The Hillsborough inquest

[Eames]

They say they want justice, yet they aren't so interested in justice for the Juventus fans who died in Belgium. What they want is someone to blame, someone to point the finger at rather than accept their own hand in events that day. Yes the police made mistakes, no question. Would they have made those mistakes though if not for the actions of some Liverpool fans? No.

Liverpool fans had a history of doing what they did at Hillsborough that day and were reported to have done similar at the CL final a few years ago. Yet they continue to act like their actions that day had no impact on events when I think just about everyone else is capable of seeing the truth.

Sadly we saw only recently with the Evra incidents that Liverpool fans are incapable of independent thought, unable or unwilling to depart from the party line and incapable of admitting that anyone associated with their club could ever be at fault.

This. With bells on.

They all need to

[villadude]

They say they want justice, yet they aren't so interested in justice for the Juventus fans who died in Belgium. What they want is someone to blame, someone to point the finger at rather than accept their own hand in events that day. Yes the police made mistakes, no question. Would they have made those mistakes though if not for the actions of some Liverpool fans? No.

Liverpool fans had a history of doing what they did at Hillsborough that day and were reported to have done similar at the CL final a few years ago. Yet they continue to act like their actions that day had no impact on events when I think just about everyone else is capable of seeing the truth.

Sadly we saw only recently with the Evra incidents that Liverpool fans are incapable of independent thought, unable or unwilling to depart from the party line and incapable of admitting that anyone associated with their club could ever be at fault.

Excellent post Trent, the only thing I can add to it, is that they're all words removed!

[Seat68]

they will only say justice has been served when none of the blame lies with the supporters.

[theunderstudy]

They say they want justice, yet they aren't so interested in justice for the Juventus fans who died in Belgium. What they want is someone to blame, someone to point the finger at rather than accept their own hand in events that day. Yes the police made mistakes, no question. Would they have made those mistakes though if not for the actions of some Liverpool fans? No.

Liverpool fans had a history of doing what they did at Hillsborough that day and were reported to have done similar at the CL final a few years ago. Yet they continue to act like their actions that day had no impact on events when I think just about everyone else is capable of seeing the truth.

Sadly we saw only recently with the Evra incidents that Liverpool fans are incapable of independent thought, unable or unwilling to depart from the party line and incapable of admitting that anyone associated with their club could ever be at fault.

I'd agree with this.

The Suarez incident was ridiculous.. It screamed to me they were outraged he'd been convicted of racism (despite admitting he said what he said to Evra and all that jazz) and that he was innocent et cetera. Very few on Twitter I saw actually said "yeah, he's done what he's done, I'm ashamed of it blah, let's move on". It was mostly "Suarez is innocent/isn't racist" just trotted out again and again.

And then that young Oldham lad was racially abused I think wasn't he? And then they booed Evra for reporting Suarez... there is something wrong with that club.

[bannedfromHandV]

They ask for an appology from The Sun and the Government but how about the fans who turned up that day without a ticket and forced their way into the stadium.

I wonder how many of these supporters have admitted their fault in the disaster.

None I fancy, I remember in school we used to think it was funny to play 'corridor crush' (basically when it rained heavily they used to keep everyone in-doors on breaks meaning the corridors would be rammed, we'd get to the back en masse and force a crush at the front) which seemed hilarious at the time but you can imagine quite easily a group of pissed up football fans finding it equally as funny to do something similar.....plus of course the fact that it was overcrowded to begin with......

The fans cannot have been faultless but of course it would be too insensitive to blame them.

[Jod1]

My cousin is a liverpool fan and went to wembley for the league cup final this season.

He said it was crazy how many scousers had got in by passing their tickets through the barriers. He had ten scousers standing next to him where there were only 6 seats and this was in the cardiff end!

They openly admitted that's what they had done and always do.

[GeorgeVilla82]

I read the interim Taylor report as part of my dissertation at Uni (quite a few years back now). But what I remembered from the report didn;t quite sit right with what is now being said in the media by the Liverpool supporters group about fans not being drunk and all fans having tickets, so I went back to check.

Two quotes from the Taylor report (August 1989, so very soon after the event and based on numerous evidential accounts):

"There were, I accept, small groups without tickets who were willing to exploit any adventitious chance of getting into the ground. They, together with the minority who had drunmk too much, certainly aggravated the problem faced by the police."

"Because of police strategy in advance and on the day did not cater for [an uneven flow of fans into the turnstiles], the arrival of a large number of supporters between 2.30pm and 2.40pm created an unmanageable crush. The presence of a substantial minority of fans who had drunk too much aggravated that problem."

