link to the report?

At the end of the day a' crowd ' of people trapped in a small space is a disaster waiting to happen , the pollice made the wrong decisions on the day in regard to control

 

the disaster senario will include many constituants including drink & late arrivals bad policing & inadequate turnstile operation, it nearly happened to some of us one

 

Boxing day at Blackpool .

 

The police are culpable not because they made mistakes but because they corrupted eye witness report , fed the media intruths , & covered up their actions for over

 

ttwenty years ..............that is UNFORGIVABLE .

Before anyone else comments on this you really should read the report. The criminal neglience of the club, the police, the city council and the FA in allowing a semi final to be played there is staggering. They all knew:

1) It was a death trap, an accident waiting to happen - it had no safety certificate

2) serious injuries had occured before

2) SWFC were not prepared to spend sufficient money to make it safe

3) SYP and SWFC wouldn't even agree who was responsible for crowd safety

The SYP police had prevented deaths in previous years by blocking off the entrance to tunnel to the central pens, but this was not reported or briefed.

What happened on the day could have happened to any supporters who were allocated the Lepping Lane end.

The SYP lost control on the day and then covered it up, the way they treated the families and dead on the evening of the disaster beggars belief.

 

would it have happened if every supporter had a ticket?

 

thats a serious question btw as i know the there were more tickets than the pens safety capacity.

 

had that number of (ticketed) fans been in there before?

Edited September 13, 201213 yr by HomerJay

egg on face????

 

what a crock of shite.

 

 

i do admit, the scousers were right is persuing the 'truth' and the have been given raw deal by a lot of people (including myself)

 

in terms of health and safety and emergency services, i think we have learned and improvement massively from that day. you could almost argue, that the deaths were not in vein. and i mean that in the most sensitive way possible.

 

that aside, there has to be criminal prosecution against the police. i wish the scousers every success in that. this part was disgusting beyond belief.

 

 

but my OPINION still stands, fans who turned up without tickets and forced their way in were also part of the problem.

 

theres been a lot of focus on alchol and checking criminal record but what about the just whether a section of fans were complete dickheads, how to you even test for that?

 

Spot on.

Difference is, the fans have not tried to to lie, and conspire to make stuff up. The police did.

http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/repository/report/HIP_report.pdf

 

link to the report?

Difference is, the fans have not tried to to lie, and conspire to make stuff up. The police did.

 

Have any of those without tickets that day stepped forward ?

Difference is, the fans have not tried to to lie, and conspire to make stuff up. The police did.

 

 

96 people are still dead, irrespective of what happened afterwards. I think everyone backs the Justice campaign.

 

But If anyone gets taken to court for causing the deaths, rather than the coverup, their defence will have a fucking field day.

 

IMO some fans have lied, maybe not intentionally.

cheers

 

They also demonstrate how the SYP Police Federation, supported informally by the SYP Chief Constable, sought to develop and publicise a version of events that focused on several police officers’ allegations of drunkenness, ticketlessness and violence among a large number of Liverpool fans. This extended beyond the media to Parliament.

Yet, from the mass of documents, television and CCTV coverage disclosed to the Panel there is no evidence to support these allegations other than a few isolated examples of aggressive or verbally abusive behaviour clearly reflecting frustration and desperation.

 

if this is truly the case, then i stand corrected. i havent seen the footage so i can only take the above as gospel. but i do find it extremely suprising that hundreds of fans werent pushing to get in to see such a match.

 

it also says that it was decided that the police decided not to check tickets before arrival at the ground. crazy, just crazy....

Edited September 13, 201213 yr by HomerJay

cheers

 

 

 

if this is truly the case, then i stand corrected. i havent seen the footage so i can only take the above as gospel. but i do find it extremely suprising that hundreds of fans werent pushing to get in to see such a match.

 

it also says that it was decided that the police decided not to check tickets before arrival at the ground. crazy, just crazy....

 

Yet the year before, they DID check the tickets, exact same game and same fans!!!

 

I have been at matches myself, that I have been forced into a certain area, by a copper with a batton.....you tend to do as you ar told. Hoarded like cattle.

