10,100 allocation, 7,2oo supposed to be in leppings & 2,900 more on north west corner. insane really as they didn't even reassess the capacity after putting in new barriers & the fenced off pens and it seems that most of the 10,100 ended up in the same place but they had no way of knowing how many people were in each section.
"According to John Cutlack, an expert stadium engineer, the seeds of the 1989 disaster were sown 10 years previously when a safety certificate overestimated the capacity of the Leppings Lane standing area at 7,200. He said the true safe figure was in fact 5,425. Pen three, where many Liverpool fans died, could only safely hold 678 fans but on the day of the disaster there were up to 1,430 people inside. The club's engineer, Dr Eastwood, agreed "with hindsight" the total figure of 10,100 - which allowed for an additional 2,900 standing fans in the north-west corner stand - was "too high".
In 1981, at the semi-final between Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers at Hillsborough, 38 fans were injured in a crush. In a course of events that would be repeated eight years later, police opened Gate C after congestion at the turnstiles. A serious crush developed in the Leppings Lane end and fatalities were "narrowly avoided", according to the HIP report. Two perimeter gates were opened to let some fans escape on to the pitch. Turnstile counters showed that 335 too many fans had been allowed on to the terrace that day. At the time, Sheffield Wednesday FC blamed Tottenham fans for "arriving late" and "rushing to their places", crushing those in front. After the incident, Hillsborough was not chosen to host an FA Cup semi-final for six years.
Under the terms of the ground's safety certificate, an Officer Working Party including the council, police, fire service and the club, inspected the ground each year. But the OWP never flagged up that the capacity of the Leppings Lane terrace needed recalculating. When it reviewed the stadium in May 1988, the OWP said the stadium had "no significant defects". Mr Cutlack told the inquests the annual inspections of the ground were missed opportunities to reassess the capacity.
The Leppings Lane terrace then underwent some significant alterations, none of which led to a revised safety certificate. On the recommendation of South Yorkshire Police, the club introduced the penning system to "prevent free movement of supporters". Yet proposals to feed fans directly to certain sections of the stand from designated turnstiles, allowing numbers to be monitored, were not acted on "because of anticipated costs to SWFC", the HIP report found. The gradient of the tunnel also significantly breached guidelines for sports grounds.
Reinstated as a semi final venue in 1987, Hillsborough hosted the match between Leeds United and Coventry City. Shortly before kick-off, police delayed the match by 15 minutes to ensure that late-arriving fans could be accommodated. One Leeds fan described "a bad crush" in the central pens, the crowd so tightly packed, he was "unable to clap his hands".
The 1988 semi-final, also between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, passed without serious incident although some Liverpool fans and police officers later gave accounts of crushing within the Leppings Lane pens. On this occasions, the tunnel was closed and fans redirected to the side pens. According to the HIP report, Sheffield Wednesday "denied knowledge of any crowd-related concerns arising from the 1987 or 1988 FA Cup semi-finals".
It said overcrowding problems at the turnstiles in 1987, and on the terrace in 1988, indicated the inherent crowd safety dangers posed by the ground. The risks were known and "the crush in 1989 was foreseeable", it added.
The jury concluded there were too few operating turnstiles, signage to the side pens was inadequate and the stadium design and layout contributed to the crush."
