miners strike 1984-lessons to be learnt.

[johnsouthwales]

thatcher was there on the following day with press secretary ingham april 16th 1989.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Press Secretary Bernard Ingham were shown around the stadium and visited the fans in hospital. He later said, "I know what I learned on the spot; there would have been no Hillsborough if a mob, clearly tanked up, had not tried to force their way into the ground".
He has subsequently admitted that he neither spoke to a single Liverpool fan nor ever sought their opinions on what happened.

[norbert]

thatcher was there on the following day with press secretary ingham april 16th 1989.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Press Secretary Bernard Ingham were shown around the stadium and visited the fans in hospital. He later said, "I know what I learned on the spot; there would have been no Hillsborough if a mob, clearly tanked up, had not tried to force their way into the ground".
He has subsequently admitted that he neither spoke to a single Liverpool fan nor ever sought their opinions on what happened.

nasty toff piece of work that Ingham

[johnsouthwales]

April 21st 1989: Douglas Hurd inferred in the House of Commons that 19 police officers had been assaulted at Hillsborough and that SYP were collating the information to pass on to the Inquiry.

May 3rd 1989: Under questioning, Mr Hurd was unable to state how those injuries were sustained. No mention of these 19 injured officers was made in the Interim Taylor Report. During the Disaster, 18,000 photographs and 71 hours of film footage were taken. Not a single picture or piece of video footage has been found to support whatsoever the allegation of police officers being physically assaulted.

[johnsouthwales]

Irvine Patnick, Conservative MP for Sheffield Hallam, went far further; his damning allegations to The Sun report him saying that some Liverpool fans pick-pocketed from the dead, some urinated on the dead, some beat up a police officer giving the kiss of life. He was not even at the game, so
could not have witnessed any of the above himself. Nevertheless his comments were widely used, causing incalculable distress to victims’ families and survivors. Not one witness at the inquiry supported any of the allegations: all were proven false.

[johnsouthwales]

Lord Justice Taylor also criticised SWFC, their safety engineers and the local authority, which had failed to issue an up-to-date licence for the stadium. But he directed his most damning conclusions towards the SYP. Most pertinently, the ITR categorically dismissed all theories of bad behaviour, drunkenness and ticketless LFC fans as a contributing factor to the Disaster and subsequent loss of police control.

[johnsouthwales]

there's a presentation at liverpool fc. think it's on next week. monday night.

miners strike and the media. how the media presented the strike. brian reade on the panel

[norbert]

Lord Justice Taylor also criticised SWFC, their safety engineers and the local authority, which had failed to issue an up-to-date licence for the stadium. But he directed his most damning conclusions towards the SYP. Most pertinently, the ITR categorically dismissed all theories of bad behaviour, drunkenness and ticketless LFC fans as a contributing factor to the Disaster and subsequent loss of police control.

There was a crush at the semi final between Wolves & Tottenham in 81 , and some crushes at the Lepping Lane End in the semi final in 88 between Liverpool & Forest which Wimbledon won in the final . Apparently ? the FA insisted on fences as there was crowd invasions at a semi final between Arsenal & Everton .

I've always found the Met to be far better organized , the football hooliganism was also very well organized too , Chelsea , Millwall , West Ham etc . Man U had some very nasty Cockney Reds too down there .

The RECOMMENDED HSE capacity for those pens was in actuality 1, 600 NOT 2000 , so if 3000 were herded in ; work it out . I have been in one of those pens and I remember paying extra to go in the stands above on another occasion and whilst not being oversensitive or having my mind playing tricks on me , there was a eeriness if you looked down to then empty terraces .

TBH , grounds like that might have been "OK" , in the 60's or late 70's as venues but by then they were old fashioned , there's not enough turnstiles at that away end , there was roadworks on that A road via Snake pass into Sheffield , queues and lines should have been formed outside the ground . The tunnel to that pen should have been physically sealed off and fans diverted to the side pens .

With all due respect to Nottingham Forest and what Brian Clough did for them , they didn't have the fan base to justify having the SWFC Home Kop end and there had been official complaints by Liverpool the year before .

To be fair to Lord Taylor , the Tories were very anti - football , they were all for Identity Cards , there was one Tory MP David Evans with views to the right of Genghis Khan that was all for them and away fans were banned from Luton and their plastic pitch ground . The Luton people would say there would no trouble in the town or with their own yobs that were up for trouble .
Lord Taylor's argument was for better grounds and not necessarily herding decent people about like cattle or frog marching them , some grounds were absolute dives and sh**holes .

