Be Excellent To Each Other

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090415/tuk ... a1618.html




How about all of the daft idjits that turned up without tickets even when it was made very clear not to bother turning up without a ticket.

And now they want someone to take responsibility for a bunch of deaf people?

the deaf people should be responsible, unless they're....deaf.

Brave.

Fucking hell, there's no way I'm sticking my head above this parapet.

Is this like some troll-a-thread competition going on that I don't know about? Because. Wow.

i have no idea of what's happening here

You are Kelvin McKenzie, and I claim my £5.

We've just lost all our scouse readers, thats what's happening.

Long story short:

96 dead after football fans crushed at Hillsborough stadium, no one has ever really been held responsible for it.

The Sun is no longer bought in Liverpool as a result of their headlines about it, and JC thinks it is the fan's fault.

sheesh,....this really seems like a touchy subject. I would never guess. I don't even noticed that anyone here was from liverpool, but i know shit.

I'm normallythe first to take the piss out of Scousers for being sentimental and overly emotional, but to suggest that Hillsborough was the fans fault is, and I choose my words carefully, batshit mental at best and total cuntery at worst.

I am not brave enough...

JC you have no idea what you're talking about. Shut the fuck up.
Is what an emotional human would write. Not me though. I'm a robot.

Wanker

Oof, that's a particularly bad one.

Ok *drops character*

Scousers *are* by and large emotional, insular, sensitive and reactionary (I'm generalising) but if you'd been in Liverpool today you would have felt the sadness and loss felt by these fiercely proud people (I'm an outsider). It was a tragedy. People know what went on that day, there have been reports and eyewitness accounts in their thousands, but still no one has had to answer for anything. People don't buy the Sun because of their headline the next day (google it, I'm not repeating it) and I don't blame them. I used to read the Sun cos my Dad did, but never again.

Stop fucking trolling you idiot

*back in character*

Stupid human.

I'm fucking brave enough, because I'm sick of this fucking debate. It depends what you mean by 'the fans'.

I'm a Forest supporter (which according to many makes my opinion irellevant) and I'll tell you now that there were plenty of Forest there without tickets on the day, so you cannot attribute it to ticketless scousers alone. I used to socialise with a chap who loved Liverpool FC with all his heart but would not go to a match ever again after that, due to what he saw A TINY MINORITY OF his own fellow fans doing to their fallen comrades. Most Liverpool fans are the same as most fans of any team, and just wanted a nice day out. If you look at all the things that were going on that day, there's a little list that can be drawn up:

The kick-off was not delayed - should have been
The police fucked up and let the fans surge in at kick-off - shouldn't have
Liverpool fans were kicking off because there were roadworks on the way up the match
Liverpool fans were trashing shops around the same end and that didn't exactly convince the police they should be kept outside the stadium
Once the Forest fans could see what was happening at Leppings Lane end, there was no need for a cordon of police in front of the Kop end, they should have been off helping people not to die.

I wonder how many people have actually sat down and read the Taylor report? It was not about to hang anyone out to dry because there was no-one entirely to blame. You can take any or all of the things that should not have been on that day, and have them again, and you'd not get the same tragedy twice. But, and I want to be very clear on this - I'm speaking about fans of both teams - if you turn up without a ticket for a big game like that, or you cause any kind of trouble inside or outside the ground, you contribute to whatever transpires. Even if, in the words of the Taylor report, it is a 'secondary' contribution or an exacerbation.

At times like this I often think there is a little something missing in these threads.

For the record I caught some of the ceremony on the TV when collecting my car. It was a tragedy and it is quite right it should be marked.

However listening to the fans on the radio they're only out for one thing and that is to put all of the blame onto the police (and they specifically wanted names). Nothing short of prison for ex-police officers will satisfy them.

So sadly they'll never get the answer they are looking for because there were so many factors involved.

I was just thinking that.

