Well done. You're finally beginning to grasp the facts.

What did cause them?

Let's go through this slowly for you...

The ground sold out. Every available ticket gone. The stand in which the disaster took place was over capacity by a whopping 24 people. Even if you assume that some in the stand had no tickets they could not possibly have had a material effect on events as enough tickets were sold to fill the stand anyway.

Crystal yet?

Quote ="east stander"What did cause them?'" hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/

Quote ="east stander"What did cause them?'" hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/

I was also thinking of the 1954 Challenge Cup final replay at Odsal when many thousands entered the ground without tickets. Considering that over 100,000 people were stood on "terraces" which were made of cinder and a few railway sleepers its incredible how the whole lot didnt subside.

Do you know what the official capacity of the Leppings Lane was? I suspect the problem lay there - they always [useemed[/u to me to try to cram in three times more than the standing area was safely designed for on big matches (as it was so much smaller than the other end).

In answer to my own question, seems the main problem was the central pens. c.3,000 people in them compared with 1,600 as should have been. Problem seems to have been police opened the gates and fans correctly followed the signs to there but should have been re-directed by stewards / police to the less full pens. They weren't.

Very good point.

There seems to be two incidents to me, one the crushing and overcrowded turnstiles outside the ground which forced the police to open the gates, and then secondly the resulting overcrowding in the central pen which obviously cause the fatal crushing.

Ive not read enough about it, but why was there overcrowding outside in the first place?

Inadequate turnstiles for the size of crowd. Not enough of them and not fast enough getting people through. Another known issue BTW.

Think of your average RL match - including Cup Finnals. 5 minutes before KO the ground is normally empty. Loads of people have a drink / mill around outside and then go in at the last minute. Apparently it was a sunny day so people probably thought they'd enjoy a bit of sun and space before getting into a hot, sweaty, confined space?

Then it seems to me the FA are as culpable as the Police in actually starting the chain of events.

The football hooligans of that era should also feel a pang of guilt. No barriers at the front of terraces and the situation would have been vastly different.

I think the FA copped a bit of flak in the report, especially about the previous semi finals. Along with Sheffield Weds and Sheffield Council.

I started going to football matches in the mid 1970s – and to top-flight matches from 1979.

The most unpleasant experiences I've ever had, connected with sports fans, have involved ending up on trains with RU fans or being in a bar with RU Hacks. I'm talking abusive, drunk – on one of those trains, the floor was pretty much flooded. On another, which was not any sort of a sports 'express', there was a group of young RU fans behaving in a disgraceful and abusive manner to passengers – in a carriage that included families with young children.

There is a popular idea that only football has ever had oiks connected with it. It's a myth. And indeed, RL is hardly innocent on the matter.

The actual history of – okay, let's call it sports-related hooliganism – goes back a good century or more. If memory serves me correctly, there was a mass bottle throwing (and they were not plastic) at a football match in 1906. It barely warranted a mention anywhere. Similarly, when Dixie Dean thumped a fan who was giving him racist abuse, there was hardly any mention (a policeman shook Dean's hand). Compare that to the furore over Eric Cantona drop-kicking a gobby little fascist.

Reporting of incidents only really started in the mainstream, national media in the mid to late 1970s. You could make the case that it became 'an issue' when the middle classes started feeling that it was impinging on their lives – even if only because they read about it.

Never forget that the government of the 1980s wanted to use football fans as guinea pigs for ID cards. But then again, there was a demonisation of the working class in general taking place.

This is not to suggest that some people did not use football as an excuse for fighting. But it needs to be seen in the wider context – including the class one.

Compare these sort of incidents to the 'japes' of the Bullingdon Boys, as but one example. What barriers were errected to stop them doing things like trashing people's businesses?

Dont really agree with that. Large scale football hooliganism was a problem from the mid 60's and well reported at the time. I remember a Leeds v Man City game in '68 by which time the rituals were well established. About 4,000 City supporters escorted to and from the train station by police on horseback and dog handlers, numerous "skirmishes" in and around the ground, attempts by groups of City fans to invade the Leeds end, Leeds fans waiting outside the ground to ambush City fans, etc, etc. There was a huge breakdown in the relationship between fans and the police in the late 60's when the Harry Roberts song could be heard at many football grounds.

Cant say I've ever witnessed anything at RL or RU grounds comparable to football from about 1967 to the early 90's.

Well the worst violence I have ever seen as been at football matches in the late eighties and early nineties.

