Hillsborough

jegga

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="MN5" data-cid="578087" data-time="1462700624">
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Great read jegs, not unlike water really. It's a bit of a far cry from having a few drops of rain hit you than being caught up in a tidal wave. Exactly the same principle.
 
I gave up moshing about 20 years ago at a Chilis gig but even then there were a few moments of uneasiness every now and again and it was hard work staying on my feet for a lot of the time.
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Yeah it backs up what I was saying about that concert , you don't know what's going on at the front . The jury would probably have heard way more detailed evidence about how crowds work which is why they exonerated them .

MN5

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Yeah it backs up what I was saying about that concert , you don't know what's going on at the front . The jury would probably have heard way more detailed evidence about how crowds work which is why they exonerated them .
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Very true but as I and others mentioned the whole "football hooligan" thing would have DEFINITELY meant that people would have gone in with pre conceived notions about what caused it. Even as a youngster in 1989 I thought it was football hooligans trampling eachother to death.

Cookie

While it's probably true to say that a minority hooligan element tarnished the rest, I don't think the average football fan did enough to dissociate from them. Many joined in the chants and abuse that generally made the atmosphere at a lot of matches very hostile - both between rival fans and between fans and the police. 
The police became conditioned into policing crowds with baton and riot shield. When the awful events started to unfold at Hillsborough the police would have been thinking in terms of confrontation not compassion, which obviously made a bad situation a lot worse. 
Looking back it's amazing to think that such a poisonous atmosphere at matches was tolerated, even expected, given they were such large scale public events. Would I have taken my son to a game in 80/90s - no chance. 
Luckily things have changed a lot for the better. I take him to quite a lot of Championship games and a few Premiership matches - and the stewards generally don't stand for any of the shit that used to be considered "normal" back in the day.

sparky

UK-based Ferners, there is a 2 hour documentary about Hillsborough on BBC 2 now.

Crucial

Thanks for the stuff on crowd dynamics Jegga. Certainly made a few points that I wasn't aware of.

sparky

Really powerful documentary, almost unwatchable. It's clear that some of the police officers were heroes and saved many lives, but the officials in the control box froze. Graham Kelly of the FA spread the lie that the crush was spread by Liverpool fans violence while people were dying.

sparky

Why was no emergency declared? Why did so few ambulances arrive when defibrillators were needed? Horrific to see police with their back turned to people dying.

dogmeat

I have been in a crowd crush where people were (badly) injured and it is frightening.
 
My last job in the UK involved managing 3 industrial temp agencies in west London. 
 
We supplied stewards for Wembley. I worked a one day music festival (teeny bop bands mainly - Belinda Carlyle, Wham....)
 
Little girls rushed the stage as soon as the gates opened - 4 hrs before the first act. By the time it got dark I had 200 staff linked arm to arm trying to keep the kids back and away from the crush barriers so they wouldn't get hurt. Nevertheless probably 20-30 girls had to be rescued from the crowd suffering from asphyxiation and crush injuries. Most were unconscious but quickly revived and thought they'd scored because they were then allowed to sit and watch the concert from inside the stage area.
 
This made the crowd even more hysterical. Those at the front were getting crushed, those further back saw some people were being let in and wanted to force their way forward and further back the crowd had no idea what was going on and wanted to find out.
 
Several had to be rushed to hospital and one was in a coma but made a recovery.
 
It was frightening - mainly for the crowd but I was also aware that the crush barriers were about three metres behind us and if the crowd broke through it could get nasty for all concerned.
 
There were appeals to the crowd to stop pushing but it made no difference even after we said people were getting hurt. There was even the threat of cancelling the show but the crowd reaction immediately demonstrated the folly of that idea.
 
This was a couple of years after Hillsborough which I saw unfold on TV. It was on a much smaller scale, but it did give me an understanding of how crowd dynamics work. 
 
There was no need to mob the stage. In fact if you got too close you couldn't see the stage as it was about 2.5 metres above the ground, but no way did the girls at the back realise any of that or that they were inadvertently causing people to get seriously injured. They just wanted to get closer to their heroes, and they were with their mates and this mob mentality took over. 
 
This was on the Wembley pitch - across the full width so no choke points. If it had been in the stands.....
 
Football had a real hooligan issue in the 70's and 80's but it was restricted to a handful of clubs and even for them it was a minority causing the issues. Liverpool never had a reputation as a problem club. Apart from Heysel I would have said their reputation was for good humour and passionate support - You'll never walk alone not We're Millwall and we're scum.
 
Hillsborough was shocking and totally unexpected, but the cover-up and the lies were in some ways even worse and totally unnecessary.
 