No wait, I was just thinking why John Coffey never makes a thread title that correlates with the subject matter. At least we won't find them when we're searching, I suppose. Every cloud and all that...

The problem is that justice was quite clearly not done. The police were evasive, evidence was altered, or in the case of the CCTV footage, lost. Ambulances were kept outside the ground will people inside were dying. The inquest set a cutoff time at which people were considered to be dead when evidence was available showing that many were still alive.

The grounds safety certificate was out of date (by a decade, I read somewhere). People were being crushed to death against the fences and police were refusing to open them up.

In hindsight, Hillsborough was inevitable. Fans did contribute to it, by acting like utter twats for the best part of twenty years, leading to an away trip resembling less of a day out and more like a journey to a war zone only to be penned in like animals. You treat people like dirt, they will act like it.

But if you want to blame the fans for pushing at the back, the fuck off. All they did was want to see the game. It happened all the time, because the authorities treated the fans with utter contempt. Because they had got away with it before, then the accumulation of minor variance had a tragic effect.

The actions of the police and the football authorities in years of neglect conspired against 96 people that day. They didn't give a shit then and apologies had to be dragged out of them afterwards.

This has nothing to do with scousers or cockneys or anyone at all

All I was saying was that trying to find someone to blame and inevitably blaming someone was a silly thing to do.

Those people are gone, it sucks, it's really sad and there's no bringing them back.

However what I did do was point out the cause. People were told on the televisions and radios not to turn up there without tickets and they did.

And that's why it happened.

So tbh going on about blaming it on someone is total fucking bullshit.

Call me a wanker all you want to.

Which is what I don't agree with. It was just one of those things, victim of circumstance. So why blame someone? Those people are gone and nothing can bring them back, certainly not 'justice'

Next thing people will be looking for someone to blame over the tsunami a few years ago.

BTW just wanted to point out here. I wasn't blaming people who didn't listen either (because they clearly didn't) what I was saying was that 'shit happens'.

Running around trying to find someone to blame for that shit is absolutely pathetic.

It's happened, it's done, it's long over and nothing will change that.

It seems very 'eye for an eye' to me, which IMO is unacceptable.

Exactly. So they just need to accept it.

I know very little of the facts around Hillsborough, apart from getting the chills at a memorial at Anfield when I toured it a few years back. So I don't want to enter the argument itself. Can I just say though that I really want Beex to be the kind of place we can debate it? And I don't mean flame about it, or bitch about it, or drama about it. I mean debate it.

With a proper, meaningful thread title, yeah.

Hang on - they were treated like that because they acted like animals and couldn't be trusted in an open stadium with no police. The 80s were a fucking black period for hooliganism. Hooliganism wasn't caused by the grounds or the policing.


And they had no idea at all that all shoving in might hurt people in front of them? Even, in a minor way, the people they were palming in the back? Let alone the fact that pushing at the back of the crowd means the front ends up being pushed forwards against the fencing? Bollocks. They contributed to it happening, and it'd have to be a fucking moron to not realise that what they were doing might hurt someone in some way.

The police didn't do themselves any favours that day, and absolutely contributed to the disaster, but it wouldn't have happened without a bunch of fucking moronic Scousers being there. No one comes out of it looking good.

Also - good post, Goatboy.

The best example of how over-sensitive scousers are is the episode of Backup (a police drama set in Brum) where there was a football hooligan plotline, at a football match.

Being set in Brum, they go with the Second City's finest team, Aston Villa, and their visiting opponents were.. Liverpool. Oh dear, the BBC got thousands of complaints from Liverpool fans, each one going on about Hillsborough. Even though the plotline dealt with mainly off-site soccer violence. No reference to crushing or anything like that.

So the complaints basically amounted to 'how dare you suggest that Liverpool has hooligans. Hillsborough!' (for further reference, yes they did, yes they still do)

Number of complaints from Villa fans? 3

Well changing the thread title may help

It just gets my goat to see people hurling around blame after all these years trying to pin it on someone. That's what got my goat.

