oafc0000 Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 Some people here need to read this... http://www.theguardian.com/football/2009/mar/15/hillsborough-disaster-survivors Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsslatic Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 That is a remarkable piece. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosa Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 Some people here need to read this... http://www.theguardian.com/football/2009/mar/15/hillsborough-disaster-survivors That's an excellent article. People who've gone through something like Hillsborough often have survivor guilt; imagine how much worse it is when you've had nearly two decades of being told that it was your fault. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opinions4u Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 Some people here need to read this... http://www.theguardian.com/football/2009/mar/15/hillsborough-disaster-survivors I've not read that before. But it's brought tears to my eyes. I do suggest people take a few minutes out to read it in solitude. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosa Posted April 16, 2014 Share Posted April 16, 2014 Just finished reading With Hope In Her Heart,the book about Anne Williams and her fight to have the inquest into her son Kevin's death re-opened. I'd forgotten about south Yorkshire Police confiscating flowers from Liverpool fans at Hillsborough in 1997. What a inhumane grubby corrupt shower of :censored: they really are. One of the most striking things in the book is when it describes how Anne had a photo of a group of Liverpool fans carrying her son across the pitch published in the Echo and appealed for the fans who tried to help him to get in touch with her. Loads of Hillsborough survivors contacted her to wish her well, and apparently many of them felt it necessary to stress that they weren't drunk on the day of the disaster. How sad that people who went to a football match and ended up spending the afternoon carrying dead bodies and rescuing the injured should feel the need to tell the bereaved that they weren't responsible for killing their loved ones. How cruel that a grieving mother should have to do the coroner's job for them and conduct her own investigation into her son's death. How disappointing that, despite the best efforts of bereaved families and traumatised survivors to uncover the truth, some still choose to believe the lies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disjointed Posted April 16, 2014 Share Posted April 16, 2014 Just finished reading With Hope In Her Heart,the book about Anne Williams and her fight to have the inquest into her son Kevin's death re-opened. I'd forgotten about south Yorkshire Police confiscating flowers from Liverpool fans at Hillsborough in 1997. What a inhumane grubby corrupt shower of :censored: they really are. One of the most striking things in the book is when it describes how Anne had a photo of a group of Liverpool fans carrying her son across the pitch published in the Echo and appealed for the fans who tried to help him to get in touch with her. Loads of Hillsborough survivors contacted her to wish her well, and apparently many of them felt it necessary to stress that they weren't drunk on the day of the disaster. How sad that people who went to a football match and ended up spending the afternoon carrying dead bodies and rescuing the injured should feel the need to tell the bereaved that they weren't responsible for killing their loved ones. How cruel that a grieving mother should have to do the coroner's job for them and conduct her own investigation into her son's death. How disappointing that, despite the best efforts of bereaved families and traumatised survivors to uncover the truth, some still choose to believe the lies. But TBF Rosa, even though the truth is finally coming to light, why should some not have believed the lies. Growing up as a youngster I was always told to believe a policeman, little things like that do stick with you. I always felt that something wasn't right but when the authorities try to convince you one way you can see that point of view. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opinions4u Posted April 16, 2014 Share Posted April 16, 2014 But TBF Rosa, even though the truth is finally coming to light, why should some not have believed the lies. Growing up as a youngster I was always told to believe a policeman, little things like that do stick with you. I always felt that something wasn't right but when the authorities try to convince you one way you can see that point of view. The Taylor Report pretty much confirmed that the police messed up within months of those people dying. It made more than one point absolving Liverpool fans of blame for what happened and there are more than enough references to dispel all the myths that live on. The damage was already done to uninquisitive minds. The police had spun their lies. The papers had lapped them up and reproduced them. While The Sun's reporting stands out, the Telegraph didn't exactly cover itself in glory either. The landlord of the local boozer on news programmes that night bleated that they'd "drunk me dry". Didn't the Bradford Arms have a similar problem a few days ago? I finished work in Manchester at 3.30pm that day and my first knowledge of what was going on was a couple of minutes later through the windows of a TV shop in Piccadilly Gardens. Silent pictures coming back at me but I knew instinctively that there was no