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Hillsborough: Searching For The Truth

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the count said:
The one thing I don't expect to happen is a change in the mindset and attitude of the minority that is total knobhead fans.
They will still continue to believe the lies because it suits their agenda and they will continue to sing their horrible songs.
In case people think otherwise this is not a moral high ground statement.
We have our share of nob fans singing about Munich and the like.
It is not even an English thing as Juve fans sing songs similar to the Munich ones at Torino fans in memory of Supergra while Torino fans unveiled a "thank you Liverpool" banner, post Heysel
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Fucking hell really? How sad is that!!!

I was a whisker away from being at Hillsborough actually. I was 14 at the time and staying with my Uncle (who is the reason I'm a red) We had the choice between the home game at Sheffield Wednesday or a week later the semi at Hillsborough, My Uncle really wanted to go to the semi but I'd never been to Anfield so that was the reason I didn't go. Liverpool won that Sheffield Wednesday game 5-1 I remember. I was lucky so many weren't.
 
Red Astaire said:
Fucking hell really? How sad is that!!!

I was a whisker away from being at Hillsborough actually. I was 14 at the time and staying with my Uncle (who is the reason I'm a red) We had the choice between the home game at Sheffield Wednesday or a week later the semi at Hillsborough, My Uncle really wanted to go to the semi but I'd never been to Anfield so that was the reason I didn't go. Liverpool won that Sheffield Wednesday game 5-1 I remember. I was lucky so many weren't.
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The 5-1 was the year before. Was at that at it was only luck there wasn't a disaster then or at that years semi final.
 
the count said:
The one thing I don't expect to happen is a change in the mindset and attitude of the minority that is total knobhead fans.
They will still continue to believe the lies because it suits their agenda and they will continue to sing their horrible songs.
In case people think otherwise this is not a moral high ground statement.
We have our share of nob fans singing about Munich and the like.
It is not even an English thing as Juve fans sing songs similar to the Munich ones at Torino fans in memory of Supergra while Torino fans unveiled a "thank you Liverpool" banner, post Heysel
Click to expand...

Although there are some nobheads that follow LFC the Munich stuff has on the whole stopped since Hillsborough. Plus it tended only t be sung when we played them. Unlike them who sing their shite about us a every game.

It's not the most comfortable of moral high ground I accept. But...
 
Spionkop69 said:
Although there are some nobheads that follow LFC the Munich stuff has on the whole stopped since Hillsborough. Plus it tended only t be sung when we played them. Unlike them who sing their shite about us a every game.

It's not the most comfortable of moral high ground I accept. But...
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You are right Jon.
This isn't the thread to talk about knob heads.
Amongst the pain and the tears we should also celebrate and be so so proud of the many incredible people, the likes of Anne Williams, who we share the love of the same club with.
 
Judge Jules said:
Plenty of those fans won't change their tune whatever any official report says. It'd be too much like hard work to actually think seriously about the facts. Half of them would probably be incapable of reading any report in the first place. TBH I'm not really sickened by it, because (a) it's to be expected and (b) frankly I don't give a rat's @rse what - or even if - they "think".
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It's all over Facebook and Twitter at the moment, and I'm seeing a lot of "well if this comes out, maybe all you Liverpool fans can finally shut up about it" posts. I also don't give a shit about what Mancs think about it, but you just have to question some people's mentalities.
 
Spionkop69 said:
The 5-1 was the year before. Was at that at it was only luck there wasn't a disaster then or at that years semi final.
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No mate it wasn't. Trust me I remember the people buying Hillsborough tickets when me and my Uncle were buying tickets at the ground. Liverpool 5 Sheffield Wednesday 1 on the 8th of April 1989.
 
Tomorrow's Independent front page.

atlid6
 
Hillsborough families call for new inquests


New inquests should be held into the deaths of the 96 Liverpool fans who died in the Hillsborough stadium disaster, their families will say today, as a new report is expected to lay bare the full extent of police failings that led to the tragedy and their subsequent attempts to cover it up.

