Hillsborough inquest verdict.

[rebel rebel]

That's the one. The comment by Lord Justice Stewart-Smith about Liverpool fans turning up late showed what utter contempt the establishment had for the victims and their families. I'm so glad there are people like Phil Scraton around.

 

[Yadda]

That's the one. The comment by Lord Justice Stewart-Smith about Liverpool fans turning up late showed what utter contempt the establishment had for the victims and their families. I'm so glad there are people like Phil Scraton around.

I'm not from Liverpool. I'm not even English. One thing I've learn't over the the years though: don't look down on Scousers. They are a tenatious bunch. Don't **** with them.

 

[a1ex2001]

I'm not from Liverpool. I'm not even English. One thing I've learn't over the the years though: don't look down on Scousers. They are a tenatious bunch. Don't **** with them.

*Behave*

 

[The Running Man]

Because, and this is shockling news, you assume that there is space and people are just getting closer together and that if there was a problem someone with better information than you have would be passing it on (for example a police officer or steward with a load hailer, or someone in the control room using a PA system).

There is a whole field of scientific study devoted to modelling crowd dynamics and one of the things they learned quite early on is that what seems to be an insignificant factor at one point (IE people pushing forward like they do in trains, crowded supermarkets etc), can have catastrophic effects out of sight, this disaster as well as various completely avoidable deaths when things like fire alarms have gone off in large buildings led to people starting to study what exactly happens..

To the people at the back it's often no different to the sort of crowd conditions you are used to, the people in the middle may be aware something is wrong but not sure what or how bad, and have no way stop it, and even those just a few rows back from the front may not realise how bad it is where people are being pushed against something that doesn't move/give like the human body.

To put it simply you're wrong in your assumption that people entering the stadium must have known something was seriously wrong.

If someone is trying to push me when getting into the train I politely turn around and ask them to stop pushing. Not bdvimause im crushing anyone but because it's juvenile behaviour that isn't needed.

What people are ignoring is that this crowd was excitable, had people had been drinking or were late or who didn't have tickets who all seemed complicit to push forward irrespective of the consequences as they had done many times before.



Edit a fans view of hysel:

The stadium was dangerous, the police inept. It was a mistake creating a ‘neutral section’ in our end. But from my point of view I wish we’d have been different. Rome had spooked us and we were defensive and aggressive. I wish the rampant drunkenness wouldn’t have been so bad. More than any other day I remember, it felt like we were out of control. We couldn’t do anything about the stadium, the police or any of the other factors. We could do something about ourselves, though. I’m not a murderer, I didn’t do anything more that day than act like a drunken ********. But I accept my behaviour played a very, very small part in a perfect storm that led to the deaths of 39 people.

There are some people who were there who will take exception to this. They’ll say they had nothing to do with it. They’re right. And there are others – the ones who charged across the terrace – who must take greater blame. But, overall, the Liverpool support behaved differently that day to other European trips. There are good reasons why but no excuses. If we were not so daft and drunk, it’s likely no one dies. It’s as simple as that.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/footba...saster-30-years-on-a-liverpool-fans-view/amp/

 

[VincentHanna]

Why are you comparing Hysel to Hillsborough though?

 

[omnomnom]

.

Edited. Im not about to rise to stupidity.

 

[Domo]

I've been at concerts and gigs before where it's been bad. People at the back don't realise what they are doing to people Futher in.

I was at a Guns n Roses concert back in the early 90s. At the old Wembley stadium. The crowd behind us surged and marshals between the stage and the audience were having to pull people out. A mate of mine was one of them, he almost passed out before being lifted. It was quite terrifying.

 

[rubberduck]

A good comparison would be Duckenfield is as guilty of manslaughter as Tony Blair is of war crimes.

 

[BaZ87]

Why are you comparing Hysel to Hillsborough though?

Because he (and they) have no interest in discussing Hillsborough anymore because after years of peddling lies those lies have been proven to be lies beyond any doubt. They're just here to score points.

