Hillsborough E-Petition

[underdog]

Hillsborough Stadium was a regular venue for FA Cup semi-finals during the 1980s, hosting a total of five. A previous crush had occurred on the same terrace during the 1981 semi-final between Spurs and Wolves, causing a total of 38 injuries. This prompted Sheffield Wednesday to alter the design of the Leppings Lane end, dividing it into three separate pens. The pens had been introduced to combat the rise of hooliganism on the terraces, but it also meant that if there was an emergency, the fans could become trapped.

 

Liverpool and Forest had also met at the semi-final stage of the same competition at the same ground in 1988. In Lord Taylor's Interim Report, he made no criticism of the Football Association's decision to use the Hillsborough stadium as the semi-final for the second consecutive year, as the 1988 game had been considered a successfully managed event. However, it transpired that many Liverpool fans had reported crushing in the Leppings Lane End in 1988, leading to Liverpool FC lodging a complaint prior to the 1989 FA Cup Semi-Final.

 

As the 1988 arrangements had otherwise worked satisfactorily, it was reasonable to assume that Sheffield Wednesday would concentrate on the issue of crushing in the Leppings Lane End. The question is therefore what was different on the 15th April 1989?

 

I would explain that I was present with oafc_ok on both occasions, on the Kop looking towards the Leppings Lane End, and I refer to my own observations and subsequent findings.

 

In 1988 the Liverpool fans took up their places in the Leppings Lane End gradually over a period of 90 minutes leading to the kick-off, filling the centre and side sections of the End.

 

In 1989 only the centre section looked full by 3:00pm. The Taylor Report says a large number of Liverpool fans, including what Lord Taylor described as a "drunken minority", arrived at the Leppings Lane End shortly before the kick-off. No decision was taken to delay the kick-off, but to relieve the dangerous congestion at the turnstiles, the police officer in charge of the game that day – Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield – ordered Exit Gate C to be opened to ease the crush outside the ground. He would later claim drunken Liverpool fans forced the gate open.

 

Once inside the stadium, with poor signage and a lack of stewards to point them in the right direction, the majority of Liverpool fans headed down the tunnel towards the already full-to-capacity centre pen behind the goal, swelling the numbers and starting to crush those already on the terrace. With nowhere to go, the crush got worse. Fans literally died on their feet, the life sucked out of them as they became trapped in the pens supposedly designed for their own safety.

 

Amazingly, the game kicked off at three o'clock. A few minutes later Peter Beardsley hit the bar, causing another surge forward, allowing more to push further along the tunnel leading to the centre pen. Eight minutes into the game it was called off as the police finally opened a gate, allowing fans out of the pens onto the pitch.

 

Only one ambulance was allowed into the ground, and not until about 3:30pm, while another 43 waited outside on the orders of police, who told the paramedics there was fighting. Bodies were lined up on the side of the pitch as the survivors desperately tried to save friends, family and strangers caught in the crush.

 

At no stage up to 3:40pm, when we left the stadium after Liverpool fans demolished the goal at the Leppings Lane End, was any PA announcement made to inform spectators what was happening. The police adopted the role of keeping fans apart by forming a line across the pitch, just as they had done the previous year, when Liverpool fans approached the Kop End in their celebrations after the final whistle.

 

The only people tending for the injured were the Liverpool fans, who removed advertisement hoardings from round the pitch to use as makeshift stretchers. We had no idea that anyone had died until we heard it on the car radio on the way home. The shock of finding out what was actually happening in front of us, yet without our knowledge, was difficult to cope with at the time and it took a long time to get over it, but obviously that was nothing compared to the memories that Liverpool fans have to live with.

 

The crucial mistake was that a person was not positioned at the entrance to the centre tunnel, to inform fans that that section was already full and direct them to the two side tunnels, leading to the comparatively empty terraces. The fans headed down the centre tunnel knowing that the game had already kicked off and in their determination to miss as little of the game as possible, they kept pushing each other as they inched their way down the tunnel, resulting in their fellow fans being crushed by the barriers and by the fencing at the front of the terrace.

 

It really is a crying shame that this tragedy could so easily have been avoided, especially in the light of the complaint lodged by Liverpool FC prior to the 1989 game.