The report, prepared by the Hillsborough Independent Panel, is set to reveal new information about policing errors made at the FA Cup semi-final at Sheffield Wednesday’s ground in April 1989, and the steps taken by South Yorkshire Police to deflect blame onto the fans.

The panel’s report is also expected to detail the extent of the then government’s knowledge of events, and any part ministers may have played in suppressing the truth about what happened on the day.

The panel, chaired by the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Rev James Jones, has been given access to more than 450,000 previously unseen documents relating to the disaster, including police statements, records from the emergency services, and Cabinet papers, exempted for the first time from the 30 year-rule.

The families of those who died anticipate the report will provide further evidence of false police claims that Liverpool supporters who were drunk or did not have tickets were responsible for the disaster.

Earlier this year Mrs Thatcher’s press secretary Sir Bernard Ingham confirmed that a senior police officer had told her the day after the disaster that a “tanked-up mob” was responsible for the deaths.

These false accusations were repeated in the official police case to the inquests and public inquiry chaired by Lord Justice Taylor. Taylor established that in fact the police decision to allow supporter access to the already overcrowded central-pen of the Leppings Lane Terrace at the start of the game against Nottingham Forest was the cause of the deaths.

The Prime Minister will respond in Parliament on Wednesday lunchtime, and is understood to be considering offering “an expression of regret” for the failures of the government, police and the emergency services.

Relatives of those that died, and campaigners including Liverpool MP Steve Rotherham, believe he should go further and apologise “unreservedly” for the shortcomings of the emergency services. They will also call for inquest verdicts of accidental death to be overturned.

“The families have waited 23 years for the truth, and the next step will be to continue the fight for justice,” said Mr Rotherham, who campaigned in Parliament for the release of all Cabinet papers to the panel.

“Should the report show what we anticipate it will provide the opportunity for the Attorney General to apply to the High Court for the inquest verdicts to be quashed as unsound.

“The families have always believed that what happened that day was unlawful killing, and that there was a massive cover-up at the highest level. The families have had to grieve for 23 years, while also fighting to clear the names of those supporters who tried to save their lives.

“There will be unpalatable truths for all sides to acknowledge, but I believe there should be a full and unequivocal apology for the part played by the government of the day in what happened.”

​http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...-inquests.html
 
nealmac said:
Ok, fair enough, I see it now.

But having checked it out, I now see why I made the mistake. We played Forest in Hillsborough 2 years in a row (88 and 89). And we also beat Sheffield Wednesday 5-1, 2 years in a row (the same 2 years). That's unbelievable.
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No worries mate. It's a bad memory for obvious reasons. I can't imagine what it would have been like for Woland and Silver Sean. Huge respect to them both.
 
The Scum could actually do what they've been asked to do so often & print 'the truth' headline with the report findings & apology tomorrow.

They probably won't, & it won't make anything alright, but it would be a perfect moment to do it without them losing too much face as the attention will be on the police cover up.

As it is I fear they'd just pass the blame on to the police by admitting that's where they got their information.
 
FoxForceFive said:
The Scum could actually do what they've been asked to do so often & print 'the truth' headline with the report findings & apology tomorrow.

They probably won't, & it won't make anything alright, but it would be a perfect moment to do it without them losing too much face as the attention will be on the police cover up.

As it is I fear they'd just pass the blame on to the police by admitting that's where they got their information.
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I dont look at the piece of shit, so i couldnt tell you whether they even ran the story today or if they will tomorrow. I doubt it though.

With most if not all of the original staff gone, i dont see why they wouldnt (that wrinkled old ballbag probably wont allow it). Even the Thalydomide company tried to say sorry. At least this might drive a few more readers away from it...
 
The newspaper did print an "apology" on the front page some years ago. If this had stopped at the end of the first column, it might have been something worth having. However the "apology" turned into an attack on Liverpool supporters and Liverpudlians in general - I can't remember the details but it was some nonsense surrounding Rooney's transfer from Everton to United.
 
