It's scary how much people trust the media and police force.
Just spent the last hour reading this thread. What occurred to me most is exactly how powerful The Sun's influence was. The story was three days after the event, so the suspicion around the fans has been around for so long that it became the truth to many.
I'm very interested to know more about this - who specifically from the Yorkshire press outfit offered up the story to McKenzie? Was selling papers the only thing he had in mind when he went after it? I assume the police tipped at least one journalist off, but if it was a concerted effort, it's probably the darkest, most successful tactic those involved in the cover up played. As this thread shows. So much so that any further issues around Liverpool fans reaffirms that belief.
makes me ill that Kelvin Mckenzie 'supports' our great club
Didn't know that, does he go that often?
doubt it. He had a weekly column in the sun not that long ago I think were he just slagged us off non-stop but called himself a fan. So much so he held a vote to see if he should change to support QPR.
Wanker.
There was a foto doing the rounds of him at The Valley with Jiminez and Slater soon after the takeover.
What's just as bad is the way he keeps on getting onto Question Time and Newsnight (and getting paid for it) in the interests of 'balance' maybe because too many BBC types are scared of him after years of bullying tactics by his Sun.
Wanker.
I have to agree with you Prague. He was wheeled out to appear on all sorts of programmes and even at the BBC's own news festival. I was a critic of this, and so where other bbc journalists, but I felt the management thought that he was a provocative, critic of the labour goverment, and seemed to love the idea, despite several objections by staff. In fact there were several letters in the newspaper I art edited. You just wound him up, and off he would go, good cheap knock about rant's at someone's expense. In fairness they had a wide range of speakers and pannelists, including Max Moseley, and his sexual exploits which he seemed quite proud of, despite the sniggers from the audience.
It's scary how much people trust the media and police force.
Just spent the last hour reading this thread. What occurred to me most is exactly how powerful The Sun's influence was. The story was three days after the event, so the suspicion around the fans has been around for so long that it became the truth to many.
I'm very interested to know more about this - who specifically from the Yorkshire press outfit offered up the story to McKenzie? Was selling papers the only thing he had in mind when he went after it? I assume the police tipped at least one journalist off, but if it was a concerted effort, it's probably the darkest, most successful tactic those involved in the cover up played. As this thread shows. So much so that any further issues around Liverpool fans reaffirms that belief.
I think the story got credibility when the local Tory MP Irvine Patnic claimed to have spoken directly to Police and emegency service professionals and gave this version of events.
It shows what scumbags they are but why let the truth get in the way of a good story.
l ashamed for believing some (or any) of the 'facts' that were released at the time.
Being brought up by decent parents I was always told to trust and respect the Police. If ever I was lost (when out with my parents) I was told to look for a Policeman and ask him for help. The uniform meant that I could trust him, and I could expect that he was, almost uniquely, guaranteed to offer safe haven for a child that had lost his parents in a public place.
With this being the case (I was a teenager in 1989) I was still of the, I would say natural, opinion that the Police are beyond doubt. They can be trusted. They are, after all's said and done, they are there to protect us.
I would never have believed that the South Yorkshire Police would have carried out such a cover up. I would struggle to believe that any Police force would do so. I find it difficult to believe that none of those individuals involved would have refused to change their statements. I am most horrified, to be honest, that any member of the Police would have made statements about the behaviour of the Liverpool fans. The repeated quote in the report about a group of fans suggesting that a dead girl with no bra on be passed to them so they could have sex with her makes me feel sick. If this was made up to deflect from the 'mistakes' made by the senior police officers then who ever made that decision deserves something that I'd rather not think about.
I, genuinely, believed, as others on here did, that the fans that turned up with no tickets, stopping off for a drink on the way, added to the problems. I went to games back in 1989, and there was often very drunk fans there, and I have been in crowds where pushing from the back (for all sorts of reasons) has caused real problems in a large crowd. However, I just wouldn't have believed that the cover up contained so many lies.
I'm, frankly, ashamed of what I've believed all these years. I said a few days ago that I thought that finding guilt/responsibility for what happened wouldn't help those that had suffered grief. After today I feel that there needs to be further action taken against those involved.
Think OP said it already, but it seems absolutely incredible to me that SWFC and the FA agreed to play the game at Hillsborough when the place had no safety certificate.
