Hillsborough piece in The Observer on Sunday

[fozzy]

Blurred - on SUSD somebody said that Hicks had a real go at the pro standing lobby. Can you shed any light on this? What exactly was said?

Ta.

F

[blurred]

Blurred - on SUSD somebody said that Hicks had a real go at the pro standing lobby. Can you shed any light on this? What exactly was said?

Ta.

F

I wasn't there today (nor watching on tv/online as I'm at work). I may watch it later on when I get home, I don't know yet. I've already heard on our 'wires' at work about Mr Hicks' comments today, though. To take an email from an interested colleague

Trevor Hicks gave a very, very long speech and talked about the responsibility fans have to behave and then for a good 3 or 4 minutes condemned those campaigning for safe standing, said they were open minded but it was "bunkham" to talk about German style grounds, said how terrible the internet was for being able to spread the message, that the fact you can't get a ticket means there is nothing wrong with all seaters, blah, blah, blah. That got a lukewarm reception from the crowd, bordering on polite.

His comments are already receiving condemnation on the Liverpool forums.

[fozzy]

Blurred - on SUSD somebody said that Hicks had a real go at the pro standing lobby. Can you shed any light on this? What exactly was said?

Ta.

F

I wasn't there today (nor watching on tv/online as I'm at work). I may watch it later on when I get home, I don't know yet. I've already heard on our 'wires' at work about Mr Hicks' comments today, though. To take an email from an interested colleague

Trevor Hicks gave a very, very long speech and talked about the responsibility fans have to behave and then for a good 3 or 4 minutes condemned those campaigning for safe standing, said they were open minded but it was "bunkham" to talk about German style grounds, said how terrible the internet was for being able to spread the message, that the fact you can't get a ticket means there is nothing wrong with all seaters, blah, blah, blah. That got a lukewarm reception from the crowd, bordering on polite.

Cool, thanks.

I wondered if he noticed the fans standing in the ground during the service? Or at Chelsea last night?

I'll do some digging later and see if I can find a transcript/report.

[FD]

He also said before that : "This won't be popular with some of you but..." then proceded to talk about how safety is paramount. He wasn't having a go at people jumping up and down when someone scored a goal and he specifically mentioned "persistent standing during matches". He said how that it's BECAUSE of the 96 that we have safe seating nowadays and that it was ... I forget his exact wording but basically he said it was against the memory of the people who died.

He also stated (to be fair, quite rightly) that he doesn't believe being seated ruined and atmosphere and backed it up by commenting how "You tried to get a ticket recently? Exactly!"...

For what it's worth, I noted that previous to his speech, the vicar/whatever had at one point asked everyone to stand, which they duly did. After that, was the speech against standing, which struck me as odd, but I assumed that standing during a football match is a lot different to being asked to stand for a short period of time at a memorial service.

Not sure how I forgot this, and I've not been keeping up so it could be old news but he also mentioned he'd heard unconfirmed talk that a police officer has come out and taken responsibility for the events of that day.

[Lord Kangana]

http://pseudscorner.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... argin.html

Interesting post from a reply to the Guardian article.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8000635.stm

Andy Burnham (an un-announced guest at today's memorial at Anfield) gets shown exactly what Liverpool fans think of the lip-service paid by the government to 'justice'. Good on those that were there today, I say.

Burnham's a Liverpudlian himself (I met him once actually - he's an alumnus of Fitzwilliam) and doesn't come across as being insincere in that video.

But oh yes, good on those fourteen year olds 50 seconds in, on their feet, chanting, arms outstretched. No doubt they have registered their disapproval at the operation of the British justice system in a more detailed and formal way elsewhere....

Most of us on the outside do genuinely puzzle at the fact that today is so dominated by calls for recriminations and allocations of blame and not a remembering of the dead.

[FD]

Andy Burnham did nothing wrong and most certainly didn't deserve the heckling thrown at him. He conducted himself with dignity and solemnity, in my opinion he was moved by it all, nodding his head whilst being chanted at.

EDIT: As I thought, they've shown not even half of his speech in that clip.

Most of the people in the stadium clapped him during the speech and after.

[Tombwfc]

But oh yes, good on those fourteen year olds 50 seconds in, on their feet, chanting, arms outstretched. No doubt they have registered their disapproval at the operation of the British justice system in a more detailed and formal way elsewhere....

Most of us on the outside do genuinely puzzle at the fact that today is so dominated by calls for recriminations and allocations of blame and not a remembering of the dead.