Blame it on an attack of the working classes if you want but there was a hell a lot of fighting and hooliganism going on and fences were erected. It was only 4 years before Hillsborough that Heysel happened and the banning of english teams in Europe for fighting, this happened and it wasn't the government demonising the working classes they shouldn't have been bloody fighting in the first place using football and 'passion' as an excuse.

Now having said that I am not saying Hillsborough was caused through hooliganism, it clearly wasn't, but lets not paint a picture of nice piece loving football supporters being demonised by nasty people in power, its surely not as black and white as that.

From the mid-60s onwards I was growing up watching the Don Revie Leeds Utd and so of course wanted to go to Elland Road like my dad did - he wouldn't let me go even with him because of the violence and bad language (parents sort of cared about that sort thing then), instead he encouraged me to go to Headingley where my Uncle worked and my first season ticket there was in 1968 - the rest, as they say, is history.

Although not as ancient history as Mintball if she can remember a bottle throwing incident from 1906.

I wasn't. I was attempting to point out a number of things – including but not limited to fighting not being new and how, when the ruling classes behave badly, it's ignored.

I am well aware of Heysel and the ban that followed.

Incidentally, the worst violence I've ever personally seen was around three years ago at the Etihad, when Birmingham were visiting and their particular bunch of thugs (the 'Birmingham Zulus') had decided that they were going to celebrate their 25th birthday by starting a riot.

But the idea that fighting and 'hooliganism'* are new or limited to football is, I'm afraid, simply a myth.

There have been gangs fighting in pretty much every major city in the UK for donkey's years. As just one example, look up the Scuttlers.

Nor, as I have suggested, is it limited to class – no matter what some of the media pretends. More history: go back to the 18th century and their were gangs from across the class divide, who had a favourite trick of holding up coaches and then burning them.

The underlying issue is why young males (primarily but not exclusively) feel the need to fight and be destructive – whether this is a 'problem' and whether it can be solved and, if so, how.



I'm wearing well.






* As mentioned before, a word coined in the 19th century, as a result of a music hall song, to name the behaviour that the song was about (a badly-behaved Irish family called the 'Hoolies'). Which in itself tells you something.

I have never said thih, but we are talking about a football related incident, and as such football related violence and hooligans are more prevalent to the discussion. It wasn't RU hooligans that had recently been convicted of killing opposition fans and subsequently got teams banned from competitions and made it so fences had to be erected at stadiums.

Indeed.

My – attempted – point is that there had been, for some years, a demonisation of a particular type of hooligan, as though there were only one, and that that contributed to what happened at Hillsborough.

Which rather takes us back to class, to government needs for a group to demonise/scapegoat (and try their ID cards on) etc and so forth.

I suppose my point was that there behaviour was a contributing factor, as I said no fences - no crush.

I think that, there are two separate issues which IMO seem to be getting blurred in the coverage etc.

1. The actual tragedy, which I personally think there were quite a few factors (of varying degrees) which built up to this happening and there isn't one single cause/person/group that we can point a finger at and say it was your fault.

2. The cover up. This IMO is the most shocking thing to come out of the whole thing.

The last cuckoo of the year.

Take your word for it! Must be the oils you use.

Some interesting posts on here lads. I with the Government would release a similar fanfare when the crime figures are released! We might just find out a few facts which might enlighten people regarding the crime rate for Liverpool as opposed to other cities and large towns. That way, those people who have never set foot in Liverpool and who have been no nearer to it than Widnes and St Helens but who think they know all about the place might keep quiet. But you know Tories. They'll get out of anything except Rupert Murdoch's bed.

Quote ="Doc Holliday"Some interesting posts on here lads. I with the Government would release a similar fanfare when the crime figures are released! We might just find out a few facts which might enlighten people regarding the crime rate for Liverpool as opposed to other cities and large towns. That way, those people who have never set foot in Liverpool and who have been no nearer to it than Widnes and St Helens but who think they know all about the place might keep quiet. But you know Tories. They'll get out of anything except Rupert Murdoch's bed.'" Certainly on the hate crime front you're not as bad as Manchester. Long way worse than Sheffield though: www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... land-wales

Quote ="Doc Holliday"Some interesting posts on here lads. I with the Government would release a similar fanfare when the crime figures are released! We might just find out a few facts which might enlighten people regarding the crime rate for Liverpool as opposed to other cities and large towns. That way, those people who have never set foot in Liverpool and who have been no nearer to it than Widnes and St Helens but who think they know all about the place might keep quiet. But you know Tories. They'll get out of anything except Rupert Murdoch's bed.'" Certainly on the hate crime front you're not as bad as Manchester. Long way worse than Sheffield though: www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... land-wales