Kenny on Thatch

[gkmacca]

Kenny Dalglish on Margaret Thatcher tributes: Why Hillsborough victims are more deserving of a minute's silence

13 Apr 2013 07:30
Respect should be shown where it is due, NOT demanded, writes Kenny Dalglish

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Respect: Liverpool players observe a minute's silence for Hillsborough victims

John Powell​

So Graham Kelly, the former chief executive of the FA, thinks there should be a minute’s silence for Margaret Thatcher at football games this weekend.
Really? Well, I’m glad Mr Kelly is still popping up with suggestions because I have got a few for him, too.
The first is that this weekend should be about our football clubs wanting to be respectful to the fans who died at Hillsborough on April 15, 1989.
It would be totally wrong for anybody to attempt to make any other act of remembrance go hand in hand with that.
Everyone who didn’t realise it already now knows, after the events of this year, that those who died are more than worthy of that minute’s silence.
And the response from football supporters everywhere to the emergence of the truth about what happened at Hillsborough - nowhere more than at Everton - has been unbelievable.
So let’s have nobody trying to jump on a bandwagon and using it for something else.
If the FA, in their great wisdom, wanted to plan a tribute to Mrs Thatcher, let them do it another weekend. Not this one.

In remembrance: Liverpool memorial for Hillsborough victims Anfield wreaths and flowers

And maybe while Mr Kelly is talking about ‘appropriate levels of respect’ for the former Prime Minister maybe he should apply that to Hillsborough, too.
Mr Kelly was one of the men in power at the FA at the time of the disaster and it would be nice if, finally, he sat down with some of the families of those who died.
The discussions don’t need to be made public. They could take place in private but it would be courteous if he gave the families answers to a few questions.
Why did you pick a ground that had no up to date safety licence for Liverpool’s FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest?
Why did your organisation ignore warnings about previous problems that had happened at Hillsborough?
The FA was the organisation that approved the venue for the game. Does that not mean they have a certain level of responsibility for it?
I don’t know the answers to these questions but Mr Kelly does. Why doesn’t he have a sensible conversation with the families?
Maybe, he could also tell them why the FA appeared to be focussing on football after Hillsborough rather than the human tragedy that had unfolded.
Football was incidental after Hillsborough. Football didn’t matter. All these years on, I’d like to know if Mr Kelly recognises that now.


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[FoxForceFive]

He's been a lot more tactful than I expected Tbh, he could have lambasted him a lot more.

 

[Judge Jules]

Absolutely right. The way in which over the years the FA has escaped its share of the blame for Hillsborough (which IMO is considerable, on a par with that of the police, if not even worse) is extraordinary, or would be if we didn't already know how the establishment protects its own.

 

[Red Mullet]

He's been a lot more tactful than I expected Tbh, he could have lambasted him a lot more.

Yes but this is a way more powerful way to write it.

 

[Silver Sean]

Yes but this is a way more powerful way to write it.

This.
Kelly is one of the main culprits. Always hated him for his part in it all. And he got away with it scott free too. Maggot.

 

[Hansern]

Read on a few other sites that Kenny met Henry yesterday.
Acadamy role on the cards?

 

[gkmacca]

I doubt Henry is up to it. Put him in charge of high-pitched reedy match announcements.

 

[Judge Jules]

This.
Kelly is one of the main culprits. Always hated him for his part in it all. And he got away with it scott free too. Maggot.

Spot on. The garbage which the media peddled at the time about the supposed "dignity" of his response sickens me to this day - he was absolutely scared sh!tless of the possible consequences, is all it was. We all know what a desperate mess the police made of things on the day, and I'm in no way trying to bypass that proven fact, but I think there's merit in the argument that they actually had an impossible job to do because the FA ignored warnings from the previous year and insisted the game be scheduled for Hillsborough again. Kelly, and those in the FA who advised him, belong in the dock over this at least as much as Dukinfield, Bettison and the rest IMHO.

 

[Judge Jules]

I doubt Henry is up to it. Put him in charge of high-pitched reedy match announcements.

Haha. Although such considerations didn't stop Parry.

 

[Silver Sean]

Spot on. The garbage which the media peddled at the time about the supposed "dignity" of his response sickens me to this day - he was absolutely scared sh!tless of the possible consequences, is all it was. We all know what a desperate mess the police made of things on the day, and I'm in no way trying to bypass that proven fact, but I think there's merit in the argument that they actually had an impossible job to do because the FA ignored warnings from the previous year and insisted the game be scheduled for Hillsborough again. Kelly, and those in the FA who advised him, belong in the dock over this at least as much as Dukinfield, Bettison and the rest IMHO.

The year before we climbed put of the middle pen as it was too full. The next year I ended up in a coma. Spurs we're close to a disaster a few years before too weren't they? Kelly and the rest are equally as culpable in my eyes.

 

[Judge Jules]

Didn't know about the Spurs thing but it doesn't surprise me.

What this boils down to is that, over the years, the FA and its officers at the time have benefited from the establishment's cover-up every bit as much as the police did.

 

[the count]

Am I right in thinking that after the near disaster at the Spurs semifinal, in 1983 I think, that was only averted because quick thinking officials opened the pen gates, Hillborough was deemed unfit for such games by the FA until our semifinal in 1988?