It's those two things that bother me about all this, having seen a lot of it on SSN today. It's what I think rubs a lot of people up the wrong way about it all, that for a lot Liverpool fans remembering the dead is overrided by an endless search to find someone to blame.

And then of course the Liverpool fans who have no direct or indirect connection with the disaster (outside of supporting the same football team) who see heckling Government ministers, boycotting the Sun and screaming for some undefined 'Justice' as as much a part of supporting Liverpool as buying a shirt and knowing the words to the Torres song, when really they're as uneducated about what really went on as those who think it was all a bunch of drunk Scousers who caused it. Some do seem to revel in the seige mentality and victim status, and it does take away from what today should be about.

[blurred]

http://pseudscorner.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... argin.html

Interesting post from a reply to the Guardian article.

As I commented earlier in this thread

All these things combined. You glib remark ("not a system that seems to have completely baffled anyone else at Hillsborough, ever") is just not true, either. There had been crushes (although not fatal) at that end at a semi-final before. 38 fans were injured in a crush at the 1981 semi-final at Hillsborough in the Leppings Lane End. Liverpool lodged a complaint about the allocation of ends having suffered crushing at the semi-final there the previous yaer. Lessons, it appears, weren't learned.

[Bruce Rioja]

But oh yes, good on those fourteen year olds 50 seconds in, on their feet, chanting, arms outstretched. No doubt they have registered their disapproval at the operation of the British justice system in a more detailed and formal way elsewhere....

Most of us on the outside do genuinely puzzle at the fact that today is so dominated by calls for recriminations and allocations of blame and not a remembering of the dead.

It's those two things that bother me about all this, having seen a lot of it on SSN today. It's what I think rubs a lot of people up the wrong way about it all, that for a lot Liverpool fans remembering the dead is overrided by an endless search to find someone to blame.

And then of course the Liverpool fans who have no direct or indirect connection with the disaster (outside of supporting the same football team) who see heckling Government ministers, boycotting the Sun and screaming for some undefined 'Justice' as as much a part of supporting Liverpool as buying a shirt and knowing the words to the Torres song, when really they're as uneducated about what really went on as those who think it was all a bunch of drunk Scousers who caused it. Some do seem to revel in the seige mentality and victim status, and it does take away from what today should be about.

Summed up perfectly by the pair of you, for me.

[Verbal]

But oh yes, good on those fourteen year olds 50 seconds in, on their feet, chanting, arms outstretched. No doubt they have registered their disapproval at the operation of the British justice system in a more detailed and formal way elsewhere....

Most of us on the outside do genuinely puzzle at the fact that today is so dominated by calls for recriminations and allocations of blame and not a remembering of the dead.

It's those two things that bother me about all this, having seen a lot of it on SSN today. It's what I think rubs a lot of people up the wrong way about it all, that for a lot Liverpool fans remembering the dead is overrided by an endless search to find someone to blame.

And then of course the Liverpool fans who have no direct or indirect connection with the disaster (outside of supporting the same football team) who see heckling Government ministers, boycotting the Sun and screaming for some undefined 'Justice' as as much a part of supporting Liverpool as buying a shirt and knowing the words to the Torres song, when really they're as uneducated about what really went on as those who think it was all a bunch of drunk Scousers who caused it. Some do seem to revel in the seige mentality and victim status, and it does take away from what today should be about.

Summed up perfectly by the pair of you, for me.

Me too.

There was a bit in the service today where there was a bald man singing a song about Hillsborough. It made me feel very uneasy as it sounded like a man preaching and not remembering. Its a memorial service, not a sounding board. There is a time and place.

[TANGODANCER]

But oh yes, good on those fourteen year olds 50 seconds in, on their feet, chanting, arms outstretched. No doubt they have registered their disapproval at the operation of the British justice system in a more detailed and formal way elsewhere....

Most of us on the outside do genuinely puzzle at the fact that today is so dominated by calls for recriminations and allocations of blame and not a remembering of the dead.

It's those two things that bother me about all this, having seen a lot of it on SSN today. It's what I think rubs a lot of people up the wrong way about it all, that for a lot Liverpool fans remembering the dead is overrided by an endless search to find someone to blame.

And then of course the Liverpool fans who have no direct or indirect connection with the disaster (outside of supporting the same football team) who see heckling Government ministers, boycotting the Sun and screaming for some undefined 'Justice' as as much a part of supporting Liverpool as buying a shirt and knowing the words to the Torres song, when really they're as uneducated about what really went on as those who think it was all a bunch of drunk Scousers who caused it. Some do seem to revel in the seige mentality and victim status, and it does take away from what today should be about.