So, whilst accepting that the underlying strategy employed by the police on that day was the main factor in not managing the fans, resulting in a crush, even the Taylor report (which most consider to be well thought out and impartial) acknowledges that drunk and ticketless fans had a part to play in the events that unfolded.

It does seem that Liverpool, out of all the clubs (even Man Utd, which is saying something), refuse to take responsibility for absolutely anything which can be construed as negative against them.

[briny_ear]

At the end of the day, the main cause of the deaths was surely the utter failure of the police (and I guess whatever stewarding arrangements they had at the ground) to recognise that a crisis was developing and deal with the overcrowding by letting fans onto the pitch. It's a long time ago now but I'm pretty sure I remember images of the police actually forcing those fans who had managed to escape back into the crush.

Now, the chief of police in Liverpool wasn't going to brief the PM on those lines, was he, and so the attempt to portray it as the result of drunken fans behaving in a disorderly way was born.

The main point for me, is that this was a terrible tragedy that happened quite some time ago. The main culpability of the police, footballing authorities and clubs was fully exposed in the Taylor report and in subsequent reporting and I don't think many people now believe the Liverpool fans were mainly to blame.

Many lessons have been learned and the police and footballing authorities have changed the way they manage crowds very significantly.

The human spirit usually manages in these sorts of incident to heal the wounds, dim the memory and move on. It's part of what helps us to survive tragedies in life.

The puzzling thing about Hillsborough is that there seems to be an instinct from within Liverpool to refuse to forget and to constantly reopen the wounds. These leaks seem almost to have been siezed on as a chance to drag out all the misery into the open again.

As some others have commented, this is mystifying and, I think, a bit distressing for the rest of us.

[PompeyVillan]

I would love to move on from Hillsbrough. It was a tragedy, but I think the fact it is still so ingrained in the public consciousness is one of the reasons why 'safe standing' is still a million miles away at football grounds.

I understand that the victim's families want 'justice' and want to know how and why their loved ones dies, but I think continually dragging this incident up helps nobody.

[bickster]

Ticketless fans and drunkenness are complete and utter red herrings, that happens at every single "Big" match. What doesn't happen at every game is the following:-

The Police opening the huge gates that only usually open at the end of a match to let people out, allowing everyone in with or without a ticket, all at once causing a stampede. The Police were to blame here

A ground that is so badly designed (at the leppings lane end at least) that it makes a crush in such circumstances almost inevitable. The Entrance at street level was above the terrace, back filling terraces are bad especially with no side vent to relieve pressure, allied to that three entrances funnel all the supporters into three rather dangerous channels of crushing, especially in the circumstances of the first point. The stadium design was inherantly unsafe at that end of the ground and for that Sheffield Council were to blame to an extent for granting safety certificates

Holding the game at Hillsborough in the first place was idiotic and lax, purely from a geographical access point of view, for Liverpool fans to access the ground they had to drive to Stockport and down the snake pass (you may have heard of it, its even to this day a bloody dangerous road). You put thousands of extra people on this road and they will be late. There will be huge delays, lots of those people outside the ground, had tickets and were totally sober, they'd only just got there because the FA had chosen a frankly ridiculous venue. How could they have known you might ask? Well look in the record books, the previous year was the exact same fixture with the same teams and I went and all this nearly happened the year before. Anyone who went the previous year will have been aware of the danger, I was there the previous year and was acutely aware of it, we arrived late despite setting off with the intention of a couple of hours in a pub before the game, we only just got there in time. This was a ticking time bomb, could have been any big team from the north west in a big fixture, it just happened to be Liverpool. The FA should never have put the fixture there the next year, only idiots would have done that. The FA are culpable in this aspect.

But what did we have in the papers the next day? Scousers piss on the dead (this never happened) and plenty of other vitriol based on complete and utter fabrication but because it was Liverpool, a city at the time run by Militant and the crook Hatton and therefore the target of much abuse from the tabloids AND the government alike and the general public lapped up this tabloid fever they always do and to this day it has clouded the judgement of many

As blandy says, that could have been us or any other set of fans. Take the word Liverpool out of the story and the read the actual facts of the incident, many of you would have been appalled at what happened, instead of falling for the "it's the scousers own fault" line, especially those of you who weren't even old enough to remember it or the political climate at the time.

[RunRickyRun]

Agree with that Bicks.

[Seat68]

Does it happen at every big game? are you sure?

[villadude]

Nobody is saying it was all down to the scousers, of course it wasn't all their fault.

They were however partly responsible for what happened that day.

