Hillsborough

Reebok_Rebel wrote:

bwfc1874 wrote:Why would the families just give up on wanting to know the truth about how/why they're loved ones died? Would you?

They know the truth, they just wont admit it. 

Considering the commanding police officer admitted a lie yesterday they didn't know the full truth prior to this trial and there has been a cover up.

Hillsborough was an almighty logistical cock up directed by a guy who was clearly out of his depth. Sure there is evidence that some of the Liverpool fans had been drinking and were rowdy but that's the nature of the average football crowd in the 80s and those factors should have been a key element of the match management plan. I assume they had one?

I find it impossible to ascribe blame to the Liverpool fans for being a football crowd, no worse or better behaved than many crowds all over the country every Saturday afternoon at that time.

Duckenfield has now admitted that the disaster was caused by mistakes made in crowd management and that he lied to the Commission to cover them up so I guess that should be the end of it.

I have found the persistence of the Hillsborough group to be irritating at times in the past, but now that they've been proven right I feel they should be applauded for achieving an incredibly rare expose of injustice, albeit 26 years too late.

And still the factless nutters are at it on this thread. 

But you can't have it both ways.


You can't embark upon a crusade to ascribe personal responsibility for the disaster to one individual or individuals in the way they have, without acknowledging your own partial culpability in what went on, surely?

And that's all I'm asking for - acknowledge that the Liverpool fans on the day played their own (admittedly unwitting) part in what unfolded.

It's this constant sense that it was all entirely 100% down to the authorities that gnaws at me.

Who exactly Breadman do you want to come out and say, yes it was partly our fault?

The people who didn't have tickets (if there were any)?

The victims families?

Kenny Dalglish?

Admitting partial responsibility will never happen in this case. You have seen what it's like on the anniversaries at Anfield. For them to attribute any blame towards their own supporters, some of whom are probably in the ground to this day, would be divisive and would undermine their case against the police a little.  As with any tragedy, someone will ultimately be made the scapegoat. Someone must take the fall and in this case it is Duckenfield. He and the police are not blameless but neither are the ticketless supporters that swelled the crowd to unmanageable levels. It was an almighty collective fuck up and 96 paid the ultimate price.

Copper Dragon wrote:Who exactly Breadman do you want to come out and say, yes it was partly our fault?

The people who didn't have tickets (if there were any)?

The victims families?

Kenny Dalglish?

What do you mean, "If there were any"?

Are you seriously suggesting that every single person who turned up that day had a ticket for the match?

What a load of nonsense.

Like me, you were attending games in the 80's and you must know that back then there was a culture amongst fans of the larger clubs (LFC, MUFC, etc) to turn up without tickets and try and blag their way in.

Come on, now Copps.........

And I'm obviously not saying that the victims' families or Kenny Dalgliesh should say they themselves were to blame, that's just patently ridiculous. (And I think even you would acknowledge as much.)

It's just the sense that there shouldn't be any acknowledgement of the role played by the large number of scallies who turned up at ten to three and created the problem that annoys me.

As I keep saying.....

Breadman wrote:
What do you mean, "If there were any"?

Are you seriously suggesting that every single person who turned up that day had a ticket for the match?

If there were any inside the ground 'after' they were 'let' in.

There were 600 fans who had tickets for that end who shouldn't have had tickets on health and safety grounds. 


No ticket, no admission.

Copper Dragon wrote:

Breadman wrote:
What do you mean, "If there were any"?

Are you seriously suggesting that every single person who turned up that day had a ticket for the match?

If there were any inside the ground 'after' they were 'let' in.

Yeah, I know...and that's my whole fucking point!

They played a significant part in causing the tragedy by tipping up with no tickets and trying to engineer a situation where they got in for free.

So it would be nice if someone (anyone) in Liverpool would acknowledge this fact.

Right, that's all I'm saying on the subject.

I meant the Liverpool fans in general when I said 'they', my fault.

There are still no facts to back up the idea that there were thousands of ticketless Liverpool fans outside, of which some surged in when the doors were opened.

The inquests heard next from Colin Allen, who in April 1989 was a Merseyside police constable and attended the FA Cup semi-final, where he survived the crush in the Leppings Lane “pens” as a Liverpool supporter. Allen told the court he went for a drink in the South Yorkshire police’s Niagara sports club before the match, and did not see any drunkenness or bad behaviour by Liverpool fans.

He described the policing at the Leppings Lane end as “non-existent, shambolic at best”, the subsequent stories printed in the Sun alleging fans urinated on and stole from victims as “sickening speculation”, and said South Yorkshire police put out a message of “misinformation”.
Allen made a brief statement to Merseyside police after the disaster but was never called to give evidence. He had said he wanted to provide fact, not fiction, and said: “It was apparent that the authorities were trying to put the blame on Liverpool fans. I was there, and I know the Liverpool fans were not to blame.”

The jury have finished their deliberations and have returned a verdict that the 96 were unlawfully killed. Full anouncement from the Inquest tomorrow.