If you read some of the police statements and the rationale behind 'altering' some of the police witness statements, it is clear the the amendments were made to deflect criticism by SYPs own officers away from the lack of response by senior SYP officers on match duty. If you take the time to read the statements, there is PLENTY of evidence that there were large numbers of drunken fans and a large number of ticketless fans waiting outside the Leppings Lane end who managed to get in to the ground when Gate C was open.

 

I can't condone what SYP did and their lack of response to an escalating disaster was negligent at the very least. Fans didn't cause this disaster, however they certainly contributed to it. I guess its about how all of this information has been interpreted - a police cover-up is a much better story than one of shared responsibility.

Edited September 13, 201213 yr by burndenpaddock

I'd like to see the FA and ultimately the government punished for this, What happened was due to their policy of not giving a seconds thought to the well being and safety of football fans. I can't belive the level of contempt they had to send people back into a stand which had experienced lucky escapes only the year before with Everton fans and in the 81 cup semi final with Spurs fans. As stated this could have happened to anyone up and down th country at that time. The grounds where unsafe and the policing aggresive and shambolic with forces more concerned fover football violence then anyones safety. Why was none of this addressed? Its to late to punish them I imagine. The cover up is unforgiveable but on the day emergency services were making decisions in a pressure cooker situation, The FA made decisions sat behind desks wondering what they'd have for tea.

They aslo opened gates at other sides of the ground for Liverpool fans, but in those area's it was seated / area pointed, and people had more entrance points to get in.

Look at the parralels; Both games were cup-matches, both in the latter stages of the competition, both were all-ticket games (and therefore, presumably, only had enough tickets printed to satisfy the capacity of the ground not the number of fans hopeful of getting a view of the game.

 

not quite, seems in them days they just shut the turnstiles when it got full

 

"At the time, fans paid at the turnstiles rather than buy tickets beforehand. As a result, the end became packed and over capacity and it was decided to close the turnstiles at 2:40 pm. This, however, did not stop more people entering the ground, with people climbing in from the railway, climbing over the closed turnstiles and, when a father and son picked a lock of a closed gate to escape the increasing crush, entering through it."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnden_Park_disaster

thing is, health and safety evolves with time and usually after such disasters happened.

 

you cant apply todays rules so far in the past. its just too easy with hindsight.

 

its all good and well saying lessons should be learnt. theres no doubt that certain things were changed, they just werent changed enough or implemented correctly.

This piece was on a Hillsborough website, I didn't know that everyone was coming in from the Manchester Road entrances.

 

Bolton 1946

On 9 March 1946 Bolton Wanderers were hosting Stoke City in the second-leg of a Football Association Cup Sixth Round tie. Shortly before the 3.00pm kick-off, a section of the densely packed crowd on the terraces in the north west corner of Burnden Park swayed uncontrollably, two crush barriers collapsed and many spectators fell forward on top of those in front of them. Under the pile of humanity, thirty three people asphyxiated and around them hundreds of others were injured.

 

After enquiries and hostile media reports the fans got blamed, particularly as many had gained entry illegaly. However...

 

The stadium had been requisitioned by the Ministry of Supply during the war the Burnden Stand as storage space during the War and the facility had not yet been returned to its normal usage. The Stand with its 2,789 seats was not available for spectators. Secondly the turnstiles at the east end of the Railway Embankment which adjoined that stand had been closed since 1940. Thus all the 28,000+ Embankment spectators had to enter from the Manchester Road (west) end. Thirdly, the 9,000 who held tickets to the paddock in front of the Burnden Stand had to be admitted through the entrances to the Main Stand paddock and then escorted by police around the north end of the playing surface to their assigned area. They were thus using entrances immediately adjacent to the turnstiles admitting the Embankment spectators. The combination of a bigger than expected crowd, and the numbers obliged to come in at the north-west corner led to acute congestion inside the ground and outside where much of the space between the turnstiles and the main road was used as a car park. Ultimately, the turnstiles in this area were closed. Subsequent to that action, an undetermined number of spectators gained improper entry by one of three means. Some simply climbed over the turnstiles, others climbed up onto the railway line atop the embankment and broke into the ground by removing sections of fencing, and yet others entered by way of an exit gate opened from the inside by a spectator seeking escape for himself and his son from the intensifying crush.