Mistakes were made by Police on the day. They should have just admitted this, but the culture amongst police in the 80's was in many ways as unsavoury as the hooligans. False evidence, lies, intimidation etc were way too common.
 
Too many lives lost and ruined.

sparky

Daniel Gordon's Hillsborough documentary: 
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07bgnkn'>http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07bgnkn</a>

Siam

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="rotated" data-cid="577525" data-time="1462551027">
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Genuine question - was it established if there was a rush of patrons without tickets that entered the ground and to what degree?
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Rotatated, on the BBC doco they had the mechanical engineer whose job was to test the turnstiles and basically ascertain what happened at that Leppings Lane entrance
 
He stated that the numbers who entered were not dissimilar to the numbers allocated tickets for that stand. 
 
So, as pointed out in this thread, it seems that the "non ticket holders" reasoning from the Police and government was also a lie

Siam

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="sparky" data-cid="578152" data-time="1462746547">
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Daniel Gordon's Hillsborough documentary: <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07bgnkn'>http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07bgnkn</a>
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Brilliantly made documentary, rivetting and analysis backed up by interviews with Police and evidence
 
Shame on the Police, Government and Authorities for perpetuating bald faced lies while people were grieving

MajorRage

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Rotatated, on the BBC doco they had the mechanical engineer whose job was to test the turnstiles and basically ascertain what happened at that Leppings Lane entrance
 
He stated that the numbers who entered were not dissimilar to the numbers allocated tickets for that stand. 
 
So, as pointed out in this thread, it seems that the "non ticket holders" reasoning from the Police and government was also a lie
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Isn't this irrelevant?
 
As didn't the whole issue happen as the turnstiles weren't quick enough to deal with all the late comers arriving at once, and subsequently they opened up an exit allowing a free-for all push? Thus, many people without tickets may or may not have pushed in?
 
As an aside, I still remember the day this happened, and it being introduced to us as students in small-town NZ intermediate school. The teacher had written on the board "Hooliganism". So the links were already there.
 
I guess it's like if the police did something which caused an horrendous accident involving the Christchurch boy racer community. My initial thought would be to blame the boy-racers themselves due to (perceived, at least) reputations the negative media about this sector of society over many a year. That's what these guys have been facing, and it seems like the South Yorkshire Police and subsequent Government led enquiries have been using as a smokescreen to hide their inadequacies and poor decison making.
 
You can see why the people are elated about this result.

dogmeat

The Sun leading with an article headed "THE TRUTH" accusing Liverpool supporters of
 
<ol><li>robbing the dead</li>
<li>pissed on the cops</li>
<li>beat up a cop giving the kiss of life</li>
</ol>didn't help either

Siam

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="MajorRage" data-cid="578285" data-time="1462769532">
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Isn't this irrelevant?
 
As didn't the whole issue happen as the turnstiles weren't quick enough to deal with all the late comers arriving at once, and subsequently they opened up an exit allowing a free-for all push? Thus, many people without tickets may or may not have pushed in?
 
 
 
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Rotated asked a question about ticket holders and I thought I'd found an answer to his question in the BBC Doco - that's all the post was about Major Rage.
 
Yeah I remember taking on the "hooligans" explanation. Had no reason to doubt it at the time either

Calf

Watched the BBC documentary last night and would make the following comments. I'm not going to address the reprehensible behavior of the police afterwards:
1) Clearly the 96 were not at fault
2) The ground was very poorly designed to act as a neutral venue. 44% of the supporters had to go through 28% of the turnstiles. And once through the turnstiles the only obvious entry point to the standing area was Gate C (which only led to the central pens) which was directly in front of the entering fans.
3) Duckenfield was out of his depth and didn't know how to deal with the situation. He clearly froze and paralyzed an effective police response.
4) The crowd outside the gate were clearly angry and frustrated but the game should have been delayed to calm them down (wrong police decision). No evidence of unticketed supporters however.
5) When the outer gate was opened by the police the central pens were already overcrowded. The critical error by the police was not closing Gate C to the central pens sooner.
6) There had been no planning from or training for the police or emergency services on how to handle the situation which made it far worse. They clearly had no idea what to do.
 
One more general comment which the doco did not address. Despite the above errors, looking at that footage it was an accident waiting to happen. With hindsight, it's hard to believe that anyone thought that having standing only pens behind the goal (without exits) was ever a good idea. All it needed was the right combination of ingredients (eg. an FA cup semi final and policing error). The interviewed fans said that being a bit crushed was normal. They even had crush barriers in place so they knew crushes could/did happen. Also, getting into those pens and being part of a swaying mass of people was part of being a fan. People were swapping their seated tickets to get into the standing area. Basically, if there had been a fire, bombing, shooting or anything else to induce panic, exactly the same thing would have happened. Mental. While police incompetence pulled the trigger, the lasse faire approach of Hillsborough and the FA to crowd safety was probably the major factor that caused this.

