Hillsborough "The Search For Truth" 10.25pm

[Frankenhooker]

FA just remembered they needed to apologise.

 

The 'apology' is interesting in that the FAs legal council would of advised against it as it could hint at culpability. The fact that in an earlier statment they didn't apologise, but did a few hours later, hints that they may have been in talks with their lawyers all morning. In my opinion they're expecting some legal ramifications themselves, and rightfully so.

[ZonkoVille77]

FA just remembered they needed to apologise.

 

Just been on their website. It's a piece of shit statement really.

[sixonway]

Steve Gerrard should tell the fa

shove your national team up your fucking arse

[ZonkoVille77]

BenSmithBBC

RT @danroan: FA chairman apologises: "We're deeply sorry this tragedy occurred at a stadium the FA selected. I offer a full apology." @BenSmithBBC 1 hour ago

[FanchesterCity]

The people on the sheff wed forums are probably kids, thick ones, but kids all the same

 

I want the people responsible to stand trial, I just worry that like in the case of Ian Tomlinson a jury will let the police off either out of intimidation or just being scared.

 

I wish they were kids... I could understand it a bit more.

I've been chatting to folks and you STILL hear the little 'digs' from people my age (mid 40s and older)...

 

"yes but, the crowds were a bit over the top"

"yes but, it must have been hard to control a rowdy crowd"

"yes but, it was still fans that did the actual pushing"

etc etc

 

It stuns me. These are people that can't see the parallel with cramming in to see a Take That concert and if they decided to double the number of people, folks wouldn't be pushing on purpose, they're squeezed. They just don't get it.

 

What they see is footage of what looks like aggressive fans outside the ground, chanting, and APPEARING quite mob like. Once they see that, they buy into the 'well, of course it was an accident but....' mentality.

 

And this is what Bettison is pandering to too. He's being ever so careful to just set the scene... "the fans make it harder work that it's supposed to be" etc etc. The Authorities made it harder work too... in choice of venue, lack of police numbers, lack of control, lack of clear signage...

 

Bettison sounds like a farmer moaning about cattle behaving like a herd. It's what crowds do. Hence the term 'crowd' to distinguish from individuals.

 

The police agreed to undertake responsibility for 'Crowd control' and that entails knowledge and management of crowd behaviour. They failed.

They put in place a 'Commander' - who failed to command.

They put in place 'planning' - then didn't follow those plans.

They asked for 'warts and all' testimony - then applied OXY-10 to the statements.

They expected high standards of 'proof' before accepting any blame, but offered no such proof when talking with reporters and politicians about rumour (or blatant lies).

 

If it was the Police's behaviour (cover ups) that made the Justice System's job a LOT HARDER.

 

Resign Mr Bettison.. and make it easier for us all.

[lifetime fan]

It would actually carry some weight when making these apologies if bodies stated what they were sorry for.

 

Not sorry for 96 people dying, but;

 

"We are sorry because these actions (and detail them) we took/failed to take led to the death of 96 innocent football fans".

[FanchesterCity]

It would actually carry some weight when making these apologies if bodies stated what they were sorry for.

 

Not sorry for 96 people dying, but;

 

"We are sorry because these actions (and detail them) we took/failed to take led to the death of 96 innocent football fans".

 

Again, spot on.

 

They won't of course, but they should.. legal teams will let them say sorry, in specific words... avoiding any hint of culpability... which begs the question: "what are you saying sorry FOR then?"

 

This 'sorry' parade is getting almost as distasteful as the cover up. Rats scurrying around in fear of the farmer's cull....

[mrw74]

I've had to restrain myself from hitting one of my colleagues who said that the fans and families should just "get over it"

[Barnesey]

Fair play to the press today - for once - wiith all but one of them featuring this massively on their front pages. Fuck the sun,not interested in what they have to say but the coverage is absolutely massive so hats off to the rest of them apart from the Telegraph who resigned the story to their sports supplement which is pretty ridiculous.

