Did anyone see the slimy double dyed MP for Sheffield, Betts I believe he`s called, on Look North last night. He was leader of Sheffield council at the time, the ones who granted Hillsboro the safety certificate. When asked why it was granted he would not answer only to apologise profusly and blame the police, typical MP no wonder nobody has any faith in the establishment.

The FA have issued a belated apology now.

The other emergency services were also at fault in various ways plus Sheffield Wednesday and the local authority. However as "lead responder" the police must bear most responsibility. Their preparation for the game and response on the day were woeful but the cover up and attempt to blacken the names of the victims is utterly unforgivable and those responsible should be locked up.

Not sure about that. I thought that overall the ambulance service came out of it well? Can't recall any criticism of the fire service but it's a long document.

The point was though that both ambulance service and fire service were - naturally - part of major disaster planning and the reason that neither swung into major disaster mode immediately was again the inexcusable fault of the police, who, incredibly, forgot to declare a major emergency. Had they contacted the ambulance service and decalred a disaster, and used the codeword CATASTROPHE designated precisely for the purpose, then eg the "Fleet of ambulances" would indeed have been immediately despatched. As it was, as there was no declared emergency, they weren't and could not be.

Another terrible result was that the fire service, who would have had cutting etc. equipment to tear down the pitch side fencing and relieve the crush, were for the same reasons similarly delayed in a full attendance. That fact, taken with the news that in fact the claim that all victims 'would have been dead by 3.15 anyway' was yet another falsehood, leads to the unpalatable possibility that people who died in the crush would have been capable of being saved had a full emergency been immediately declared.


Indeed, but we have people still vilifying the Liverpool fans on this very thread.

Can't argue with most of that. My criticisms of SYMAS and the Fire Service was more to do with their preparations. Not turning up for planning meetings and therefore making sure they were incorporated in emergency plans with proper lines of communication. Obviously the police as chair of the planning group were remiss here but the other agencies should have known that they had a part to play in planning for football matches and been more thorough in their preparations. Similar blame should also be apportioned to the FA, SWFC and the local authority.

On the day itself SYMAS was hampered by the negligence of the police in failing to declare a major incident, but nobody seemed to do any triage at the scene, a responsibility that could have been assumed without the need for approval on high. Thankfully the local hospitals were on the ball or it could have been even worse.

"The SYP decision to replace the experienced match commander, Chief Superintendent Brian Mole, and appoint Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield who had minimal experience of policing at Hillsborough, just weeks before an FA Cup semi-final, has been previously criticised. None of the documents disclosed to the Panel indicated the rationale behind this decision."

This seems to be a key decision in the pre-match planning. A shame the report couldn't get to the bottom of it. And this would have been a senior (assistant chief constable?) management decision I would have thought.

Shame on you.

Disgraceful by the Torygraph to not even have a mention of it on their front page. Absolutely shocking.

Had you run out of bog paper?

Oh dear, you haven't a clue have you - there's a public findings report out in the open, maybe you should take a look at it before making statements like that !!!!!

Some of the posts on this thread are beyond contempt.

The report is unequivocal in its' removal of ANY "blame" from the supporters, and at the same time apportions blame quite directly at the door of those charged with protecting and serving the public.

Before you pedal your 8ull again just stop and think about how it might feel for your loved ones never to come back from a football match. Then imagine being told it was their fault. Then imagine fighting 23 years for the truth. Then imagine the truth being accepted by all involved. Then imagine some loser - yes that's you - continuing to repeat the lies and smears about your DEAD relatives.

And when you've done that - do one.

Any fan of any large club that played a high profile match in the 80 s is fully aware of what used to happen, a large number of Liverpool fans turned up without tickets, the options to them were either steal a ticket from a fellow fan, bribe a turnstyle operator or steward, or finally ' force ' entry

It is those fans that caused the Hillsborough disaster , what happened afterwards was completely wrong, but it wasnt the cause , I also await the day when 1 single fan stands up and says " I was there that day without a ticket, I am partly to blame, I am sorry

Not according to the Taylor report or the independant panels review so i take it you were there and saw all these large numbers arrive then but no one involved that day did ?

Having attended many similar matches of that era I am fully aware of what happend

At that time mass hooliganism was rife too so does that mean its ok to accuse the fans of this too???

Completely irrelivant

=#0040FFFACTS:

Over preceding years, police custom and practice had evolved in response to crowd management issues unique to FA Cup semi-finals, particularly filtering access to the concourse through ticket-checking on the approaches, directing incoming spectators away from the central pens when they were estimated to be near capacity, and closing the tunnel when capacity was estimated to have been reached. None of these practices appear to have been recorded and none formed part of the Operational Order or the police briefings before the 1989 Semi-Final.

the SYP Police Federation, supported informally by the SYP Chief Constable, sought to develop and publicise a version of events that focused on several police officers’ allegations of drunkenness, ticketlessness and violence among a large number of Liverpool fans. This extended beyond the media to Parliament. Yet, from the mass of documents, television and CCTV coverage disclosed to the Panel there is no evidence to support these allegations other than a few isolated examples of aggressive or verbally abusive behaviour clearly reflecting frustration and desperation

Consistent with Lord Justice Taylor’s findings, the Panel found no evidence among the vast number of disclosed documents and many hours of video material to verify the serious allegations of exceptional levels of drunkenness, ticketlessness or violence among Liverpool fans. There was no evidence that fans had conspired to arrive late at the stadium and force entry

In evidence to the Taylor Inquiry a journalist, David Walker, described the 1987 policing arrangements.10 They included ‘snake queues’ from the Leppings Lane turnstiles, ‘two or three abreast … so there was no surge on particular turnstile entrances’. The queues were ‘probably 30 or 40 yards’ long. Further back, on the street approach were ‘Police checkpoint barriers to check that you had a ticket before you actually got around the perimeter of the ground’.