Portly said:
The newspaper did print an "apology" on the front page some years ago. If this had stopped at the end of the first column, it might have been something worth having. However the "apology" turned into an attack on Liverpool supporters and Liverpudlians in general - I can't remember the details but it was some nonsense surrounding Rooney's transfer from Everton to United.
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It was because Rooney gave exclusive interviews to them over the course of several issues, knowing full well the implications.
The 'apology' basically stated 'we've said we're sorry in the past. What more do you want?' kinda bollocks.
 
The tone of some of the SSN reporting is a bit disturbing
paraphrasing.............
"In the aftermath of the disaster fans were blamed for causing it. Families of the nintey six will hope that today's report will exonerate them"

Surely the Taylor report did that twenty three years ago.
Is it any wonder people are confused.
 
I guess one can't really expect one part of the Murdoch empire to make it clear that another part is still guilty of a 23-year-old lie.
 
Portly said:
The newspaper did print an "apology" on the front page some years ago. If this had stopped at the end of the first column, it might have been something worth having. However the "apology" turned into an attack on Liverpool supporters and Liverpudlians in general - I can't remember the details but it was some nonsense surrounding Rooney's transfer from Everton to United.
Click to expand...

And MacKenzie told more lies by trying to pin it on the Liverpool press
 
This was written by an Everton fan a few years back. It's a good read

http://bicyclistic.com/index.php/the-other-semi-final/

20 years ago today I was at the semi-final of the FA Cup. Taking place at the same time was the other semi-final, the one that cost 96 people their lives.
Semi-final Saturdays were so special.
In 1989 I lived in Birmingham. Even though our semi-final was at Villa Park in Birmingham, I travelled up to Liverpool after work the evening before - so I could be part of the build up to the game with fellow Everton fans.
A season-ticket holder at Goodison, I didn’t want to get the local West Midlands bus across Birmingham; I wanted to travel to the game with my family and friends, as I always did, from Liverpool itself. Because semi-final Saturdays were so special.
On the Friday night we went out with the Liverpool fans. Even though they were friends, brothers, and fathers, we didn’t usually go out with them in a football context. We went out all the time socially of course, where we tried to avoid talking football, but this night was different. We both wanted each other to win. That was rare.
It was 3 years since the first all-Merseyside final, the first in the then 105 final history of the cup. All of us had been at Wembley for that Cup final. And now here we were again on the verge of another possible all-Merseyside final. We wanted them to win their semi so we could cheer on Everton beating them in the final. Unlike the last time. They presumably wanted us to win our semi so Everton would again be a scalp on their way to another double.
We made plans to meet up back in Liverpool after our games, win or lose. Everton’s game was 100 miles south in Villa Park, and Liverpool’s 85 miles away in Sheffield. The plan of course was that Everton and Liverpool would both win, and we’d then celebrate together as we anticipated the final. This was ambitious because the course of a game can easily leave you with no desire to meet up with anybody afterwards, least of all your closest rivals.
The Saturday morning was sunny. With both teams in semi-finals, the whole city was buzzing. Every programme on the radio was in party mode. Special.
It would be years before I could listen again to the songs played on the radio that morning.
The Liverpool fans booked a bus for their game. We went in a group of cars to ours. All I remember is the usual approach to a huge game. Stories, jokes, laughs, and smiles. It reminded me of 2 years earlier when we had travelled to Norwich hoping to win the league on the same day that Liverpool fans were at home also hoping to win the league. A neutral ground this time, but again the opposition for Everton was Norwich City.
From cold dull November evenings I can recall parts of awful games, meaningless league games, even Simod Cup games. I’ve been to hundreds, maybe thousands, of football matches, in England and Ireland, but I can’t recall a second of the FA Cup semi-final I watched 20 years ago today.
We were in the north end of Villa Park, opposite the huge Holt End where the Norwich fans were. There was someone about 10 feet away from me with a radio. I know Everton scored and won the game, but my memory is of the faces around me. Standing on a terrace, crammed into a tight confined space with complete strangers gave you a closer view of people’s faces than you get in most situations.