[thetrees]

Ticketless fans and drunkenness are complete and utter red herrings, that happens at every single "Big" match. What doesn't happen at every game is the following:-

The Police opening the huge gates that only usually open at the end of a match to let people out, allowing everyone in with or without a ticket, all at once causing a stampede. The Police were to blame here

A ground that is so badly designed (at the leppings lane end at least) that it makes a crush in such circumstances almost inevitable. The Entrance at street level was above the terrace, back filling terraces are bad especially with no side vent to relieve pressure, allied to that three entrances funnel all the supporters into three rather dangerous channels of crushing, especially in the circumstances of the first point. The stadium design was inherantly unsafe at that end of the ground and for that Sheffield Council were to blame to an extent for granting safety certificates

Holding the game at Hillsborough in the first place was idiotic and lax, purely from a geographical access point of view, for Liverpool fans to access the ground they had to drive to Stockport and down the snake pass (you may have heard of it, its even to this day a bloody dangerous road). You put thousands of extra people on this road and they will be late. There will be huge delays, lots of those people outside the ground, had tickets and were totally sober, they'd only just got there because the FA had chosen a frankly ridiculous venue. How could they have known you might ask? Well look in the record books, the previous year was the exact same fixture with the same teams and I went and all this nearly happened the year before. Anyone who went the previous year will have been aware of the danger, I was there the previous year and was acutely aware of it, we arrived late despite setting off with the intention of a couple of hours in a pub before the game, we only just got there in time. This was a ticking time bomb, could have been any big team from the north west in a big fixture, it just happened to be Liverpool. The FA should never have put the fixture there the next year, only idiots would have done that. The FA are culpable in this aspect.

But what did we have in the papers the next day? Scousers piss on the dead (this never happened) and plenty of other vitriol based on complete and utter fabrication but because it was Liverpool, a city at the time run by Militant and the crook Hatton and therefore the target of much abuse from the tabloids AND the government alike and the general public lapped up this tabloid fever they always do and to this day it has clouded the judgement of many

As blandy says, that could have been us or any other set of fans. Take the word Liverpool out of the story and the read the actual facts of the incident, many of you would have been appalled at what happened, instead of falling for the "it's the scousers own fault" line, especially those of you who weren't even old enough to remember it or the political climate at the time.

I unashamedly quote in its entirety what is an excellent post but....

...I was around at the time, indeed I attended the 'other' semi-final that day, and have attended several semi-finals at Hillsborough and elsewhere.

My view of Hillsborough is that it was a terrible accident. An accident waiting to happen, yes. An accident that perhaps could have been avoided, or the outcome certainly lessened, if tragedy can be 'lessened', by better reactions and decisions on the day.

Many people and organisations should shoulder the responsibility of Hillsborough, but apparently the followers of Liverpool Football Club, we are constantly informed, are the only ones who should be exempt from shouldering any of that responsibility.

Whilst the above post is excellent, to use the route to the game as a contributing factor smacks of irrelevance. For every semi-final and big game that I have attended, at Hillsborough and elsewhere, I have always managed to arrive well in time. Some of the victims of Hillsborough, Liverpool supporters, are known to have been in the ground since 1.30 p.m.

I have driven over snake pass, and it is certainly an interesting journey, but I have had plenty of interesting journeys to and from the many away grounds that I have visited over the years. The conditions never stopped me arriving on time for the game.

As some contributors have alluded to, football supporters from the city of Liverpool will do anything to gain entry to a game when they are ticketless.

In those days the smiles on the faces of the turnstile operators at Villa Park were never wider than at semi-final time, when scouse supporters slipped them fivers to lift their children over, squeeze up with their mates, or just hop the turnstiles. The operators at the Holte End always ended semi-final day several hundred tax free pounds richer than they started. At Villa Park, where the Holte End was certified to hold 23000, but could easily accommodate 28000, this didn't matter, but if a turnstile operator at Hillsborough that day accepted a fiver here and there, he is probably haunted to this day.

And that's the problem. I like scousers, fast talking, funny, straightforward and enterprising. At all other times the scouse ingenuity of getting themselves into any game without a ticket is something to be admired, the ingenuity, bravado and bare faced cheek that makes them succeed in something most others wouldn't dare to try. But on the day of Hillsborough, the scouse bravado was a contributing factor to the tragedy, and the continued refusal to accept even a small part of the blame does not sit right with me.