From the report on Sheffield Wednesday part in the tragedy an cover up
4. The disclosed documents demonstrate that, following the 1981 incident, there was a breakdown in the relationship between SWFC and SYP. SWFC refused to accept the seriousness of the incident and held SYP responsible for the mismanagementof the crowd. SYP considered that the maximum capacity for the Leppings Lane terrace, set at 10,100, was too high, a view strongly contested by SWFC. ... 7. Following the near tragedy in 1981, Hillsborough was not used for FA Cup semi-finals until 1987. During this period the Leppings Lane terrace underwent a series of significant modifications and alterations, none of which led to a revised safety certificate. The introduction of further lateral fences created two central pens accessed via the tunnel beneath the West Stand. Recommendations to feed fans directly from designated turnstiles into each pen, thus monitoring precisely the distribution of fans between the pens, were not acted on because of anticipated costs to SWFC. 8. Consequently, the turnstile counters were rendered irrelevant. Although they provided a check on the overall numbers entering the terrace, there was no information regarding crowd distribution between pens, each of which had an established maximum capacity. 9. It is evident from the disclosed documents that SYP were preoccupied with crowd management, segregation and regulation to prevent potential disorder.SWFC’s primary concern was to limit costs.
Absolutely staggered to learn some of the things that have emerged today.
This was a terrible tragedy and whenever that occurs there is always self-preservation and blame passing, but some, and the extent, of the corrupt and illegal practices undertaken at the time by our police force and authorities make me feel utterly ashamed.
It seems that some people won't be happy until the whole thing is blamed on the ob.
My God, "DRAIZE IN BIG ROB AGREEMENT SHOCKER"...
This is exactly the case. The scousers simply refuse to except any proportion of blame for what happened at Hillsborough because they cannot face the cold hard fact that they themselves are partially responsible for the deaths of their own fellow supports.
Their stance from the incident to this day is born from their own guilt, nothing more, nothing less. They claim to be so hurt and sympathetic towards the families that lost people that day but their continual denial of their obvious roles in the tragedy is actually an insult to their memory. They constantly bleat about a police cover up yet they have continually conducted their own type of cover up by trying to extricate their own involvement in the terrible events of that day. Disgraceful club, disgraceful supporters.
It seems that some people won't be happy until the whole thing is blamed on the ob.
My God, "DRAIZE IN BIG ROB AGREEMENT SHOCKER"...
This is exactly the case. The scousers simply refuse to except any proportion of blame for what happened at Hillsborough because they cannot face the cold hard fact that they themselves are partially responsible for the deaths of their own fellow supports.
Their stance from the incident to this day is born from their own guilt, nothing more, nothing less. They claim to be so hurt and sympathetic towards the families that lost people that day but their continual denial of their obvious roles in the tragedy is actually an insult to their memory. They constantly bleat about a police cover up yet they have continually conducted their own type of cover up by trying to extricate their own involvement in the terrible events of that day. Disgraceful club, disgraceful supporters.
Utter prick.
This!
You know, I was totally guilty of believing what the Police, and other authorities, claimed to be the events that day. I was always careful, to avoid upsetting those that had suffered, to allow my my beliefs known, but I think it is harsh to criticise those that believed what the Police said. I want to be careful what I say here to avoid insulting people, but when it comes to a choice between believing a Policeman (and this was in excess of 100 Police officers), and the family of 'football fans' that are completely unknown to us, we should feel confident in believing the Police.
I tried to explain earlier how I came to this position, but I think it is harsh to have a dig at someone that fell into the same trap as me, and believed what the Police said was the sequence of events.
Absolutely staggered to learn some of the things that have emerged today.
This was a terrible tragedy and whenever that occurs there is always self-preservation and blame passing, but some, and the extent, of the corrupt and illegal practices undertaken at the time by our police force and authorities make me feel utterly ashamed.
Hear hear. Having witnessed the disaster unfolding on the television. Reading up about it, following the Inquiry and watching various documentaries over the years, I was pretty convinced that the blame lay at the door, primarily of the Police. I have never bought the argument that the fans were to blame even if, as has now been conclusively disproved, many were found to drunk and ticketless.