BAAAAA

Greetings,
I invite Mr Coffey and other interested parties to read this summary of the events that day, specifically page 14 of the main booklet: http://downloads.hfdinfo.com/8HFDCombined.pdf

Further reading can be found on http://www.hfdinfo.com/

People are still talking about 'the fans' as if they are a single group of people. Rest assured I want nothing to do with the mercifully tiny minority of troublesome Forest fans who still bring grief to the sport, just as the Liverpool fan I always watch matches with in the pub wants nothing to do with the slightly larger minority in their support who are just as bad.

The problem is, being a fan of a team more or less involves standing shoulder to shoulder with anyone else in the same shirt regardless of who they are and coarsely lambasting whoever is wearing the other colour shirts on the day, or every day, if it's Derby, because they are cunts. As such it becomes difficult for anyone, least of all the fans themselves, to separate fans into the appropriate sub-groups. You've got hooligans, and in the Eighties there were a lot of scouse hooligans about. I'll grant you they needed someone to ruck with but their record speaks for itself, I certainly remember them when I think of the European adventures my team missed. Clough's second great team and they never got a chance in Europe. Bitter? Oh fuck me, yes. Anyway, hooligan behaviour from Liverpool supporters rattled the coppers (and peaceful scouse fans) and that part of any teams' fanbase are not capable of switching off their hubris and bombast on a matchday, often due to being marginally pissed up. It really, really didn't help. Half of them were never going to get into the match anyway, so why bother? Because they were irresponsible arseholes.

SY Police bottled it on the day and blagged it in the enquiry, partly I suspect because due to the all-for-one way in which a club or city fanbase mobilise in the media, the intimidation factor was massive. The Sun's abuse of the term 'some' in regard to fans has made it impossible to say the truth, which is that as in all such events, some fans were to some extent culpable. If we're talking percentages though, 'the' Liverpool fans were not culpable. Which is why it is a tragedy.

When I ask people who totally blame the police whether the event would have gone down the way it did if everyone without a ticket had stayed at home, they never say no, mostly just raise their voice and claim it can't be as simple as that. I'm not saying it is, I simply want to know when the earliest point at which it could all have been prevented occured, accordng to them. I think this reaction is due to people assuming I'm trying to label Liverpool fans in a bad way, when in fact I wept for the pain of the majority and the idiocy of a small few. In fact I think the topic will always remain so heated I'll never get a calm debate about it out of anyone 'on the other side' any more than as a Forest fan and near-Nottinghamshire lad I'd be able to talk about the miners strike with anyone here in Wales, or in the North.

It's like when we go on about the Germans or something. Fine when you are having a laugh, they are different and therefore funny, as many find the scouse, but the reality is not so simple. Those on Merseyside who want their pound of constabulary flesh won't get it, and they won't let us hear the end of it. I'd sooner hear about the people we lost, and remember them.

apologise for my attitude earlier. I've booked my head in for a service.

I appreciate the links. Thank you !

However, asking me to read links won't change the way I feel.

I think a lot of people missed what I was saying in my original post (can't say I blame them, getting things out the right way was never one of my skills).

I just feel that it's done now. Nothing can change what's happened and blaming it on someone/the police/maggie thatcher etc won't help.

What should have been a day of mourning and sorrow has just involved hot tempers and anger and now the Liverpool fans are looking to place the blame somewhere. I suppose my 'deaf fans' analogy was pretty outspoken and brutal but I was sort of playing devil's advocate in the way that "hey, if you want to lay some blame look to the root of the problem !".

Sadly even if there was someone to blame it ain't gonna change a god damned thing because there's no bringing those people back.

So it's best to just remember those lost and show respect rather than using the day to hurl around accusations and blame.

