Hillsborough

[Tiresias]

Pathetic to apologise now, it's not like it wasn't at all clear for a long time they printed completely disgraceful smears at the time

[zolton]

The worst thing for me isn't what happened, it was an accident and they do happen.  Somebody made a decision to open the exit gate and allow thousands into the ground in a short space of time but they did that because people were getting crushed and they tried to prevent that.  For me the cover up is a disgrace because that's been done wilfully and it's been done to try and blame innocent people for what happened.

 

I've just watched a documentary about Hillsborough and it was chilling watching it as I've almost been crushed a few times.  The worst was at St James' when I was queuing up for FA Cup tickets in 1974.  We queued up all night on Barrack Road and were getting crushed up against the gates at the corner of the Leazes/West Stand and I was off my feet and was carried from the gates to the turnstiles because we had to go through turnstiles to get tickets as if we were paying into a match.  We went through the turnstiles and straight out of the exit gates.

 

I also remember going to Sheff Wed and they didn’t open the end which was in the left corner of Leppings Lane and the crush in the middle was awful and at times we couldn’t move unless the whole crowd moved because we couldn’t touch the ground.  Even when we came out after the match we had problems because the exits were kept shut and people were pushing to get out and the police had to get on top of the turnstiles and they were dragging injured fans onto the turnstiles because they had been crushed and had passed out.

 

Coming out of Anfield was also a problem because we came out at the top of the stand and through a small exit which was at a canny height and the railings around the steps were at waist heing and they kept the exits locked so we couldn't get down the stairs and everybody behind was pushing to get out and we couldn't move.  I was amazed that nobody went over the top or that the wooden railings had never snapped.

 

I mentioned a couple of days ago about the Notts Forrest Cup game.  We had no option but to get onto the pitch but we were lucky that we weren’t fenced in or I’m sure somebody would have died during that game because people at the back kept surging forwards.  Whoever thought up the idea of fencing people in at football grounds should be shot with s*** and they are ultimately to blame for people dying at Hillsborough, not the police who opened gates.

 

 

 

Great post, being discussed on football message boards across the country.

 

I think it needs to be remembered the times were very different, the police were not there to control crowds so much as to prevent crowd violence, the barriers and fences that existed and which caused so many deaths were a result of years of football violence. The intension was to keep fans penned in, they worked.

[brummie]

I've read a few threads on this on various message boards today, and I am both amazed and depressed how so many people, despite having just had a truly independent inquiry given full access to, and having studied 400,000 pages of evidence and state the utter contrary, still persist in going on about ticketless fans, pissed fans forcing entry, etc - do you not realise these are EXACTLY the slurs which the families have put up with for 23 years and which have been so comprehensively demolished today?

 

Why on earth are you letting your dislike of one football club or city poison your rationality like this? Get it into your heads - the fans have NOTHING to be guily about regarding what happened that day. There were NOT bands of pissed up fans forcing entry. There were NOT great numbers of ticketless fans outside.

 

Seriously, what will it take for people to stop spouting this bullshit?

 

I suspect the great majority of those who do are too young to have been a football match attender in the 1980s. or they'd realise that ultimately Hillsborough is not just about Liverpool fans. Anyone who attended matches in that period will have similar stories of dangerous conditions, of terrifying overcrowding, of police hostility, brutality and negligence.

 

Anyone who visited the Sheffield grounds as a fan in that time will be entirely aware of the deserved reputation South Yorkshire Police had at the time in the way they treated football supporters. They were in a great many cases total fucking scumbags, who would frequently look for trouble, not try to stop it.

 

Those in denial today really need to understand this - it could quite easily have been your club, and the people of Newcastle who would have suffered what happened in 1989. Then imagine 23 years of being called liars by important sectors of the media, and the police.