What I have been horrified to learn is of the scale of the cover up. Frankly this is absolutely shameful. The state turned it's back on the families and ignored the truth. If this was a case of say ignoring child abuse, heads would have rolled years ago. Because it was football fans and the smear story mud had stuck enough in the psyche of many - as demonstrated by Boris shameful rant, nobody took it seriously.
I have not seen that film before but I do vaguely remember that it came up in one of the post Hillsborough documentaries. Chilling is a word that comes to mind.
How anyone seeing that and being responsible for the crowd safety could have allowed something like that to happen again beggars belief. I wonder what responsibility the FA had for continuing to select Hillsborough as a venue for the semi final?
yes lets slag the Sun off not the Old Bill who fed them and the rest ofthe media the story or faked statements or lied under oath.It was the TV media who stopped showing the Obill battening the poor f++kers trying to get out ofthe crash--not because it was a horrific seen but under pressure from the Obill who knew then (as we all do now) what a total CRIMINAL f++K up they had made of it all. Cameron said in the HoC statement " after the truth comes justice"-------------no it wont unless lots of very senior coppers get banged up for CONSPIRACY you know the one they like to throw at football hooolies.
I saw Kelvin McKenzie at a game this year. I was walking down Floyd Road when I spotted him. Always detested the man and was tempted to make a derogatory comment but resisted the temptation. Wish I had now!
You're right - I'm no lover of Liverpool but was capable of using my own brain and not believing the police/press, who have proven time and time again they can't be trusted.
An extraordinary and disgraceful fabrication of evidence and a gross slander. I thought that Kirsty Walk was excellent tonight on "Newsnight" in putting her questions to the panel and giving vent to the justifiable anger that many people are feeling. At least the truth has finally come out.
Interesting also to see Thatcher's chiding of Douglas Herd. In a memorandum to her in response to Lord Justice Taylor's Interim report ( which was very critical of the police ), he suggested that the Government welcomed 'the broad thrust ' of that report. She was not at all keen on that - unsurprisingly in view of her political agenda over several years. I recall that the deeply unpleasant David Evans MP ( for Luton ) had been touting the idea of a national identity card/membership scheme for some time and, but for Taylor's refusal to fall in with the Government's timetable, this might well have become a reality.
Against that backcloth, the love in between Thatcher and the police in the 1980s and the ineptitude of successive governments, one can see how the truth was suppressed for so many years. A tremendous achievement by the campaigners and all their supporters ( including Andy Burnham ) to get where we now are today. Not so good for our populist mayor, looking at the rubbish he was spouting back in 2004 ( as per Friend or Defoe's posting above ).
Find it rather poignant and spooky that, after looking at this thread for the first time since this morning, there were 96 new posts................................
I think one of the reasons the Police did what they did after the tragedy was because at that time they knew they could get away with it. Whilst I am no lover of the Sun and they acted shamefully, we shouldn't forget who did and why they were fed the story they published. We can punish the Sun by not buying it but I'd like to see the focus on the event on those responsible for a criminal cover up. It needs to focus on the top of the establishment down and not look for convenient victims to hang it all on.
Listen to you lot! Gotta say congratulations to all those who got it bang on from the start you must be made up! A big WELL DONE and gold stars to all of you!!
To the rest who thought anything different over the years, you are a nasty bunch of ignorant c**ts!
I've seen a handful of documentaries and came up with the view that it was mostly down to fans turning up without tickets, I now know I was wrong and I've already apologised for this yesterday in this thread. You won't find anyone more distrusting of the ob than me and I don't think I've ever read an article in the papers about what happened that day, in fact I don't think I've bought a UK newspaper for over 10 years because of the bollocks they print; my (incorrect) views on this tragedy were made up from watching a few documentaries....
The thing I just don't get is how the same ground had held lots of sell out matches there in the preceeding years yet this was the first time this problem had occurred on this scale.
The thing I just don't get is how the same ground had held lots of sell out matches there in the preceeding years yet this was the first time this problem had occurred on this scale.
The thing I just don't get is how the same ground had held lots of sell out matches there in the preceeding years yet this was the first time this problem had occurred on this scale.
Think it's been mentioned that the year before police had checkpoints before leppings lan where they were turning away ticketless fans. Didn't have it in 89.
THe Thatcher love in with the police dates back to the miners strike, and Orgrave when the police carried out the large scale attack on the miners. But that was just one of many during that year.
