" HILLSBROUGH TRAGEDY VERDICT DELIVERED "

There was obviously imcompetence by those in charge of crowd control that day, and mistakes were made. No-body is immune from making poor decisions but for me the blatant lies and passing of the buck in the years that followed are unforgivable.

Couldn't agree more. There is a valid argument that the behaviour post-Hillsbrough of the Police is a crime in itself separate from the actual events of what happened on that terrible day.

There was obviously imcompetence by those in charge of crowd control that day, and mistakes were made. No-body is immune from making poor decisions but for me the blatant lies and passing of the buck in the years that followed are unforgivable.

Spot on...how this has taken 27 years for the families of the dead fans to get some sort of closure is a scandal

Most tragedies are the result of an aggregation of relatively minor failings. Remove any one of these failings and the overall tragedy doesn't happen. For me a significant part was played by the fences - no hooligans, no fences and fans don't get trapped. The actions of many so called fans in the preceding years have a part to play in what happened that terrible day.

Best root cause post in this thread.

Football was different in the 80's. We forever have posts saying the good ole days, but it was terror, exciting if you were 16 like i was, but looking at it as an adult, it was medivial.

I was crushed in the old south enclosure of the Arms park, but spectators just jumped onto the pitch as the wall was waste high.

This puts any standing at football grounds back though. Terracing hides a lot of issues.

It's a difficult one this as many completely innocent people died that day and anyone who attended big games in the eighties will know it could have happened to them as the organisation at these games was incompetent and amateurish at best

No doubt at all the police handling of the day was shocking and the attempt to cover it up is nothing short of scandalous....but certain ticketless fans who rushed the turnstiles that day are not exactly blameless either

Very true.

I admit to attending a Wales vs. Ireland rugby international in 1986 without a ticket but was prepared to watch the game in a pub near Lansdowne Road. However, due to the amount of people around the stadium the gates were opened and I got in for nothing along with 1,000's of others. At the time we thought we did nothing wrong and had just got lucky. The point is it proves opening gates in such situations had been happening at other grounds prior to Hillsbrough.

It's easy to blame the ticketless Liverpool fans and maybe there is some blame to be apportioned. However, the Police are a public service and should have had procedures in place to stop ticketless fans from being anywhere near the stadium, as is the case now.

Failure to do that directly resulted in 96 people being killed and the Police have to accept responsibility for that.

I agree with you but would also add "failure of 000s of ticketless fans to stay away from the ground directly resulted in 96 fans being killed that terrible day. "

It's a difficult one this as many completely innocent people died that day and anyone who attended big games in the eighties will know it could have happened to them as the organisation at these games was incompetent and amateurish at best

No doubt at all the police handling of the day was shocking and the attempt to cover it up is nothing short of scandalous....but certain ticketless fans who rushed the turnstiles that day are not exactly blameless either

Very true.

I admit to attending a Wales vs. Ireland rugby international in 1986 without a ticket but was prepared to watch the game in a pub near Lansdowne Road. However, due to the amount of people around the stadium the gates were opened and I got in for nothing along with 1,000's of others. At the time we thought we did nothing wrong and had just got lucky. The point is it proves opening gates in such situations had been happening at other grounds prior to Hillsbrough.

It's easy to blame the ticketless Liverpool fans and maybe there is some blame to be apportioned. However, the Police are a public service and should have had procedures in place to stop ticketless fans from being anywhere near the stadium, as is the case now.

Failure to do that directly resulted in 96 people being killed and the Police have to accept responsibility for that.

I agree with you but would also add "failure of 000s of ticketless fans to stay away from the ground directly resulted in 96 fans being killed that terrible day. "

Ticketless fans were not a new phenomenon back in 1989 and it would be quite reasonable to expect the Police to deal with them well before they reached the stadium.

If you want to be direct and leave out all other mitigating factors then of course there is a direct link between ticketless fans and the death of 96 spectators.

But you cannot apportion blame by treating what happened in isolation. The Police had CCTV and a lot of manpower yet were inept first from preventing the Tragedy by keeping the ticketless fans away from the stadium, then in their reaction to what happened and finally their attempt cover up of the total balls up which resulted in 96 deaths.

You also have to ask why they ordered the opening of the gates when they knew there was no natural escape route onto the pitch due to fencing.

All football fans who were around then knew the underlying reason, which was the Police thought the fans were scum and deserved to die.

