Yes but unfortunately you have to keep banging the drum just to educate new generations, even older generations. I've been on countless holidays where I've seen Liverpool supporters reading that rag. But I'll make my children watch tonight's documentary just so they know what the 96 means on the back of their shiney new kits. Hopefully the families get some solace and closure on Wednesday. Didn't think I would ever see ITV outshine BBC documentary wise.
Hillsborough: Searching For The Truth
- Thread starter Rael
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Yes but unfortunately you have to keep banging the drum just to educate new generations, even older generations. I've been on countless holidays where I've seen Liverpool supporters reading that rag. But I'll make my children watch tonight's documentary just so they know what the 96 means on the back of their shiney new kits. Hopefully the families get some solace and closure on Wednesday. Didn't think I would ever see ITV outshine BBC documentary wise.
No, I mean it was very similar to the 2009 , Hillsborough - The Documentary, so much so I thought I was watching a repeat, less the revelations about Kevin Williams of course, and it did wind into The Lying Rag more and the affect the Liverpool boycott had on it's circulation, complete with burning the paper if I remember right.
That's pretty much my take on it.
I was 11 at the time. I was old enough to know what was happening, but young enough to not fully realise the extent of how disastrous the whole thing was. I was in my Granny's at the time, and we had all just settled in to watch the game, and then it was abandoned. I wasn't really sure why, but like I said, I didn't really understand what was happening. I ended up going outside for a kickabout I think. I watched it later on the news that night and I think it only really sank in then.
Anyway, I hope Wednesday is the day when the 96 victims finally see a bit of justice being done for them. YNWA.
Agreed. I haven't watched anything like that in a few years. The Jimmy McGovern thing aside. I can fully understand the anger though. I'm a Red and I was very nearly there. RIP All
That was really good tonight - bought back some horror memories as a child watching the events unfold on the news back then. Put me off football as a kid, only watched the odd world cup games up until early 90's, then gradually got back into watching football again.
Had it tough at school but will always be greatfull to my 5th year (year 11 now I think) head teacher who I clearly remember preaching and begging to the whole year group back then to never buy that comic shite newspaper - spent a good 1 hour of assembly time preaching its evils and what it does to people who read such garbage. Decent bloke, and very good teacher.
Had it tough at school but will always be greatfull to my 5th year (year 11 now I think) head teacher who I clearly remember preaching and begging to the whole year group back then to never buy that comic shite newspaper - spent a good 1 hour of assembly time preaching its evils and what it does to people who read such garbage. Decent bloke, and very good teacher.
Damn. Too late to watch now. It'll have to wait.
Bring on Wednesday. And when the truth does come out, then I hope those who have been involved in the cover up suffer for the rest of their lives. I very much doubt it though.
I couldn't bring myself to watch it. Not watching it though made me feel guilty. I will summon up the courage to watch it, probably after Wednesday if there's any closure to this.
I don't know why, but I'm not convinced Weds will bring any closure.
I don't know why, but I'm not convinced Weds will bring any closure.
I'm afraid I think that's probably true, and there are a variety of reasons for it, but one thing in particular that niggles at me and that I've never understood is how the FA can get a free pass over this. To me that's always been where the roots of this whole tragedy lie. They KNEW what happened, and nearly happened, at the same ground with the same two teams the previous year; they were asked not to send the semi back there; they were begged to change their decision to do so after they made it; and they refused. If they hadn't been so criminally (a) incompetent and (b) pig-headed, none of the rest of it - police failings included - would have come about.
I can't see it either, there are easily made legal points that can be raised to prevent any actions being taken.
It's beyond doubt that there was a fuck up and a cover up but I'm not sure what else the families will get out of it.
It also nearly happened at the same ground the week before the Wimbledon Cup final when we played Sheff Weds and beat them 5-0. The policing at that game outside was awful, using horses to coral us towards the tunrstiles but there was no room and a crush developed outside the turnstiles that day too.
I'm going to wait and see but after 23 years and numerous false dawns, I'm not allowing myself to get too carried away.
Thanks for that - interesting, and new to me, but no surprise. It leaves me more angry than ever that the FA haven't been pilloried over all this.