On the day of the disaster, the HSE calculated that had Gate C not been opened it would have taken until 3.40pm to admit all 10,100 spectators with tickets for the Leppings Lane terrace, 40 minutes after the scheduled kick-off

The HSE estimated that on the day of the disaster 1,576 people entered pen 3. This was approximately double the maximum safe capacity.61 The HSE found no evidence that this was due to fans without tickets entering the ground. It calculated that [size=200the highest number of entrants, either through the turnstiles or Gate C, was 10,124, just 24 over the designated capacity of the Leppings Lane terrace[/size.

[size=150The video showed the period immediately before Gate C was opened. Its opening did not result in a ‘mad rush or stampede as press referred to’.
[/size
Documentary evidence considered in Chapter 2 does not confirm a significant number of ticketless fans, and CI Bettison responded to the meetings that ‘Inspector King of Scotland Yard was asked to find out whether there was a conspiratorial effort – he could not find any direct evidence that Liverpool supporters held this conspiratorial view, apart from three isolated statements … in the pub’. [size=150Nor is there any evidence in the disclosed documents to confirm that there was a surge of badly behaved late arrivals, with or without tickets.[/size
Consistent with Lord Justice Taylor’s findings, the Panel found no evidence among the vast number of disclosed documents and many hours of video material to verify the serious allegations of exceptional levels of drunkenness, ticketlessness or violence among Liverpool fans. There was no evidence that fans had conspired to arrive late at the stadium and force entry

I don't need to comment on your sick views.

what amazes me is that even now people continue to blame fans, 2 full reports into the disaster have BOTH confirmed fans were not to blame for what happened, so why do folk insist on still tryin to lay blame onto them? its not a matter of opinions or wat people think may have happened, the truth is out there for all to see and to continue to accuse fans of wrong doing is a disgrace in my eyes!

Correct. This is the way it was in those days. Anyone who went to these type of football matches in the eighties knows the score.
You're wasting your time trying to get through to FA though because he's always right in his own little PC world.

I wasn't aware FA wrote the report and personally forced apologies from Chief Constables, the other FA, the Mayor of London, Kelvin McEnzie and the Prime Minister.

Wow.

I think you're getting your own personal experience confused with a specific sequence of events. I can understand as having spent deeply unpleasant times around Leeds United supporters in the 80s my view on anything wihich involves them is seriously jaundiced.
However, the Taylor Report says there were ticketes on sale at Anfield the day before the game. The stories about Liverpool fans mugging other Liverpool fans for tickets came out after the recent European Cup victory. I don't think there's any evidence of this happening at Hillsborough.

Cant say I remember many if any occassions of ticketless fans forcing entry en masse in the 80's. Trying to gain entry without a ticket ("jibbing"icon_wink.gif certainly went on, it still does. But it always seemed to be one of those activities that was more effective when carried out individually in amongst fans with tickets. Doing it in large numbers and drawing attention to yourself wouldnt have been a good idea.

Some years after the disaster (and don't forget it WAS a disaster) I moved next to the Hillsborough ground at Parkside Road opposite the park. Many of my neighbours were there on the awful day. To a man and woman they agreed that there was no evidence of misbehaviour by either set of fans on the day-- and believe me they had seen many examples of bad behaviour at football matches and dreaded the arrival of certain clubs. So I have no personal experience of that day but as someone who went to live there believing the official version of events, my neighbours descriptions caused me to have doubts about what we had been told.
It is not anyone being PC-- it is the truth that has emerged after all these years.

It is the Report that is "right".

How ironic, when the whole world now knows definitively what happened, and that indisputably it is you, inexcusably and inexplicably still trying to perpetuate what are proven myths, who is living in your own little world of denial.

To be fair I heard Trevor Hicks in an interview on Radio Leeds yesterday afternoon say "He felt some fans reacted that way because that was the nature of some, just like if you went to any city centre on a Saturday night you always saw trouble," but I think he was trying to be fair minded

I have pretty much now sifted through the whole of the report, and find the revelations shocking, if a little unsurprising. I feel very strongly that not only the police, but the Sheffield council, The football club and the FA also need to be brought to task on this whole issue.

I once attended a football match where 56 people didnt make it home, when as an 8 year old I was in the paddock area of the main stand as that disaster unfolded. I suffered nightmares regularly for many years and still do now as a 35 year old, but far less often. Mentally, I was helped massively by reading the book written by Paul Firth as I then realised that my feelings were shared by many. So I can fully empathise with the Hillsborough families and the citizens of liverpool with their search for truith and now justice. infact my almost OCD behaviour when researching the Bradford City disaster and the hillsborough disaster probably stems from my own need for truth and the facts.

We need to also view the report with a sense of context, which i feel doesnt come through as much . Having read it and seen many very emotional responses, i feel that we need to remember that the people who are culpable are judged by the standards of 1989 and not 2012. We have learned so much from bradford and hillsborough, and the way tha stadia are built, designed, operated, stewarded and policed has changed almost beyond recognition, mainly as a result of these two incidents and the Popplewell and Taylor reports that followed them.

Although there was no evidence of any hooliganism on that day, there was still plenty of it around, both inside and outside grounds. I was cought up in a riot at Odsal in 1986 when City played Leeds there. Believe me, this was very unpleasant and the police had a hell of a job on keeping people safe from thugs. whilst that wasnt the case on that fateful day, thatw as the context that the police operation was run under. and at the time that was accepted and normal. Using today's standards it isnt!