 

Those seeking 'justice' want to know whether there is any evidence that their loved ones could have been saved if they had received proper medical attention, in that chaotic situation, when amateurs were trying to cope in the absence of any leadership from the professionals. They also want to find out the truth to see if the authorities controlled the aftermath to relieve them of any accountability.

 

Bloody hell Diego, bet you have flash backs too. It was the eve of my 21st and I had just returned from manny getting a dress when I saw it all on the tv's in the shop just off St.peters precinct in Oldham, all showing different views and of course no volume so we couldn't work out what had happened but it was bad. Rushed home from then on.

 

Bad day then Bradford Fire too....

 

We love the game buts not worth you life

[opinions4u]

Cheers Diego.

 

I wasn't there. I saw it through the window of a TV shop in Piccadilly Gardens. No idea what had happened, it simply didn't look like hooliganism.

 

Then I got to my car and listened to it on the radio. I remember them replaying the commentator's comments from around 2.58pm; it was 3.50pm by this stage and the death toll was believed to be 2. But I felt real anger.

 

Nothing like the anger I felt when parts of the press started blaming the fans for everything though. This was a big match in a stadium used to hosting big games. Wednesday had been in the top flight for many of the previous seasons. There was no excuse for the failures of those responsible for the safety of supporters.

 

It was avoidable.

[Diego_Sideburns]

Bloody hell Diego, bet you have flash backs too.

 

It was very difficult going in the Leppings Lane upper stand with Latics after that day, and I don't mind admitting I shed a few tears looking down on that terrace. It was many years before oafc_ok would talk about that day. At his suggestion, his school played a game at Eton Park against Burton Albion's youth team to raise funds for the victims' families.

[leeslover]

The overall picture is one of failures and random circumstances all the way down the process leading to tragedy. Without the roadworks, with better stewarding, with better strategy in the control centre, with better football fans behaviour in the decades leading up to it, with a better disaster recovery plan. I think everyone learned something that day.

[Stitch_KTF]

Interesting and insightful comments above. Whilst now embarrassed over my insensitivity I'm glad I incited them.

[rosa]

I may become very unpopular here, but after seeing all the TV reports, and reading most newspaper reports, it was clear to me that the initial cause of the disaster was down to Liverpool fans arriving late, and trying to break down a gate in order to get in. The policeman in charge outside the ground was afraid that if the gate gave way people would be crushed. He therefore gave the order to open the gate. All the fans then ran to the tunnel in front of them. The outcome of which we all know.

The crush outside the ground wasn't caused by fans turning up late, it was caused by the layout of the ground, which created a bottleneck with 25,000 fans having to go through a tightly confined area on Leppings Lane, and the 10,000 fans who had tickets for the Leppings Lane terrace being processed through 7 turnstiles. In previous years the police streamed fans as they approached the ground and directed them to different gates. This didn't happen in 1989. I know someone who got there at 2pm and it took them 20 minutes to get in. How early should the Liverpool fans have started queueing?

 

The only people I can blame for this disaster were the Liverpool fans outside the ground, not the police. However the police were to blame by badly handling the situation. Also to blame was the way the terraces were penned and fenced. This was probably done on police advice, but many other grounds at the time were the same.

That just doesn't make sense. You say "The only people I can blame for this disaster were the Liverpool fans outside the ground, not the police", then immediately say "However the police were to blame....". So the disaster was solely caused by Liverpool fans turning up late (the majority of people at any match turn up in the 15 minutes before KO, and as i've said there were already problems building up at 2pm), but also by the police and the state of the ground?

 

This is exactly why people are still pushing for any information about Hillsborough to be released. Mud sticks, and the lie that the police were forced into unfortunate mistakes by drunken fans turning up late and trying to force the gate open is still accepted by a lot of people. It was a catastrophic failure of planning and judgement, caused in no small part by the attitude towards football fans at the time - that they were animals to be contained at any cost. Imagine how you'd feel if you'd been in the crush. On top of the survivor guilt that people usually have to deal with after a traumatic event, you have to deal with the media (and the Sun was just the worst of a bad bunch) basically saying that you should feel guilty, because it was your fault. If you knew that wasn't the case, because you'd seen a crush building up an hour before kick off, you'd seen the police fail to close the tunnel when the central pens were already full, you'd seen them threaten to arrest people for climbing over the fence to escape the crush, and you'd watched them form a line across the pitch to keep the two sets of fans apart as it was left to the Liverpool fans to attempt to pull people out of the crush and revive them, wouldn't you want any information to be released, even 22 years on? People don't want revenge. They want those responsible for the deaths of their loved ones brought to account (as bereaved families usually do), they want lessons to be learnt so it doesn't happen again (I'd like to think it couldn't, but i don't think the attitudes of the 80s have gone away completely), and they want the truth about what happened to become the accepted version of events.

