\"Hillsborough was the fault of drunken fans\"

[Mr1Croft]

According to a report leaked by the BBC, one Merseryside police officer said days after the incident that drunken Liverpool fans caused the crush.

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[Filo]

The prime cause and catalyst for the tragic events that day were ticketless Liverpool fans arriving at Hillsborough and trying to force their way through the narrow tunnel leading into the leppings lane paddock. The people at the front had no where to escape the crush because they were caged in as a result of the football violence that prevailed those days. there`s no doubt that mistakes were made that day by the police, but what the Hillsborough families fail to recognize is the fact that the police were dealing with an evolving situation in a period where football violence was common place, don`t forget Liverpool fans were directly responsible for the Deaths of 39 Juventus fans at Hysel a few years earlier. The hillsborough families are looking for some one to take 100% of the blame and the Police are an easy target, they`d rather do that than accept that some of the blame lies with their own, but it`s not easy to point the finger at some faceless hooligans who`s actions started the tragic chain of events

[Standanista]

I hear where you're coming from, Filo, and I do tend to agree to a large extent, BUT there were also major breakdowns in policing.  The incident does have to be seen in the context of the football violence prevailing at the time, naturally.  That's cages, as you say, and, I'd also proffer, the attitudes of the police on the scene, who at the start were forcing people - trying to save their lives by climbing over the barriers - back into the Leppings Lane end, as I recall.

I was at Hillsborough a few years before that, as a youth, to watch Wednesday against Burnley in a League Cup quarter final, a game which some may remember.  I'd gone with some Wendy mates of mine and the place was heaving.  We were queuing to get into the Kop end, pushed up close to the side wall, and it was that tightly packed that you couldn't physically lift your arms up from your sides.  Nonetheless, a bloke on a police horse, who had a clear view of the situation, proceeded to try and force us further in towards the wall.  When a regular middle-aged fan shouted up at him, \"Hey, steady on, there's bloody kids here,\" all he got from the copper was a mouthful of abuse and a threat to get his head kicked in.  There was no crowd violence nor hint of it happening, it was just extremely crowded and plain bad policing, and I've no doubt that there was a big element of that at the Hillsborough disaster.  Yes, it was a developing situation, but it was hardly the first time that SYP had policed a busy football match, and managing such situations is something that these blokes were getting paid to do.  I know that \"risk assessment\" wasn't the popular catchphrase then that it has been since the 1990s, but surely any numpty could have predicted that, for such a big match, there were likely to be a lot of fans turning up on spec without tickets, and that a lot of fans would have been in the pub beforehand.  And like you say, given Heysel, these boys did have previous form.  Also, where did the police intelligence break down?  It can't have been too hard for just one of the many bobbies on duty at Midland station to cotton on that there were bigger numbers getting off trains than there were places in the ground.

Doubtless, it takes these tragedies to bring about a step-change in attitudes and safety culture.  There would have been plenty of near-misses around the same time before Hillsborough.  Even getting out of the away end at York could get pretty tight, back in the day, and that was with Third and Fourth Division crowds.  I worked for London Underground for years and was involved in the follow-up to King's Cross, which killed 31 in 1987.  The massive amount of investment after that (fire detection, suppression, compartmentation, replacement of materials etc) plus huge pushes on emergency preparedness, training, housekeeping, improved fire safety standards and suchlike, means that it would literally be impossible to have a repeat of a similar disaster today.  However, what's not widely know is that the year before, in 1986, there was a similar massive fire at Oxford Circus.  By good luck alone, nobody died, but lessons weren't learnt, \"and the rest, as they say, is history\".

That said, I do agree: drunken, ticketless Liverpool supporters, forcing their way into the ground, were a major factor and prime catalyst for the deaths of the 96, and there's often a \"head in the sand\" attitude on Merseyside regarding that.  My take on it is that, as with every single major incident in any industry you choose to mention, there were multiple, both immediate and underlying causes, in this case including both policing and the behaviour of a number of Liverpool fans.