There were murmurs of problems at the other semi-final. A delayed kick-off wasn’t unusual, especially if fans had been delayed on the road, but then a death was mentioned. When reports were passed on - by shouting out what those clutching radios were hearing - that there were multiple deaths, there were shouts back, motivated by the disbelief that we all felt, to shut up.
Over the course of our game the faces all around me went from confusion to concern and ultimately to shock and horror. Then the mad scramble began, and it went on for hours.
Instead of celebrations on the pitch my memory of the end of the game is of thousands of Everton fans turning immediately to our right and making our way out of the terrace. The figure 50 was mentioned by somebody. It was unthinkable. The sun was still shining.
What happened next was like what adults experience when a child goes missing, the panic as efforts progress to establish the safety of the child. Only this was the era before mobile phones, and it wasn’t a child we were worried about; it was 25,000 people.
Seeking information, people ran all directions to public phones, scattering across grass patches to houses nearby to ask to use phones, and to their cars to drive to wherever they might find a phone. On the M6 people raced to the service stations just to get to phones. I recall going past a service station where there were already queues of Everton fans at phones. We stopped at the next one.
Even from phones information was very limited, because calls were going home to Liverpool and in most cases the Liverpool fans in Sheffield hadn’t yet managed to phone home. Some never would.
When we got back to Liverpool we were still waiting for news of our friends. Eventually we got word that all on their bus were safely accounted for. Except one who was missing. It was his first time to go to the game with our friends.
We were sitting in the club waiting for them - one of the city’s countless social and working men’s clubs, the one where we suffered in our best clothes through bingo and glittery singers on Sunday nights. And argued about football on Friday nights. I think it was 1:30am when their bus finally arrived back in Liverpool. Minus one, one who would never come home.
Late into the night I listened to stories from people who had survived, stories of bodies underneath their feet, bodies of people they were powerless to help. Of people who died, from going to a football match. I’d never seen any of these men cry before. I’d never held any of them before.
In the morning I went for a walk by the canal and bumped into 2 Everton friends doing the same thing. The tears and the questions continued throughout the day. More news of more friends, and of friends of friends. More news of death.
I hated leaving Liverpool and returning to Birmingham on the Monday. The papers had gone with sickening lies about the behaviour of the fans, and an office away from Liverpool and away from football was not a place of sympathy, or even where people know how intertwined the lives of so many Evertonians and Liverpudlians were.
Quickly the tabloids, bar one infamous case of course, retracted and apologised for their lies though the Sunday Times a week later repeated them due to printing deadlines being before the retractions. The other tabloid took 15 years to apologise, and even then made a mess of it.
There were a lot of people I knew at the other semi-final, and until I read the list I didn’t know if they were still alive. Sometimes you aren’t close enough to people to phone them, their parents, their spouses, directly; you just have to wait. When the list of the dead was published I was back in Birmingham. Waiting until I was alone I took a deep breath and then slowly read the names on teletext. Pages and pages of teletext.
I was lucky. Nobody I knew directly was on the list. But there were 9 friends of friends who were.
Just to be with friends I returned to Liverpool the following weekend. I bought the memorial issue of the Liverpool Echo. In the 20 years since I’ve never opened it.
Football was put on hold and fixtures were postponed, but eventually the footballing world decided to carry on.
The first competitive game Liverpool played after Hillsborough was a midweek league game against Everton of all teams. I travelled up to Liverpool again, as I always did, to sit in my seat at Goodison in a game of football that wasn’t about football. Cathartic for so many it was wonderful, and it was horrible. I’ve never been at a game like it, and I never want to be at a game like it ever again.