Hooliganism absolutely played a big part in the Heysel disaster and several people were charged and convicted for their part, including the relevant authorities at the time. Hillsborough however had nothing to do with hooliganism and anybody that bothered to spend more than 30 seconds looking at what happened would have known that a hell of a long time before the HIP report or the subsequent inquests.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

If someone is trying to push me when getting into the train I politely turn around and ask them to stop pushing.

I hope I've mis-read this but are you saying fans should have turned around and asked them to stop pushing?
If so you have never been in a similar situation like I have, at the same end at Hillsborough I had a couple of fingers broken in a cup match and I gave an example above at Goodison Park where all the kids were crowd surfed down to the front.
In the Boothen End at Stoke in the 70s, Leeds fans got in and pushed down on the Stoke fans from the back to the screams of Stoke fans asking them to stop and then a barrier gave way.
Luckily nobody died or got seriously injured (that I know of) but I was lucky I was standing about 20 yards to the side.

 

[mattyg]

I think people are reading "pushing" as someone reaching forwards with their arms and "pushing out" on the person in front... In this case its just bodies against bodies creating a tidal wave. Imagine being on an escalator which suddenly stops. You pushing against the person in front isn't that forceful.. But by the time everyone has pushed against the person in front of them the force is very strong.

If I were to lean on you you would have say 2-3 stone pushing against you...If you were then to lean on the person in front of you (and all things beings equal) they would have more weight pressing against them... Now make that line several hundred people deep. Pushing in this sense isn't barging their way past but more pressing against..


This always stirs up emotions mainly people Liverpool supporters care enough to have followed this from the day it happened or knew people affected/killed or have bothered to look into it properly where as many other "supporters" haven't. I had a Man utd supporter say to me that the scousers should get over the Hillsborough disaster you don't hear us going on about the munich disaster.....I had to walk away..

 

[McGray]

If someone is trying to push me when getting into the train I politely turn around and ask them to stop pushing. Not bdvimause im crushing anyone but because it's juvenile behaviour that isn't needed

Are you seriously suggesting this is what those at Hillsborough should have done?

Have you ever been in a crowd?

 

[The Running Man]

I hope I've mis-read this but are you saying fans should have turned around and asked them to stop pushing?
If so you have never been in a similar situation like I have, at the same end at Hillsborough I had a couple of fingers broken in a cup match and I gave an example above at Goodison Park where all the kids were crowd surfed down to the front.
In the Boothen End at Stoke in the 70s, Leeds fans got in and pushed down on the Stoke fans from the back to the screams of Stoke fans asking them to stop and then a barrier gave way.
Luckily nobody died or got seriously injured (that I know of) but I was lucky I was standing about 20 yards to the side.

That's right argy bargy shoving, pushing was part of the game. Not the police pushing but the fans doing it en2 mass repeatedly without a care about the consequence of more likely knowing that they were causing extreme discomfirt to others but doing it anyway.

I have no doubt that the police tool the wrong decision when policing the crowd. But I also doubt that from a fans perspective that everyone was sober and that no one was pushing at all and that they all were all marched againSt their consent into an area which resulted in the crushing of other fans.

 

[Roland Butter]

I have no doubt that the police took the wrong decision when policing the crowd. But I also doubt that from a fans perspective that everyone was sober and that no one was pushing at all and that they all were all marched againSt their consent into an area which resulted in the crushing of other fans.

Excellent point, but such a view that the fans' behaviour was in any way, even in a minor way, a factor in the tragedy is heretical and will get short thrift these days.

Any hope of an impartial review of the tragedy has long gone, too much time has past and the 96 dead have now attained
the untouchable status of martyrs.

 

[Yadda]

The Liverpool fans were unlawfully killed and then blamed and smeared by the establishment, the press and even some of their fellow countrymen.

You can't blame them for not letting it go.

Thankfully, much of the nonsense was dispelled at the inquests, although some folk still fail to grasp their conclusions. I suspect that has more to do with their own prejudices than facts and evidence.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-35473732

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Thankfully, much of the nonsense was dispelled at the inquests, although some folk still fail to grasp their conclusions. I suspect that has more to do with their own prejudices than facts and evidence.