Well, it's certainly not holliganistic to ruin a cup game in Athens by turning up en masse with forged tickets (when I criticise having no ticket, a forgery is not much of an improvement, mind) and neither was Heysel

The record stands, but it doesn't render the Liverpool fans on the whole any more responsible for anything that happeend in Sheffield than if that other lot had never happened.

Nah, can't be arsed. The Sun told me everything I need to know about the disaster 20 years ago.

OK, that's a perfectly dignified and well-expressed opinion, and if I can't get you to read even the summarised version of those links then I'm sure I won't be able to change your mind, so instead let me just briefly summarise today's events, lest you think it was nothing but angry protests:
- It was the 20th anniversary of the tragedy, which meant it got more media exposure than previous years.
- For the same reason, many more people attended the ceremony than usual, so it was more likely that Liverpool fans who weren't directly related to the victims would be in attendance (and therefore more likely to be slightly confrontational, as opposed to close family members who would be more familiar with the "traditions" of the memorial and keep their opinions to themselves for this one day a year).
- For some inexplicable reason, the Culture Secretary was invited to speak (presumably someone thought because he was a Scouser, he would be somehow excused for being an MP and therefore the only person present who might - in the opinion of the crowd - be able to order a new inquiry). This caused anger amongst sections of the crowd and momentarily turned what's usually a sober memorial into a brief protest. Once that died down, the rest of the memorial was quiet and not as angry as you suggest.

Greetings Adastra. And thank you.

Before I get a reputation as Angry Overly-Defensive Liverpool Fan, I'll try to keep this one brief. I was in Athens for the 2007 Euro Cup final with a genuine ticket, and whilst not excusing the behaviour of the few thousand who bunked in, I will say that yet again the policing that day too was beyond shambolic.
We travelled from the friendly atmosphere in the city centre out to the stadium three hours before kick-off only to find the "turnstile" consisted of a waist-high metal fence (the likes of which might be used to man the gate at a village fête rather than the highest-profile highest-security football match of that year). We were then kept in a 50m x 70m holding area for over an hour without toilet facilities (see the dark-ish grey section http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 4&t=h&z=18) and were turned away from the turnstile by non-English-speaking armed police every time we tried to enter into the stadium complex itself (there was even a rock concert going on the other side of the fence, apparently playing to a crowd of bemused Greek stewards).
As I say, we arrived three hours early when there were only a few hundred people waiting in the holding area and the stewards could easily have started checking the validity of tickets without significant queuing problems. By the time they finally let us pass an hour later, there were a few thousand people in the small area, somewhat angry at the overcrowding and lack of communication, thus making it easier for them to barge past the inefficient stewards.
So yes, Liverpool fans do have a reputation for bunking in (not helped in 2007 by the club making mistakes with issuing tickets, causing many season ticket holders to book their flights in advance assuming they were guaranteed a ticket only to miss out and travel in the hope of buying one at the ground), but in the past and present, efficient communicative stewarding and policing should easily be able to cope.

Believe it or not I must have watched countless documentaries on the subject.. I'm aware there were certain parties who didn't do what they should have, and loads that did what they shouldn't have.. Without sounding nasty it's been done to death over the years. Nothing has really changed. It's absolutely terrible what happened (as is the Bradford fire) and by now should have been put to bed as one of those disasters. I mean, that's basically what it was, a complete disaster.

I'm not from the north of the UK and never was. Born and raised in London. However, I don't have any predjudice toward any one in this world as it would go against everything I believe in (basically because I'm mentally ill and have spent my entire life being bullied and judged).

Thanks for the 'reality' of what happened today. I really appreciate that. I still find it upsetting that anyone could feel any anger on a day such as today. It's a sad day for British history, whether you're a football fan or not. I'm not saying that people should not be angry at what happened. However, what did upset me today was seeing people angry twenty years after it happened.