Luigi

I was lucky enough to go on a press trip to the 94 World Cup in the US. The opening game was at Soldier Field n Chicago between Germany (holders) and Bolivia.
 
It was crazy hot and even as I walked from the press tent to the stadium I was dripping. Then the queue started. I couldn't figure out what the holdup was until I was really close, but basically Bill Clinton had showed up and the secret service had cordoned off one whole side of the stadium. Even worse, they'd decided to channel everyone through one entrance under the stands where they'd fitted a metal detector gate. Outside was hot, under the stadium was unbearable and the crush was terrific. One woman - a pregnant wife of one of the players - started to faint and the crowd was getting hostile. Then there was a loud cheer from inside the stadium which everyone crowded in underneath assumed was the start of the match. Cue anger and panic, The secret service guys manning the detector quickly became swamped an inevitably the whole contraption got torn down to let people in. It was pandemonium.
 
Ultimately, I got out into the sunshine only to realise the big cheer was for the opening ceremony, not the start of the match. I walked up the aisle to my row and saw Clinton about 20 yards away. I wanted to give him a bollocking for ruining my day and nearly causing a disaster, but I took one look at the freaked out suits all around me and thought better of it. They must have been bricking it that they'd put their man in front of a hostile crowd with any one of them possibly holding a gun.

rotated

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="MajorRage" data-cid="578285" data-time="1462769532">
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As didn't the whole issue happen as the turnstiles weren't quick enough to deal with all the late comers arriving at once, and subsequently they opened up an exit allowing a free-for all push? Thus, many people without tickets may or may not have pushed in?
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After watching the ESPN doco (hat tip gt12) one of the first interviews is with a patron who pretty glibly explains he went there on a whim expecting to try and just sneak in due to the sheer numbers of people. Doesn't seem particularly perturbed by the fact that additional unticketed people likely played into the issue - surely? 
 
It seems like the cops (and media) should be raked over the coals for the cover up and slanderous accusations after the fact. But the event itself seems like a combination of circumstances - none with particular malice that ended in a complete tragedy. I feel pretty uncomfortable with the verdict of guilty for unlawfully killed based on what I've seen (for comparison the London bombings victims were also ruled to be unlawfully killed).

KiwiPie

I would say there were many factors that contributed to the tragedy but those factors had been present in previous semi-finals at Hillsborough - in fact the same 2 teams had played there in the semi the previous year. There was crushing at that game which should have been a warning as to what could happen in a ground as shitty as Hillsborough was back then.
 
The cause of the tragedy was the perimeter gate being opened and the gate to the tunnel being left open - that single act condemned people to die. If the tunnel gate had been closed then the fans coming in would have gone to either side and filled the ends of the terraces where there was still space.The police knew this from the very start - and that is why they immediately went into overdrive to shift the blame to the fans.

Luigi

This is an interesting read on the backdrop to the disaster.
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/27/the-hillsborough-verdict-shatters-the-fantasty-that-class-war-doesnt-exist'>http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/27/the-hillsborough-verdict-shatters-the-fantasty-that-class-war-doesnt-exist</a>
 
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The Hillsborough verdict shatters the fantasy that class war doesnâ€™t exist

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<a class="" href="http://www.theguardian.com/profile/suzannemoore">Suzanne Moore</a>
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The â€˜unlawful killingâ€™ of the 96 football fans was a crime, committed in a very real conflict. The police, the establishment, parts of the press, they were all in it together 