There has been accidents before , I believe there was an Old Firm match at Ibrox , it had been goalless for 88 minutes or so , then Celtic scored , the Rangers fans left and Colin Stein got the equalizer , a barrier collapsed near the Glasgow Tube exit , there was literally a pile of people crushed to death .

There was another at Burnden Park , Bolton after the war at the railway end when a crush barrier collapsed .

I know people who have been in the Kop at Liverpool which used to visibly sway and have genuinely believed their number was up . Capacity used to be 29,000 - 31,000 and it could be a bit ?rough in there .

[johnsouthwales]

the largest capacity at anfield i have personally been in is 51 thousand, and the anfield road end was well full up on that day. november 1979 v spurs. the official ground capcity was 52,500.. barriers weren't put up until after the 1977 scots at wembley affair.
the kop had a capacity of 26,500, as i've stood on it many times, had the odd occasion when squashed against a barrier which was quite painful and used my arms to prise back a bit. general rule was stand in front of the barrier not behind it, and supporters find their own space. and the swaying, which was quite fun really. you'd have a ripple started and suddenly most of the middle spread out like a sea wave. and you returned to the same spot where you were in the first place. generally, i always felt safe on the kop. the home games against everton were the worst where i experienced more crushing than usual where i felt my chest was struggling for a moment in a free standing area. and it only takes seconds to become asphixiated.

it had never crossed anyones minds about safety. thats the way it was. the only fear of an away match was whether you'd get attacked or not. it does get quite bizarre when i saw about 50 nottinham forest fans shouting charge after a game.

liverpool's home record capacity is 61,905 against blackpool in 1952. there was a main stand back in those days, unlike the present one, and didnt have the old kemlyn road stand at that time.

after ibrox, stairways at grounds were rebuilt. after hillsborough, the kop capacity was reduced to 16,500

in the late 70's, most grounds were just as what they were. the same grounds as the previous decade and so on. early 80s saw some new stands appearing. wolves, forest, spurs new main stands. basically, the terracing stayed as they were. the spurs terracing i was standing on 3 weeks before hillsborough was the same as 1981. that's the way things were. its like industry, most factories hadn't really 'updated' because there wasnt a general need too, and the costs involved.

Burnden Park Disaster 9th March 1946
http://www.merseysidepotters.com/Burnden.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

ibrox http://scotzine.com/blog/?p=2201" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Initially there was speculation that some fans left the ground slightly early when Celtic scored, but then turned back when they heard roars from the crowd when Stein scored the equaliser, colliding with fans leaving the ground when the match ended. The official inquiry into the disaster indicated that there was no truth in this hypothesis, all the spectators were going in the same direction at the time of the collapse. However the "myth of the Stein goal" became widely believed and repeated for many years after the disaster.

http://www.theherald.co.uk/sport/thearc ... r_1902.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[johnsouthwales]

ibrox 1971 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/299558 ... rs-on.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[johnsouthwales]

As the thousands of spectators entered the stadium ready to take their places to see the big match, the terraces quickly began to fill. By 2:45 PM, the crowd inside was being pressed so tightly that it was hard to move and still more were coming in through the turnstiles. With only minutes to go to kick-off, the players were out on the pitch and the crowd cheered enthusiastically. That is, the crowd who were not being pressed so hard that it was becoming difficult to breathe. The crowd outside waiting to get in was also heavy, with confusion starting to build over how many more would get in and who would be left standing outside. Police and ground staff were in a state of disarray, and as an exit gate was opened, fans poured in which added to the already serious crush of bodies packed into the terraces. The sheer momentum of bodies moving forward, adding more and more mass to the surge of spectators was enough to cause steel crush barriers to collapse. Many of the spectators now fell across the buckled and twisted steel, unable to get up as the crush continued. Fans near the front were trying to get out but couldn’t move, while fans coming in from the back had no choice but to move ahead as the mass of people behind them pushed forward. There were some who stumbled and fell, and were then trampled by others who couldn’t avoid stepping on them beneath their feet. By the time the match had begun, there were bodies piled three deep, and finally the police realised that a serious situation was taking place. The referee stopped the match at the request of the police, and as the players left the field the St. John Ambulance brigade began the grim task of helping those who could still be saved.

