Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Stu on August 21, 2011, 09:43:23 PM
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I couldn't see this on the main forum: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/2199
100,000 signatures are needed to force the debate, this is something we should all get behind. Signing up only takes a couple of minutes.
Apologies if this has already been posted elsewhere :)
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Done
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Can someone tell me what this would actually achieve?
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Can someone tell me what this would actually achieve?
For a start it would show the extent of the cover-up by the police.
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Can someone tell me what this would actually achieve?
Read this article in The Graun (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/aug/20/hillsborough-disaster-liverpool).
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Can someone tell me what this would actually achieve?
For a start it would show the extent of the cover-up by the police.
Then what happens, is it about prosecuting those that were involved in the cover up, you really think that will happen, most of them will be retired or dead.
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Can someone tell me what this would actually achieve?
For a start it would show the extent of the cover-up by the police.
Then what happens, is it about prosecuting those that were involved in the cover up, you really think that will happen, most of them will be retired or dead.
It means 96 families will know what really happened, for a start. Do you have a problem with that?
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Done
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Can someone tell me what this would actually achieve?
For a start it would show the extent of the cover-up by the police.
Then what happens, is it about prosecuting those that were involved in the cover up, you really think that will happen, most of them will be retired or dead.
It means 96 families will know what really happened, for a start. Do you have a problem with that?
I think they know what happened, one of the documentorys even named the officers in charge, the dreadfull truth of what happened that day is known, the drive now appears to be to get some acknowledgement that there was a cover up. If that will make a difference to those families then fine, but where do you go from there?
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Can someone tell me what this would actually achieve?
For a start it would show the extent of the cover-up by the police.
Then what happens, is it about prosecuting those that were involved in the cover up, you really think that will happen, most of them will be retired or dead.
It means 96 families will know what really happened, for a start. Do you have a problem with that?
I think they know what happened, one of the documentorys even named the officers in charge, the dreadfull truth of what happened that day is known, the drive now appears to be to get some acknowledgement that there was a cover up. If that will make a difference to those families then fine, but where do you go from there?
Like you said - acknowledgement. And also until the last "Pissed Scousers turned up late and killed their own" story is finally repudiated.
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Can someone tell me what this would actually achieve?
Like you said - acknowledgement. And also until the last "Pissed Scousers turned up late and killed their own" story is finally repudiated.
I get this and I also get that the mistakes that were made that day were made by people that wanted to cause the disaster is also wide of the mark.
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Nobody has ever said anyone wanted the disaster to happen.
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Think we could get a petition for safe standing?
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Done. Saw the shrine (is that the right word?) at anfield last season for the first time. Truly moving, and could have been any of us or our family or friends.
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I think there are two issues here. First, the families should of course be entitled to see any information that exists which pertains to the death of their relatives, complete and unexpurgated. Second, I would argue that it is definitely in the wider public interest to know the nature and extent of any collusion between the police and the government to prevent disclosure of any wrongdoing and / or protect senior officials.
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Done.
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Done.
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Is there also a petition for those who turned up on the day ticketless and rushed the gates to own up? And how many of them who learned their lesson did the same thing in Istanbul?
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Is there also a petition for those who turned up on the day ticketless and rushed the gates to own up? And how many of them who learned their lesson did the same thing in Istanbul?
There's always one...
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Sorry can I add that any cover up or delaying tactics by the Government is obviously a disgrase and disrespectful to the families of the bereaved. Nobody should go to football and have to by confronted with this.
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Sorry can I add that any cover up or delaying tactics by the Government is obviously a disgrase and disrespectful to the families of the bereaved. Nobody should go to football and have to by confronted with this.
You can. You can also accept that there was no "rushed the gates" ticketless fans outside David Duckinfield's lies and Kelvin MacKenzie's warped imagination.
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Ok lets not go down this route. I had always thought that the crush was caused by fans entering an enclosure they had no tickets for when a gate was opened by the police. If the documents reveal that only ticketed fans were in the ground at the time of the disaster then it seems I have bought the official line/lie.
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Ok lets not go down this route. I had always thought that the crush was caused by fans entering an enclosure they had no tickets for when a gate was opened by the police. If the documents reveal that only ticketed fans were in the ground at the time of the disaster then it seems I have bought the official line/lie.
The end was under capacity at 3.06. There were plenty of tickets available and the Taylor Report found no evidence of a significant number of ticketless supporters at the ground.
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Dave, you seem to know much more detail about this than I do, so can I ask a genuine question; if there weren't ticketless fans, then what caused the crush that saw 96 football fans killed? Did the police let fans with tickets into the wrong part of the ground?
