I think he may have been, will have to look that up. OLM will probably post it before me though. EDIT: That was a good guess.
The Leppings Lane end was supposed to accommodate just over 10,000 fans that day. 24,000 was the total allocation of tickets for Liverpool fans.
10,000 standing tickets, to be precise. Dunno how many seats there were. The central two pens where the deaths occurred were supposed to accommodate 2,200 fans.
Im guessing the upper tier capacity then was about the same as now. 10,000 standing when it's separated into pens is a ridiculous amount for that lower tier. Incidentally, why were the pens seen as a good idea? How exactly did they help when it's keeping fans of the same club separate? I suppose if one pen is unruly it makes them easier to police but it just seems a bizarre idea to me.
The pens were designed to control numbers and spread the load, and to allow subdivision between home and away fans on one terrace. There were 4,450 seats in the Leppings lane stand.
I was reading David Conn's article in the supermarket restaurant this morning and, if it hadn't been for the fact that I was surrounded by dozens of folk, I would have cried. It's a brilliant piece of writing, containing great sympathy for the families and the survivors; it's also totally damning of the police force which had, previously, flexed its muscles against the miners and believed itself to be all-powerful and untouchable. Let us all hope that the 96 did not die in vain and that lessons have both been learned already and will continue to be so. Respect.
Like this it turns out, not even acknowledged on the front page http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-36147007
I read that thirty of the dead were fans who had been stuck outside the gates a few minutes before kick off. This surprised me as you'd think late arrivals at the back of the pen would have not been subject to such forces as those further forward who'd arrived earlier.
James O'Brien on LBC: http://www.lbc.co.uk/james-obrien-takes-aim-at-kelvin-mackenzie-over-hillsborough-129469
The BBC understands that the chief Constable of South Yorkshire police David Crompton has been suspended.
I believe he was quitting (in August?) but there have been calls for him to step down, immediately, because of SYP's continued line of lying.
I thought that but then I thought how did they get access to the pens? The only way in is via shared turnstiles which then feed yeah I thought that but if this 30 were at the front of the crowd rush into the pen and where hit by a wall of people with nowhere to go, they may well have been crushed by those still coming in behind them.
They never fully implemented the home and away area proposals, but left the pens in place. Regarding the 30 dead who entered late, my understanding is that many would have been propelled forwards violently during the surge when Beardsley hit the bar. This surge was powerful enough to buckle one of the crash barriers. On another subject. Had a look back through some stuff - the Taylor report estimated that ticketless fans were in their hundreds and not material to the accident. There was no evidence at all of ticketless fans arranging to turn up late in the hope of getting in for free, that was one of the many lies put about by the Police in the aftermath.
When were home and away fans on Leppings Lane End? Not saying they never have been just can't remember seeing it. Full crowds at Hillsborough were generally for games against clubs like Man U, Liverpool, Newcastle etc who filled Leppings Lane themselves.
And it's a question mark as to how many of them were ticketless before the police made house visits. One of the interviews I read yesterday was a mother saying they'd tried to take a ticket stub off her to "check some details" on it so they could determine what time her son had arrived at the ground, something which it wouldn't have been possible to determine from it.
You don't actually know what you are talking about do you ? The information on what really happened is out there , don't be ignorant