[MikeMcKenna]

Ticketless fans and drunkenness are complete and utter red herrings, that happens at every single "Big" match. What doesn't happen at every game is the following:-

The Police opening the huge gates that only usually open at the end of a match to let people out, allowing everyone in with or without a ticket, all at once causing a stampede. The Police were to blame here

A ground that is so badly designed (at the leppings lane end at least) that it makes a crush in such circumstances almost inevitable. The Entrance at street level was above the terrace, back filling terraces are bad especially with no side vent to relieve pressure, allied to that three entrances funnel all the supporters into three rather dangerous channels of crushing, especially in the circumstances of the first point. The stadium design was inherantly unsafe at that end of the ground and for that Sheffield Council were to blame to an extent for granting safety certificates

Holding the game at Hillsborough in the first place was idiotic and lax, purely from a geographical access point of view, for Liverpool fans to access the ground they had to drive to Stockport and down the snake pass (you may have heard of it, its even to this day a bloody dangerous road). You put thousands of extra people on this road and they will be late. There will be huge delays, lots of those people outside the ground, had tickets and were totally sober, they'd only just got there because the FA had chosen a frankly ridiculous venue. How could they have known you might ask? Well look in the record books, the previous year was the exact same fixture with the same teams and I went and all this nearly happened the year before. Anyone who went the previous year will have been aware of the danger, I was there the previous year and was acutely aware of it, we arrived late despite setting off with the intention of a couple of hours in a pub before the game, we only just got there in time. This was a ticking time bomb, could have been any big team from the north west in a big fixture, it just happened to be Liverpool. The FA should never have put the fixture there the next year, only idiots would have done that. The FA are culpable in this aspect.

But what did we have in the papers the next day? Scousers piss on the dead (this never happened) and plenty of other vitriol based on complete and utter fabrication but because it was Liverpool, a city at the time run by Militant and the crook Hatton and therefore the target of much abuse from the tabloids AND the government alike and the general public lapped up this tabloid fever they always do and to this day it has clouded the judgement of many

As blandy says, that could have been us or any other set of fans. Take the word Liverpool out of the story and the read the actual facts of the incident, many of you would have been appalled at what happened, instead of falling for the "it's the scousers own fault" line, especially those of you who weren't even old enough to remember it or the political climate at the time.

This.....

Some discraceful and vitriolic comments on this thread, many of which are based on pure ignorance, prejudice and frankly make me ashamed that some of you are fellow Villa fans. In particular the comment by one of our number is particulary nauseating..

The dirty pissed up scousers

We knew this from day one

words removed

The comment made to Thatcher was NOT fact, the police LIED and the FACTS were as follows.....

1. South Yorkshire Police hid the footage of the day for ten years.

2. Every senior officer on the day was pensioned off.

3. The Taylor report exonerated the Liverpool fans of any culpaility

4. The Police refused to allow the ambulance staff to assist for over 30 minutes and at 3pm said no ambulances were required.

5. Police claimed the gates were forced open by fans, the Police Officer David Duckenfield gave the order.

6. Fire Brigade arrived to be told they weren’t required

7. Hillsborough safety certificate had expired

8. Leppings Lane stand was deemed unsuitable in 1981 but never overhauled after 38 Spurs fans suffered crush related injuries. Sheffield Wednesday never carried out the work required.

9. The Access tunnel was closed in 1988, in 1989 the police left it open

10. The CCTV from inside the ground was wiped clean from 2.30pm until 3.15pm

11. The police didn’t request medical assistance until 3.30pm

12. The coroner was advised by persons unknown to take the blood alcohol level of all the victims, including a ten year old boy

13. No major disaster medical plan was put in effect.

14. 37 of the 42 ambulances were kept outside the ground

15. Only 14 victims wer taken to hospital

16. BBC commentators noticed the congestion inside the ground at 2.40pm

17. Officers inside the ground begged the kick off be dealyed. The supervising officers refused.

18. Sheffield City Council were aware that Hillsborough failed 17 safety regulations without censure

19. David Duckenfield had never managed an event of this size before.

20. Who stole the video tapes from the police control room

21. No stewards were on the concourse between the tunnel into the pens and the turnstiles.

22. Crushes had occured at Hillsborough in 1981, 1986, 1987 and 1988.

23. The capacity of the pen that the crush occured in was 2000. At 2:50 it was estimated that 3000 fans were in that pen. The police allowed a further 2000 fans to go into that pen.