Funny this should come up; my mate and I were only talking about the Manics' \"S.Y.M.M.\" this week.

[The L J Monk]

Have to disagree completely. Mainly because of the findings of Lord Taylor, who states:

\"...although there were, other causes, the main reason for the disaster was the failure of police control.\"

Of the Liverpool fans he said: \"...the great majority were not drunk nor even the worse for drink.\"

Of the number of Liverpool fans he went on to say: \"the police witnesses who most impressed me did not consider the number of ticketless fans to be inordinately large.\"

[Standanista]

Very good points of course.  I would add, however, that with the end already sold to capacity, and with no escape routes, it didn't take an inordinately large number of ticketless fans to bring the situation to tipping point, so these people clearly remain a key factor in my opinion.  Ditto, it would only take a very small minority \"drunk (or) even the worse for drink\", pushing at the back or wherever, to further aggravate the crisis.

Clearly though, South Yorkshire Police screwed up big time, both in allowing the incident to develop in the first place, and then in its management once underway, as the Taylor Report states.

To use an analogy, I would argue that the minority of Liverpool fans forcing entry were the spark which lit the fuse to the powder keg, and that it was SYP who put the powder keg there in the first place, then failed to put the fuse out before the thing exploded.

[The L J Monk]

Sorry Standanista, but the ticketless fans argument just doesn't add up in the eyes of the Taylor Report:

First, there was a wide range of witnesses who observed inside the ground that the Liverpool end was at a late stage well below capacity save for pens 3 and 4. The north stand still had many empty seats and the wing pens were sparse. The match being a sell-out, there were clearly many ticket holders to come and they could account for the large crowd still outside the turnstiles. Had the Liverpool accommodation been full by 2.40 pm, one could have inferred that most or much of the large crowd outside lacked tickets.

Secondly, such figures as are available from the Club's electronic monitoring system and from analyses by the HSE suggest that no great number entered without tickets. They show that the number who passed through turnstiles A to G plus those who entered through gate C roughly equalled the terrace capacity figure of 10,100 for which tickets had been sold. The Club's record showed 7,038 passed through turnstiles A to G.

However, the counting mechanism on turnstile G was defective, so the HSE did a study using the video film and projecting figures from the other turnstiles. This gave an assessment of 7,494, with a maximum of 7,644 passing through A to G. Again, using the video, the HSE assessed the number who entered the ground whilst gate C was open at 2,240 with a maximum of 2,480. Accordingly, the HSE's best estimate of the total entering through gate C and turnstiles A to G was 9,734 with a maximum of 10,124.1 recognise that these can only be
rough checks because, for example, some with terrace tickets were allowed through turnstiles 1 to 16 and there would be other similar factors which have not formed part of the assessment.

Nevertheless, the figures do suggest that there was not a very significant body of ticketless fans in the crowd which built up.

[Standanista]

Fair enough.  In that case, I stand corrected by The L(ord) J(ustices) Taylor and Monk!  I'm obviously another one who never questioned some of the stuff coming out in the press at the time.

I do maintain, though, that alcohol at least was a factor.  Firstly, Taylor himself says that, \"There can be no doubt that an excited and volatile crowd is more difficult to control and more prone to disorder if it includes numbers who have been drinking.\"  While even accepting that \"the great majority were not drunk nor even the worse for drink\", with the game already started, and with large numbers of fans still outside, both excited and frustrated, I'd suggest that two, three or four pre-match pints is hardly going to make you less likely to walk in an orderly fashion down the tunnel to take up your place on the terraces.  Secondly, Taylor also says that the late arrival of many fans to games, close to the kick-off, is so that they can stay in the pub drinking till as late as possible, which most of us have done many a time.  The main build-up of fans didn't start until between 2.30pm and 2.40pm, according to the reports, with some arriving later than that.  That would be fine at the Keepmoat, but was too big a concentration given the numbers of fans and turnstiles involved at Hillsborough.  Thirdly, he notes that a number of fans were refused entry through the Leppings Lane turnstiles because they'd had too much to drink.  He goes on in the report to contrast the English situation with that in Scotland, where such folk are arrested.  At Hillsborough, however, they were simply denied entry, but weren't able to get away from the area because of the crush to get into the ground behind them, thus blocking the turnstiles and significantly adding to the congestion outside the ground.  Fearing fatalities at that point, this led the police to open the infamous Gate C side gate, which then led to the rush down the tunnel into the already-full centre pens behind the goal.  Taylor also makes recommendations against lifting the ban in force at that time on the sale of alcohol in grounds, incidentally.