 

Imagine having the police lie and doctor evidence to protect themselves at your cost. Imagine having the people who are supposed to protect you turn on you so overwhelmingly to protect their own backs. Imagine living with that blighting your life for 23 years. Have a think about people sneering about your city because of it. Think about total fucking scumbags like Kelvin MacKenzie continuing to lie about you right to the end, right until he's forced to apologise. How do you imagine that feels?

 

The worst thing about today is finding out just how comprehensively, wilfully, and shamelessly the government, media and police of this country treated those families for a quarter of a century, but I have to say, i find the wilfully stupid denial that so many people in the football community - the very community which was under attack - have even today in refusing to believe what has been spelled out so comprehensively by this report, and by the reaction of the Prime Minister in parliament today.

 

Honestly, get a fucking grip.

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

saying they're profoundly sorry should be the main headline, the cunts.

[colinmk]

Great post Brummie. I am too young to know to know what it was like as you say but I still can't understand why people have still being saying 'there were two sides to it' after hearing the completely overwhelming evidence. Not only that but the fucking PM has come out and admitted it all!

[wormy]

saying they're profoundly sorry should be the main headline, the cunts.

 

Was my first thought. Then I realised it's the sun. What weight does an apology from those scumbags hold anyway? I know it's a simplistic way of looking at it and for Liverpool supporters at least it's a tiny bit of closure on that particular part of the event. But Christ, apologies from that glorified chip shop paper are completely worthless.

[Tooj]

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/sport/liverpool-fc/liverpool-fc-news/2008/04/15/gangland-fixer-for-steven-gerrard-goes-on-the-run-64375-20764563/

 

Hmm.

[brummie]

Is that posted with relevance to the Hillsborough discussion?

 

Because if it is, there is absolutely no relevance at all.

[Tooj]

Is that posted with relevance to the Hillsborough discussion?

 

Because if it is, there is absolutely no relevance at all.

 

Nah, I was doing some reading up on it and came across that link below one of the articles that I was reading. Seems a bit mental that an England captain associates himself with such types yet we hear nothing of it in the national press.

[Dokko]

Is that posted with relevance to the Hillsborough discussion?

 

Because if it is, there is absolutely no relevance at all.

 

It's the Liverpool thread, not the hillsborough thread.

[brummie]

Is that posted with relevance to the Hillsborough discussion?

 

Because if it is, there is absolutely no relevance at all.

 

It's the Liverpool thread, not the hillsborough thread.

 

I didn't say it was the hillsborough thread, I just wondered if it was posted with reference to what has been discussed on the last few pages. Tooj said it isn't, which clears it up.

 

 

[Dokko]

Is that posted with relevance to the Hillsborough discussion?

 

Because if it is, there is absolutely no relevance at all.

 

It's the Liverpool thread, not the hillsborough thread.

 

I didn't say it was the hillsborough thread, I just wondered if it was posted with reference to what has been discussed on the last few pages. Tooj said it isn't, which clears it up.

 

It was pretty obvious it wasn't.

[brummie]

Is that posted with relevance to the Hillsborough discussion?

 

Because if it is, there is absolutely no relevance at all.

 

It's the Liverpool thread, not the hillsborough thread.

 

I didn't say it was the hillsborough thread, I just wondered if it was posted with reference to what has been discussed on the last few pages. Tooj said it isn't, which clears it up.

 

It was pretty obvious it wasn't.

 

Not really, take a look through the last few pages for some of the offensive, irrelevant bollocks people have been posting.

[Guest Brendan_Rice]

Is that posted with relevance to the Hillsborough discussion?

 

Because if it is, there is absolutely no relevance at all.

 

Nah, I was doing some reading up on it and came across that link below one of the articles that I was reading. Seems a bit mental that an England captain associates himself with such types yet we hear nothing of it in the national press.

 

Interesting that. Wonder what a quiet word from "the fixer" involved?

[Dokko]

Is that posted with relevance to the Hillsborough discussion?

 

Because if it is, there is absolutely no relevance at all.

 

It's the Liverpool thread, not the hillsborough thread.

