24 years ago today

[Miltonroader07]

How do you know what my first thoughts today were? I had many thoughts before posting on this thread.

 

Because Turkish read what you wrote as did all of my fans

[alehouseboys]

Me and the missus were walking down Shirley High Street and noticed events unfolding on the TV screens through the shop window of a television store. We stood, now with a growing audience, and watched the chaos on the pitch just assuming it was crowd trouble, it looked bad and visions of Heysel came back. We watched for a while and then went home, it was only then, now we could hear, that the shocking reality of the situation was becoming clear. Shocking day.

 

Heysel, Bradford and Hillsborough, they were a mad few years.

[Saints boy in Leeds]

I remember coming back from the roller disco (every sat at river park leisure centre, Winchester) and my Dad was watching it live on TV, it was wierd as my old boy isn't into football yet was watching, remember felling very sad as he was crying, RIP.

[ART]

24 years ago I was in Beijing as another immense tragedy was unfolding, the 1989 Beijing Spring and the students uprising which began with so much hope and ended in the bloody tragedy of June 4th.

 

I wasn't to learn of the tragic events at Hllsborough till many months later. yet I rejoice that after all this time justice is finally being done. I only hope some day there will also be justice and the truth about the events of Tienanmen

[John Boy Saint]

We had just been to Ikea at Wembley, which at the time was new in the UK, with friends we had gone in to find stuff for our 1st new house that we were moving into in the next week. I had just nipped into a favourate Indian sweet shop to buy some tempting fancys to force onto the Guinea pigs in the car, when I got back into the car faces were serious as the radio was on the football, we drove from Wembley to Basingstoke just listening to the disaster unfolding in silence.

[de-fence]

Don't mean to take this off the topic of where were you when it happened but I have a question. I know this is a very sensitive subject and am asking this simply as someone who is not all that educated on the event and not as a show of any disrespect or accusing anyone of blame. It occurred 2 years before I was born so wasn't until my old man told me about it many years later that I knew anything of it.

 

What I wanted to ask is, I know after this report has come out that the Liverpool fans have been absolved of any blame. What I'm curious to know is if there has ever been any blame attached to the ticket-less Liverpool fans who ultimately provided the extra numbers that created the crush. If they hadn't been there then surely this wouldn't have happened. They must have been aware of the safety risk associated with squeezing them and those they were there with into an area where they weren't supposed to be. Have I missed something drastic that disregards this?

[Minsk]

What a shame you have to act like a knob and can't see past your agenda against me on what is a serious and interesting thread. Says more about you than it does about me I'm afraid.

 

Don't flatter yourself princess, I have no agenda against you.

 

I have also made other posts on here completely on topic, but as usual you will only respond to those posts which will most likely illicit a response and will ignore everything else.

[Minsk]

because turkish read what you wrote as did all of my fans

 

wtf????

[Turkish]

Don't flatter yourself princess, I have no agenda against you.

 

I have also made other posts on here completely on topic, but as usual you will only respond to those posts which will most likely illicit a response and will ignore everything else.

 

Far more tragic AND more Saints related!!

 

Might even appeal to Turkish as Liverpool related too.

 

correct, i should have replied to this one as well. Talking about me in a completely unrelated post. Good work.

[Huffton]

I was 14, I was at home in Formby listening to the radio. I had school mates at the game, no idea which bit of the ground they were in, no way of knowing if they were OK. Thankfully they all turned up at school on Monday morning.

[Chewy]

I watched it on grandstand, I was 12 I think and remember the growing sense of despair from the commentator (somebody earlier thought it was Gerald sinstadt but i thought it was Motty. Doesn't matter, it was a horrible afternoon.). This weekends events have brought hooliganism etc to the fore again, but compared to the 80s it's nothing. Bradford (not hooligans I know), heysel, hillsborough ... Something every couple of years. Unbelievable to think now how fraught a trip to a football match could be. I watched Bournemouth a lot in those days and remember stewards rugby tackling pitch invaders almost every week, plus the fences that caged us in. We really have come a long way since then, despite what happened this weekend. It's the one comfort the families of the 96 can take, football is thankfully unrecognisable as a spectator from those dark days. Rip

[SaintBobby]

Horrible stuff. Made even sicker by the police/state cover-up. I remember thinking I'd never go to football after it.

 

But I am of the view, I'm afraid, that it's time to move on.

 

About 2,000 people every year die in British road accidents.

 

They don't tend to get remembered 24 years on.

[whelk]

I was at West Ham also. There was cheering in Saints end at first when announced game delayed. No one realised the seriousness initially and thought it was hooligans. I can't remember mood turning sombre but remember later seeing Sunday papes on sale in London and realsiing the scale.

Something more innocent not having Twitter and mobile devices

[Roger]

Was at Upton park. Was only 8 so standing then seemed quite intimidating there. Was great to win but hard to take hearing news.

