finally justice for the 96?

[thedarkprince]

Know what for a fact? No I haven't read the whole thing, and I don’t think that I suggested that at all.

To be clear I meant that  I’ve read a lot of first hand accounts of Hilsborough over the years, and not just from Liverpool fans.

Yeah, I may have misread that slightly and thought you were dismissing his statement entirely. Mainly as I didn't read the full sentence.

[RobertT]

I'm not sure anyone doubts that fans turned up beered up, and probably quite a few late in the day, as was and as is common at most football games.

I also recall at the time seeing images of outside the ground, and as you'd expect with a few minutes to go before the game, fans were pushing forwards in general groups.

The fundamental failure however was the series of decisions taken by the match controller, the situation he was confronted with was not new and is part of parcel of many crowd control situations.

Fatal blunders were made which started the chain reaction, the classification of the event as being crowd trouble for example caused a series of reactions which would not have been taken if someone had said the issue was an over crowding one.  Beer or no beer, a few people with no tickets or with plenty of tickets, it was the decision making that caused the problem to occur and then made it worse by not allowing the appropriate reaction.  To then cover up all of that is, well, it's been said plenty.

If 40,000 plus people attending a sporting event have to be relied on to make the rational decisions, then we'd all be in trouble regularly.  Crowd instincts create all manner of problems that need responsible control - witness the Manchester Plane disaster in the 80's where people burned to death on the runway because crowd instincts were impossible to control with everyone pushing to get out of the plane when they saw fire.  It's natural that in a panic people begin to look out for themselves, then others panic and so on.

[jonny72]

Believe you me it's true, this isn't some personal smear campaign against Liverpool fans, I feel for the families of the deceased, I really do, in exactly the same way that I feel for the families of those that died at Valley Parade in 1986, but I, like many other Forest fans that were there that day really cannot believe that those fans outside the ground have been effectively found not guilty.

Can't blame the fans though can we?

The Taylor report did acknowledge some fans were drunk and didn't have tickets but it also stated that this was not a contributing factor to the disaster.

Interestingly, I read through the section on the altered statements in the new report and there was at least one statement from a Police officer that was altered to remove negative comments about the behaviour of Liverpool fans that they had witnessed.

I didn't read anything with regard to the altered statements that appears to be a smoking gun. A lot of it was tidying up grammar, removing foul language and removing things which were opinion and not fact. Really not convinced there was any real conspiracy, what they did was stupid but I haven't read anything to suggest the cover up some claim.

The Police should have been charged with corporate manslaughter (or whatever it would be) but I'm still not convinced the behaviour of any officers was anything more than pure incompetence and being caught up in a disastrous sequence of events.

Fatal blunders were made which started the chain reaction, the classification of the event as being crowd trouble for example caused a series of reactions which would not have been taken if someone had said the issue was an over crowding one.

The fatal sequence of events started long before the day of the game; the stand and changes made to it, selecting that ground for the game, the allocation of clubs to the different sections of the ground, the planning and so on.

Everyone goes on about how the Police treated everyone like animals back then but they conveniently ignore the fact that a lot of fans routinely acted like animals. I'm not saying this excuses the behaviour of the Police but it is a factor and the reason they incorrectly thought they were facing crowd trouble rather than what was actually happening that day.

[DRS]

The Taylor report did acknowledge some fans were drunk and didn't have tickets but it also stated that this was not a contributing factor to the disaster.

Interestingly, I read through the section on the altered statements in the new report and there was at least one statement from a Police officer that was altered to remove negative comments about the behaviour of Liverpool fans that they had witnessed.

I didn't read anything with regard to the altered statements that appears to be a smoking gun. A lot of it was tidying up grammar, removing foul language and removing things which were opinion and not fact. Really not convinced there was any real conspiracy, what they did was stupid but I haven't read anything to suggest the cover up some claim.

The Police should have been charged with corporate manslaughter (or whatever it would be) but I'm still not convinced the behaviour of any officers was anything more than pure incompetence and being caught up in a disastrous sequence of events.

The fatal sequence of events started long before the day of the game; the stand and changes made to it, selecting that ground for the game, the allocation of clubs to the different sections of the ground, the planning and so on.