As Bicks and Blandy have said this could have happened to any of us who attended big games during the 60s - 80s. Having narrowly avoided a disaster in 1981 Hillsborough was a waiting death trap in 1989. If some of you can put your hatred of Liverpool fans to once side for just one moment; consider what would have happened had it been Villa that day. Rather than delay the game to allow the mass of fans outside entry, the supervising police officer ordered the gates opened. Fans entering unsurprisingly went through the tunnel before them which led into an already packed penned. The fans entering didn't know this still they arrived, the crush of those behind forced them on causing a massive crush further down which led to the deaths. Anyone who has been in a severe crush knows the scenario. Contrary to what the media and police said at the time and bigots still think, it wasn't ticketless drunken fans scaling walls and forcing entry.

[Seat68]

Anyone who disagrees is uneducated or illinformed. I like the logic. I am happy to be illinformed, liverpool supporters have form, they werent totally blameless, thats all people are saying.

[MMFy]

This thread is getting dangerously close to Godwin's Law territory. I don't think many are completely blaming scousers for the incident, but to spout the diatribe of 'total bigoted ignorance' to anyone who suggests Liverpool fans are even partially to blame is approaching the level of blameless naïvety we normally associate with Liverpool fans.

Just my £0.02 worth, like.

[CI]

Anyone who disagrees is uneducated or illinformed. I like the logic. I am happy to be illinformed, liverpool supporters have form, they werent totally blameless, thats all people are saying.

Exactly. They are in denial.

I remember seeing them down Aston late 70's smashing the pubs up, drunken mob, with no respect for anyone including women and small children.

[NurembergVillan]

The comment made to Thatcher was NOT fact, the police LIED and the FACTS were as follows.....

1. South Yorkshire Police hid the footage of the day for ten years.

2. Every senior officer on the day was pensioned off.

3. The Taylor report exonerated the Liverpool fans of any culpaility

4. The Police refused to allow the ambulance staff to assist for over 30 minutes and at 3pm said no ambulances were required.

5. Police claimed the gates were forced open by fans, the Police Officer David Duckenfield gave the order.

6. Fire Brigade arrived to be told they weren’t required

7. Hillsborough safety certificate had expired

8. Leppings Lane stand was deemed unsuitable in 1981 but never overhauled after 38 Spurs fans suffered crush related injuries. Sheffield Wednesday never carried out the work required.

9. The Access tunnel was closed in 1988, in 1989 the police left it open

10. The CCTV from inside the ground was wiped clean from 2.30pm until 3.15pm

11. The police didn’t request medical assistance until 3.30pm

12. The coroner was advised by persons unknown to take the blood alcohol level of all the victims, including a ten year old boy

13. No major disaster medical plan was put in effect.

14. 37 of the 42 ambulances were kept outside the ground

15. Only 14 victims wer taken to hospital

16. BBC commentators noticed the congestion inside the ground at 2.40pm

17. Officers inside the ground begged the kick off be dealyed. The supervising officers refused.

18. Sheffield City Council were aware that Hillsborough failed 17 safety regulations without censure

19. David Duckenfield had never managed an event of this size before.

20. Who stole the video tapes from the police control room

21. No stewards were on the concourse between the tunnel into the pens and the turnstiles.

22. Crushes had occured at Hillsborough in 1981, 1986, 1987 and 1988.

23. The capacity of the pen that the crush occured in was 2000. At 2:50 it was estimated that 3000 fans were in that pen. The police allowed a further 2000 fans to go into that pen.

Are they just from your understanding of the situation or are they drawn from a particular source or article? I was only 8 when Hillsbrough happened so I remember it (I was at a Paget Rangers match at the time) but am still trying to understand what happened.

All of what you've said sounds plausible but personally I need context around it. Are they all from the Taylor Report?

It's certainly a fascinating case.

[veloman]

This thread is getting dangerously close to Godwin's Law territory.

Yes I'm afraid you are right. I don't agree that scousers are 'fast talking, funny, straightforward' etc. In my encounters, I have found them ignorant, self-opinionated and boorish BUT that is just my opinion based on my experiences and probably does not apply to all scousers. Indeed, I may be the only one who holds those views; but they are not based on blind prejudice. In the prison where I worked, groups of Liverpudlians were always the loudest and most difficult to control. In my sport of bike racing in the 'bunch' in a road race, they invariably had the most to say most of which was garbage.

A little story which hopefully takes the 'heat' out of the discussion. In c.1970 I played at the Cavern Club; we were the support band and when we finished our second spot we were keen to get away. We found the fire exit which was a concrete path leading to fire-doors. These were chained -up !! and when we asked for a key to the padlock,we were told 'we can't open them - all the kids outside will rush in' In many years of playing I have never come across that situation. So; I would conclude that if the tragedy that was Hillsborough was ever going to happen there is a fair chance Liverpool would be involved. I trust this post is not construed as 'disgraceful or nauseating' .