 

But where have they been for the last 23 years?

 

I hate journos; they print what the fuck they want today, change it tomorrow and accept no responsibility for anything. They are unaccountable. I've bought a Guardian today but normally don't bother with any newspaper.

 

Why has it taken the superhuman efforts of the families to pursue this matter? With fuck all assistance from anyone. What happened to investigative jounalism? Doesn't exist. They'll get involved when they think there is a splash to be made or they are reflecting the mood of the country but looking into a massive injustice and swim against the tide; no chance.

 

Once the door has been largely kicked in they might join the party; otherwise, they are just part of the establishment.

 

There has been great coverage today but they couldn't avoid it, could they?

[Guest davelfc]

Hillsborough: Brian Reade salutes the mothers who refused to let their lost children down - Brian Reade - Mirror Online

[Trumo]

I've just seen the BBC News, and Matthew Amroliwala was speaking to Richard Wells, who was Chief Constable of SYP between 1990 and 1998. Most of Wells' comments are up on the BBC website as their lead story, and he says that prosecutions for those culpable are "essential". So far, so fair.

 

However, near the end, Amroliwala asked him whether - after he'd become Chief Constable - any officers had mentioned anything to him about having their reports and statements altered. Wells said something about visiting Hillsborough soon after the tragedy and how some officers had said that they weren't happy with having their statements altered, and he also mentioned that the original and altered statements were 'kept under lock and key together'.

 

If Richard Wells knew this was the case way back then, why did he not look into it? Did it not occur to him that something might be amiss? He must have wondered why statements would need to be altered, and the fact officers had serious misgivings would surely lead him to think this was more than just changing a word here and there, which is probably fairly common anyway? As the top dog at the SYP, surely he had the power to ask questions? If it never got him thinking, was that because he was used to a system where senior police officers routinely concocted and took part in systematic cover-ups of this nature? There are many more questions that need to be asked, and despite his words today, can Wells honestly say he did enough to bring out the truth sooner?

 

My cynical view is that Wells is fully aware that he was sitting on a ticking time-bomb, and he was just keeping schtum and hoping it would all blow over. Maybe he sat on it for political capital in the future. That there may not be an awful lot to personally implicate him may explain why he can appear to be so open in calling for further action.

 

I watched that interview with a feeling of unease because it re-emphasised the evasiveness of those in authority, and the fight that the families will probably still have on their hands in order to claim justice for the bereaved.

[Randy Marsh]

Apologies if this is a point that has already been raised, I haven't been online in a couple of days.

 

I personally think its a disgrace that atleast one of the owners were not in attendance at the vigil last night. No excuse whatsoever for that in my opinion. As owners of the club they should have had a presence in Liverpool in one of the most important days in this club's history.

[FanchesterCity]

I think a few folks either decided to not ask (thus avoid the issue), or if they did probe a little, probably knew it would be a nightmare.

 

All in all, I think people who came after just 'let it be'... it took a huge effort to gather al the documents and assess them... anybody just arriving in a job afterwards couldn't have mounted such an investigation for their own 'curiosity'.

 

I'm sure lots of coppers would say "I wasn't entirely happy with things" - but there wouldn't be enough in that alone to warrant mounting an investigation the size of the HIP one.

 

I don't know if he'd think it was a ticking time-bomb... but certainly 'bit of a sorry mess that is behind us' (or so he thought).

 

Someone knew about the police checks... another knew about the blood samples... another new about the widespread glossing of statements.... whilst another knew about the feeding lies to the press. All the same person? probably not.

 

The same with Politicians really. Many wouldn't actually KNOW the detail... most likely it was a case of "it's just raking up old wounds and old mistakes'.. without ever grasping the magnitude and depth of them. They just 'put it off'.... like the SCC and SWFC 'put off' getting a safety cert.