I know the anger people are feeling. My father died when I was seven and I was angry for years. However, here I am 27 years later and no matter who I have tried to blame in the past (myself, god, the world, bad diets, bad hearts etc) I know that it was just unavoidable. That's something I have learned in 27 years and the same should be applied to what happened back in 1989.

I remember seeing it live on the T.V. I remember seeing it all over the news time and time again, I remember the feeling of serious humanity in those images and newscasts. However, it doesn't matter how many documentaries I have watched, or who each one has blamed it on the fact is now that it's done.

When I go and visit my father's grave I do not feel anger any more. I do not try and blame it on any factor. It was out of my control and it was unavoidable in the same way that what happened in '89 was.

I just found it incredibly disrespectful that anyone could start mouthing off and trying to blame it on something/someone twenty years after the fact. Infact, I find that pretty incomprehensible (sic).

That's why I was angry.. As I say man, I've studied it all in great detail. If I was to say "this is the reason that it happened" then I would say that it was because too many people showed up at a game they were asked not to.

Which hey, is pretty silly but it's done now. Mistakes happen, as humans we often make them. All we can do really is learn from those mistakes and move on, not try to blame it on any thing 20 years down the line.

It may be relevant that an old free agrees with the OP.

http://s2.zetaboards.com/worldofstuart/topic/5048209/

And frankly I lean towards that view, you can bleat about other things contributing all you like, ultimately the twats shoving people in the back to try and make a queue move quicker are the only people that directly killed anyone.

There were a million other failings, of course there were but the only killers that day were wearing red and it's a shame that you now can't even stand at a football match without your club getting fined because of it.

--

On a separate note though, it's interesting Stu goes on about silences everywhere because I was at the one match you'd expect one (Tuesday's Chelsea - Liverpool one) and there was no silence.

Coffeys being a bit hypocritical here surely, 'no ones to blame', oh wait no the people who went to the match without tickets is to blame.

Ticketless fans would be evidence if it was a rare occurance but it wasnt, this was just a tragedy, over crowded attendances were normal for years and years before this, most clubs highest attendances will have been before this happening. The fences themselves and the reason for having them is the real reason for the tragedy, and it was hooliganism to blame for these fences but obviously they were the absolute wrong way to prevent hooliganism and why they were removed after this, a fatal mistake. I've heard of gigs (a blur one thats memorable to me) were peopel have been crushed by the fences by adoring fans but have been able to escape either by being able to climb over them which wasn't possible at hillsborough or by warning which what happened at the blur gig.

I don't entirely know how the police handled the whole situation and I should read the links posted up and I will given time and not being a bit drunk would help but its a very costly lesson learned.

That's not what I said man. I said that was the reason I think it happened. I'm not blaming anyone.

Blame, like praise, is the act of informing an individual or group that their action or actions are socially or morally irresponsible. When someone is morally responsible for doing something wrong their action is blameworthy

"How about all of the daft idjits that turned up without tickets even when it was made very clear not to bother turning up without a ticket."

"However what I did do was point out the cause. People were told on the televisions and radios not to turn up there without tickets and they did.

And that's why it happened."

which are both statements of blaming a group, that I just don't find justified at all.

Fans turned up without tickets in the hope of getting in anyway.

It happened before Hillsborough too, you know. And they tended to be successful. That is why they did it.

You know what, they still do. They take advantage of touting. Or simply a desire to be around the event and soak up the atmosphere. Unless you are a Rangers fan in the UEFA Cup, obviously.

Yes, the fans contributed to the disaster. But they didn't lie, they didn't cover it up, they didn't change testimony, they didn't lose CCTV footage, they didn't prevent ambulances going to help. All they did was behave exactly has they had been encouraged to do before.

I have changed it. Just try to put something relevant in it in future please.

If members of my family ended up dead mostly through the actions of the police and an unsafe ground, despite those involved knowing of the dangers I'd want some kind of justice.

Are you going to change all the others, then? You're going to have a busy day.

No, hence I've said 'in future'.