Liverpool won their re-arranged semi-final and so we got our all-Merseyside final when it didn’t matter anymore, and yet if a final had to be played that year it was best that it was played by these 2 teams. Like 3 years earlier Everton again lost to Liverpool, except it wasn’t like 3 years earlier. There was extra time, there were no fences, and it was the only game of football I ever cried at.
Today is about memory. Some people say it shouldn’t involve blame. Whatever it involves it should be about truth. The families of the 96 deserve that.
In the 20 years since, I’ve heard people in Ireland and in America, and in England away from Liverpool, talk about Hillsborough as if it was a case of hooliganism, or that the fans were in some way to blame. They haven’t read the Taylor Report.
  • They don’t know that the inquest wouldn’t look at any events that took place after 3:15pm on the day with the judge stating that all injuries leading to deaths had happened prior to that time.
  • They don’t know that there are statements by witnesses of people still being alive after 3:15pm who could have been saved.
  • They don’t know that there were 40 ambulances unused outside because the tragedy was being treated as crowd disturbance rather than as overcrowding.
  • They don’t know that the agreed major incident plan was not put into operation.
  • They don’t know that the police officer in charge, David Duckenfield, was inexperienced in handling games like that.
  • They don’t know that Duckenfield gave the order to open the exit Gate C to let crowds in.
  • They don’t know that Duckenfield lied in the aftermath and claimed ticketless Liverpool fans had forced open the exit gate.
  • They don’t know that, at the Inquiry by Lord Justice Taylor, Duckenfield admitted he lied about the fans.
  • They don’t know what the safety status of Hillsborough was.
  • They don’t know that the tunnel into the Leppings Lane end wasn’t closed when the pens it led into were already full.
  • They don’t know that the capacity for those pens was overstated to begin with.
  • They don’t know that the tunnel leading into those overcrowded pens had a 1 in 6 gradient.
  • They don’t know about the identification process that took place in the gymnasium that acted as a mortuary.
  • They don’t know how many years it took for the families of the victims to gain access to the body files.
  • They don’t know that, against their training, police officers were instructed not to record the events of the day as facts in their pocket books but to submit handwritten recollections not subject to disclosure.
  • They don’t know that police officers statements were changed, with criticisms of the police deleted and blame deflected towards the fans.
  • They don’t know that the Taylor Report exonerated the fans.
In watching Everton I’ve been to football games all over England and experienced good policing (most notably in the northwest metropolitan counties) and bad policing - usually where police forces weren’t used to the dynamics of large crowds and how to marshall and filter them.
At Everton’s previous semi-final I had complained repeatedly to friends at how badly we were treated as customers considering how much money we spent, that we deserved to be treated with the same respect as those who went to operas. I know that standing and pens and fences were the culture of the day, but it was more than the culture of the time that caused 96 people to die.
According to the Taylor Report (interim) overcrowding was the main reason for the disaster, and the main reason for the overcrowding was lack of police control. Ask any fan who had ever been in the Leppings Lane terrace and they’ll tell you the overcrowding was foreseeable. And with police control and proper actions by the FA and by Sheffield Wednesday FC, that overcrowding was preventable.
My closest friend in Liverpool at that time was a Liverpool fan who always went the game with one of his closest friends. I had enjoyed their stories of attending the previous year’s final where they lost to Wimbledon but were tickled to get to chat at Wembley with Frank Bruno at the peak of his fame. My friend didn’t get a ticket for the semi-final in 1989. So his friend went to Hillsborough without him. And never came back.
Everton are in their first semi-final for 14 years this coming weekend, and I’ll watch it and want them to win, but the desire to attend isn’t that strong any more. Although I still go to the odd game, football hasn’t been the same for me since Hillsborough. Semi-finals aren’t that special any more
Today my thoughts are with the families and friends of the 96. Today my thoughts are of the truth.
[Update 2012: On the eve of the release of the findings of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, my thoughts again are with all those affected.]
 
Thanks for the "like", macca. In fairness I still know one or two. It's just that they seem to be outnumbered these days.
 
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