hooliganism at work, despite the police cordon moving slowly down the pitch. By 4pm I was sat in my car listening to events unfold on BBC Radio 2, who covered sport in those days. They played back commentary from a few minutes before kick off where the late Peter Jones was heard to say "that section of the Leppings Lane End looks way overcrowded". His view of proceedings was not dissimilar to that of the policeman in charge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosa Posted April 16, 2014 Share Posted April 16, 2014 But TBF Rosa, even though the truth is finally coming to light, why should some not have believed the lies. Growing up as a youngster I was always told to believe a policeman, little things like that do stick with you. I always felt that something wasn't right but when the authorities try to convince you one way you can see that point of view. Yeah, the cover-up operation was pretty all-encompassing, and as o4u says the Sun's coverage was just the worst of a bad bunch. That was obvious from the publice reaction after the HIP report came out - if you'd read the Taylor report and followed the families' fight for justice closely you had an idea of what happened and how bad the cover-up was, but to the wider public it was shocking. What I don't get is people continuing to believe the Liverpool fans were to blame for the disaster when so much evidence has come out to the contrary, and been widely reported. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disjointed Posted April 16, 2014 Share Posted April 16, 2014 Yeah, the cover-up operation was pretty all-encompassing, and as o4u says the Sun's coverage was just the worst of a bad bunch. That was obvious from the publice reaction after the HIP report came out - if you'd read the Taylor report and followed the families' fight for justice closely you had an idea of what happened and how bad the cover-up was, but to the wider public it was shocking. What I don't get is people continuing to believe the Liverpool fans were to blame for the disaster when so much evidence has come out to the contrary, and been widely reported. Unfortunately it all comes down to stereotyping, there are some that will never accept the truth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
underdog Posted April 16, 2014 Share Posted April 16, 2014 I finished work in Manchester at 3.30pm that day and my first knowledge of what was going on was a couple of minutes later through the windows of a TV shop in Piccadilly Gardens. Silent pictures coming back at me but I knew instinctively that there was no hooliganism at work, despite the police cordon moving slowly down the pitch. By 4pm I was sat in my car listening to events unfold on BBC Radio 2, who covered sport in those days. They played back commentary from a few minutes before kick off where the late Peter Jones was heard to say "that section of the Leppings Lane End looks way overcrowded". His view of proceedings was not dissimilar to that of the policeman in charge. OMG...spookily that was me too, coming home from Manny after buying my 18th Bday party dress in the arndale! getting to oldham at the top of George St, St. Peter's square and a TV shop there, Boardmans?..seeing the news report with subtitles and I knew it that there was no way on Gods green earth that was crowd trouble and I was 17, and I bloody knew it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rudemedic Posted April 16, 2014 Share Posted April 16, 2014 In this link it takes the Liverpool players and staff nearly 5 minutes to read out the full names of all the 96 victims http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27048201 There was only 9 minutes between the ref stopping the game at 3.06 pm and the cut-off point of 3.15 pm when it was ruled that not one of the victims could have been saved that was part of the initial inquest. Those 2 time frames simply don't compute. Something that is known now but for which the majority of the damage has already been done. Justice is coming, not just for the 96, but for their friends and relatives and the "survivors", some of whom have since passed on, but did so without knowing that the rest of the population will eventually know the truth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maddog Posted April 16, 2014 Share Posted April 16, 2014 I had a conversation with a friend's husband in Friday. He's mid-30s, very intelligent and educated, massive football fan of mid-league football (Ipswich), and I was appalled at his response to my sympathetic stance with the 15.07 kick off time. Having said that, it was just a little more blinkered than my stance a couple of years ago. The whole cover up, the press coverage at the time, and the amount of time it has taken for the truth to start coming out has contributed to the perception of 'normal' fans. It's horrific. I stand by my defence that 'normal' people function in a dangerous world by assuming 'they' will keep us safe and keep order. I didn't want to ever believe that the people who I was brought up to believe were there to keep people safe and be trustworthy (I.e., police, government) failed so badly in this instance but had the audacity (not a string enough word) to deflect the truth / cover up facts. So I took what they reported at face value. And it is clear from the posts from Bradford fans that they had closure. There was no cover up about their disaster. The cause was clear. Innocent people weren't blamed. Awful as it was, they got closure. They grieved. With Hillsborough, there is still a wait for closure and grieving, while the bollocks is unpicked from the truth. Grieving is necessary for acceptance and moving on. It's not a surprise people feel strongly about it and want a definitive answer. When they get that, the horror of it will diminish slightly, but the wait may have done irreparable damage. Even if you can't empathise with this who lost family members in this disaster, just imagine it could have easily have been us. Imagine 100 of us just dead because of a series of :censored: ups out of our control and everyone else in the football world saying it's all our own fault. It's awful beyond words! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinevillawill Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 The catalyst of the crush was the Police's decision to open Gate C - that is now widely accepted - but, forgive my ignorance, I'd appreciate a none-biased view of the following questions: How did the overcrowding start outside the ground? Were Sheffield Wednesday to blame for the lack of effective stewarding or was this the role of the Police in 1989? Were the Liverpool fans in any way to blame? Why didn't Liverpool fans at the back of the terracing simply turn around to relieve the pressure at the front? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deyres42 Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 The catalyst of the crush was the Police's decision to open Gate C - that is now widely accepted - but, forgive my ignorance, I'd appreciate a none-biased view of the following questions: How did the overcrowding start outside the ground? Were Sheffield Wednesday to blame for the lack of effective stewarding or was this the role of the Police in 1989? Were the Liverpool fans in any way to blame? Why didn't Liverpool fans at the back of the terracing simply turn around to relieve the pressure at the front? Think if you've ever been to that ground then it's not hard to imagine that area outside becoming very busy in a short space of time. Doubt anyone is naive enough to think that there wouldn't have been fans who travelled without tickets with a view to getting in the ground, hardly a trade secret though. Your last question doesn't warrant a response. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oafc0000 Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 (edited) The catalyst of the crush was the Police's decision to open Gate C - that is now widely accepted - but, forgive my ignorance, I'd appreciate a none-biased view of the following questions: How did the overcrowding start outside the ground? Were Sheffield Wednesday to blame for the lack of effective stewarding or was this the role of the Police in 1989? Were the Liverpool fans in any way to blame? Why didn't Liverpool fans at the back of the terracing simply turn around to relieve the pressure at the front? http://www.theguardian.com/football/2009/mar/15/hillsborough-disaster-survivors I also thought it was the opening of the gate which directly lead to the start of the crush but after reading this it is clear the crushing was already underway before that gate was opened. No doubt the opening of the gate is what then probably turned an awful situation to a deadly one but reading this was an eye opener to how poor everything was managed well before the exit gate was opened. The crush could of well happened regardless of the exit gate being opened. What actually caused the crush was not closing off the centre pen using the available doors when the pen was already full. The overcrowding outside was caused by old turnstiles that couldn't admit people fast enough. Fans being at the wrong turnstile and not being able to move away due to the weight of people arriving. This is not there fault. The crowd should of been managed approaching the stadium. Checking tickets and making sure people where going in the right direction etc. Liverpool fans get zero blame. Some stupid people might say they pushed to get in etc. But that is crowd mentality that is well understood and happens today. The failure was the lack of management of the crowd by effective policing, stadium layout etc... And reading peoples accounts would suggest there wasn't much pushing... It was more of being swept along by a tide of people... The fans had nowhere to go.... The one exit back up the Tunnel was full of people. The lateral forces had everyone pinned as much as the forward forces... The only way out was up! You need to do some reading of the reports, inquests, survivor stories and documentaries. Edited April 17, 2014 by oafc0000 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimsleftfoot Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Some people here need to read this... http://www.theguardian.com/football/2009/mar/15/hillsborough-disaster-survivors Read it on my way home on Tuesday and felt quite emotional. The guy describing himself being crushed, seeing an officer, asking for help and getting only a shrug filled me with utter rage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oafc0000 Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 (edited) Read it on my way home on Tuesday and felt quite emotional. The guy describing himself being crushed, seeing an officer, asking for help and getting only a shrug filled me with utter rage. We was animales to most of them... Nothing more.... The whole fact we called the standing areas "pens" speaks volumes. Saying this.. You only need to look at the Bradford fire video to see them at their best for balance. They ran forward when most ran away. Edited April 17, 2014 by oafc0000 