Everyone goes on about how the Police treated everyone like animals back then but they conveniently ignore the fact that a lot of fans routinely acted like animals. I'm not saying this excuses the behaviour of the Police but it is a factor and the reason they incorrectly thought they were facing crowd trouble rather than what was actually happening that day.

Am i right i saying liverpool fans were in the same end they were the year before in a game that passed without incident. How youcan say it was ot a cover up i do not know

[RobertT]

Agree to some extent Jonny, but up until the moment of the reactions at the gates, it was avoidable.

I think the match controller had never covered a football game before, let alone took control of semi final.

The stand itself no doubt made it worse, but it had been used without deaths before, showing that risk control and management was still possible.  The use of perimiter fencing, a reaction to the culture you mention, had been in place for a long time.  This showed the impact it could have when crowd control was not in place, and rightly lead to it's removal.  All the lessons learned from a stadia point of view were no doubt things that should have been done before, but the human impact of the decisions makers ultimately caused the situation to unfold.

[jonny72]

Am i right i saying liverpool fans were in the same end they were the year before in a game that passed without incident. How youcan say it was ot a cover up i do not know

If there was a cover up by the Police they didn't make too good a job of it as they got the majority of the blame in the Taylor report. Sure they tried to deflect some of the blame but the conspiracy theory doesn't make sense to me.

Agree to some extent Jonny, but up until the moment of the reactions at the gates, it was avoidable.

Of course it was avoidable, even after the gates had been opened it could have been. But it was a long sequence of events that started long before the game - such as the appointment of certain people (as you point out). There was another interesting document released in the latest report, a letter from a fan complaining about over crowding in the same stand at the semi-final played at Hillsborough the year before. There were other warning signs which had been ignored.

[nevillew]

So very true.
I recall numerous times walking back to Swindon station to catch my train back to Didcot. I was a young lad but often treated like scum, due to simply being a football fan.

The bricks and bottles often rained down near the old bus depot or from the station wall but that was the norm.

Don't you think these two points could be related?

[Batch]

Don't you think these two points could be related?

He was treated like scum because someone else threw bricks and bottles?

[TheDukeOfBanbury]

In a week where the Police have got a rightful bashing from this subject.

These days you see a lot more children and families at football. Generally the Police appear move friendly to the football Supporter.
Going back in time this was not the case. Young Males were "likely" to be potential trouble makers in the eyes of the Police, or maybe it just felt that way.

I have no worries taking my family to football now. My 9 year old went with me to Oxford the other night.
No way would I have considered taking my family to many games back in the 70's or 80's so you could say this has improved.

[LucienSanchez]

I don't like there being too many kids at football, i feel like i need to control my language...

[herthab]

I don't like there being too many kids at football, i feel like i need to control my language...

Fuck 'em

[ghanimah]

In a week where the Police have got a rightful bashing from this subject.

These days you see a lot more children and families at football. Generally the Police appear move friendly to the football Supporter.
Going back in time this was not the case. Young Males were "likely" to be potential trouble makers in the eyes of the Police, or maybe it just felt that way.

I have no worries taking my family to football now. My 9 year old went with me to Oxford the other night.
No way would I have considered taking my family to many games back in the 70's or 80's so you could say this has improved.

Shame it isn't literally.

In the 20 years before 1990 British fans were involved tragedies such as Ibrox 1971, Bradford, Heysel and obviously Hillsborough. In the 20 odd years since 1990, as a result of the Lord Taylor report, we've thankfully had no major tragedy. If nothing else, albeit a small crumb of comfort for the families of the '96, that's Hillsborough's enduring legacy.

[TheDukeOfBanbury]

Fuck 'em

I blame the parents.........My five year old lad after losing to his brother in a Wi game was heard to be shouting .....wanker, wanker, wanker at his brother. Mum stepped in giving youngest a right telling off. The truth never did come out to where he picked up this word let alone this chant

Youngest has not attended a game this year after this outburst - Now then where did he pick this up from ?

[Bob's Orange]

Fuck 'em

Pretty sure that's frowned upon.

[mexico red]

probably my foul mouthed father