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Dave, you seem to know much more detail about this than I do, so can I ask a genuine question; if there weren't ticketless fans, then what caused the crush that saw 96 football fans killed? Did the police let fans with tickets into the wrong part of the ground?
Of the many mistakes that contributed, the final one was that were funneled into the area behind the goal, rather than into the half-empty sections to the sides.
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Can someone tell me what this would actually achieve?
Read this article in The Graun (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/aug/20/hillsborough-disaster-liverpool).
This is the bit that says it all for me:
"In March, the Hillsborough panel said they would look at previously concealed documents. But you can see why the families object to the idea that a panel must decide what they can and cannot see. The system has piled years and years of additional needless cruelty on the Hillsborough families. The British obsession with secrecy and protection for those in power has stretched beyond all humane grounds the process of finding out, once and for all, what happened (and who was responsible) at an FA Cup semi-final in Sheffield more than two decades ago."
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But these were ticketed fans, not 'yobs' rushing the gates?
My own view on this has always been, and I make no apologies for this, that there is combined blame between the police for failing to handle the crowd and also the fans who created the crush. You can put them into the wrong area, but were they forced to press forward as they did without tought for their own safety and the safety of those ahead of them? The fact there has then been a cover up, which I fully believe there has, to protect the police and shift the blame wholey on the fans is disgusting.
So that's why my name has gone on the petition, because those responsible should be known and those innocent stated as such. The problem is that it has become so emotive an issue that should they genuinely find the fans acted recklessly, it will be dismissed as a cover up again.
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You can put them into the wrong area, but were they forced to press forward as they did without tought for their own safety and the safety of those ahead of them?
Yes they were - that's what happens when you funnel far too many people into too small an area.
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I'm fairly sure that the families themselves would welcome whatever a report said, if every single bit of information was out in the public arena, as it should be.
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But these were ticketed fans, not 'yobs' rushing the gates?
My own view on this has always been, and I make no apologies for this, that there is combined blame between the police for failing to handle the crowd and also the fans who created the crush. You can put them into the wrong area, but were they forced to press forward as they did without tought for their own safety and the safety of those ahead of them?
I don't know how you can put individual thought processes on the crowd mentality. How many times have you followed a crowd of fellow fans in one direction, just because it seemed like they knew where they were going and it was in the general direction of where you needed to go? Someone didn't do their job properly and the way in which fans were kettled into cages to watch the game didn't help either. Any way you look at it, Hillsborough happened because it seemed to be ok to treat football supporters like shit.
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Any way you look at it, Hillsborough happened because it seemed to be ok to treat football supporters like shit.
That I wouldn't argue about - it was a disaster waiting to happen.
But I've been in crushes getting in and out of the old Holte numerous times as a kid and (thankfully!) not once did anybody lose their lives. I guess my point is that unless there was a line of police horses behind the crowd driving them into the ground, then there was reckless behaviour on the part of the fans also.
Because lets not forget that fan treatment in the 80s was deplorable, but some fan behaviour also was.
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Any way you look at it, Hillsborough happened because it seemed to be ok to treat football supporters like shit.
That I wouldn't argue about - it was a disaster waiting to happen.
But I've been in crushes getting in and out of the old Holte numerous times as a kid and (thankfully!) not once did anybody lose their lives. I guess my point is that unless there was a line of police horses behind the crowd driving them into the ground, then there was reckless behaviour on the part of the fans also.
Because lets not forget that fan treatment in the 80s was deplorable, but some fan behaviour also was.
They were going into a ground after kick-off. In those circumstances it's only natural to go to the quickest and easiest access to the terrace. Sadly, this was already full and it's pretty certain people had already died in there before the gates were open.
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I've said it before but football fans, in general, seem determined to set low standards for themselves. Less so these days, perhaps, but certainly in the 70s and 80s. As John says, there's a reason why football fans were treated like shit and it's not simply because one day someone somewhere decided that's how it would be.
It's maybe an uncomfortable truth that the conditions which came about to allow a tragedy like Hillsborough to occur are in part down to football fans themselves. Not directly on that day, as most people recognise, but in all the instances, big or small, of poor behaviour that preceded it.
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This thread re-appears every couple of years...
On the day the fans weren't to blame. Read the Taylor Report if you want to find the facts... some astonishing ones include...
With the number of gates allocated to the Liverpool fans and the flow through them there was no way all the fans with tickets could have got into the ground from the time the gates opened to kick-off.
No-one knew the the capacity of the middle pen, let alone monitor how full it was.