This happened almost 30 years ago. Why are they still going on about it?

Does that mean the chief of police who retired will have consiquences now?

Boggersbelief wrote:This happened almost 30 years ago. Why are they still going on about it?

If you son/daughter/mum/dad/boyfriend was killed 30 years ago wouldn't you want justice?

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Boggersbelief wrote:This happened almost 30 years ago. Why are they still going on about it?

If you son/daughter/mum/dad/boyfriend was killed 30 years ago wouldn't you want justice?

Don't think you can get justice for losing a family member, I'm not sure how I would react in this situation.

I would like to think that I would take comfort in that some good came of it all, football changed markedly after Hillsborough.

should it have taken a tragedy to make those changes, no, however I can't help feel that the idea of blaming one individual or organisation is wrong, it was wrong of the police to blame the fans and now it seems the boot could well be on the other foot.

Boggersbelief wrote:This happened almost 30 years ago. Why are they still going on about it?

I'm with you on this one Boggers. How much longer have we to put up with this ongoing saga.
Lets get the verdict out today and then leave it behind us. But that won't happen ,will it? No matter what the verdict is there will still be some people demanding this or demanding that. They still won't be satisfied.

It'll still go on and on and on and on and......

rammywhite wrote:

Boggersbelief wrote:This happened almost 30 years ago. Why are they still going on about it?

I'm with you on this one Boggers. How much longer have we to put up with this ongoing saga.
Lets get the verdict out today and then leave it behind us. But that won't happen ,will it? No matter what the verdict is there will still be some people demanding this or demanding that. They still won't be satisfied.

It'll still go on and on and on and on and......

It's gone on until the truth's come out, which was today.

bwfc71 wrote:

wessy wrote:Not sure that this subject deserves an answer in terms of the unbelievable lack of empathy shown for the death of 96 people including women and children shown by the posters on here.

 Many pre Hillsborough fans will remember being in a crush at a big match it was scary even when well policed. For that reason i am against bringing standing back.

In this case, the policing was diabolical, but worse than that the police lied to cover up the many mistakes made. Even worse than that the government of the day aided the cover up. Only the constant pressure of the family's brought this information out. 

 If my child was involved then i would have wanted the truth.

Many instances can be found that supports factually that the majority of fans were not pissed, but i bet some of those above criticising the Scousers have been bevied up themselves at a big cup game? but you returned home on a bus not in a box.

 It is also in doubt that many ticket less fans caused the problem, one eye witness says that the fans had tickets but the police opened the gates to let the crush disperse outside the ground.

Evidence exists that says the capacity in that part of the ground was 10,100 estimates made by CTV at the tribunal shows counts of around 9800. 

So sorry that someone else's grief pisses you off it must very hard for you to cope.

 

Can't believe people coming out with statements like "Why are we still bothering about this after so long."

Our lovely, wonderful Police force CAUSE the deaths of 96 innocent football fans at a football match. That fact is now undisputed after the confessions of Chief Superintendant David Duckenfield when he admits that he has been LYING for 26 years, the Liverpool fans didn't force open the gates of the Leppings Lane End as he previously insisted, the gates were opened on HIS DIRECT INSTRUCTIONS, and on his own admission causing the crush that killed 96 people. The police then set about covering up the truth, launching a campaign to deflect blame away from themselves, coercing individual PC's on duty at the tragedy into altering their witness statements in order to smear the innocent victims and their families, blaming them for drunkenness and inventing ludicrous stories about fans attacking brave policemen, looting and urinating on dead bodies etc. to muddy the waters. Senior government and leading media figures (Hello Maggie and the ludicrous and despicable Sun hack Kelvin Mckenzie) lend credence to these lies. The victims families have fought against these cruel and untrue accusations for 27 years. Today, they have finally laid these cruel, false and hurtful allegations about themselves and their deceased loved ones to rest.

But the important issue here and why today is so vitally important 27 years after this catastrophe happened has nothing to do with whinging Scousers, football hooliganism, when and why these events happened, or even the grieving relatives fight for justice.
The reason this is so important is questions like "After the lies, deceit, cover ups and shenanigans we have witnessed over the last 27 years how far can we really trust institutions like our police force, judicial system and indeed our government to tell us the truth.

Excellent post, Hip Priest.  


Two other things strike me: Firstly,The Sun's front page this morning does NOT feature the findings of the trial or any apology for what they printed at the time, (admittedly based on what the police were feeding them). Yes, the Sun has apologised before, but they needed to take this opportunity to back up their first expression of regret with something truly heartfelt this morning. Moving their reporting of the outcome of the trial to the inside pages shows a lack of real empathy with the city they wronged so horribly. (I notice the editor still found it appropriate to fill one third of the front page with a glamorous woman in an alluring dress! What have they actually learnt??!!)

Secondly, Andy Burnham deserves some credit for pursuing justice so wholeheartedly and doggedly for the victims, their families and the city. I like the way he has modestly sought no publicity for his part in ensuring justice and truth would be delivered.