrive late; arrive en masse, have a minority who will cause conflict and confusion and who will seek to get in the ground, whatever the time, cost and impact on others. But, as you've said previously, don't take my or any other fan's word for it. Read what Lord Justice Taylor said. To quote your earlier post:

"The more convincing witnesses…including a number of responsible civilian witnesses…attributed the crush to the sheer number of fans all anxious to gain entry." That anxiety wasn't caused by the police, it wasn't caused by the barriers. It wasn't caused by the ambulance service. It wasn't caused by SWFC. The anxiety was caused by the fans. Why? Next time you're at Wembley for a semi or a final, look at the turnstiles as kick off approaches - the queues get rowdier as the late-comers do all they can to surge to get in; as the young and the 95% male fans. many who've been boozing etc push and corral the rest. Notice how the stewards become restless, notice how those without tickets wait for this time - the time when the crowds are at their busiest, when the checks are harder = all this was in play at that semi-final on that fatal day. And to somehow brush all that under the carpet; to imagine that the fans were in no way a contributory factor in their own downfall is, to many I have spoken to, an avoidance of the brutal truth.

It's become almost heresy to take a diametrically opposed view to those that suffered, to the families that lost loved ones. Because we want to believe that the fans all turned up and queued in single file, tickets in hand and on time. They didn't. And that, combined with gross police ineptitude, led to their deaths. It was the (im)perfect storm.

1) They weren't late - concern about the volume of fans was raised just after 2.20 when it was clear the turnstiles couldn't cope.
2) The tickets advised arrival no later than 15 minutes prior to kickoff, but still the fans were well ahead of that schedule
3) The footage of the fans arriving at Leppings Lane shows no anxiety, only the normal exuberence of fans on their way to a match. People approached the Leppings Lane entrance at walking pace.
4) The tickets did not clearly indicate which turnstiles to enter by, which caused confusion - and made worse by that fact that once at a turnstile ut was very hard to move to an alternate one due volume of fans queuing behind.
5) Mathematically the turnstiles could not cope - the inevitable consequence was that queues would form. Crowds of thousands do not form single file queues. It is a natural phenomenon of large crowds that those at the back approach, and the people in front inch forwards, and with each wave of new arrivals the crowds starts to congest. The police did not stem the flow as they had done previously.
6) The Forest fans (29k) had 60 turnstiles spread evenly over two sides of the stadium, the Liverpool fans (23K) had 23 turnstiles crammed into a single corner roughly the size of a tennis court.
7) Any anxiety was induced when it became apparent (as early as 2.20) that getting into the stadium was going to be difficult.
8) The calculated number of fans was not deemed to be any significant number above those of ticket sales. Whilst as at many games there would be some ticketless fans, they weren't sufficiently large in number.

It's not about taking a diametrically opposed view - it's about looking at the actual facts of the matter. You're taking some general attributes of football fans in that period, and trying to create a scenario where those negative attributes might have played a part. The video evidence is there in black and white though 'surging forward' at the turnstiles never happened.
You're trying to suggest those without tickets somehow hid around a corner and all arrived late in order to force the police to open the gates. That simply did not happen, the build up was steady and forming by 2.20.

I am absolutely sure the view you express is shared by others and of the people who have expressed similar views, none of them had any grasp of the actual evidence and absolutely no proof of their assertions. The rest of the world however has video footage that dispels those myths.

The crush WAS about sheer numbers - numbers that were expected, but poorly planned for - it was the management of those sheer numbers that failed. The fans didn't change that year, the policing and practices put in place did. The ground was unsafe and had gotten away with it previously (with a previous near miss in 1981). Forget all the fans, forget any behaviours, when scrutinised, the protective measures for crowd safety at that stadium were lacking, it just took the deaths to cause people to look more closely.

If someone's operating unsafe machinery at work (unwittingly) and they don't get injured - but then the next operator of that machinery does suffer an injury, you don't blame the second operator and say his actions caused the accident, it's the unsafe machinery to blame. Semi-Final Cup Tie management at Hillsborough was the unsafe machine, and in 1989, further cutbacks on the safety (less police, novice at the helm and the abandonment or neglect of previous practices) was a compromise too far and caused the deaths.

 

[Phil1]

If what's come out over the last few days isn't enough to convince people that the fans had no blame attached to them then nothing ever will.

 

[Scaring Europe to Death]

If what's come out over the last few days isn't enough to convince people that the fans had no blame attached to them then nothing ever will.

Perhaps it’s just too easy to make sweeping generalisations, based on anecdotal evidence from similar scenarios around the same period.
What I find horrific now, but seemed perfectly normal at the time, was being approached by a Blackburn fan whilst waiting for my mates outside Ewood Park.

After a brief discussion about the game, he casually observed:
“I see the Liverpool fans have been at it again. Killing a load of their own supporters”

That might appear criminally inaccurate, but on a warm spring afternoon in April 1989, it seemed to make a lot of sense.
That's how we felt, but thankfully the vast majority have since absorbed the truth.

 

[Gray]

However many fans were drunk or ticketless is irrelevant.

The disaster was caused by poor policing of a decrepit stadium.

Also the fans were and still are never considered when circumstances dictate a delay to kick off, this only happens when a team bus (Scum) is held up in traffic.

 

[bluemoon32]

Perhaps it’s just too easy to make sweeping generalisations, based on anecdotal evidence from similar scenarios around the same period.
What I find horrific now, but seemed perfectly normal at the time, was being approached by a Blackburn fan whilst waiting for my mates outside Ewood Park.

After a brief discussion about the game, he casually observed:
“I see the Liverpool fans have been at it again. Killing a load of their own supporters”

That might appear criminally inaccurate, but on a warm spring afternoon in April 1989, it seemed to make a lot of sense.
That's how we felt, but thankfully the vast majority have since absorbed the truth.

That was a widely used comment at the time.

 

[worsleyweb]

I watched over an hour of the footage yesterday, it is staggering to see that football fans were expected to watch football In caged pens 27 years ago. It is also staggering that Sheffield Wednesday have rebuilt the Maine stand and left this stand in place for such a long time.