Summed up perfectly by the pair of you, for me.

Saves any real comment from me too, particularly the bit in bold. Confusion is the main feeling amongst outsiders I have spoken to on all of this. I would never offer disrespect to anyone who lost family and loved ones in such a tragedy- feelings easily equated if you imagine how you'd feel if it were one of your own- but anger, blame, calls for justice (I still don't know what that means here) and this irrational hatred against anyone not Liverpudlian who doesn't fully support the cause, I don't understand at all. It's almost like the in-bred sectarian hatred that exists in Ireland. It's especailly baffling amongst anyone under thirty, the best of who would have been ten years old at the time, who were neither there, or remember much about it all. I repeat, no disrespect for those dead has any place in my confusion and their families have my sympathy, but on a day of dedication to them, fist waving angry football fans seem very at odds with a rememberance service of such magnitude. To the dead, may they rest in peace. To the rest....why?

[Prufrock]

It's not the people who lost familly memebers and friends who I don't get, that's perfectly understandable, it's the mentality of a scouser, that even if you didn't know the person/people involved in any one of a number of incidents over the years, they have a tendency to be personally affronted.

I dont buy this either. Anyone who saw the recent mass mourning of Jade Goody and the book of condolences and public funeral that Jill Dando was afforded, will know collective hysteria is no more a Scouse trait than it is a Bermondsey trait or West Country kind of thing.

That's a fair point, it is something as a nation we are very very prevelant to, and I really don't like it, the people on cameras crying over Jade Goody who didn't even know her cheapens and dilutes grief to me, but I feel the scousers have a very particular mind set of them against everyone else, and are more prone to it on an insular level. Today however is not the day to be pushing that point. I stress I do NOT include Hillsbrough in that. That is a very real tragedy, and so many people in the city must know somebody who was there, or have been there themselves, and I understand there how a whole city and club can feel collective grief. Now is not the day to be pushing that point I feel.

I also echo the sentiments of those who feel today should be about remembrance, not revenge. I think the media holds a share of guilt in that too. Today for the 20th anniversary, one news programme took some people who were there back to Hillsbrough, some for the first time since, and they weren't ready for it. It made a moving news story for them, and they got their crying scene, but that's not on for the people involved. The constant shouts for revenge and retribution aren't going to help anybody get closure. The fact is, NOBODY knows exactly what went on apart from those who were there, and grief and time can alter memories on both sides. There are obviously things that don't add up, the fact the ambulance was on the pitch shows the police report was innacurrate, but then films also show reports all the police stood and did nothing at all to help those trying to escape until the order to open the gates came were untrue as well. I fear that that is all the info we will ever get, and efforts should be focused on remembrance and grief, not vengeance.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/ind ... c=240934.0

All in all, it was a great service and I really enjoyed being there. It was the best part of my birthday, being inside Anfield and feeling all that Liverpool love. When we chanted "Justice for the 96" at the Brownite "Andy", it warmed my cockles. Oh, and the Rafa chant at the end...Amazing.

[William the White]

http://pseudscorner.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... argin.html

Interesting post from a reply to the Guardian article.

This is the best thing posted on the forum today. It seems calm, considered and truthful. Thanks, LK.

I had to stop my car coming home from work, as I listened to a mother talk about her continuing fight to get the truth out about her son's death at Hillsborough. I was crying - I have children.

I don't much care for the combative tone of some on here (by no means all), today should be better than that, i feel, and i congratulate blurred for his retention of sanity in responding to some of the stuff. But let that go, it isn't that important.

Seeing all that again, remembering watching it at the time, I am now sure that I'll never, ever support the return to terraces. No standing at English football grounds in the top two divisions. No more risks with people's lives.

[bristol_Wanderer3]

Most of us on the outside do genuinely puzzle at the fact that today is so dominated by calls for recriminations and allocations of blame and not a remembering of the dead.

Mate, you seem a highly intelligent young individual, but you seem to have a blind spot here.

These people are not acting rationally, they are acting emotionally, they or people they know are grieving, they lost loved ones, have seen their own reputation and their departed loved ones reputation tarnsihed by a series of nasty propoganda which clearly many still spout as the truth, have seen those who have been found responsible not have to answer for their actions. Some of them don't even know if their loved ones didn't die as a result of being placed in a body bag in a gymnasium. They can't grieve and then move on to remembering their dead, as they don't yet have closure on their loved ones death.

