Hillsborough inquest verdict.

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well yeah that is a factor - the reality is that crowds are different too a crowd at a football match is generally a bit different to one at a rugby match or a cricket match

And I think the point is that that should have been accounted for by the authorities.
You obviously can't magically change the behaviour of such a huge crowd but you can pre empt their actions to a point when you know how they act.
 
Turning a crush in which some people might have got minor injuries into a crush where people were absolutely certain to die doesn't somehow make it the fault of the crowd.

Crowds happen all the time and they need proper management to prevent harm. When crowds are not properly managed, people get hurt. When they are properly managed, everyone is safe. I can't be any plainer than that really - 100% not the fault of the crowd.

NB there's a world of difference between a well-behaved crowd involved in a crush and a crowd causing mayhem like the London Riots etc. If you're in any way conflating the two then you're irreconcilably wide of the mark.

So there is evidence that no one would have died in the crush building up outside the stadium?

And I'm not sure you meant to do this but your two examples: well behaved crowd (hills borough) and a crowd causing mayhem (London riots)... 96 people died in the well behaved crowd and none in the London riots (if I remember correctly)

But as I have said previously, the police should have taken control of this and nipped it in the bud. I just slightly disagreed with NONE of the fans are to blame.

The police deserve everything they get with regards to the attempted cover ups, etc.
 
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And I think the point is that that should have been accounted for by the authorities.
You obviously can't magically change the behaviour of such a huge crowd but you can pre empt their actions to a point when you know how they act.

no one is claiming you can and I've already pointed out that the authorities were to blame - point was that though the authorities have blame in all of this doesn't mean all the fans were saints, the behaviour of crowds at football matches is dangerous and they do need to be controlled more than crowds at other large events
 
So there is evidence that no one would have died in the crush building up outside the stadium?

And I'm not sure you meant to do this but your two examples: well behaved crowd (hills borough) and a crowd causing mayhem (London riots)... 96 people died in the well behaved crowd and none in the London riots (if I remember correctly)

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How much room did they have in the London Riots.
 
How much room did they have in the London Riots.

I didn't make the comparison. Off the top of my head the most noteworthy was an ikea incident involving thousands... So probably note a huge amount, thousands cramming into an ikea as it opens. But no doubt more then hillsborough...

My point was more the well-behaved vs the ill-behaved.
 
I didn't make the comparison. Off the top of my head the most noteworthy was an ikea incident involving thousands... So probably note a huge amount, thousands cramming into an ikea as it opens. But no doubt more then hillsborough...

My point was more the well-behaved vs the ill-behaved.

Ok Fair enough.
 
No, not according to the jury, the fans are not to blame. Go away.

I'd take issue with that, anyone in there without a valid ticket contributed whether they were a victim or not. Or to put it another way, they certainly didn't help.

I remember watching on the news the footage of the outside gates being opened up. Huge crowds around them. Can only think the police thought they were stopping a crush happening there.

Seems a tragic series of failures and blunders.

Obviously all counts of evidence/statements being tampered with needs criminal investigation. Clearly they tried to cover themselves so they wouldn't be blamed.
 
no one is claiming you can and I've already pointed out that the authorities were to blame - point was that though the authorities have blame in all of this doesn't mean all the fans were saints, the behaviour of crowds at football matches is dangerous and they do need to be controlled more than crowds at other large events

So there was no extraordinary out of character behaviour from the fans, they were behaving as crowds at football matches do, have done and are expected to.
Therefore the fan actions were not to blame, the authorities inaction at dealing with a crowd acting as expected were to blame.

That seems to be the angle that question was answered from in which case no the fans weren't to blame.

Obviously if you look at it from a completely separate view and were expecting them to act like crowds at a cricket match or a gig or anything other than a football match then their actions were extraordinary and therefore little planning could have been done to counter it and there would be more blame placed at the feet of the fans.
 
wow i cannot believe some of the posters on here still blaming the fans:(
I knew when i seen the thread there would be a few screwballs loose who have no idea.
 
wow i cannot believe some of the posters on here still blaming the fans:(
I knew when i seen the thread there would be a few screwballs loose who have no idea.

Typical internet judge and jury..

2 years to go through the evidence and the internet can make a judgement based on what they read in the sun 27 years ago.
 
Some of the families have just called for the heads of the current heads of South Yorkshire Police and the Ambulance Service to resign. :confused:

In an email in 2013 the head of SYP accused the families of lying. I assume the families kept quiet on the matter until the inquest was finished.
 
Typical internet judge and jury..

2 years to go through the evidence and the internet can make a judgement based on what they read in the sun 27 years ago.