30 years of complacency (it started years before Hillsborough)

[Harry Squatter]

I was made up yesterday because I think that the a lot of country finally realised why we were angry at what happened and that we aren’t just professional grievers. The families should be an inspiration to everyone and show that you should always fight for what you believe in and never give in no matter how many obstacles are put in your way. ***

*

We were viewed as lowlife scum and subhuman during and after Hillsborough. I always got the feeling that the people in power and some other parts of the country looked down on Liverpool fans as just a load of jobless wasters from smashed up council estates who somehow got the money together to go to football matches when they should have been looking for work. Brian Clough said in his book the mayor of Liverpool should stop going on about Hillsborough and concentrate on getting half the city back to work.

*

You’d think that Liverpool was the only place in Britain which had unemployment and problem areas in the 1980’s. There’s hundreds of places in Britain I wouldn’t live in if you paid me to but back then Liverpool was made out to be the toilet of Britain. I laugh at people who live in places with no character or that look like one massive council estate yet they have the cheek to say Liverpool is a s***hole. It was easy for the police to fit up Liverpool fans as they were easy to stereotype and were involved in Heysel four years previously so all of them must have been scum. It seems like the police already had a deep rooted dislike of Scousers to begin with and it didn’t take much creative thinking for them to come up with the smear campaign.

*

There was no internet then and virtually everyone read a newspaper so is it any surprise that the S*n managed to brainwash so many people. Who are you going to believe, the nations top selling newspaper or a load of relatives of some scousers?. People didn’t have any real voice to fight back apart from a letters page in a newspaper, now you have Facebook, Twitter or you can create your own website to put your own view across but the families never had this available until recently. *

*

You look at the victims and they were from all backgrounds and not all were from Liverpool itself but everyone just got thrown into the same category as jobless scouse scumbags. I felt that the majority of families were on a hiding to nothing because they were just ordinary people going up against a massive brick wall and would be sneered at by establishment figures, politely told to run along but credit to them, they weren’t intimidated in any way and kept battling on and on. Always got the feeling that the attitude towards them was *“oh you’re back again are you, what are you moaning about now”.

*

I worked with some Geordie bint in 2005 and she watched the documentary where the present S*n editor came to Liverpool to apologise for the infamous article. In the programme he met Margaret Aspinall and apologised at her home. This Geordie bird said “bloody hell, why keep his room exactly the same as when he died, just accept the apology and move on”. Trying to explain about why she kept asking for justice she couldn’t get her head round that it was a police cover up and just said it was paranoid Scousers waiting by the telly or radio waiting to be outraged about something.

*

Slightly off topic, I can remember the James Bulger case in 1993 and a lot of the press coverage was quite snidey towards Liverpool people. One article I read from the Guardian or Independent hardly mentioned the facts of the case, just focussed on how run down Liverpool was with high unemployment and suggested that this was one of the reasons why James Bulger was kidnapped and killed yet it could have happened anywhere in Britain. There was just absolutely no reason why they needed to focus on anything other than the issues of the case and the 2 killers personal backgrounds. They preferred to examine why Liverpool was such a backward place in their eyes which must have caused these two boys to murder a toddler. A lot of the reporting came across like they were waiting to stick the boot into the city only a few years after Hillsborough.

*

The rest of the country has viewed Liverpool as parochial whingers who can never let anything go but after yesterday I felt relieved because it is actually acknowledged that we weren’t just doing it because we wanted to constantly feel aggrieved about something. I’m just relieved that now the city is seen by more people as one that sticks together and fights for what they believe in rather than a load of moaners who look to blame people when things go wrong, although some people will always believe whatever they want about us

*

[FanchesterCity]

I was made up yesterday because I think that the a lot of country finally realised why we were angry at what happened and that we aren’t just professional grievers. The families should be an inspiration to everyone and show that you should always fight for what you believe in and never give in no matter how many obstacles are put in your way. ***

*

We were viewed as lowlife scum and subhuman during and after Hillsborough. I always got the feeling that the people in power and some other parts of the country looked down on Liverpool fans as just a load of jobless wasters from smashed up council estates who somehow got the money together to go to football matches when they should have been looking for work. Brian Clough said in his book the mayor of Liverpool should stop going on about Hillsborough and concentrate on getting half the city back to work.

