The Hillsborough Tragedy.

[Uncle Albert]

Not ashamed to say I had tears in my eyes whilst watching it.

[TrickyTrev]

Hicks lost two daughters on that day, so i won't slate him for his views, though i don't agree with them.

This.

[Narborough_fox]

Justice for the 96 who doed supporting their team and doing what they loved. R.I.P

[Fosse Boy]

The documentary on the History Channel was pretty powerful. Neil Fitzmaurice's contribution was particularly vivid. RIP and Justice for the 96. One day.

[JakeShingler]

Waching the film now.

[Maybes]

Waching the film now.

What channel was it on?

Absolute tragic loss. RIP all.

[JakeShingler]

What channel was it on?

Absolute tragic loss. RIP all.

ITV 3.

Was very good.

[SOCCERROO FOX]

Was listening to the radio this morning when they had a hillsborough surviver on and it 20 years on it is so vivid in his mind and was scaring me on the way to work.

I really didn't think this was a world wide known event until i read about it in a newspaper and people calling in about it on radio. A true tradgedy

[Katy]

That picture from The Mirror is horrific, you can see clearly that the fencing is crushing those people at the front. Get rid of the fencing - less of a problem, at least they would have been able to climb over the wall to safety. The fencing is an overthrow from the hooligans from the 70's and 80's.

I watched some of the Sky coverage and switched off when Trevor Hicks started talking about standing not being safe because I had to go out. I can totally see why he is so passionate about this but it really wasn't the time or the place and maybe the emotion of the occasion got to him. I don't actually agree with him at all, we've all stood safely at Hereford etc. We even stood safely in the seats at Tranmere.

It was a very moving service, I can't imagine what the parents/loved ones of the 96 killed have gone through ever day for the past 20 years.

[lou]

That picture from The Mirror is horrific, you can see clearly that the fencing is crushing those people at the front. Get rid of the fencing - less of a problem, at least they would have been able to climb over the wall to safety. The fencing is an overthrow from the hooligans from the 70's and 80's.

I watched some of the Sky coverage and switched off when Trevor Hicks started talking about standing not being safe because I had to go out. I can totally see why he is so passionate about this but it really wasn't the time or the place and maybe the emotion of the occasion got to him. I don't actually agree with him at all, we've all stood safely at Hereford etc. We even stood safely in the seats at Tranmere.

It was a very moving service, I can't imagine what the parents/loved ones of the 96 killed have gone through ever day for the past 20 years.

I saw it on the telly when it actually happened and just seeing bits on the news made me feel bad again.... I cant watch it. I agree though it was because of the bloody fencing at the front that so many people lost their lives. I dont agree theres no safe standing. It was a culmination of things that caused this not standing. When you see the pure amount of people that were being crammed into that stand it was horrific. Nowadays the amount of people allowed into terracing areas is strictly controlled.... Hereford being a good example, we sold out practically but there was plenty of room.

[davieG]

I saw it on the telly when it actually happened and just seeing bits on the news made me feel bad again.... I cant watch it. I agree though it was because of the bloody fencing at the front that so many people lost their lives. I dont agree theres no safe standing. It was a culmination of things that caused this not standing. When you see the pure amount of people that were being crammed into that stand it was horrific. Nowadays the amount of people allowed into terracing areas is strictly controlled.... Hereford being a good example, we sold out practically but there was plenty of room.

I thought it was overcrowded at Peterboro' and with that guy with the young girl on his shoulders I dread to think what would/could have happened had we scored.

If Peterboro' get promoted I think someone needs to give serious thought to how they manage that standing area because they'll have big crowds most home games and the risk will intensify.

[Matt]

I thought it was overcrowded at Peterboro' and with that guy with the young girl on his shoulders I dread to think what would/could have happened had we scored.

If Peterboro' get promoted I think someone needs to give serious thought to how they manage that standing area because they'll have big crowds most home games and the risk will intensify.

I'm probably wrong but I though Terracing was banned in Premiership and Championship so they will have to do something.

As for the argument towards Hillsborough and I hate discussing the issue because of Hillsborough because it almost feels like i'm slagging the victims of the tragedy off and at the same time I feel this is the wrong place to discuss it, but with Hillsborough it raise's these issues and i'll be honest I don't know the 'ins and outs' of the tragedy fully but the way I see it, even with seating the tragedy would probably have still happened.

Obviously Police opening the exit gate and Steel Fences because the main cause. The police opened the gate, many people with or without tickets went through, so seating or not there would have been a crush as far as I can see.