I do accept the verdicts/conclusions but it took me two decades to finally get it.
You have to understand what us older football fans went through with Liverpool fans and 1996 was (in 10,000s of minds) a culmination of decades of hooliganism and not surprising something like this happened.
I still know older Stoke fans who won't accept the verdicts but prefer to look back on experiences & prejudices.

 

[Tefal]

I think people are reading "pushing" as someone reaching forwards with their arms and "pushing out" on the person in front... In this case its just bodies against bodies creating a tidal wave. Imagine being on an escalator which suddenly stops. You pushing against the person in front isn't that forceful.. But by the time everyone has pushed against the person in front of them the force is very strong.

If I were to lean on you you would have say 2-3 stone pushing against you...If you were then to lean on the person in front of you (and all things beings equal) they would have more weight pressing against them... Now make that line several hundred people deep. Pushing in this sense isn't barging their way past but more pressing against..


This always stirs up emotions mainly people Liverpool supporters care enough to have followed this from the day it happened or knew people affected/killed or have bothered to look into it properly where as many other "supporters" haven't. I had a Man utd supporter say to me that the scousers should get over the Hillsborough disaster you don't hear us going on about the munich disaster.....I had to walk away..

But that's what's weird, as i said before I've grown up in a generation of crowd management So not exoernces thid kind of thing, but when I'm queuing for something I dont touch the people in front of me , if somone behind me touches me I'll either turn around or stand there and make a gap.

I dont get this mentality of pushing against the person infront of you

 

[The Running Man]

The Liverpool fans were unlawfully killed and then blamed and smeared by the establishment, the press and even some of their fellow countrymen.

You can't blame them for not letting it go.

Thankfully, much of the nonsense was dispelled at the inquests, although some folk still fail to grasp their conclusions. I suspect that has more to do with their own prejudices than facts and evidence.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-35473732

But let's face it the myths that are.mentiobed in this done correlate to the reality and are either inconsistent or incoherent.

For example the myth about ticketless fans - no one said that none of the fans had tickets but that some did not and that the some who did not were looking for any way to force their way in. This was accepted as true by the judge.

He accepted there were "small groups without tickets" looking to "exploit any chance of getting into the ground"

The fans weren't all drunk.. well it diesnt take everyone to be drunk to cause a crush.

The Taylor Report, while accepting there was a "drunken minority" of fans

Even a minority pushing alongside those without tickets looking to exploit the situation can cause a huge problem when dispersed in a crowd.

I don't have time to go on but basically the inquest found that drunk and ticketless fans were present although in a minority.

It's like the aim of this was to give the majority who were blameless the ability to sleep with a clearer conscience. That's fine it also acknowledged what we know that drinker louts were present and may have made the situation.much worse.

We have first and second hand accounts how these minority of fans may also have been provocateurs in Hysel and as mentioned by secsygreyfox at other games too.

Did these fans exacerbate the situation? Would these tragedies have occurred had they not been present or acted in this way?

The report doesn't fully answer this.

 

[Yadda]

I do accept the verdicts/conclusions but it took me two decades to finally get it.
You have to understand what us older football fans went through with Liverpool fans and 1996 was (in 10,000s of minds) a culmination of decades of hooliganism and not surprising something like this happened.
I still know older Stoke fans who won't accept the verdicts but prefer to look back on experiences & prejudices.

Yes, I know what you mean. I was in my late teens when it happened and like most of the UK at the time, I lapped-up the press BS at the time and believed every word.
But why wouldn't I/we? It was carefully engineered to play to my/our existing prejudice. Disgraceful really.

 

[BaZ87]

I do accept the verdicts/conclusions but it took me two decades to finally get it.
You have to understand what us older football fans went through with Liverpool fans and 1996 was (in 10,000s of minds) a culmination of decades of hooliganism and not surprising something like this happened.
I still know older Stoke fans who won't accept the verdicts but prefer to look back on experiences & prejudices.

With Liverpool fans? Hooliganism was wide spread throughout football in that era and Liverpool supporters were no worse or better than any other supporters. And why did it take you 2 decades to get it? The vast majority of evidence relating to the causes of the disaster were known in 1990? The only new evidence that came out recently was related to the cover up that followed and disproving the 3.15pm cut off time the coroner imposed which led to the original inquest verdict.