It's a difficult one this as many completely innocent people died that day and anyone who attended big games in the eighties will know it could have happened to them as the organisation at these games was incompetent and amateurish at best

No doubt at all the police handling of the day was shocking and the attempt to cover it up is nothing short of scandalous....but certain ticketless fans who rushed the turnstiles that day are not exactly blameless either

Very true.

I admit to attending a Wales vs. Ireland rugby international in 1986 without a ticket but was prepared to watch the game in a pub near Lansdowne Road. However, due to the amount of people around the stadium the gates were opened and I got in for nothing along with 1,000's of others. At the time we thought we did nothing wrong and had just got lucky. The point is it proves opening gates in such situations had been happening at other grounds prior to Hillsbrough.

It's easy to blame the ticketless Liverpool fans and maybe there is some blame to be apportioned. However, the Police are a public service and should have had procedures in place to stop ticketless fans from being anywhere near the stadium, as is the case now.

Failure to do that directly resulted in 96 people being killed and the Police have to accept responsibility for that.

I agree with you but would also add "failure of 000s of ticketless fans to stay away from the ground directly resulted in 96 fans being killed that terrible day. "

Ticketless fans were not a new phenomenon back in 1989 and it would be quite reasonable to expect the Police to deal with them well before they reached the stadium.

If you want to be direct and leave out all other mitigating factors then of course there is a direct link between ticketless fans and the death of 96 spectators.

But you cannot apportion blame by treating what happened in isolation. The Police had CCTV and a lot of manpower yet were inept first from preventing the Tragedy by keeping the ticketless fans away from the stadium, then in their reaction to what happened and finally their attempt cover up of the total balls up which resulted in 96 deaths.

You also have to ask why they ordered the opening of the gates when they knew there was no natural escape route onto the pitch due to fencing.

All football fans who were around then knew the underlying reason, which was the Police thought the fans were scum and deserved to die.

I agree that there's a lot of different people to blame for the disaster. I worked with a guy who's cousin died at the disaster, this guy had a ticket and got there in plenty of time to look forward to the game, know a load of ticketless fans where going to try and gain entry unlawfully. When speaking to the guy about it he always said that his cousins family felt as much anger towards ticketless fans as much as the police. All the ingredients of the disaster. He also lead me to belive and I don't know this as fact that the vast majority of fans that died where the ones with tickets. Strange how no report of this has been released.

For me now this is the last comment I shall make on this as it's difficult to tell who the innocent victims are, out of respect for them I had my silence on the matter.
My meaning of "innocent victims" are the ones that died that day that had tickets. These are the people the groups should be fighting for justice alone.

While justice has finally been seen to be done, I never understood why the thousand or so Liverpool fans without tickets at the ground were not criticised or blamed for their part in causing the crush at the gates? surely the events wouldn't have happened if they hadn't been there.

At last, someone on here has said what thousands of other football fans throughout the UK think. Deep down, the ticketless Liverpool fans that turned up that day know they were as much to blame, they'll have to live with it for the rest of their lives.

But there's no proof there were thousands of ticketless fans, it's only what the police said. They lied about everything else so they will have lied about that. We don't know how many didn't have tickets but I would bet it was a few dozen.

South Yorkshire Police were renowned bastards. Beat miners up at Orgreave for fun is another example. They were like a legalised hooligan firm. Always treated us the worst on away trips in those days.

While justice has finally been seen to be done, I never understood why the thousand or so Liverpool fans without tickets at the ground were not criticised or blamed for their part in causing the crush at the gates? surely the events wouldn't have happened if they hadn't been there.

At last, someone on here has said what thousands of other football fans throughout the UK think. Deep down, the ticketless Liverpool fans that turned up that day know they were as much to blame, they'll have to live with it for the rest of their lives.

I had trouble at leppings Rd couple years before with city when chased by Wed fans! No one can reasonably say that the fact there was couple thousand pool fans without tickets didn't contribute to the events that day? Yes police messed up cannot argue that but wasn't whole story I feel.

I could see why they would have wanted to chase you big al and give you a slap if you act in the real world like you do on here

South Yorkshire Police were renowned bastards. Beat miners up at Orgreave for fun is another example. They were like a legalised hooligan firm. Always treated us the worst on away trips in those days.

Also more recently ignoring teenage girls who were being raped by Muslim men in Rotherham.

South Yorkshire Police were renowned bastards. Beat miners up at Orgreave for fun is another example. They were like a legalised hooligan firm. Always treated us the worst on away trips in those days.

Also more recently ignoring teenage girls who were being raped by Muslim men in Rotherham.

Something seriously wrong with the culture of SYP