There was a side gate opened at one point, to eject a fan, at which point it was forced and 20 or so got in.  I remember at the time that the impression given was that it was the Liverpool fans that had forced what turned out to be Gate C, whereas it's only after this discussion started up that I discovered it was the police themselves that had opened the latter to ease (or, as it transpired, transfer) potentially deadly congestion outside the ground.

So, fundamentally, yes, a crowd-control fcuk up by South Yorkshire Police.

[BobG]

The one thing that has always had me convinced it was the plod wat done it is the mysterious disappearance, on that very same night, of the tape of the police camera recording that end. It went. Gone. Poouf. Disappeared. And it's never been seen since either. Now, just ask yourselves, who might have had access to that there tape that night eh?

And from what I recall, it was the plod who forced folk into the over crowded area rather than ticketless folk barging their way in. As Lord Taylor noted, there was shed loads of space on either side - but the cops plain ignored that and forced people down the bloody tunnel to the heaving centre.

It was the cops wat done it m'lud. And it was the cops wat done the cover up too. No bugger else had any reason to.

BobG

[The L J Monk]

Bob - There is no evidence that the police forced people down the tunnel.

The worst thing for me is South Yorkshire Police knew how to deal with this situation, based upon their previous experiences, but on this occasion they completely failed to do so:

After the crushing at the 1981 semi-final, Hillsborough was not chosen again by the FA unt il 1987. There was evidence that the central pens were uncomfortably overcrowded on that occasion and again at the 1988 Cup semi-final, although entry to the tunnel was blocked off by police shortly before kick-off in 1988 because the pens were deemed to be \"full\".

However, in 1989:

Even after it (Gate C) opened, when he (Duckenfield) could see the influx on the television screen (from his position in the control room), no order was given to steer the fans to the wing pens. Mr Duckenfield said it did not cross his mind to detail officers on the concourse to shut off the tunnel.

The officers in charge in 1988 are not entirely without blame however:

Since pens 3 and 4 were full by 2.50 pm, the tunnel should have been closed off whether gate C was to be opened or not. The exercise was a simple one and had been carried out in 1988. All that was necessary was for a few officers to act as a cordon at the entrance to the tunnel and divert fans elsewhere. Unfortunately, the 1988 closure seems to have been unknown to the senior officers on duty at the time. It did not figure in the debriefing notes. It therefore had no influence on the planning for 1989.

[redwine]

I can't really comment on the drunkenness aspect. I was in the forest end  with a forest supporting mate and when we took our seats at about 2.15pm we both remarked on how full the two middle pens were compared to the sparseness of the two side ones.

If we noticed it what the hell were the men in charge of safety doing about it?

[The Red Baron]

The problem here is that we are dealing with statements made at different times. The comments made by the Merseyside (and South Yorkshire) police were made in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. Lord Taylor's report was completed after exhaustive analysis of the disaster and hearing evidence from a wide range of witnesses.

While I'm sure the police comments will be manna from heaven to some of the conspiracy theorists on Merseyside, I'm not sure this enquiry will uncover anything dramatically new.

One point of interest: Mr Burnham, who has spent most of the week getting his name in the media, was a member of a government that was in power for 13 years. You have to wonder why he wasn't pressing for the release of the cabinet papers when he was a cabinet minister? It would, of course, be churlish of me to think that he might see the opportunity for some cheap political point-scoring.