I mentioned in the thread in the Football Stadium, it's shocking how successful their smear campaign was. So many people are unaware that Lord Justice Taylors initial report back in 1990 cleared supporters and pointed the finger at the police for the disaster - they still chose to believe the lies spread through that ****rag.
 
Typical internet judge and jury..

2 years to go through the evidence and the internet can make a judgement based on what they read in the sun 27 years ago.

But it's these strawman arguments that aren't helping. Where on this thread has anyone solely blamed the fans? Where has anyone written a post in the style of that famous Kelvin McKenzie piece? No where I can see.

When you keep dragging this back to a binary argument that's basically "unless you put 100% of the blame onto the police then you are 100% blaming the fans" we can't get anywhere.

This isn't black and white and the way I see what we have now being discussed is whether the police/authorities were 100% to blame or 99% to blame with anyone taking the latter position being made out to be a heartless scum bag who has some kind of contempt for the grieving relatives.
 
This isn't black and white and the way I see what we have now being discussed is whether the police/authorities were 100% to blame or 99% to blame with anyone taking the latter position being made out to be a heartless scum bag who has some kind of contempt for the grieving relatives.

Exactly my point. This is obviously exaggerated and we have moved on a lot since this era both in terms of safety, policing and fan behaviour... But the risk could be that saying the police are solely 100% responsible is that we send a message that fans can behave how they want and it's that sole responsibility of the police to make sure everything goes smoothly.

Everyone knows the truth is somewhere in the middle.
 
No one seems to have answered me yet, why were the barriers installed at the edge of the pitch in the first place? I imagine to stop football fans entering the pitch which wouldn't be necessary if football fans could be trusted to behave appropriately. Most concerts I've been to/seen have only had waist height barriers and these were without issue. What was it which demanded the use of crush barriers at Hillsborough?
 
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But the risk could be that saying the police are solely 100% responsible is that we send a message that fans can behave how they want and it's that sole responsibility of the police to make sure everything goes smoothly.
This is true, in general terms, and it is an important distinction to be made: that whilst the police have to be responsible for things like this, members of the public also have a responsibility to behave.

However, whilst I haven't followed the case all that closely, in this specific case the general behaviour of the fans to me, and especially in the circumstances, on the day seemed in order to me.

Yes there where fans inside the ground without tickets, that should not have been there to add to the crush. That aside, I can't see anything that would make me think that the Liverpool fans behaved in any way other than "well".

When there were people jumping to the stand above, when there were people climbing the fences onto the pitch, there was nothing but a sense of urgency to help people get out of that awful crush. When finally asked to leave the ground in an orderly fashion, they do so. Subdued, quietly, and as directed.

I cannot imagine losing a loved one to something so tragic, but I should imagine that 27 years later, to finally be told that it was not your loved one's fault must be overwhelming.

There is also plenty of evidence of cover-up by the police, and criminal negligence such as that should definitely not be allowed to pass.

RIP.
 
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No one seems to have answered me yet, why were the barriers installed at the edge of the pitch in the first place? I imagine to stop football fans entering the pitch which wouldn't be necessary if football fans could be trusted to behave appropriately. Most concerts I've been to/seen have only had waist height barriers and these were without issue. What was it which demanded the use of crush barriers at Hillsborough?

Genuine football fans in the 70s and 80s were often accompanied by small groups of utter holligans whose only intent was to fight rival fans and generally cause mayhem.

Hence most football grounds required fences/cages to keep rival fans apart and away from the pitch.
 
Getting tired of seeing all over TV now.

Put it to bed & move on, for god sake.
Sorry, turns out you can't say this because it makes you a police-loving, scouse-hating monster ;)

I mentioned in the thread in the Football Stadium, it's shocking how successful their smear campaign was. So many people are unaware that Lord Justice Taylors initial report back in 1990 cleared supporters and pointed the finger at the police for the disaster - they still chose to believe the lies spread through that ****rag.
I was 5yrs old in 1990 and would never, ever stoop so low to read the Sun. No smear campaign has affected my thoughts on the matter, apart from the fact that 27yrs later it is still in the papers.

(snip)

This isn't black and white and the way I see what we have now being discussed is whether the police/authorities were 100% to blame or 99% to blame with anyone taking the latter position being made out to be a heartless scum bag who has some kind of contempt for the grieving relatives.
100% this. Well said. Just because any of us dare to believe that 'some fans' could have added to the incident we're getting vilified. Yet those people are happy to blame the police 100% and ignore any of the facts (yes, stated by jury) that admit there were plenty of other causes. Stadium design, ambulance service etc. It's not black and white.
 
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