The previous year a couple of coppers stood at the entrance to the tunnel that led down to the central pen directing fans to other empty pens. In 1989 none were stationed there... despite all the others mistakes that were made, if that one little procedure had been followed then the day may have had a very different outcome.
Despite this though, some football fans have to take some of the blame for the atmosphere that had developed around the game in the 1970s and 1980s. If they hadn't spent many a year smashing up town, trains, ferries, invading pitches and generally bringing shame on the game then there wouldn't have been a need for fences or indeed the Police's initial thoughts that trouble, as opposed to something very different, was occurring in Leppings Lane.
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Any way you look at it, Hillsborough happened because it seemed to be ok to treat football supporters like shit.
That I wouldn't argue about - it was a disaster waiting to happen.
But I've been in crushes getting in and out of the old Holte numerous times as a kid and (thankfully!) not once did anybody lose their lives. I guess my point is that unless there was a line of police horses behind the crowd driving them into the ground, then there was reckless behaviour on the part of the fans also.
Because lets not forget that fan treatment in the 80s was deplorable, but some fan behaviour also was.
They were going into a ground after kick-off. In those circumstances it's only natural to go to the quickest and easiest access to the terrace. Sadly, this was already full and it's pretty certain people had already died in there before the gates were open.
It's also natural to rush and start barging your way in, which is what I think happened and was a major contributing factor. Could the police have handled things better prior to this? Almost certainly, but while they have to take responsibility for that so do the fans who put aside any thought for they fellow fan and crushed those infront of them so they could see a game of football.
As I said before, I see it as 'joint blame' between the police and that section of fans.
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Any way you look at it, Hillsborough happened because it seemed to be ok to treat football supporters like shit.
That I wouldn't argue about - it was a disaster waiting to happen.
But I've been in crushes getting in and out of the old Holte numerous times as a kid and (thankfully!) not once did anybody lose their lives. I guess my point is that unless there was a line of police horses behind the crowd driving them into the ground, then there was reckless behaviour on the part of the fans also.
Because lets not forget that fan treatment in the 80s was deplorable, but some fan behaviour also was.
They were going into a ground after kick-off. In those circumstances it's only natural to go to the quickest and easiest access to the terrace. Sadly, this was already full and it's pretty certain people had already died in there before the gates were open.
It's also natural to rush and start barging your way in, which is what I think happened and was a major contributing factor. Could the police have handled things better prior to this? Almost certainly, but while they have to take responsibility for that so do the fans who put aside any thought for they fellow fan and crushed those infront of them so they could see a game of football.
As I said before, I see it as 'joint blame' between the police and that section of fans.
They didn't 'rush and barge' their way in. Every bit of witness evidence says they walked fairly normally towards the tunnel. They certainly didn't deliberately crush anyone.
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No question that it wasn't deliberate, but how can 96 people die without major force being exerted? If you're walking fairly normally you stop when you can't walk any further.
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No question that it wasn't deliberate, but how can 96 people die without major force being exerted? If you're walking fairly normally you stop when you can't walk any further.
What then happens when someone behind's you?
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No question that it wasn't deliberate, but how can 96 people die without major force being exerted? If you're walking fairly normally you stop when you can't walk any further.
What then happens when someone behind's you?
Surely they stop also? It's only when that body of people press forward into space that isnlt there do you get the tragedy like Hillsborough.
I was on Wembley Way walking back to the tube station after the cup final against Man Utd and despite a huge crowd, and not moving for a prolonged period of time, there was no crush.
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No question that it wasn't deliberate, but how can 96 people die without major force being exerted? If you're walking fairly normally you stop when you can't walk any further.
What then happens when someone behind's you?
Surely they stop also? It's only when that body of people press forward into space that isnlt there do you get the tragedy like Hillsborough.
I was on Wembley Way walking back to the tube station after the cup final against Man Utd and despite a huge crowd, and not moving for a prolonged period of time, there was no crush.
There was also no fences and, possibly more importantly, you weren't at the top of a flight of steps.
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No question that it wasn't deliberate, but how can 96 people die without major force being exerted? If you're walking fairly normally you stop when you can't walk any further.
What then happens when someone behind's you?
Surely they stop also? It's only when that body of people press forward into space that isnlt there do you get the tragedy like Hillsborough.
I was on Wembley Way walking back to the tube station after the cup final against Man Utd and despite a huge crowd, and not moving for a prolonged period of time, there was no crush.
Went to wigan few years ago and nearly got crushed there at H/T by everyone trying to get a pint or go for a piss. Was lifted off the floor at one point and couldn't lift my arms either. Easy to imagine thousands of people trying to get in to the enclosure to view the game which I think was already underway.