I was in the crush at the Sheff Weds game beforehand, with the same guy I attended the semi in 89 with. It was genuinely scary and people were putting their kids on shoulders to get them out of the crush.
The police were being told, and as it got worse some people voiced their concerns vigourously. The police response was to further push us off the road towards the turnstiles.
We were treated as no better than cattle.
As an aside the way we played that day was momentous. We were awesome and were applauded off by the Sheffield Weds fans and I remember having them come up and shake our hands afterwards and wish us luck against Wimbledon.
I was 20 and was critically injured. Was in a coma, woken by Kenny. Next bed to mine was Tony Bland.
The year before it was so bad right behind the goal me and a mate climbed over the fence into left hand pen.
I have no memory of what happened on the day as my last memory is leaving my old man outside the main stand.
The FA were despicable then and they are despicable now. The police that day were pathetic.
For years I wanted to find Duckenfield and punch him, the rage has only been sorted through therapy sorted by the HFC for me. To be honest now I'm just exhausted by the whole thing.
I hope we can all move on after this week, I haven't watched any of these programmes as I just can't face it. We need to be able to draw a line under all this and move on as a club and a city.
The year before it was so bad right behind the goal me and a mate climbed over the fence into left hand pen.
I have no memory of what happened on the day as my last memory is leaving my old man outside the main stand.
The FA were despicable then and they are despicable now. The police that day were pathetic.
For years I wanted to find Duckenfield and punch him, the rage has only been sorted through therapy sorted by the HFC for me. To be honest now I'm just exhausted by the whole thing.
I hope we can all move on after this week, I haven't watched any of these programmes as I just can't face it. We need to be able to draw a line under all this and move on as a club and a city.
Fuck.
I was 15 and got hoisted over into the right hand pen by god-knows-who, I'd given up fighting but wasn't injured. I can't watch any of these programs either.
Hopefully, finally, we will start to head down the road to justice
Fucking hell.
I think that feeling of exhaustion is what I'm most surprised is lacking in the likes of Anne Williams, that said I'm sure the love any parent feels can be translated into that strength in those circumstances, it's just hard to comprehend over such a long period, & truly awe inspiring.
Pleased to hear HFC helped you, people often just give money to the HJC & hfc simply cos they feel they should, without understanding the work they have done & still do.
I often think of those who survived, as well as those who didn't, and the incredible survivor's guilt that they speak of surrounding that day... I cannot fathom what they went through, and continue to go through. Those parents are a lot stronger than I am, too. And that was an interesting part of the show, talking with the policeman - Not sure I've heard anything from that side of this before...
Hillsborough families await triumph of the truth
TONY BARRETT
If you want to experience what it’s like when the population of an entire city holds its collective breath, visit Liverpool in the next 24 hours.
Look into the eyes of parents who live in hope of truth and justice and you will see a mixture of optimism and fear. Talk to people who have campaigned in the face of an establishment cover up and you will be struck by both their tension and their tenacity.
This is what almost 23 and a half years of living with the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster comes down to – an anguished, almost desperate anticipation that at least one of the painfully raw wounds caused by British football’s worst tragedy can finally be healed.
Tomorrow, in the wonderful neoclassical setting of St George’s Hall, thousands of people will gather, just as they have done when the city’s two football clubs, Liverpool and Everton, have paraded the trophies they have won at home and abroad.
This time, though, it is something much more precious than silverware that those present are hoping to see, they want to be able to celebrate the triumph of truth over lies after more than two decades of suffering a stigma of slurs that began even before those who perished on the death trap that was the Leppings Lane end had even been identified.
For that to happen, for a merciful release to be granted, something must happen which has never happened before – the state must accept full responsibility for the tragic loss of 96 lives at Hillsborough.
There can be no more diversions, no hiding behind scurrilous front page headlines derived from unattributed briefings and no authority figures abusing their positions to try and justify or, worse, explain away the chronic failings of South Yorkshire Police and other public bodies on April 15, 1989.
There must also be an acceptance that, in the words of Tony Edwards, the only ambulance worker who made it on to the Hillsborough pitch on that fateful day, the emergency services did not “give the proper care and attention that was due to the people who were dying.”
