Finally justice for the hillsborough victims

Quoted from AlanPoutonsTackle

I am like everyone else pleased that the truth is out and there is some semi justice for the families I am however also inclined to apportion an amount of blame to anyone who has ever been involved in or condoned football hooliganism. The final factor that led to all these sad deaths was that because people could not behave at a sporting venue everyone was fenced in during those times like animals. without this they could have gone onto the pitch and there would have been no casualties.
This incident is the legacy of that era and the blame spreads like disease.

Very, very well said.  I wish more people could see it that way, instead of all the pathetic glorification of violence that we hear so often (especially on the fishy).

I think it's a big jump to blame football hooligans for those deaths. I'm completely with you in thinking it's moronic and pathetic and it's something I have no interest in. Blame them for football fans being treated poorly but to suggest they are responsible for 96 people dying isn't fair.

Although you're right, they're not directly involved, hooliganism is the reason those cages were there. I mean, there's a myriad of contributing factors that put together helped cause the whole event. The scandal is in the cover up as much as the contributing factors.

Quoted from Dan

Although you're right, they're not directly involved, hooliganism is the reason those cages were there. I mean, there's a myriad of contributing factors that put together helped cause the whole event. The scandal is in the cover up as much as the contributing factors.

The authorities chose to put those cages in place and the people supposed to ensure people were safe within those cages failed to do so.

I agree with you entirely that the cover up is the hardest thing to digest. You can just about accept that people make horrific accidental mistakes or get things terribly wrong which cause people to die but to then cover up the reasons and try to shift the blame onto the dead and to alter and destroy evidence is such a grotesque abuse of power. One of the things I find the least palatable is the blood-testing and criminal background checking of the dead including children as if somehow a previous offence or some alcohol in their system would've proved it was their own fault.

Quoted from Rodley Mariner

I think it's a big jump to blame football hooligans for those deaths. I'm completely with you in thinking it's moronic and pathetic and it's something I have no interest in. Blame them for football fans being treated poorly but to suggest they are responsible for 96 people dying isn't fair.

Thing is, Rodley, some people still haven't learnt.  The cages were put up as a result of football violence and the need for segregation and an attempt to stop people encroaching on the pitch.  The cages were taken down because 96 people died.  And yet three years ago, violence on a large scale still erupted between West Ham and Millwall fans (was it?).  Last season was the only year in my memory that we haven't seen a pitch invasion at the end of a season, and every year the authorities at BP have asked people NOT to invade the pitch.  And then of course you get p*ssed up idiots like that moron at BP on Saturday.  Every time I see something like that ... every single time... I remember my friend's description of being in the Leppings Lane end and screaming at a policewoman to open the gates.  The policewoman heard, but turned her back - why?  For fear of football violence, perhaps?  For fear of the 'usual' kind of pitch invasion?  What was the excuse for the police not letting more ambulances onto the pitch?  'The fans were fighting'.    

Letter in the Guardian today along the lines of "bent coppers, Murdoch lies, Tory government...we've come a long way in 23 years"

The whole of the letters page in the Guardian is devoted to Hillsborough today, and it's well worth a butcher's if anyone cares to go onto their website.

Quoted from marinette

Thing is, Rodley, some people still haven't learnt.  The cages were put up as a result of football violence and the need for segregation and an attempt to stop people encroaching on the pitch.  The cages were taken down because 96 people died.  And yet three years ago, violence on a large scale still erupted between West Ham and Millwall fans (was it?).  Last season was the only year in my memory that we haven't seen a pitch invasion at the end of a season, and every year the authorities at BP have asked people NOT to invade the pitch.  And then of course you get p*ssed up idiots like that moron at BP on Saturday.  Every time I see something like that ... every single time... I remember my friend's description of being in the Leppings Lane end and screaming at a policewoman to open the gates.  The policewoman heard, but turned her back - why?  For fear of football violence, perhaps?  For fear of the 'usual' kind of pitch invasion?  What was the excuse for the police not letting more ambulances onto the pitch?  'The fans were fighting'.    

I agree with you that they're idiots, that they never learn, that they tarnish decent football supporters and increase the likelihood of the rest of us being treated poorly. I will never agree that they're responsible for those 96 people dying - the authorities decided to put those cages in and they failed to protect the people they put in them.

The fencing is/was a contentious issue but whatever their unsuitability you have to wonder how any ground could have a remotest chance of getting a safety certificate for what is essentially a set of cages with a one way entrance and a tiny door to be opened in the event of an emergency, with the definition of 'emergency' obviously rather hazy just to compound the whole issue.

...then you had the utter idiots like Ken Bates who wanted to compound matters during his tenure at Stamford Bridge by adding electric wire across the top of the fencing.

Football hooliganism was undoubtedly a huge issue, and anyone who was around in those days is in denial if they don't understand that, but.......the vast majority of football fans have always been decent law abiding citizens. The thing is, the reaction to hooliganism in the shape of fences, did not discriminate and hence the deaths of young children (Steven Gerard's nephew was 10 when he perished there) and women who would not have even understood about hooliganism.

If you're treating someone for cancer, you don't chop off their arms and legs just in case, you deal with the real issue.

Quoted from jock dock tower

....the vast majority of football fans have always been decent law abiding citizens.

And that is the key to it all.  I can step back from things and look at what you say about the authorities without emotion.  I agree that the authorities have treated football fans appallingly badly and tarred every one of us with the same brush, and with dire, tragic consequences too.  That's pretty obvious, and although it's horrific, it's the easy bit, as far as I'm concerned.  

The bit that's difficult for me, the bit that I really take personally, involves some of the accusations that have been made against Liverpool supporters in particular, by people who have no real experience of being amongst them.  I'm not just talking about the media here (and I don't think hate is a strong enough word to express my feelings for the Sun newspaper), I'm talking about a certain section of football 'supporters' - I can see the sheer injustice, the lies and hypocrisy that emanates from them - I can see how they judge other people by their own standards - and I've been listening to it and trying to make sense of it for years.  That, in particular, makes me want to lash out and retaliate and start apportioning blame where I believe it is truly deserved.

I don't know how much control Merseyside police had over the Liverpool fans during that game.  It's pretty obvious that South Yorkshire Police had main control, as they are the ones figuring in the news now.  Undoubtedly there would have been some Merseyside police officers there, both on and off duty, and although Kenneth Oxford made negative accusations against the Liverpool fans at the time, these accusations were denied by others:

'In newspaper reports at the time, the Merseyside Police Federation was quoted as saying that the accusations against Liverpool fans were "ill-informed comments" which were "based on hearsay rather than evidence". The local federation secretary said that his phone had been "red hot" with calls from Merseyside officers demanding he speak out to "redress the balance".  (BBC News)

I wonder if the outcome would have been different had Merseyside Police been in full control of the situation - I would say they certainly had a better understanding of their own supporters and would probably have reacted differently when the tragedy started to unfold.