*

You’d think that Liverpool was the only place in Britain which had unemployment and problem areas in the 1980’s. There’s hundreds of places in Britain I wouldn’t live in if you paid me to but back then Liverpool was made out to be the toilet of Britain. I laugh at people who live in places with no character or that look like one massive council estate yet they have the cheek to say Liverpool is a s***hole. It was easy for the police to fit up Liverpool fans as they were easy to stereotype and were involved in Heysel four years previously so all of them must have been scum. It seems like the police already had a deep rooted dislike of Scousers to begin with and it didn’t take much creative thinking for them to come up with the smear campaign.

*

There was no internet then and virtually everyone read a newspaper so is it any surprise that the S*n managed to brainwash so many people. Who are you going to believe, the nations top selling newspaper or a load of relatives of some scousers?. People didn’t have any real voice to fight back apart from a letters page in a newspaper, now you have Facebook, Twitter or you can create your own website to put your own view across but the families never had this available until recently. *

*

You look at the victims and they were from all backgrounds and not all were from Liverpool itself but everyone just got thrown into the same category as jobless scouse scumbags. I felt that the majority of families were on a hiding to nothing because they were just ordinary people going up against a massive brick wall and would be sneered at by establishment figures, politely told to run along but credit to them, they weren’t intimidated in any way and kept battling on and on. Always got the feeling that the attitude towards them was *“oh you’re back again are you, what are you moaning about now”.

*

I worked with some Geordie bint in 2005 and she watched the documentary where the present S*n editor came to Liverpool to apologise for the infamous article. In the programme he met Margaret Aspinall and apologised at her home. This Geordie bird said “bloody hell, why keep his room exactly the same as when he died, just accept the apology and move on”. Trying to explain about why she kept asking for justice she couldn’t get her head round that it was a police cover up and just said it was paranoid Scousers waiting by the telly or radio waiting to be outraged about something.

*

Slightly off topic, I can remember the James Bulger case in 1993 and a lot of the press coverage was quite snidey towards Liverpool people. One article I read from the Guardian or Independent hardly mentioned the facts of the case, just focussed on how run down Liverpool was with high unemployment and suggested that this was one of the reasons why James Bulger was kidnapped and killed yet it could have happened anywhere in Britain. There was just absolutely no reason why they needed to focus on anything other than the issues of the case and the 2 killers personal backgrounds. They preferred to examine why Liverpool was such a backward place in their eyes which must have caused these two boys to murder a toddler. A lot of the reporting came across like they were waiting to stick the boot into the city only a few years after Hillsborough.

*

The rest of the country has viewed Liverpool as parochial whingers who can never let anything go but after yesterday I felt relieved because it is actually acknowledged that we weren’t just doing it because we wanted to constantly feel aggrieved about something. I’m just relieved that now the city is seen by more people as one that sticks together and fights for what they believe in rather than a load of moaners who look to blame people when things go wrong, although some people will always believe whatever they want about us

*

 

Beautifully put.

 

People need to stop and think when they use terms like 'Scouse Scum / Dippers' and 'Manc Cunts'. People are just people.

I'm sick of the chanting. I'm sick of the name calling. I'm sick of the stereotypes.

 

We can banter and laugh at fate on the football field. There's enough drama there to keep us all entertained. It's time to remember we all love football, and we all want to get home to our loved ones.

 

You'll not change the hard core few, but we as the majority can make those morons a smaller and smaller minority.

