Safe Standing - Fan led consultation - online link - post #43

[paul_e]

I'm glad other people see as I do, the whole things is very personal for those people, for very clear reasons, but that doesn't give their opinion any more weight than the large number of people who want these trials to go ahead and the facts and figures lean heavily towards instigating trials.

[amfy]

The website 'This is Anfield' have done a series of articles supporting safe standing which are really well informed and make brilliant reading.

They make convincing arguments that it is more supportive of the 96 to campaign for a return to standing. It was poor crowd management that killed those supporters - blaming standing is part of the cover up.

[Mister E]

The website 'This is Anfield' have done a series of articles supporting safe standing which are really well informed and make brilliant reading.

They make convincing arguments that it is more supportive of the 96 to campaign for a return to standing. It was poor crowd management that killed those supporters - blaming standing is part of the cover up.

I heard the piece on R5L this morning and was hopping mad at the ill-informed comments from the Hillsborough families spokesperson. She added no value to the discussion and I really feel that their opinion is not only wedded in the past but also completely misleading.
I emailed the BBC to that effect, too.

[Ads]

Her explanation for why it works in Germany but couldn't possibly work in England is a  frankly bizarre.

[Somniloquism]

What was the reason?

[cdbearsfan]

Because English people are different shapes to Germans, I don't care what happens abroad it has no effect on this country and la la la I can't hear you. Or words to that effect.

[dave.woodhall]

Because English people are different shapes to Germans, I don't care what happens abroad it has no effect on this country and la la la I can't hear you. Or words to that effect.

When she as good as said "I don't care about Germans, they've never died" was when I lost all respect for her.

[Dave Cooper please]

It was bizarre.
With almost no exception, every football fan in this country sympathises with the Hillsborough families, but she was doing them no good at all.
At one point I'm sure she was saying that if you stand up at a football ground you might die. Well yes, if you cross the road you might die as well, in fact you have a better statistical chance of it, but I will still cross the road.
After all the campaigning they did they need a better spokesperson, someone whose arguments aren't still trying to put the blame on terraces (which were only a very small part of the problem at Hillsborough) and keep the focus on the much bigger problems that caused the disaster.

She has probably helped the safe standing campaign though, because her counter arguments were so utterly hatstand that she was basically arguing for safe standing.

[Jimbo]

I think she meant that it wouldn't work in this country because the English are slightly more moronic than the Germans, and she was kind enough to provide an example.

[Ads]

As has been said, she has an outdated view of the whole argument and as Dave said, only puts more fuel into the Safe Standing argument. She said that you cannot have standing without cages and fences.

She should really do some research.

[OCD]

I don't think research would do anyone like that any good. She has a closed mind to the whole thing and has no interest in the debate; and I can see why that would be. I can see safe standing happening and people of that ilk will have a hard problem with it.

[Villa in Denmark]

The irony is, their whole (fully justified) campaign was to quite rightly focus on the police actions that day, not that fans were standing.
As far as I can remember originally the finger wasn't pointed at terracing as a concept. That's  something that's come later in the battle.

I wonder if for those who fought so hard to see the truth recognised in public, after living with the grief of losing a loved one under those circumstances, now that that battle is over, there's a sense of what do I do now, hence the incomprehensible (to an outsider), utterances.

[peter w]

To be fair the longer Margaret Aspinwall, and those like her speak, the closer standing becomes.

[amfy]

I feel sad for her. Its too hard a loss. Its wrecked her life and nothing will make sense again.
safe standing will happen though

[dave.woodhall]

I feel sad for her. Its too hard a loss. Its wrecked her life and nothing will make sense again.
safe standing will happen though

I think the phrase there is "wrecked her life". Some people who suffer tragedy can use the experience as a force for good. Others become embittered. A good example is the mother of the Moors Murders victim who basically became a professional victim, always on call for such programmes as Central Weekend. Both women suffered unimaginable tragedy and although it's easy for me to say, neither show(ed) a willingness to move on and accept that others might have different views.