 

I didn't say it was the hillsborough thread, I just wondered if it was posted with reference to what has been discussed on the last few pages. Tooj said it isn't, which clears it up.

 

It was pretty obvious it wasn't.

 

Not really, take a look through the last few pages for some of the offensive, irrelevant bollocks people have been posting.

 

Not that irrelevant, people may have opinions that differ to your own or have said things you dont like but it was clearly unrelated story and it just seems like you were wanting to have a go at someone, for anything.

 

Anyway, an opinion you certainly won't like: Just because there isn't proof doesn't mean it didn't happen, and how many games in the 80s did you go to where supporters were all sober?

 

[GM]

I've read a few threads on this on various message boards today, and I am both amazed and depressed how so many people, despite having just had a truly independent inquiry given full access to, and having studied 400,000 pages of evidence and state the utter contrary, still persist in going on about ticketless fans, pissed fans forcing entry, etc - do you not realise these are EXACTLY the slurs which the families have put up with for 23 years and which have been so comprehensively demolished today?

 

Why on earth are you letting your dislike of one football club or city poison your rationality like this? Get it into your heads - the fans have NOTHING to be guily about regarding what happened that day. There were NOT bands of pissed up fans forcing entry. There were NOT great numbers of ticketless fans outside.

 

Seriously, what will it take for people to stop spouting this bullshit?

 

I suspect the great majority of those who do are too young to have been a football match attender in the 1980s. or they'd realise that ultimately Hillsborough is not just about Liverpool fans. Anyone who attended matches in that period will have similar stories of dangerous conditions, of terrifying overcrowding, of police hostility, brutality and negligence.

 

Anyone who visited the Sheffield grounds as a fan in that time will be entirely aware of the deserved reputation South Yorkshire Police had at the time in the way they treated football supporters. They were in a great many cases total fucking scumbags, who would frequently look for trouble, not try to stop it.

 

Those in denial today really need to understand this - it could quite easily have been your club, and the people of Newcastle who would have suffered what happened in 1989. Then imagine 23 years of being called liars by important sectors of the media, and the police.

 

Imagine having the police lie and doctor evidence to protect themselves at your cost. Imagine having the people who are supposed to protect you turn on you so overwhelmingly to protect their own backs. Imagine living with that blighting your life for 23 years. Have a think about people sneering about your city because of it. Think about total fucking scumbags like Kelvin MacKenzie continuing to lie about you right to the end, right until he's forced to apologise. How do you imagine that feels?

 

The worst thing about today is finding out just how comprehensively, wilfully, and shamelessly the government, media and police of this country treated those families for a quarter of a century, but I have to say, i find the wilfully stupid denial that so many people in the football community - the very community which was under attack - have even today in refusing to believe what has been spelled out so comprehensively by this report, and by the reaction of the Prime Minister in parliament today.

 

Honestly, get a fucking grip.

 

Couldn't agree more. Certainly couldn't have put it better myself.

 

Love is blind, but hate is blinder still? Quite a few people on here should be ashamed of the dismissive attitude taken to Liverpool fans and families of the 96 who died.

[newsted]

The worst thing for me isn't what happened, it was an accident and they do happen.  Somebody made a decision to open the exit gate and allow thousands into the ground in a short space of time but they did that because people were getting crushed and they tried to prevent that.  For me the cover up is a disgrace because that's been done wilfully and it's been done to try and blame innocent people for what happened.

 

I've just watched a documentary about Hillsborough and it was chilling watching it as I've almost been crushed a few times.  The worst was at St James' when I was queuing up for FA Cup tickets in 1974.  We queued up all night on Barrack Road and were getting crushed up against the gates at the corner of the Leazes/West Stand and I was off my feet and was carried from the gates to the turnstiles because we had to go through turnstiles to get tickets as if we were paying into a match.  We went through the turnstiles and straight out of the exit gates.