[tea]

Sorry if this link is already on, but if you look at the article on the left, it is proof that the FA totally failed in their 'probe'. Why did they not discover that the ground had no valid safety certificate at this point? Its sickening to see the quote from the FA spokesman:- ' but we must ensure it doesn't happen again'

 

HOME - ohwhenthespurs.co.uk

[njackets]

I was made up yesterday because I think that the a lot of country finally realised why we were angry at what happened and that we aren’t just professional grievers. The families should be an inspiration to everyone and show that you should always fight for what you believe in and never give in no matter how many obstacles are put in your way. ***

*

We were viewed as lowlife scum and subhuman during and after Hillsborough. I always got the feeling that the people in power and some other parts of the country looked down on Liverpool fans as just a load of jobless wasters from smashed up council estates who somehow got the money together to go to football matches when they should have been looking for work. Brian Clough said in his book the mayor of Liverpool should stop going on about Hillsborough and concentrate on getting half the city back to work.

*

You’d think that Liverpool was the only place in Britain which had unemployment and problem areas in the 1980’s. There’s hundreds of places in Britain I wouldn’t live in if you paid me to but back then Liverpool was made out to be the toilet of Britain. I laugh at people who live in places with no character or that look like one massive council estate yet they have the cheek to say Liverpool is a s***hole. It was easy for the police to fit up Liverpool fans as they were easy to stereotype and were involved in Heysel four years previously so all of them must have been scum. It seems like the police already had a deep rooted dislike of Scousers to begin with and it didn’t take much creative thinking for them to come up with the smear campaign.

*

There was no internet then and virtually everyone read a newspaper so is it any surprise that the S*n managed to brainwash so many people. Who are you going to believe, the nations top selling newspaper or a load of relatives of some scousers?. People didn’t have any real voice to fight back apart from a letters page in a newspaper, now you have Facebook, Twitter or you can create your own website to put your own view across but the families never had this available until recently. *

*

You look at the victims and they were from all backgrounds and not all were from Liverpool itself but everyone just got thrown into the same category as jobless scouse scumbags. I felt that the majority of families were on a hiding to nothing because they were just ordinary people going up against a massive brick wall and would be sneered at by establishment figures, politely told to run along but credit to them, they weren’t intimidated in any way and kept battling on and on. Always got the feeling that the attitude towards them was *“oh you’re back again are you, what are you moaning about now”.

*

I worked with some Geordie bint in 2005 and she watched the documentary where the present S*n editor came to Liverpool to apologise for the infamous article. In the programme he met Margaret Aspinall and apologised at her home. This Geordie bird said “bloody hell, why keep his room exactly the same as when he died, just accept the apology and move on”. Trying to explain about why she kept asking for justice she couldn’t get her head round that it was a police cover up and just said it was paranoid Scousers waiting by the telly or radio waiting to be outraged about something.

*

Slightly off topic, I can remember the James Bulger case in 1993 and a lot of the press coverage was quite snidey towards Liverpool people. One article I read from the Guardian or Independent hardly mentioned the facts of the case, just focussed on how run down Liverpool was with high unemployment and suggested that this was one of the reasons why James Bulger was kidnapped and killed yet it could have happened anywhere in Britain. There was just absolutely no reason why they needed to focus on anything other than the issues of the case and the 2 killers personal backgrounds. They preferred to examine why Liverpool was such a backward place in their eyes which must have caused these two boys to murder a toddler. A lot of the reporting came across like they were waiting to stick the boot into the city only a few years after Hillsborough.

*

The rest of the country has viewed Liverpool as parochial whingers who can never let anything go but after yesterday I felt relieved because it is actually acknowledged that we weren’t just doing it because we wanted to constantly feel aggrieved about something. I’m just relieved that now the city is seen by more people as one that sticks together and fights for what they believe in rather than a load of moaners who look to blame people when things go wrong, although some people will always believe whatever they want about us

*

 

Brilliant post mate!

[mht1892]

I've had to restrain myself from hitting one of my colleagues who said that the fans and families should just "get over it"

 

That happened to me this morning in work, I had my back to him when I was on my break, I had to get up and leave, I could feel my body shaking I was that angry, that happened at. 9.30 this morning and its only now I've calmed down.