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsslatic Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Read it on my way home on Tuesday and felt quite emotional. The guy describing himself being crushed, seeing an officer, asking for help and getting only a shrug filled me with utter rage. Same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevie_J Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Read it on my way home on Tuesday and felt quite emotional. The guy describing himself being crushed, seeing an officer, asking for help and getting only a shrug filled me with utter rage. Yeah, that knocked me for six too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinevillawill Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Your last question doesn't warrant a response. Why not? Innocent enough question. If it was obvious that the pen was full, why didn't the fans in the tunnel simply turnaround and make their way to one of the pens on the side? Again, excuse my ignorance if there is an obvious response. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinevillawill Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 http://www.theguardian.com/football/2009/mar/15/hillsborough-disaster-survivors I also thought it was the opening of the gate which directly lead to the start of the crush but after reading this it is clear the crushing was already underway before that gate was opened. No doubt the opening of the gate is what then probably turned an awful situation to a deadly one but reading this was an eye opener to how poor everything was managed well before the exit gate was opened. The crush could of well happened regardless of the exit gate being opened. What actually caused the crush was not closing off the centre pen using the available doors when the pen was already full. The overcrowding outside was caused by old turnstiles that couldn't admit people fast enough. Fans being at the wrong turnstile and not being able to move away due to the weight of people arriving. This is not there fault. The crowd should of been managed approaching the stadium. Checking tickets and making sure people where going in the right direction etc. Liverpool fans get zero blame. Some stupid people might say they pushed to get in etc. But that is crowd mentality that is well understood and happens today. The failure was the lack of management of the crowd by effective policing, stadium layout etc... And reading peoples accounts would suggest there wasn't much pushing... It was more of being swept along by a tide of people... The fans had nowhere to go.... The one exit back up the Tunnel was full of people. The lateral forces had everyone pinned as much as the forward forces... The only way out was up! You need to do some reading of the reports, inquests, survivor stories and documentaries. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimsleftfoot Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 [quote name="pinevillawill" post="706239" timestamp=" Why didn't Liverpool fans at the back of the terracing simply turn around to relieve the pressure at the front? It's a bit like pouring water into a cup from a great height, noticing it's already full but not being able to do anything about the water already poured..... When you are the water. Or another way to put it, go to a gig where the standing area is full and try and ask the people at the front how they are from the back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsslatic Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Why not? Innocent enough question. If it was obvious that the pen was full, why didn't the fans in the tunnel simply turnaround and make their way to one of the pens on the side? Again, excuse my ignorance if there is an obvious response. IIRC the tunnel from Gate C led directly to the centre pens. But I'll stand to be corrected if otherwise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosa Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Why not? Innocent enough question. If it was obvious that the pen was full, why didn't the fans in the tunnel simply turnaround and make their way to one of the pens on the side? Again, excuse my ignorance if there is an obvious response. The sheer weight of numbers made it impossible. There were already 2000 people in the central pens when the gate was opened. The people coming in through the gates were unaware of that, and unless they had been to the ground before they wouldn't known to go left or right to the side pens because there no signs directing them. All they would have seen was a tunnel ahead of them, and with thousands of people streaming in behind them they couldn't turn around. The Taylor report in 1991 exonerated Liverpool fans of all blame, as did the Hillsborough Independent Panel in 2012. If you get chance, read the HIP report (can't post the link on my phone but it's in an earlier post) or Phil Scraton's book Hillsborough:The Truth. They're heavy going but they'll answer any questions you have. Jimmy McGovern's Hillsborough drama-documentary's worth watching as well (again,can't post the link but if you Google it you'll find it). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rudemedic Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Jimmy McGovern's dramatisation http://youtu.be/wf15PAPnAik Panorama documentary (broadcast around the time the HIP report was published), well worth a viewing too http://youtu.be/T2L_8sj6Wyc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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