That is the hope, that the Hillsborough Independent Panel, which has scrutinised hundreds of thousands of newly released documents relating to the disaster, will usher in a new era of responsibility and perhaps even accountability.
But anyone who has been involved in the campaign for justice at any level is all too aware of the potential pitfalls of hope, they have been here before only to be kicked in the bollocks and sent packing by an establishment that after failing to show due care for those who were killed or injured at Hillsborough, then added to the suffering by shifting blame in a desperate attempt to avert attention from their own deficiencies.
From the imposition of a 3.15pm cut off point following the controversial ruling of Dr Stefan Popper, the coroner, that all of the victims had lost their fight for life by that point, to Lord Justice Stuart-Smith’s scrutiny which Andy Burnham, the MP for Leigh, admitted yesterday “had all the feeling of an establishment cover up,” a succession of official doors have been slammed in the faces of campaigners and they are all to wary of it happening again.
That is why Liverpool has the feel of a tightly coiled spring right now, the truth feels close enough to be intoxicated by it but there is still a suspicion, one built on experience, that it could yet be suppressed, that there are vested interests who will stop at nothing to prevent the world from knowing without fear of contradiction that Liverpool supporters were not the villains of the piece at Hillsborough – as they were shamefully portrayed in The Lying Rag newspaper – they were actually the heroes.
In his report into the disaster, Lord Justice Taylor demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that ticketless fans were not a cause of the disaster, nor was the consumption of alcohol a contributory factor.
Instead, the judge laid the blame at the door of South Yorkshire Police, a verdict which failed to lead to the prosecution of a single officer who was on duty that day.
“A blunder of the highest magnitude,” was how Taylor described the decision of Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield to open an exit gate, allowing around 2,000 fans to flood into an already congested central pen of the Leppings Lane terrace. He also condemned the “sluggish reaction and response [from police] when the crush occurred.”
Still, however, more than 22 years after the report was published, the vicious falsehoods and malicious myths which were peddled by sections of the media that were compliant to Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government continue almost unabated.
Taylor may have been one of the country’s most prominent and respected legal figures but his report was never going to be studied by anything like the millions of people who were startled by The Lying Rag’s revelations that came less than 48 hours after the disaster.
Accuracy and exactitude has played forlorn second fiddle to sensationalism and slander ever since and it is this wrong, perhaps more than any other, that now needs to be put right.
An exchange on Twitter today between David Conn, The Guardian sports writer who has been at the forefront of the media campaign on Hillsborough, and a supporter summed up the imbalance. Neither the name, nor the club that the fan supports are of any significance, but his ignorance is.
“They scream justice, justice for what?” the fan asked. “Everyone knows SYP are partly to blame, but so are some LFC fans with no tickets.” All Conn could do was direct the complainant to a report he had never taken the time to read. “Very depressed you’re repeating false stories dismissed in the Taylor Report,” he said. “Try to open your mind [and heart] tomorrow.”
In just one brief debate on Twitter, the enduring tragedy of Hillsborough had been captured. The truth has been struggling to make itself heard ever since April 15, 1989 but tomorrow that could all change.
Should that happen then the people of Liverpool can collectively breathe out and the tension which currently grips them will be replaced by a palpable feeling of relief and expressions, not of victory, but of vindication.
It has been a long, painful wait but the end to their suffering finally appears to be in sight.
TONY BARRETT
If you want to experience what it’s like when the population of an entire city holds its collective breath, visit Liverpool in the next 24 hours.
Look into the eyes of parents who live in hope of truth and justice and you will see a mixture of optimism and fear. Talk to people who have campaigned in the face of an establishment cover up and you will be struck by both their tension and their tenacity.
This is what almost 23 and a half years of living with the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster comes down to – an anguished, almost desperate anticipation that at least one of the painfully raw wounds caused by British football’s worst tragedy can finally be healed.
Tomorrow, in the wonderful neoclassical setting of St George’s Hall, thousands of people will gather, just as they have done when the city’s two football clubs, Liverpool and Everton, have paraded the trophies they have won at home and abroad.