 

I can't even imagine how the families have felt over the years listening to the lies, just glad justice is about to begin.

[FanchesterCity]

Sorry if this link is already on, but if you look at the article on the left, it is proof that the FA totally failed in their 'probe'. Why did they not discover that the ground had no valid safety certificate at this point? Its sickening to see the quote from the FA spokesman:- ' but we must ensure it doesn't happen again'

 

HOME - ohwhenthespurs.co.uk

 

It had happened before, as you point out.

 

The HSE clearly showed the turnstile throughput was woefully inadequate for 20,000 spectators, and the forecourt / yard whilst not necessarily dangerous in itself, it was less than ideal.

 

They had the game at Wednesday because it was 'convenient' (not for Liverpool fans, but for the FA themselves)... 'same again' was the order of the day. The usual set of grounds (Maine Rd, Villa Park, Hillsborough).

 

In so many ways, it wasn't just errors 'on the day'... it was more a case of them having gotten away with it for so long.

Only the year before, fans had commented on how it felt risky.

If it hadn't happened at Hillsborough, it might have been Maine Rd, or Villa Park. 'Cram them in' was how it worked. I accept there were some additional factors at Hillsborough that made matters worse, but still, given hindsight, disaster was always looming.

 

It was just last year when the wonderful FA chose to have Everton and Liverpool travel to London for a 12.30 kick off (to avoid drinking issues?) even though it's a fair journey and meant tired early morning starts for most fans.

 

Yet they had an all London clash at 6.00pm (allowing plenty of drinking time?) the following day.

 

They were inconsistent in their approach to timings. and whilst it MIGHT be argued that Wembley was the best venue for capacity, on balance Old Trafford might have been a better choice. Regardless, they did it to recoup money from the building of the damn stadium. Money, money, money... driving the agenda, not the safety and convenience of fans.

[Harry Squatter]

That happened to me this morning in work' date=' I had my back to him when I was on my break, I had to get up and leave, I could feel my body shaking I was that angry, that happened at. 9.30 this morning and its only now I've calmed down.

 

I can't even imagine how the families have felt over the years listening to the lies, just glad justice is about to begin.[/quote']

 

Some Man Utd fan from Runcorn i used to work with whose parents were scouse and both support Everton said to me "scousers have gone so OTT emotionally about the subject now it's impossible to have a fair and objective debate about the subject". He wasn't very popularly say the least and I'm sure his parents wouldn't have been too impressed by referring to them as scousers

[Trumo]

They had the game at Wednesday because it was 'convenient' (not for Liverpool fans, but for the FA themselves)... 'same again' was the order of the day. The usual set of grounds (Maine Rd, Villa Park, Hillsborough).

 

That Hillsborough wasn't even checked for a valid safety certificate is damning for the FA and the numerous other authorities whose responsibility it was to check these things. Quite how this passed ALL of them by is staggering. That said, how many other grounds around the country were operating without a valid safety certificate?

 

In so many ways, it wasn't just errors 'on the day'... it was more a case of them having gotten away with it for so long.

Only the year before, fans had commented on how it felt risky.

If it hadn't happened at Hillsborough, it might have been Maine Rd, or Villa Park. 'Cram them in' was how it worked. I accept there were some additional factors at Hillsborough that made matters worse, but still, given hindsight, disaster was always looming.

 

Due to a lackadaisical approach to ensuring that facilities met safety standards combined with the heavy-handed approach to crowd control, I agree that Hillsborough was an accident waiting to happen with numerous warning signs that not heeded.

 

It was just last year when the wonderful FA chose to have Everton and Liverpool travel to London for a 12.30 kick off (to avoid drinking issues?) even though it's a fair journey and meant tired early morning starts for most fans.

 

Yet they had an all London clash at 6.00pm (allowing plenty of drinking time?) the following day.

 

They were inconsistent in their approach to timings...

 

This seems to be the case in the Premier League too. They frequently schedule London derbies with later kick-offs, but local derbies in other cities almost always start in the early afternoon.