[rudemedic]

IIRC a reason not mentioned as to why the gates were opened to prevent a crush was that a number of Liverpool fans travelled across the Pennines without tickets.

 

Re the alcohol consumption people dont have to be obviously drunk to have their judgement impaired by alcohol. The legal drink driving limit is roughly equivalent to a pint of Stella for this reason.

 

Hillsbrough was a tragic accident and many mistakes were made on that fateful date and in the aftermath to which some people want to aportion blame. Yet I don't think it would be harsh of me to say that not every mistake made was done so by someone in authority.

[opinions4u]

IIRC a reason not mentioned as to why the gates were opened to prevent a crush was that a number of Liverpool fans travelled across the Pennines without tickets.

 

There is little evidence to prove this, and it appears to be a claim that came out of police lies in the aftermath of the tragedy.

 

Indeed, the Liverpool ticket office only sold out of their allocation the day before the game, so it doesn't suggest an excessive demand for tickets at all.

 

I'd take it a step further. Some of the statements that came out of officialdom after the event were misleading. Some of those misleading statements were accepted by the press. The masses read the press, remembered them and passed them on to others who appear to be reproducing them on this thread.

 

My Mother wasn't a Sun reader, she had the Telegraph delivered each morning. One conversation that we never reconciled over was Hillsborough and its causes. She believed what her newspaper told her on the Sunday, Monday, Tuesday after the event. She couldn't accept the insights of her 21 year old son who had previously stood on that terrace, attended numerous football matches and seen the police at work as an anti-hooligan body, not as a public safety operation. Even when officialdom in the guise of the Taylor Report came to the conclusion that the authorities (primarily the police) failed in their crowd control duties her mind had already been made up - it wasn't going to be changed by something 12-24 months after the event. But her newspaper prejudiced her views.

 

I'm suspicious about the failure to release cabinet papers. Although I suspect when they are released they will simply show the politicians initially believing that all football fans are scum, the police acted to prevent hooliganism and the crush was caused by drunken Liverpool fans kicking down the gates and surging in to the terrace. Yet the Taylor Report and eye witnesses later confirmed that wasn't the case.

Edited August 24, 2011 by opinions4u

[outoftheblue]

 

Indeed, the Liverpool ticket office only sold out of their allocation the day before the game, so it doesn't suggest an excessive demand for tickets at all.

 

Correct. I would normally have gone to the game had I not been going on holiday that evening, and was asked by a friend the morning before matchday if I wanted a ticket picking up as they were still available.

Liverpool fans were known to turn up late in large numbers for games - I remember it happening at Walsall earlier that season, Blackburn the season before (I think), and a couple of seasons earlier at Stoke's Victoria ground there was a very worrying event similar to Hillsborough, when the gates were opened twenty minutes into a cup game after a sole turnstile was left to cope with several hundred Liverpool fans who were getting restless outside.

However, turning up late and with a couple of pints inside you isn't a crime, and is something that many of us have done. The police should have beeen aware of the possibility of this, particularly with the roadworks, and plans to deal with these large numbers should have beeen in place, but weren't. Instead, the approach seeemed to be more geared to confronting hoooliganism than dealing with public safety.

 

Liaison officers these days are much more in touch with the teams they represent, and will be better armed with knowledge regarding their travelling fans' preferred routes, pre-match drinking habits, hooligan contingents, and associated habits, which hopefully will ensure that the events in Sheffield will never be repeated. That sort of information was available to police forces twenty years ago, but they chose to adopt a policy of treating all supporters like animals instead, with tragic consequences. Thank God times have changed.

[rudemedic]

There is little evidence to prove this, and it appears to be a claim that came out of police lies in the aftermath of the tragedy.

 

Indeed, the Liverpool ticket office only sold out of their allocation the day before the game, so it doesn't suggest an excessive demand for tickets at all.