I remember Hillsborough when it happened, but hearing and reading about it today brings home how tragic it was. I hope those who did lose people do get what they need.

Those were harsher times in those days, police saw football fans as scum of the earth, and many fans were regularly badly behaved. These attitudes clearly influenced actions on that day, along with many other events. It is good to reflect that football is now safe enough to take families and young kids without the kind of fears one had to consider back in the 80s.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Mate, you seem a highly intelligent young individual, but you seem to have a blind spot here.

Maybe you're right.

Obviously it's just a dramatised version, but I watched the Jimmy McGovern film tonight, and I don't understand the anger at the accidental death verdict.

It seems to me to be a pretty high threshold for something to be counted as an unlawful killing, i.e. manslaughter. For someone to be convicted of manslaughter, they have to be shown to have exhibited a serious disregard for human life in their actions. That's not the same as being found to be shit at your job and bad under pressure, leading to bad operational policing decisions. The consensus is that police failure was the main cause of what happened - why is there the desire to hunt down individuals and impose criminal liability for homicide? Those who made mistakes will have them on their conscience until they die - that's punishment enough.

Perhaps it is understandable that some families react to losing loved ones in an irrational and angry way. But why does it run throughout so much of the fanbase?

I'm sorry if the tone of what I am saying looks disrespectful, because I do find the thought of so many innocent people dying and the ruined lives of so many families to be very upsetting, but in many ways that just increases my feelings of how wrong the prominence of the anti-establishment crusade compared to the remembrance of the dead actually is.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

http://pseudscorner.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... argin.html

Interesting post from a reply to the Guardian article.

This is the best thing posted on the forum today. It seems calm, considered and truthful. Thanks, LK.

I don't much care for the combative tone of some on here (by no means all), today should be better than that, i feel, and i congratulate blurred for his retention of sanity in responding to some of the stuff. But let that go, it isn't that important.

I'm sorry William, but if the day is used to express a combative call for 'justice', then it is only natural that there is some reply in kind by those who disagree with the premises of that call.

That article is an interesting reminder of what happened in 1981, and it does make what happened in 1989 look tragically avoidable.

I don't agree with the thrust of the article though:

the police who screwed up got off scot free for their criminal incompetence, largely thanks to the argument that it was an unprecedented situation.

There is an account of what happened in the 1981 semi final in the Taylor Report. It is not the case that this precedent wasn't mentioned.

Isn't the fact pushing and shoving had been going on for years in inadequate stadia in England without anyone dying, precisely the reason that those police didn't wake up that morning thinking 'If I do my job badly today, people could die'.

Yes, they were incompetent, but criminally so? I don't think so.

[bristol_Wanderer3]

Obviously it's just a dramatised version, but I watched the Jimmy McGovern film tonight, and I don't understand the anger at the accidental death verdict.

As I said previously they are in bits, don't know where to turn, emotional, looking for answers. Anger and sadness are easy emotions to feel, if not completely rational, although given some of the media reaction, and general attitudes of the day, I would say their anger is pretty rational.

It seems to me to be a pretty high threshold for something to be counted as an unlawful killing, i.e. manslaughter. For someone to be convicted of manslaughter, they have to be shown to have exhibited a serious disregard for human life in their actions. That's not the same as being found to be shit at your job and bad under pressure, leading to bad operational policing decisions. The consensus is that police failure was the main cause of what happened - why is there the desire to hunt down individuals and impose criminal liability for homicide? Those who made mistakes will have them on their conscience until they die - that's punishment enough.

Is sitting in a police control box directly above the end where it all happened, and not ordering your men to open exit gates, having ordered thousands into that end and then allowing them into the most densely populated areas not showing a serious disregard for human life? Is a police commander lying about the events to cover up his own negligence not a criminal offence?

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Is sitting in a police control box directly above the end where it all happened, and not ordering your men to open exit gates, having ordered thousands into that end and then allowing them into the most densely populated areas not showing a serious disregard for human life?

Getting crucial decisions badly wrong whilst trying to do the right thing does not equate to a serious disregard for human life, no.

Is a police commander lying about the events to cover up his own negligence not a criminal offence?

It would depend on the context. Lying to a political enquiry where the evidence isn't taken under oath is not a criminal offence, no. But the Taylor Inquiry didn't let that ass-covering stand - Duckenfield was forced to admit that what he said about Gate C wasn't true