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No question that it wasn't deliberate, but how can 96 people die without major force being exerted? If you're walking fairly normally you stop when you can't walk any further.
What then happens when someone behind's you?
Surely they stop also? It's only when that body of people press forward into space that isnlt there do you get the tragedy like Hillsborough.
I was on Wembley Way walking back to the tube station after the cup final against Man Utd and despite a huge crowd, and not moving for a prolonged period of time, there was no crush.
There was also no fences and, possibly more importantly, you weren't at the top of a flight of steps.
Granted, but there was still an element of self control amongst both sets of fans. And I can't escape the feeling that that control did not exist at Hillsborough that fateful day.
If I can draw a comparison (that'll probably get me into trouble!) if the police cock up the prosection of a criminal and he then goes and commits another crime, does the blame lie with the police or the criminal? And just to clarify I'm not accusing the Liverpool fans of being criminals.
But by the same token, when they fail to properly police a crowd is that then their fault or that of the crowd if it starts to get out of control? In my opinion, it's both.
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I think as has been said already, one of the biggest factors was not having a couple of police men/horses blocking the tunnel to the central pen. Had that happened, which was the norm, then this may have been prevented.
Alcohol and fans turning up late were secondary factors, as per the Taylor report - and why alochol to this day has reduced sales inside the ground.
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Dave, you seem to know much more detail about this than I do, so can I ask a genuine question; if there weren't ticketless fans, then what caused the crush that saw 96 football fans killed? Did the police let fans with tickets into the wrong part of the ground?
Of the many mistakes that contributed, the final one was that were funneled into the area behind the goal, rather than into the half-empty sections to the sides.
Ok lets not go down this route. I had always thought that the crush was caused by fans entering an enclosure they had no tickets for when a gate was opened by the police. If the documents reveal that only ticketed fans were in the ground at the time of the disaster then it seems I have bought the official line/lie.
the Taylor Report found no evidence of a significant number of ticketless supporters at the ground.
But why were there any, particularly if there were tickets available. Which leads back to the original comment about ticketless fans.
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There was a natural slope down that tunnel which would have increased momentum towards the pen.
CCTV taken at the time shows fans walking through the opened gates not charging in. There would inevitably have been some pushing from behind as the game had already started but that would have been nothing out of the ordainary.
Duckenfield, who was in charge that day, had not reviewed the procedure followed the previous season for exactly the same game. He was completely out of his depth for such a big event which was at the core of the whole tragedy.
Read Hillsborough The Truth by Phil Scratton for a definitive description of events that day.
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But why were there any, particularly if there were tickets available. Which leads back to the original comment about ticketless fans.
The game was a sell-out. There were a few touts around, and a few fans without tickets. There was certainly not enough of them to make any real difference to what happened.
As Nick says, read the book.
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The game was a sell-out.
Was it? I'm not arguing the other stuff, but I read that there were tickets available for the leppings lane end the day before at Anfield.
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The game was a sell-out.
Was it? I'm not arguing the other stuff, but I read that there were tickets available for the leppings lane end the day before at Anfield.
As far as I know it was, although only just. Joking aside, an FA Cup semi-final wasn't a big deal for Liverpool then.
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A fair number of those killed (20 plus I believe) were people with tickets who entered when the gate was opened (because their tickets still had the stubs on them.) This is pretty good evidence that this was not a case of a ticketless mob turning up at the last minute and killing the innocent.
Phil Scruton's book is a harrowing read. From beginning to end the victims and their families have been treated appallingly at every stage of the process.
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A fair number of those killed (20 plus I believe) were people with tickets who entered when the gate was opened (because their tickets still had the stubs on them.) This is pretty good evidence that this was not a case of a ticketless mob turning up at the last minute and killing the innocent.
Phil Scruton's book is a harrowing read. From beginning to end the victims and their families have been treated appallingly at every stage of the process.
Most definitely.
To lose your son or daughter is harrowing and devastating enough. But to go 20+ years without knowing how or why their child died, or to wait for someone to take responsibility must make it impossible to move on with their lives.
An absolute disgrace that this has taken so long. Hopefully the truth will out and those who have been protected will no longer be so.
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Good luck to the families, and i hope they get the closure they all need, but i'm not sure what they expect from this.
What is the big cover up? That Duckenfield panicked?, that football grounds in the 70s, 80s were dangerous places,?That fences stopped people escaping?, that Hillsborough with THAT tunnel was a disaster waiting to happen?
As i say good luck to them, but hanging out someone to dry for this , for me , would just smack of looking for a scapegoat.
