Eyewitness account from a Liverpool fan at the game: http://www.wsc.co.uk/wsc-daily/964-April-2009/3276-hillsborough--an-eyewitness-account
It's been proved 100% that it was a cover up by the police, yet some people still blame Liverpool fans.
I think that Croydon's just pointing out that there were some factors on the day which contributed to the police losing control, King. I hope that's what he's doing, anyway. Not blaming people for being late or being allowed in without tickets, just pointing out that they were factors in the disaster. The main points, for me at least, were that the mistakes of the day were covered up and that the stadium shouldn't have been in use at the time. Our fans nearly fell foul of it years earlier, it failed to meet the required standards and it was just an accident waiting to happen. Mistakes will always be made, but those responsible need to stand up and accept their part of the blame, not try to shift it onto the victims. That's the truly shameful part and I don't think that it's a coincidence that the same police had been part of a controversial move by the government a few years earlier. Facts about that seem to be leaking out now, too.
Exactly - as I stated elsewhere, all disasters (except natural disasters, which are beyond human control) are the result of numerous factors that went wrong at the same time, as opposed to one solitary aspect. For example, the Titanic disaster can't solely be blamed on the iceberg, because if there were enough lifeboats for everyone on board the loss of life would have been much smaller. South Yorkshire Police cannot be blamed for the roadworks on the M62 that day and the late arrival of coaches, which both contributed to the crush outside, and they cannot be blamed for the Leppings Lane end being a disaster waiting to happen (which it was, as something very similar nearly happened to Spurs fans in the 1981 FA Cup semi in the same stand) What they can be blamed for is losing control of the situation, failing to respond in time which could have saved several dozen lives, and their attempts at covering it up for the best part of the next 25 years. However, I do feel that SYP may have been protected from on high, given how on several occasions during the 80s the Thatcher government put the kibosh on the media showing footage of the police that would paint the police in a negative light for being baton-happy thugs (such as during the Miner's strike), so whilst SYP do deserve a lot of the rage, there is the possibility that the Thatcher government also deserve to be in the spotlight on this.
Thanks for the link. Agreed. Not sure how I forgot about that, no doubt if I lived in an ex-mining community I wouldn't have!
Orgreave is what I was alluding to in my previous post, I know for a fact that there were soldiers dressed up as police on that day. An extract from a report from the Guardian which was the only paper to print the 'other side' of the story.
Slightly before my time but I've never for one second thought Hillsborough was caused by Liverpool fans. The media lie all the time, they'll do anything to excuse police brutality and over-surveillance at football games. Maybe I'm being nieve but the FA are accountable as well. I still don't know how/why that game was played at Hillsborough
I want to be very clear about this before I make my next point, I accept the "other side" of the story. There is far more to that story which has never come out in the way that Hillsborough has now started to. However I take issue with the 'soldiers dressed up as police' comment. You say 'I know for a fact' and I am in no way questioning your integrity, but I would point out that there are an oddly large number of people out there who claim to have done all sorts of things when they were soldiers. Such people are generally outright fantasists, soldiers who actually never did anything interesting, military reinactors and so on. It would be astonishingly difficult to get soldiers carrying out internal security duties on the mainland without anyone finding out about it. The Official Secrets Act only gets you so far. And remember the Army was very much engaged in Northern Ireland at the time, so if anything would have a better and *less* violent response to crowd control. My main point is that the South Yorkshire Police seem to be violent enough on their own, you don't need soldiers to supplement them! And 'I know for a fact', as someone with military experience, that I personally would not have kept quiet if I'd been sent into such a domestic situation on the mainland, regardless of consequences to myself... and how would the powers to be known not to have selected me in advance for such an operation? Am I saying it is impossible? Of course not, but I am saying, regardless of what people's perception of the Army is, it would probably be very difficult to keep individual soldiers quiet having engaged in this sort of activity than people might think. So Spurf, I didn't mean to hijack the thread or say that I know you're wrong, it's just that as a former soldier it's very difficult for me to sit back and have uncorroborated comments made about the Army that I'm very proud of. It's even worse because it was a very difficult time to be in the Army in the 1980s. There was service in Northern Ireland or Germany... nothing as sexy as Afghanistan... so without might fighting going on and nobody was allowed to wear uniform around town (because of the PIRA threat etc), the military became rather detached from the consciousness of the nation. Sorry, rant over!
Reading to remember the 96 by playing " You'll Never Walk Alone" before kick off ,nice sentiments pity it was not done everywhere yesterday
They still had the odd idiot singing stupid songs yesterday. At least Ferguson had a go at them. Not often that I applaud something that he says to the press, but he was definitely right about that.
Vim I am unable and unwilling to give specifics on this but I do not make claims without being confident of my facts. The person involved was there and was shocked by the police actions he saw around him. There were many 'dirty tricks' throughout the miners strike it is not surprising that you find this hard to believe considering the weight of establishment and media propaganda that was abroad at the time. It's history now but people need to be aware of what happened and historians in due course will tell the story of what really happened in these public situations.
I was going to post a much longer reply, but I don't think this is the right place and would be going more off topic. We'll have to agree to disagree because for the reasons I've already mentioned I am extremely sceptical about the Army's involvement at Orgreave, which was clearly a black day for this country regardless. From what we've learned recently I don't think the SYP need any help at being any more disgraceful than they were, but I do hope the truth comes out because I think this unfairly tarnishes the reputation of the Army (and I don't find most of the "dirty tricks" hard to believe at all, just this one).
Vim I understand where you are coming from but understand that what I am saying happens to be true, believe it or not. It does not reflect badly on the Army (or should not) because those involved were simply doing their job and from what I know the soldiers were a restraining influence on the police rather than the other way around. Like the recent Olympics where soldiers were drafted in because of shortage of numbers the police were struggling with numbers during the miners strike. For example in Kent local police were moved away and replaced by officers from the met. This happened all over the country in mining areas, the government had planned their strategy and deliberately provoked the situation in order to get their 'victory'. Police were being bussed all over the country. Believe what you will but this will eventually come out.
Hmm! I am not sure what happened there my reply was to your post 36 but the quote box contains a comment from you Vim that I do not see elsewhere. I think we had better leave this topic, further discussion is not possible anyway as neither of us can introduce information to prove our positions. As you say let us agree to differ and move on.
Spurf, yes lets move on. And as you say I did originally make a much longer and different reply, but that wasn't going to get us anywhere either! I think we both agree that was a very sad and disgraceful incident and does not reflect well on the authorities, whoever they were... not to put words in your mouth of course. Anyway, back on topic I think there have been some saying that its good the families now have justice. This is a very bad choice of words of course because finding (hopefully most of) the truth after 20+ years does not constitute justice until the people responsible for this cover up are held to account for what they have done. I rather fear that since such a process will take some time, and the public (who tend to be interested only in the short term these days) may get tired and jaded in the weeks, months and sadly perhaps years it will take to get proper justice.