 

..and whilst it MIGHT be argued that Wembley was the best venue for capacity, on balance Old Trafford might have been a better choice. Regardless, they did it to recoup money from the building of the damn stadium. Money, money, money... driving the agenda, not the safety and convenience of fans.

 

They've decided to host both semis at Wembley for a number of years now, and it nearly always involves a northern club in an early kick-off, making it doubly difficult and expensive for fans to arrange travel (and accommodation in some cases).

 

Odd that you mention Old Trafford, because it was chosen to stage the replayed semi final in 1989. There might well have been crowd management issues or safety issues there too in 1989 (generally, not specifically for that game), but as a stadium it was better designed to cope with large crowds.

 

Back then, the FA put convenience over practicality, safety and security. Now they are all about the money. Personally, I think the FA should have a shortlist of club grounds capable of staging a semi final, and should only select the appropriate ground after the semi final draw.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Oh, haven't you heard? 'Always the victim, it's never your fault' is in relation to the Suarez case. Nowt to do with Hillsborough, that. No siree. Lighten up! Just 'banter'! Where's the famous scouse wit?

 

Funny how when the Villa fans (I think) last year started chanting for the 96 at Old Trafford, the whole stadium en masse broke into that chant in response.

 

Tell me the last time you heard Anfield chant in the majority about Munich?

 

Any instances of that chant should be met with the return of "we were the victims, it wasn't our fault".

 

As for other teams fans, the blues have been class regarding this, generally always are, a few idiots aside. I work with a Gooner and he asked me about my feelings about yesterday. I told him it was initial sadness, then anger at what these fuckers did and thought they could get away with, then, finally, excitement (if that's the right word) that this could be the beginning of that final push to achieving justice.

 

At this point, he told me that he watched a lot of the coverage on the news last night and that he cried several times. He had never really paid that much attention to Hillsborough as, although it was football related, he didn't really look at it in any depth, because he was a Gooner. He said that watching the recent coverage made him fully appreciate what a complete, unmitigated balls up it was by the authorities, and just how many people it effected.

 

So, for every knobhead troll out there, there is also a person whose head is being turned, whose opinions are being changed, on the back of yesterdays events. That can only help.

[Harry Squatter]

Someone has got to pay back the 757M for Wembley, still can't believe it cost that much when some stadiums built since then have cost far less, it's not like they had to buy the land or force people out of their homes with lengthy legal battles either.

[Arl arse]

BBC reporting, Norman Bettison will be investigated by the IPCC.

[Guest ShoePiss]

That Hillsborough wasn't even checked for a valid safety certificate is damning for the FA and the numerous other authorities whose responsibility it was to check these things. Quite how this passed ALL of them by is staggering. That said, how many other grounds around the country were operating without a valid safety certificate?

 

 

 

Due to a lackadaisical approach to ensuring that facilities met safety standards combined with the heavy-handed approach to crowd control, I agree that Hillsborough was an accident waiting to happen with numerous warning signs that not heeded.

 

 

 

This seems to be the case in the Premier League too. They frequently schedule London derbies with later kick-offs, but local derbies in other cities almost always start in the early afternoon.

 

 

 

They've decided to host both semis at Wembley for a number of years now, and it nearly always involves a northern club in an early kick-off, making it doubly difficult and expensive for fans to arrange travel (and accommodation in some cases).

 

Odd that you mention Old Trafford, because it was chosen to stage the replayed semi final in 1989. There might well have been crowd management issues or safety issues there too in 1989 (generally, not specifically for that game), but as a stadium it was better designed to cope with large crowds.

Back then, the FA put convenience over practicality, safety and security. Now they are all about the money. Personally, I think the FA should have a shortlist of club grounds capable of staging a semi final, and should only select the appropriate ground after the semi final draw.

 

Absolutely, I went to that replay. Obviously it was always going to be different in the aftermath but even back then it was streets ahead of Hillsborough in every way.