 

I also remember going to Sheff Wed and they didn’t open the end which was in the left corner of Leppings Lane and the crush in the middle was awful and at times we couldn’t move unless the whole crowd moved because we couldn’t touch the ground.  Even when we came out after the match we had problems because the exits were kept shut and people were pushing to get out and the police had to get on top of the turnstiles and they were dragging injured fans onto the turnstiles because they had been crushed and had passed out.

 

Coming out of Anfield was also a problem because we came out at the top of the stand and through a small exit which was at a canny height and the railings around the steps were at waist heing and they kept the exits locked so we couldn't get down the stairs and everybody behind was pushing to get out and we couldn't move.  I was amazed that nobody went over the top or that the wooden railings had never snapped.

 

I mentioned a couple of days ago about the Notts Forrest Cup game.  We had no option but to get onto the pitch but we were lucky that we weren’t fenced in or I’m sure somebody would have died during that game because people at the back kept surging forwards.  Whoever thought up the idea of fencing people in at football grounds should be shot with s*** and they are ultimately to blame for people dying at Hillsborough, not the police who opened gates.

 

 

 

These bits bring it all back tbh, not the same incidents, but when this happens you have no control any more and it is terrifying. Feet off the ground, arms pinned to your sides, if someone goes down next to you, you're going down too and a shitload of people are coming on top of you and they can't help it either. Not proud of it but if I could get an elbow free I'd boost myself up a bit on someone else's shoulder just to get a breath. 50,000 at SJP in those days was a fight for survival if you got caught in the tide and I can remember a couple of times getting slammed up against the brick wall outside the Leazes turnstiles (Ipswich and Arsenal in the mid-70s I think) and just fighting to get away from the crush and collapsing before giving up and going home instead. Polis sitting unbothered on their horses as per. Fuck knows how it never happened before, it was bound to. Generations of callous bastards milking the cannon-fodder for every penny and not caring whether they survive the day, institutionalised police brutality, sneering middle-class media and simple-minded Joe and Josephine Public, who would have guessed it could all go wrong?

 

23 years to admit this is a fucking national disgrace when it was crystal-clear immediately afterwards what had happened, a cluster-fuck. Some people made bad decisions, some other people didn't know what to do, or froze, or simply couldn't help, most people didn't know what was happening, but most of all the people in charge hadn't made any plans for this possibility WHICH WAS THEIR FUCKING JOB. You shouldn't have some poor traumatised PC running round trying to find the maintenance man to get some boltcutters to open the emergency gate to let the dying fans out ffs. Oh, man, I thought this wound had healed. Those poor people

[Guest Brendan_Rice]

The worst thing for me isn't what happened, it was an accident and they do happen.  Somebody made a decision to open the exit gate and allow thousands into the ground in a short space of time but they did that because people were getting crushed and they tried to prevent that.  For me the cover up is a disgrace because that's been done wilfully and it's been done to try and blame innocent people for what happened.

 

I've just watched a documentary about Hillsborough and it was chilling watching it as I've almost been crushed a few times.  The worst was at St James' when I was queuing up for FA Cup tickets in 1974.  We queued up all night on Barrack Road and were getting crushed up against the gates at the corner of the Leazes/West Stand and I was off my feet and was carried from the gates to the turnstiles because we had to go through turnstiles to get tickets as if we were paying into a match.  We went through the turnstiles and straight out of the exit gates.

 

I also remember going to Sheff Wed and they didn’t open the end which was in the left corner of Leppings Lane and the crush in the middle was awful and at times we couldn’t move unless the whole crowd moved because we couldn’t touch the ground.  Even when we came out after the match we had problems because the exits were kept shut and people were pushing to get out and the police had to get on top of the turnstiles and they were dragging injured fans onto the turnstiles because they had been crushed and had passed out.

 

Coming out of Anfield was also a problem because we came out at the top of the stand and through a small exit which was at a canny height and the railings around the steps were at waist heing and they kept the exits locked so we couldn't get down the stairs and everybody behind was pushing to get out and we couldn't move.  I was amazed that nobody went over the top or that the wooden railings had never snapped.