This time, though, it is something much more precious than silverware that those present are hoping to see, they want to be able to celebrate the triumph of truth over lies after more than two decades of suffering a stigma of slurs that began even before those who perished on the death trap that was the Leppings Lane end had even been identified.
For that to happen, for a merciful release to be granted, something must happen which has never happened before – the state must accept full responsibility for the tragic loss of 96 lives at Hillsborough.
There can be no more diversions, no hiding behind scurrilous front page headlines derived from unattributed briefings and no authority figures abusing their positions to try and justify or, worse, explain away the chronic failings of South Yorkshire Police and other public bodies on April 15, 1989.
There must also be an acceptance that, in the words of Tony Edwards, the only ambulance worker who made it on to the Hillsborough pitch on that fateful day, the emergency services did not “give the proper care and attention that was due to the people who were dying.”
That is the hope, that the Hillsborough Independent Panel, which has scrutinised hundreds of thousands of newly released documents relating to the disaster, will usher in a new era of responsibility and perhaps even accountability.
But anyone who has been involved in the campaign for justice at any level is all too aware of the potential pitfalls of hope, they have been here before only to be kicked in the bollocks and sent packing by an establishment that after failing to show due care for those who were killed or injured at Hillsborough, then added to the suffering by shifting blame in a desperate attempt to avert attention from their own deficiencies.
From the imposition of a 3.15pm cut off point following the controversial ruling of Dr Stefan Popper, the coroner, that all of the victims had lost their fight for life by that point, to Lord Justice Stuart-Smith’s scrutiny which Andy Burnham, the MP for Leigh, admitted yesterday “had all the feeling of an establishment cover up,” a succession of official doors have been slammed in the faces of campaigners and they are all to wary of it happening again.
That is why Liverpool has the feel of a tightly coiled spring right now, the truth feels close enough to be intoxicated by it but there is still a suspicion, one built on experience, that it could yet be suppressed, that there are vested interests who will stop at nothing to prevent the world from knowing without fear of contradiction that Liverpool supporters were not the villains of the piece at Hillsborough – as they were shamefully portrayed in The Lying Rag newspaper – they were actually the heroes.
In his report into the disaster, Lord Justice Taylor demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that ticketless fans were not a cause of the disaster, nor was the consumption of alcohol a contributory factor.
Instead, the judge laid the blame at the door of South Yorkshire Police, a verdict which failed to lead to the prosecution of a single officer who was on duty that day.
“A blunder of the highest magnitude,” was how Taylor described the decision of Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield to open an exit gate, allowing around 2,000 fans to flood into an already congested central pen of the Leppings Lane terrace. He also condemned the “sluggish reaction and response [from police] when the crush occurred.”
Still, however, more than 22 years after the report was published, the vicious falsehoods and malicious myths which were peddled by sections of the media that were compliant to Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government continue almost unabated.
Taylor may have been one of the country’s most prominent and respected legal figures but his report was never going to be studied by anything like the millions of people who were startled by The Lying Rag’s revelations that came less than 48 hours after the disaster.
Accuracy and exactitude has played forlorn second fiddle to sensationalism and slander ever since and it is this wrong, perhaps more than any other, that now needs to be put right.
An exchange on Twitter today between David Conn, The Guardian sports writer who has been at the forefront of the media campaign on Hillsborough, and a supporter summed up the imbalance. Neither the name, nor the club that the fan supports are of any significance, but his ignorance is.
“They scream justice, justice for what?” the fan asked. “Everyone knows SYP are partly to blame, but so are some LFC fans with no tickets.” All Conn could do was direct the complainant to a report he had never taken the time to read. “Very depressed you’re repeating false stories dismissed in the Taylor Report,” he said. “Try to open your mind [and heart] tomorrow.”
In just one brief debate on Twitter, the enduring tragedy of Hillsborough had been captured. The truth has been struggling to make itself heard ever since April 15, 1989 but tomorrow that could all change.
Should that happen then the people of Liverpool can collectively breathe out and the tension which currently grips them will be replaced by a palpable feeling of relief and expressions, not of victory, but of vindication.
It has been a long, painful wait but the end to their suffering finally appears to be in sight.
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".
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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