 

The authorities hadn't been prepared, despite the post war boom interest in football. On 13 February a record crowd of 51,612 included "hundreds sitting on the roof of a shelter behind one of the goals" at Burnden Park. Add to this the fact that this was a FA cup quarter final and the fact that a certain Stanley Mathews was playing for Stoke should have led to better preperation from the authorities... it didn't and the pattern was to be tragically repeated.

 

 

not quite, seems in them days they just shut the turnstiles when it got full

 

"At the time, fans paid at the turnstiles rather than buy tickets beforehand. As a result, the end became packed and over capacity and it was decided to close the turnstiles at 2:40 pm. This, however, did not stop more people entering the ground, with people climbing in from the railway, climbing over the closed turnstiles and, when a father and son picked a lock of a closed gate to escape the increasing crush, entering through it."

 

http://en.wikipedia....n_Park_disaster

bullshit of coarse it was an all ticket game, pay at the turnstiles my arse, for a fa cup semi final? wikipedia= wank info

Edited September 13, 201213 yr by athywhite

The fans were innocent in this. The Police were to blame. Justice for the 96

thing is, health and safety evolves with time and usually after such disasters happened.

 

you cant apply todays rules so far in the past. its just too easy with hindsight.

 

its all good and well saying lessons should be learnt. theres no doubt that certain things were changed, they just werent changed enough or implemented correctly.

Correct

Homer, a lot of these comments are made looking thro 2012 eyes, yes football fans back then were treated like shit but hell fire a lot of us were shit, trouble followed every single team every game, fans were treated with contempt because a lot of fans treat everyone else including the police with that same contempt they didn’t give a fuck as long as they had a ruck, men, woman and children in the way tough luck just causalities of war (bit strong but you get my point), just look at the throwing of coins and darts for fuck sake or the joining of 2 Stanley knife blades together because then the wound could not be stitched and say that it was not deserved, football fans brought 99% of the shit down on themselves.

The fans were innocent in this. The Police were to blame. Justice for the 96

 

thanks for that

Edited September 13, 201213 yr by HomerJay

The fans were innocent in this. The Police were to blame. Justice for the 96

 

Prick.

The fans were innocent in this. The Police were to blame. Justice for the 96

 

Baaaaaa

bullshit of coarse it was an all ticket game, pay at the turnstiles my arse, for a fa cup semi final? wikipedia= wank info

sorry silly me thought it was refering to hillsborough, had some of my family at the bolton game though, familys worried their loved ones may not return home that day, terrible.

I was unaware the Burnden game was all ticket. My Grandad went, after his aforementioned stay in Japan, but he didn't mention this.

 

The difference is you could realistically bob down to Bolton and sneak a view, from the Embankment maybe.

not quite, seems in them days they just shut the turnstiles when it got full

 

"At the time, fans paid at the turnstiles rather than buy tickets beforehand. As a result, the end became packed and over capacity and it was decided to close the turnstiles at 2:40 pm. This, however, did not stop more people entering the ground, with people climbing in from the railway, climbing over the closed turnstiles and, when a father and son picked a lock of a closed gate to escape the increasing crush, entering through it."

 

http://en.wikipedia....n_Park_disaster

That was just me making assumptions. Bolton v Stoke was a must-view game, I (maybe wrongly) assumed that by 1947 the fucking ticket office had . . .

 

 

No, let's not blame the Ticket Office!

 

Edited to add Zico's post.

Edited September 13, 201213 yr by MickyD

I don't think it can be contended that a great minority of football fans were up for trouble in that era and for that matter probably on the day. The problem is that I'm willing to bet the two teenage sisters who died for instance were not football holigans. Due to the actions of others does this mean that you relinquish your own rights to go to a game of football and not be treated as a human being by an authority set up to protect you? I agree with previous comments that in many ways this is an hisorical event, football has changed unrecognisably from the game of that era and any conclusions have to take in to consideration the culture of the match going fan at the time. I still feel basic principles of human rights can be applied though. Anything said now is in hindsight how can it be anything else but the government and FA's laissez faire approach led to this situation, some of the emergency services present that day including no doubt policemen (Some of whom have been praised as heros by witnesses) were victims of this as well as the fans.