 

I'd take it a step further. Some of the statements that came out of officialdom after the event were misleading. Some of those misleading statements were accepted by the press. The masses read the press, remembered them and passed them on to others who appear to be reproducing them on this thread.

OK I stand corrected. I'm not sure where I heard it from, most likely to be a documentary, it certainly wasn't from any newspaper at the time.

[opinions4u]

Article in the Mail today.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2030647/Hillsborough-As-officials-block-release-Cabinet-papers-football-disaster-families-victims-raise-disturbing-theory-.html

[rosa]

I remember the Mail's coverage at the time - they quoted the police as saying "vile fans fought us as we tried to help the dying". Shows the shift in public opinion when they're running an article like that.

[opinions4u]

I remember the Mail's coverage at the time - they quoted the police as saying "vile fans fought us as we tried to help the dying". Shows the shift in public opinion when they're running an article like that.

While in the minority, some of the comments at the bottom of that article highlight my view that inaccurate press reporting and "misleading" police comment has embedded a totally wrong view in the minds of some people in relation to what really happened.

[rosa]

While in the minority, some of the comments at the bottom of that article highlight my view that inaccurate press reporting and "misleading" police comment has embedded a totally wrong view in the minds of some people in relation to what really happened.

Never read the comments on the Daily Mail website mate, it'll just convince you that mankind doesn't deserve to survive as a species.

[Diego_Sideburns]

Debate in Parliament this afternoon on the Motion re disclosure and publication of public documents relating to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.

[Lookers_Carl]

Signed

[Senor_Coconut]

No doubt I'll get negged to bits for this but they really should let it go

[Lookers_Carl]

No doubt I'll get negged to bits for this but they really should let it go

 

I suggest a poll Let it go or public hanging

[jimsleftfoot]

No doubt I'll get negged to bits for this but they really should let it go

 

Maybe they could have let it go at an earlier point, but definetly not now.

[Diego_Sideburns]

Debate in Parliament this afternoon on the Motion re disclosure and publication of public documents relating to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.

 

The debate starts at 17:40 after two hours of debate on MPs' pensions.

[Diego_Sideburns]

No doubt I'll get negged to bits for this but they really should let it go

 

Those seeking ‘justice’ want to know whether there is any evidence that their loved ones could have been saved if they had received proper medical attention, in that chaotic situation, when amateurs were trying to cope in the absence of any leadership from the professionals. They also want to find out the truth to see if the authorities controlled the aftermath to relieve them of any accountability.

 

How would we feel in the same circumstances?

 

Of course they may learn things they did not want to hear, but that's the risk they take in not letting it go.

[beag_teeets]

No doubt I'll get negged to bits for this but they really should let it go

 

 

Wash your mouth out.

 

I'm as anti-scouse as they come but they should not let this go until justice is done, there was a catastrophic failure by the authorities that day, the truth needs to come out.

[JoeP]

Wash your mouth out.

I'm as anti-scouse as they come but they should not let this go until justice is done, there was a catastrophic failure by the authorities that day, the truth needs to come out.

 

Without wanting to belittle the content of this thread, but why? Is this as an Oldham fan/Oldhamer?

 

I thought Latics fans would have common ground with Scousers because of their hatred for Manchester.

 

So we don't like Manchester, we don't like Liverpool, we don't like Yorkshire and we don't like other parts of Lancashire....not got many allies, have we??

[beag_teeets]

Without wanting to belittle the content of this thread, but why? Is this as an Oldham fan/Oldhamer?

 

I thought Latics fans would have common ground with Scousers because of their hatred for Manchester.

 

So we don't like Manchester, we don't like Liverpool, we don't like Yorkshire and we don't like other parts of Lancashire....not got many allies, have we??

 

I'm more manc than Oldham, I work there, went to college there and drink there. Always been anti-scouse, but as you say, lets not detract from the content of the thread.

[Diego_Sideburns]

I watched the full debate, which was of a very high quality.

 

Home Secretary Theresa May apologised for the Government's response to the disclosure request, and said the Coalition was fully behind plans to reveal documents to Hillsborough families.

 

"The Government's position has nothing to do with attempting to suppress these papers, and I am sorry that the way the Government responded. We believe the right way to release these papers is through the HIllsborough Independent Panel. We want to see full disclosure, including Cabinet minutes."

 

The motion was carried with none against.