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<div><a class="" href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/27/the-hillsborough-verdict-shatters-the-fantasty-that-class-war-doesnt-exist#img-1"></a>Finally, 27 long years later, the cold class contempt that Hillsborough came to signify is laid out for all to see. Those who died did not die because they were â€œ<a class="" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-29897240">animals</a>â€ or drinking too much or behaving badly. They were <a class="" href="http://www.theguardian.com/football/hillsborough-disaster">unlawfully killed</a>. Their families did not grieve too much because they were from Liverpool and therefore emotionally incontinent or full of working-class mawkishness; they grieved because they lost their loved ones in absolutely horrific circumstances. Still, to read the details of how these people died tightens my stomach. Of the 96 who died, 37 were teenagers. The reality is that the dead were all sorts of people from different backgrounds. But very quickly they became no longer individuals but part of a mob who somehow deserved this awful fate. As life was squeezed out of them, then too their humanity was taken from them by the police, by politicians and parts of the press. 
The marathon campaign by the bereaved families and their supporters has been one class act. In the face of despair, there has been dignity. Yet we have to ask why it has taken so long for the truth to be acknowledged. It is surely to do with the way we do not like to talk about out-and-out class conflict. Instead, we are told that class hardly exists, except as an anthropological display to gawp at disdainfully on reality TV. The refusal of the establishment to countenance the level of police â€œcoverupâ€ is because â€œtheyâ€ were indeed all in it together. This was more than a coverup. The police lied â€“ they smeared the victims as some of them lay dying, <a class="" href="http://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/apr/26/hillsborough-disaster-deadly-mistakes-and-lies-that-lasted-decades">testing even a 10-year-oldâ€™s blood for alcohol</a>. 
All of this was relayed in the press so that the dead were reduced to the kind of rabble who urinated on and stole from each other. One of the extraordinary revelations is that it was the South Yorkshire police themselves who had a drinking problem, with bars in many of the stations .But no one who remembers that time thought that the police were on â€œourâ€ side to begin with. In the 80s, sides were demarcated explicitly. If the minersâ€™ strike was our last civil war, then the police were clearly lined up against us. They did Thatcherâ€™s dirty work, waving their overtime payslips in the face of striking miners. That symbolic violence was accompanied by real violence. Andy Burnham is absolutely right to ask about the <a class="" href="http://www.theguardian.com/football/2012/apr/12/hillsborough-battle-orgreave">links between Orgreave and Hillsborough</a>. The South Yorkshire police, Burnham said â€œused the same underhand tactics against its own people in the aftermath of the minersâ€™ strike that it would later use, to more deadly effect, against the people of Liverpoolâ€. 
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&nbsp;<p>In all this it must be said there were individual police officers who behaved decently, but the complicity between the police and parts of the conservative establishment remain horrifying. The confidence of Kelvin MacKenzie, Boris Johnson and Bernard Ingham (who spoke of â€œ<a  class="" href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sir-bernard-ingham-who-labelled-7837120">tanked-up yobs</a>â€) still persists. Their apologies are a joke, still exhibiting the same contempt. Are we to accept MacKenzie was merely duped?<br><br>

Liverpool never forgot or forgave Johnson and his ilk because it didnâ€™t simply imagine itself under attack â€“ it was under attack. As always the culture it produced understood this and laughed in the face of such demonisation. Johnsonâ€™s editorial accused Liverpool of <a class="" href="http://www.theguardian.com/football/2012/sep/13/boris-johnson-apologises-hillsborough-article">wallowing in its victim status</a>. As crushed economically as that city was in the 80s, it sensed its own power. Frankie Goes to Hollywood T-shirts read: â€œFrankie says arm the unemployed 

It must be somewhat galling for those in power now to have to accept this ruling, for they do not hide their class contempt either. They have elevated it to actual policy: all schools must be modelled on the schools they went to, but with fewer resources. All hospitals must be run to make a profit. Taxes are for the little people. Those who donâ€™t â€œget onâ€ have only themselves to blame. An increasing range of theories come into play about why poor people are poor, which is never to do with lack of money but lack of civility. Or perhaps there is something wrong with their actual brains! Imagery of working-class people invariably invokes moral deprivation by showing a tendency to excess. 

Social mobility, the supposed solution to all this, only allows the odd person to slip through the net. The middle class must simply hold on. Once there, one is required to be grateful (I am not) or merely chippy (I am). As I strain my ears to hear someone who talks like me on Radio 4 that isnâ€™t in a drama about child abuse, I never know who I am to be grateful to. 

Sure, class contempt works both ways, though it is impolite to show it except by gentle humour. Rage is so 1980s. We must not discriminate against the posh apparently, though class doesnâ€™t really exist any more. As more and more people tell us it no longer matters, we see more and more of our creative stars were privately educated, that our leaders come from the same tiny enclave. Retro-feudalism. 

This fantasy should be well and truly shattered by the <a class="" href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/26/the-guardian-view-on-the-hillsborough-verdicts-a-triumph-for-truth-and-solidarity">Hillsborough verdict</a>. This was a war crime committed in a war that was not then, nor is now, a figment of our imagination. Class war.
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SidBarret

Being 10 000 km away, in country with very different class dynamics I find it hard to relate to the above article, but on a more "mechanical" level it is clear that class did play a role.
 
One has to wonder if the people like the safety officer, the club chairman or police have ever attended a game in the terraces. I am sure the ground appeared perfectly safe when it was empty, but when full it was a disaster waiting to happen as evidenced by 81 through 88. I am convinced that with some experiential wisdom on the part of the club and the police this tragedy would never have happened.
 
Obviously this takes me back to my earlier point about football culture being part of the issue. The cultural divide cut both ways - I am sure that unless you were part of "passionate" group or couldn't afford anything else, terraces were pretty avoided in those days by anyone who had a choice.

The Silver Fern

Hillsborough