There were plenty of reasons for Hillsborough happening, including probably all of our boisterous, aggressive actions in the 70s and 80s making govts treat us like animals, and consequently acting like animals. All i know is that after Hillsborough the authorities started looking at us football supporters as human beings again, and finally started to treat us better.Hillsborough was a horrific accident, terrible, but i think we have to move on.If the families want full exposure, then give it to them, its about time they were given peace of mind.
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It's all about accountability. I don't think it's too much to ask that the authorities are held to account should they fail in their duty of care to the public, and they most certainly should be taken to task if it is found that they tried to cover up their failings (or even worse, lied to shift the blame onto innocent football fans). You might as well ask why there should be an investigation into Bloody Sunday, or the lead up to the Iraq war.
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It's all about accountability. I don't think it's too much to ask that the authorities are held to account should they fail in their duty of care to the public, and they most certainly should be taken to task if it is found that they tried to cover up their failings (or even worse, lied to shift the blame onto innocent football fans). You might as well ask why there should be an investigation into Bloody Sunday, or the lead up to the Iraq war.
It is about accountability. It's about having all the available evidence in public to understand how and why certain decisions were made, not least what led the first inquest to consider that everyone was deceased at 3.15pm when eye witnesses quite clearly gave evidence that people were still alive after that time with barely a paramedic in sight.
The families must have answers to those kind of questions if they are have any peace or closure.
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A fair number of those killed (20 plus I believe) were people with tickets who entered when the gate was opened (because their tickets still had the stubs on them.) This is pretty good evidence that this was not a case of a ticketless mob turning up at the last minute and killing the innocent.
Phil Scruton's book is a harrowing read. From beginning to end the victims and their families have been treated appallingly at every stage of the process.
Most definitely.
To lose your son or daughter is harrowing and devastating enough. But to go 20+ years without knowing how or why their child died, or to wait for someone to take responsibility must make it impossible to move on with their lives.
An absolute disgrace that this has taken so long. Hopefully the truth will out and those who have been protected will no longer be so.
Looking at that book now on my book shelf. Compelling and required reading for anyone who wants to know what it felt like for the families involved at the time it happened and in the immediate aftermath, almost irrespective of who was at fault. The way they were treated was shocking...
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The Cabinet Office is appealing against the decision to make the papers public in order to allow the independant panel to look into the circumstances and aftermath of the disaster and oversee the disclosure of documents. Why don't the panel just look into the circumstances and aftermath and let the ruling by the commissioner that the papers be made public stand? It's not as if there is anything to hide is there? I have memories of the first and last games of the 87-88 season at Ipswich and Swindon where I was in the middle of a good natured Villa crowd waiting to get into the grounds and the arrangements and policing seemed a tad amateur but of course if I had been crushed to death it would have been the fault of the crazed hooligans I was in the middle of.
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119,636 signatures now.
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Done. I hope the families get the justice they deserve to finally allow them to have some closure.
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Bless all the families who have lived a living hell. Justice is to late. But if it helps them good luck .......
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What is the big cover up?
The "establishment" automatically trying to cover up a cock-up; something that seems to happen with monotonous regularity when "ordinary" people are involved.
For a modern equivelant see the "undeserving poor" and then consider how a 5-year old child can drag itself out of poverty created by adults.
The Truth must out (for once)
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I've signed it. I remember being at Preston North End that day - the announcer at Deepdale said "The match has been abandoned due to a pitch invasion by Liverpool fans".
We got back in the car and heard Peter Jones on the radio talking about using Hillsbrough's gym as a makeshift morgue. Horrible, horrible day.
I hope the families get justice and some closure - I can't help feeling that after this long though, they won't get either.
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I've signed it. I remember being at Preston North End that day - the announcer at Deepdale said "The match has been abandoned due to a pitch invasion by Liverpool fans".
We got back in the car and heard Peter Jones on the radio talking about using Hillsbrough's gym as a makeshift morgue. Horrible, horrible day.
I hope the families get justice and some closure - I can't help feeling that after this long though, they won't get either.
I defy anyone to listen to Peter Jones' summing-up of that day without choking.
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There you go.
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I can almost forgive the crush and what happened. But the cover up, the mis-information and the callous way in which relatives were treated is unforgivable. This was a second, totally unavoidable, tragedy.
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Cautious grounds for optimism:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/2199
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If I'm reading this right (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2011/aug/24/hillsborough-documents-independent-panel), it looks like these documents were going to be released anyway. No harm in keeping the pressure up, but the FOI request from the BBC looks like it's been as effective in making sure they're all released.