As for terracing coming back, safety is an issue but again without Steel Fences (Which at that time of Hillsborough were there because of hooliganism) there may still have been a crush to some extent but it wouldn't have been as sad an outcome as it was.

I'm not going to go any further in this thread about the arguement because it isn't right.

[Simi]

That picture isn't nice.

Take a look at this picture from the new Wembley though. Surely if people's only escape was onto the pitch, there'd be some sort of crushing trying to get over these?

[Ultra]

I'm probably wrong but I though Terracing was banned in Premiership and Championship so they will have to do something.

If Peterborough are promoted, they'll probably get a dispensation for a couple of seasons.

After this, assuming they haven't been relegated by then, they'll have to put seats in at both ends.

[Katy]

That picture isn't nice.

Take a look at this picture from the new Wembley though. Surely if people's only escape was onto the pitch, there'd be some sort of crushing trying to get over these?

God, who's brainbox idea was that? It takes an age to get out of a seated area at the best of times.

[AoWW]

I cried so much yesterday watching the footage of Hillsborough and seeing the pictures / reading the accounts in the papers.

Such a terrible tragedy.

RIP

[JakeShingler]

YNWA sent shivers threw my body when the Kop were singing it.

[C-man]

I thought it was overcrowded at Peterboro' and with that guy with the young girl on his shoulders I dread to think what would/could have happened had we scored.

If Peterboro' get promoted I think someone needs to give serious thought to how they manage that standing area because they'll have big crowds most home games and the risk will intensify.

I didn't think Peterborough was especially overcrowded. A lot of the people there just had little to no experience of terracing before, including me.

Hillsborough, and the 96, did a lot to change football for the better - got rid of fences, pens, and the police learnt a lot of lessons. There are so many ways the tragedy could have been avoided, and standing at football matches would still be allowed but probably very much restricted. Trevor Hicks using the memorial service as an opportunity to discuss the concept of safe-standing was wrong.

[lou]

I thought it was overcrowded at Peterboro' and with that guy with the young girl on his shoulders I dread to think what would/could have happened had we scored.

If Peterboro' get promoted I think someone needs to give serious thought to how they manage that standing area because they'll have big crowds most home games and the risk will intensify.

Actually I did think they had oversold it in there... we were definately more cramped than usual and I was nervous about us scoring because of that. I was glad I hadnt taken my youngest to that.

[Corky]

Hillsborough, and the 96, did a lot to change football for the better - got rid of fences, pens, and the police learnt a lot of lessons. There are so many ways the tragedy could have been avoided, and standing at football matches would still be allowed but probably very much restricted. Trevor Hicks using the memorial service as an opportunity to discuss the concept of safe-standing was wrong.

That's the tragic thing though. It took the deaths of fans, innocent people, to make people realise that football grounds weren't safe

[Katy]

Actually I did think they had oversold it in there... we were definately more cramped than usual and I was nervous about us scoring because of that. I was glad I hadnt taken my youngest to that.

I also thought it was. There was a weird feeling to it, I can't explain. I didn't feel as safe in there as I did standing up at Yeovil for example.

[JakeShingler]

You couldnt even get through the entrance at Peterbrough and there were people standing on the sides.

I couldn't imagane if they played United with all of there fans that usually sneak in.

[Kilworthfox]

The Taylor reports

[Sparky]

I didn't think Peterborough was especially overcrowded. A lot of the people there just had little to no experience of terracing before, including me.

Hillsborough, and the 96, did a lot to change football for the better - got rid of fences, pens, and the police learnt a lot of lessons. There are so many ways the tragedy could have been avoided, and standing at football matches would still be allowed but probably very much restricted. Trevor Hicks using the memorial service as an opportunity to discuss the concept of safe-standing was wrong.

I did nothing but stand on terracing in the 90s bud but in all honesty id sort of forgot what to do !!

[leftsideoverhere]

I'm probably wrong but I though Terracing was banned in Premiership and Championship so they will have to do something.

As for the argument towards Hillsborough and I hate discussing the issue because of Hillsborough because it almost feels like i'm slagging the victims of the tragedy off and at the same time I feel this is the wrong place to discuss it, but with Hillsborough it raise's these issues and i'll be honest I don't know the 'ins and outs' of the tragedy fully but the way I see it, even with seating the tragedy would probably have still happened.

Obviously Police opening the exit gate and Steel Fences because the main cause. The police opened the gate, many people with or without tickets went through, so seating or not there would have been a crush as far as I can see.