As the afternoon passed, the numbers of reported victims steadily increased until it soon became the largest crowd disaster in the history of English football. As well as the fatalities, there were many more who were seriously injured and a great deal more who would be forever traumatised by the events that they had witnessed on this day. The questions of how could this have happened and how can it be prevented from ever happening again were raised from several quarters, and a government inquiry was launched in order to find answers. The police on duty that day were heavily criticised for not keeping ahead of a situation that was so obviously spiralling out of control, and especially for not realising that the entrances to the terraces, while already full, were still allowing more people in to add to the problem.

None of this is hard to imagine – god knows it brings back terrible memories for so many of us. But what is so incredibly difficult to believe is that the events described above took place in March of 1946, when Bolton played Stoke City in a sixth round tie at Burnden Park. Thirty three spectators died that day, with more than five hundred seriously injured. It seems that for all the inquiries and the investigations into the Burnden Park disaster that nothing much changed in the forty three years up to the Hillsborough tragedy.

The report from the government inquiry of 1946 made many recommendations for improvements, but more significantly perhaps raised a frightening image by simply stating,

“How easy it is for a dangerous situation to arise in a crowded enclosure. It happens again and again [but usually] without fatal or injurious consequences.”

[norbert]

AFAIK that Kop capacity must have been well reduced in the 70's , I'm sure it was 29,000 - 31,000 beforehand . The horror stories I've heard about the Kop is when the crowd surged forward , not swayed sideways , the stories may go back to the 60's , early 70's though .

I've got the Top Man Official Football League Yearbook for 1988 - 89 , Anfield is listed at 46,000 capacity ,( BTW I scan can pages if anybody wants "down memory lane "old Team Photos etc of their clubs ) Goodison was listed at 53,419 and was more old fashioned bar the Main Stand . Liverpool was known as being as tight as two coats of paint but the revenue from European success was used to pay for new stands and/or converting terracing into stands .

There was a lot of fainting problems with people being laid out on the pitch at Anfield in the 70's . Shankly was all for a shared ground with Everton idea at Aintree which could be used for semi - finals and events like concerts etc .

If I remember rightly Newcastle's main stand was the same as the old Anfield Main Stand in the 60's . Liverpool used to own a lot of the terraced houses nearby , the Kemlyn Road stand could be bigger like Man United's but all the houses were demolished AFAIK bar those spinster sisters who stayed in the one remaining house . To be fair Liverpool never has been popular with the local residents and has been accused of riding roughshod over them .

Millwall for all their well known faults is a good example of co - operation and a good relationship with the Council .

RECOMMENDED SITE - OMG he must have put some work in , building that site
http://www.millwall-history.co.uk/index.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

These grounds were built in a different era , nowadays it's totally different like say the Reebok stadium @ Bolton with a train station and parking .

The ironic thing about Hillsborough was when the match started against Forest , Peter Beardsley soon hit the bar , there would have been a lot more than 96 dead if Liverpool had scored . The biggest fatal cock up was that no ambulances with skilled personnel were allowed on the pitch bar that guy who broke through and drove his on .

I have been once to Hillsborough on the train as a kid , we were put off at Wadesley Bridge station which isn't far from the ground . I'm told it was a normally freight only line via Woodhead Tunnel but the railway closed the line soon after .

Now there is a campaign to reopen the line as the roads are not adequate and there's passenger use on the privatized railways at a 50's level . One tunnel is used for National Grid power cables and New Labour are corrupt to road and air lobbying influence . There's even talk of extending the Sheffield Supertram like they've done in Manchester & Midlands with old train lines .

[johnsouthwales]

i have heard that too, if beardlsey had scored. just been looking up ibrox 1902, more or less crowds standing on planks.

http://oddculture.com/wp-content/upload ... saster.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

i've got the top=man book 87-88. anfield official capacity in 88-89 was 45,600... 1978 capacity 52,000

[johnsouthwales]

kemlyn road. rows of terraced houses.

[johnsouthwales]

just finished reading the millwall site.. took ages lol

[norbert]

just finished reading the millwall site.. took ages lol

he's put every single clipping in with loads of old photos . Eammon Dunphy did this diary type book in the early 70's called " The Absolute Game " ?about Benny Fenton and their failed promotion bid , supposed to be the footballers and managers book .

If you look on You Tube there's virals of this football anyalsis show on RTE TV , it's head and shoulders above anything in the UK ; sometimes the panelists have a right ding dong .
Eammon divides opinion over there , some think he's wonderful , some think he's mad and likes a drink or four too much .