I think one of the reasons the Police did what they did after the tragedy was because at that time they knew they could get away with it. Whilst I am no lover of the Sun and they acted shamefully, we shouldn't forget who did and why they were fed the story they published. We can punish the Sun by not buying it but I'd like to see the focus on the event on those responsible for a criminal cover up. It needs to focus on the top of the establishment down and not look for convenient victims to hang it all on.
They were fed the story but they knew they were being fed. They knew that it was the police's version of the story and that it wasn't necessarily reliable. McK chose to spin the story in the most nasty way to make it appear that it was fact rather than allegation. It was deliberate and it was malicious. Even the Sun accepts this now.
The thing I just don't get is how the same ground had held lots of sell out matches there in the preceeding years yet this was the first time this problem had occurred on this scale.
Think it's been mentioned that the year before police had checkpoints before leppings lan where they were turning away ticketless fans. Didn't have it in 89.
But that is an irrelevance - not many (or none) have come out and said they were part of the 2 or 3,000 that came through the gate and didn't have a ticket. They all must have had tickets.
No it was presented by the Old Bill as FACT. The senior copper was telling people that the scoursers smashed down the turn style, pissed on coppers and robbed the dead. Thats the Old Bill-----senoir coppers Old bill at plod level Old bill at Police Federation level
Guildford 4 Birmingham 6 Stephen Lawerance West Midlands Police Force Met Police Blair Peach Section 60 orders re terrorists applied to football fans
Best in the World your taking the PISS
when your car gets nicked or your hse burgled see what response you get----far to busy doing stuff on Tv like " im a fat twat in a uniform driving a fast car"
no hiding place for the bastards that for 23 years covered this up and that includes their union who also took part in this cover up.
Comments
I'm very interested to know more about this - who specifically from the Yorkshire press outfit offered up the story to McKenzie? Was selling papers the only thing he had in mind when he went after it? I assume the police tipped at least one journalist off, but if it was a concerted effort, it's probably the darkest, most successful tactic those involved in the cover up played. As this thread shows. So much so that any further issues around Liverpool fans reaffirms that belief.
MP and a Sir.
He was wheeled out to appear on all sorts of programmes and even at the BBC's own news festival.
I was a critic of this, and so where other bbc journalists, but I felt the management thought that he was a provocative, critic of the labour goverment, and seemed to love the idea, despite several objections by staff. In fact there were several letters in the newspaper I art edited. You just wound him up, and off he would go, good cheap knock about rant's at someone's expense. In fairness they had a wide range of speakers and pannelists, including Max Moseley, and his sexual exploits which he seemed quite proud of, despite the sniggers from the audience.
I think the story got credibility when the local Tory MP Irvine Patnic claimed to have spoken directly to Police and emegency service professionals and gave this version of events.
It shows what scumbags they are but why let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Being brought up by decent parents I was always told to trust and respect the Police. If ever I was lost (when out with my parents) I was told to look for a Policeman and ask him for help. The uniform meant that I could trust him, and I could expect that he was, almost uniquely, guaranteed to offer safe haven for a child that had lost his parents in a public place.
With this being the case (I was a teenager in 1989) I was still of the, I would say natural, opinion that the Police are beyond doubt. They can be trusted. They are, after all's said and done, they are there to protect us.
I would never have believed that the South Yorkshire Police would have carried out such a cover up. I would struggle to believe that any Police force would do so. I find it difficult to believe that none of those individuals involved would have refused to change their statements. I am most horrified, to be honest, that any member of the Police would have made statements about the behaviour of the Liverpool fans. The repeated quote in the report about a group of fans suggesting that a dead girl with no bra on be passed to them so they could have sex with her makes me feel sick. If this was made up to deflect from the 'mistakes' made by the senior police officers then who ever made that decision deserves something that I'd rather not think about.
I, genuinely, believed, as others on here did, that the fans that turned up with no tickets, stopping off for a drink on the way, added to the problems. I went to games back in 1989, and there was often very drunk fans there, and I have been in crowds where pushing from the back (for all sorts of reasons) has caused real problems in a large crowd. However, I just wouldn't have believed that the cover up contained so many lies.