As for terracing coming back, safety is an issue but again without Steel Fences (Which at that time of Hillsborough were there because of hooliganism) there may still have been a crush to some extent but it wouldn't have been as sad an outcome as it was.

I'm not going to go any further in this thread about the arguement because it isn't right.

Not true. This was one of the lies made up by the Sun in the aftermath of the disaster which has persisted to this day. The investigations into Hillsborough found no evidence that there were significant numbers in the ground without tickets, and they also found that of those in the central blocks of the Leppings Lane end at the start of the game when the crush occurred very few of them had entered through 'gate C' which had been opened by police a few minutes earlier to ease a perceived crush outside the turnstiles.

There were many contributory factors to Hillsborough which I suspect have been gone over earlier in this thread (only read the first and last couple of pages) but the primary one (apart from structural things like the fences and the crap layout of the Leppings Lane end) was that police took a decision not to divert fans away from the central pens as they filled up, which was a change from their usual practice in big games. Fans coming through the turnstiles therefore followed each other down the central tunnel to the centre pens instead of being diverted left and right into the pens near the corner flags. Those coming through gate C were actually more likely to go into a corner pen, and were thus less likely to have been involved in / caught up in the crush.

As others of my generation have already posted in this thread, I can remember vivdly watching the Hillsborough coverage on TV. I was 19, had been a regular in the Filbo kop for several years and had felt squeezed in there for big games. You got used to standing with your arms locked in front of you onto a bar or the front of the pen, or even the person in front, and tried to keep your feet when the mass of the crowd surged one way or the other (to the front for a goal, to the side for a go at the away fans, to the back for no real reason at all). On the day of Hillsborough I was working a shift in a bar on Tyneside where I was a student, and the bar was packed with Geordies watching the game. You could see on everyone's faces the idea that it could so easily have been us crushed in those pens, if the cup fortunes of our teams had been different that year. I still find it harrowing watching the TV coverage from the day itself.

Hillsborough quickly became about so much more than the 96 people who died, and that was the second tragedy for them and their families. Instead of an honest accounting of the causes of the disaster, there was a cover-up and a huge distraction caused by the Sun newspaper, fed lies by the police and only too happy to print them, and enlarge on them, to point the finger at 'hooligans' amongst the Liverpool fans, the ones who stood rather than paid the extra for seats. However, look at the list of those who lost their lives and you'll see many family members - standing really was the 'normal' way for many of us to watch football up until 1989.

Fast forward to the present day, and the authorities, while still not admitting to the arrogance which led to such terrible decisions being made in 1989, have seized on Hillsborough to outlaw standing at football matches pretty much everywhere, although they've been forced by the smaller clubs to make amendments to the rules which is why clubs like Peterborough still have standing. Some clubs, who'd rather fill their ground with middle class fans who'll buy overpriced food and drink, a programme and daft souvenirs than with working class kids who scrape together the money for the turnstile, were happy to add their voices to the clamour for all-seater stadia. It did, at least, see the fences come down, and the clubs with major hooligan problems start to tackle them with banning orders and so on instead of just fencing the bastards in and letting them get on with it, which had been the police strategy in the early 1980s.

There desperately needs to be a full public enquiry into what happened at Hillsborough, the bereaved families will I suspect never be able to get over their loss until they know how it could have been allowed to happen. But it serves no-one in authority at the time, or now, to own up to how arrogant and dismissive of the fans themselves the police were, and were trained to be. And, as the G20 policing showed, that, at least, hasn't changed.

I hope that we do see a return to standing areas at football grounds even in the higher leagues. This year's away games have shown that safe standing is certainly possible. Unlike others, I didn't feel unsafe at Peterborough - and I did have a ten year old with me. We were at the front, and the 'breathing space' created by the ropes across the front four feet of the stand would have soaked up any crowd surge without causing major panic, I think. Since we never scored, it wasn't put to the test. Hereford last week was simply spacious in the right hand side, and appeared to have plenty of bars to keep the crowd static in the raised areas, and hence avoid a surge. the pictures I've seen of safe standing in German stadia, where fans are effectively given a specific place to stand (complete with a little fold down step in the railings in case they are a small fan) look amazing, but I just can't imagine clubs like Leicester taking seats out of the Walkers in order to return to standing areas. Unless, of course, we could consistently fill the Walkers to capacity, and the club might realise that extra revenue could be raised by squeezing more of us in stood up.