 

I mentioned a couple of days ago about the Notts Forrest Cup game.  We had no option but to get onto the pitch but we were lucky that we weren’t fenced in or I’m sure somebody would have died during that game because people at the back kept surging forwards.  Whoever thought up the idea of fencing people in at football grounds should be shot with s*** and they are ultimately to blame for people dying at Hillsborough, not the police who opened gates.

 

 

 

These bits bring it all back tbh, not the same incidents, but when this happens you have no control any more and it is terrifying. Feet off the ground, arms pinned to your sides, if someone goes down next to you, you're going down too and a shitload of people are coming on top of you and they can't help it either. Not proud of it but if I could get an elbow free I'd boost myself up a bit on someone else's shoulder just to get a breath. 50,000 at SJP in those days was a fight for survival if you got caught in the tide and I can remember a couple of times getting slammed up against the brick wall outside the Leazes turnstiles (Ipswich and Arsenal in the mid-70s I think) and just fighting to get away from the crush and collapsing before giving up and going home instead. Polis sitting unbothered on their horses as per. f*** knows how it never happened before, it was bound to. Generations of callous bastards milking the cannon-fodder for every penny and not caring whether they survive the day, institutionalised police brutality, sneering middle-class media and simple-minded Joe and Josephine Public, who would have guessed it could all go wrong?

 

23 years to admit this is a f***ing national disgrace when it was crystal-clear immediately afterwards what had happened, a cluster-f***. Some people made bad decisions, some other people didn't know what to do, or froze, or simply couldn't help, most people didn't know what was happening, but most of all the people in charge hadn't made any plans for this possibility WHICH WAS THEIR f***ing JOB. You shouldn't have some poor traumatised PC running round trying to find the maintenance man to get some boltcutters to open the emergency gate to let the dying fans out ffs. Oh, man, I thought this wound had healed. Those poor people

 

I am staying away from this thread it makes me sad, I remember watching it on TV, brings back bad memories. Hope the families get justice.

[Dave]

Obviously I've been keeping a very close eye on this thread and I'm not sure what's been posted to piss some off so much.

 

[Ishmael]

High horses innit.

[Dave]

Anyway, here's another point for discussion. Where does this leave the campaign for the return of safe standing at football? Hillsborough has always been cited as the ultimate argument against it, does this verdict change anything?

[Spider Jerusalem]

Anyway, here's another point for discussion. Where does this leave the campaign for the return of safe standing at football? Hillsborough has always been cited as the ultimate argument against it, does this verdict change anything?

 

Not really - there is not really ever going to be 'safe' standing as long as the health and safety laws would allow any one who is injured to sue the club.

[magorific]

Is that posted with relevance to the Hillsborough discussion?

 

Because if it is, there is absolutely no relevance at all.

 

It's the Liverpool thread, not the hillsborough thread.

 

I didn't say it was the hillsborough thread, I just wondered if it was posted with reference to what has been discussed on the last few pages. Tooj said it isn't, which clears it up.

 

It was pretty obvious it wasn't.

 

Not really, take a look through the last few pages for some of the offensive, irrelevant bollocks people have been posting.

 

Not that irrelevant, people may have opinions that differ to your own or have said things you dont like but it was clearly unrelated story and it just seems like you were wanting to have a go at someone, for anything.

 

Anyway, an opinion you certainly won't like: Just because there isn't proof doesn't mean it didn't happen, and how many games in the 80s did you go to where supporters were all sober?

 

 

WTF??? 450,000 documents, a 400-plus page INDEPENDENT report, unprecedented and unequivocal apologies from all relevant authorities (and The Sun), and you are STILL clinging to this shit? Dear God...

[Ishmael]

Did the independent report look into the state of mind of the Liverpool fans?  Drunkenness etc?

 

(serious question)

[Guest BooBoo]

Safe standing will never come back in, in Britain.