I'm, frankly, ashamed of what I've believed all these years. I said a few days ago that I thought that finding guilt/responsibility for what happened wouldn't help those that had suffered grief. After today I feel that there needs to be further action taken against those involved.
4. The disclosed documents demonstrate that, following the 1981 incident, there was a breakdown in the relationship between SWFC and SYP. SWFC refused to accept the seriousness of the incident and held SYP responsible for the mismanagementof the crowd. SYP considered that the maximum capacity for the Leppings Lane terrace, set at 10,100, was too high, a view strongly contested by SWFC.
...
7. Following the near tragedy in 1981, Hillsborough was not used for FA Cup semi-finals until 1987. During this period the Leppings Lane terrace underwent a series of significant modifications and alterations, none of which led to a revised safety certificate. The introduction of further lateral fences created two central pens accessed via the tunnel beneath the West Stand. Recommendations to feed fans directly from designated turnstiles into each pen, thus monitoring precisely the distribution of fans between the pens, were not acted on because of anticipated costs to SWFC.
8. Consequently, the turnstile counters were rendered irrelevant. Although they
provided a check on the overall numbers entering the terrace, there was no information regarding crowd distribution between pens, each of which had an established maximum capacity.
9. It is evident from the disclosed documents that SYP were preoccupied with crowd management, segregation and regulation to prevent potential disorder.SWFC’s primary concern was to limit costs.
This was a terrible tragedy and whenever that occurs there is always self-preservation and blame passing, but some, and the extent, of the corrupt and illegal practices undertaken at the time by our police force and authorities make me feel utterly ashamed.
I tried to explain earlier how I came to this position, but I think it is harsh to have a dig at someone that fell into the same trap as me, and believed what the Police said was the sequence of events.
What I have been horrified to learn is of the scale of the cover up. Frankly this is absolutely shameful. The state turned it's back on the families and ignored the truth. If this was a case of say ignoring child abuse, heads would have rolled years ago. Because it was football fans and the smear story mud had stuck enough in the psyche of many - as demonstrated by Boris shameful rant, nobody took it seriously.
How anyone seeing that and being responsible for the crowd safety could have allowed something like that to happen again beggars belief. I wonder what responsibility the FA had for continuing to select Hillsborough as a venue for the semi final?
Cameron said in the HoC statement " after the truth comes justice"-------------no it wont unless lots of very senior coppers get banged up for CONSPIRACY you know the one they like to throw at football hooolies.
Interesting also to see Thatcher's chiding of Douglas Herd. In a memorandum to her in response to Lord Justice Taylor's Interim report ( which was very critical of the police ), he suggested that the Government welcomed 'the broad thrust ' of that report. She was not at all keen on that - unsurprisingly in view of her political agenda over several years. I recall that the deeply unpleasant David Evans MP ( for Luton ) had been touting the idea of a national identity card/membership scheme for some time and, but for Taylor's refusal to fall in with the Government's timetable, this might well have become a reality.
Against that backcloth, the love in between Thatcher and the police in the 1980s and the ineptitude of successive governments, one can see how the truth was suppressed for so many years. A tremendous achievement by the campaigners and all their supporters ( including Andy Burnham ) to get where we now are today. Not so good for our populist mayor, looking at the rubbish he was spouting back in 2004 ( as per Friend or Defoe's posting above ).
To the rest who thought anything different over the years, you are a nasty bunch of ignorant c**ts!
I've seen a handful of documentaries and came up with the view that it was mostly down to fans turning up without tickets, I now know I was wrong and I've already apologised for this yesterday in this thread. You won't find anyone more distrusting of the ob than me and I don't think I've ever read an article in the papers about what happened that day, in fact I don't think I've bought a UK newspaper for over 10 years because of the bollocks they print; my (incorrect) views on this tragedy were made up from watching a few documentaries....
RIP
Thats the Old Bill-----senoir coppers
Old bill at plod level
Old bill at Police Federation level
Guildford 4
Birmingham 6
Stephen Lawerance
West Midlands Police Force
Met Police
Blair Peach
Section 60 orders re terrorists applied to football fans
Best in the World your taking the PISS
when your car gets nicked or your hse burgled see what response you get----far to busy doing stuff on Tv like " im a fat twat in a uniform driving a fast car"
no hiding place for the bastards that for 23 years covered this up and that includes their union who also took part in this cover up.