[Viking Warrior]

I was at cropwell bishop near Nottingham . My mate Chris was at the game in the opposite end. Meanwhile I was doing some plastering for him in his kitchen . On a similar vein i was serving in Cyprus at the time of the Heysel stadium incident . Watching it on Cypriot tv

[FarehamRed]

I was at Upton Park as well. Went up on the Train from Petersfield in a train full of Skates, who (I think) were playing Crystal Palace on the same day. I remember my Mum being very relieved when I got home, as she didn't know which match I was at!

 

Sad day.

[badgerx16]

I was in hospital having an emergency appendectomy. I came round from the aneasthetic at about 20 past 5 and asked for the radio to be turned on so I could get the footie results, the first thing I heard was mention of ambulances on the pitch.

[Frank's cousin]

Absolutely this!!!

 

Justice will be when those who were responsible for the actual tragedy AND for the subsequent cover-up are doing time.

 

THough about this, but cant help posing a couple of thoughts... For me the cover up is what they should do time for - because that has for years denied the victims families the truth and cast balme on ordinary fans.

 

The police action on the day was respoinsible for the tragedy. Massive mistakes were made in basic crowd safety no doubt, but these were mistakes made against a backdrop of the times, and several things tragically came together to make it happen; the police mistakes, the ground not fit for purpose, the cages/fences, preventing escape to the pitch, the wrong decisons made by sone or two in not sheperding fans to the right pens etc, the confusion and inactivity during and after preventing lives being saved by ealier paramedic attention.

 

Understanding all these factors and identifying those accountable is important for both the families and to ensure such a tragic combination of events could not happen again, but is 'justice' really served by putting people on trial for mistakes? Especially when the whole atmosphere surrounding football at the time was one of fear and associated problems. The cover up though was without doubt criminally shameful. I am not saying I am right with the above, but often when faced with such tragedies, its easy to think that justice is about locking folk up, but I wonder whether its easy for us to find a black and white guilty verdict because we were not in the situation making those decisions?

 

Is the lead copper on the day guilty because he made the wrong decsions, or should it be his boss for putting an inexperienced at football officer in charge on that day? I am not so sure. Would be interested to hear others thoughts on this.

[The9]

On the back of Heysel, Hillsborough and then sadly, Bradford, the commision went for all-seater stadiums. Plus a load of other hooligan related, people's freedom, people's rights being taken away without the legal standing. Now, as we know, the pendulum of blame has swung back to the officials side - the police, the politicians and the government. What do we find when we turn that stone over? Lies, miusrepresentation, blame and denial, all packaged up ina nice little way to help erode our human rights.

 

Let's get this right shall we? Let's just remember that it was the police and the government that 'blamed' the fans and off the back of this, football fans' rights were eroded overnight. It was known that this was incorrect, but because the people that knew, had the power and position to hide this fact, mis-carriage after mis-carriage of justice has been delivered.

 

I give my thanks to the families and friends of the 96 that continued the struggle to the highest level and never let the government sweep away those deaths as nothing more than a hooligan problem and that hooligan's were to blame!

 

Sometimes I am ashamed to live in these times, people are killed everyday and where there is government conclusions, we all accept like sheep. The 96 are a landmark because they undermined that concept, long live the memory of the 96 whose memory was taken away and replaced by a fictional tyrany, the head of which, will be laid to rest on Wednesday.

 

I'm not sure I agree with either your timeline or most of the conclusions you've come to, though I do agree that the justice campaign deserves praise. The Taylor Report was far from the condemnation of fans that an anti-fan government would have wanted, though I agree that the all-seater demands which came from it were not really the crux of the argument from Taylor's perspective.

 

As for rights being eroded due to Hillsborough, I completely disagree. The alcohol legislation (still in force) came in 4 years before the Hillsborough Disaster, the legislation about frredom of movement (eg coach parties not drinking etc) was years after and not related to the disaster at all. The only changes which impacted on fans after Hillsborough were beneficial and safety-based, even implementing some of the Popplewell Report findings post-Bradford which had been scandalously ignored by football. The only arguable reduction of "fans' rights" is the removal of standing, and that was widely accepted in the immediate aftermath.

 

There is far more than one person to blame in this - the clubs who allowed grounds to get into disrepair and channelled funds into transfers instead of safety or new facilities, the local authorities which didn't enforce safety guidlines, the FA for choosing a ground which didn't have a safety certificate, and had changed significantly in terms of capacity and fences since the last one it did have, Sheffield Wednesday for failing to signpost other enclosures correctly, the person who opened the gate, and arguably many others.

 

The key however is to learn from it. And football, albeit in the rush for new money, certainly improved facilities and safety.

[The9]

As for "those who turned up late" and "those without tickets", I believe the findings were that the numbers of ticketless fans were not a significant factor, the police should have been ready for a late flow of fans to the ground (after all it happens every match), and the outer pens still had capacity for people, had they only been directed away from the downhill slope and central pen immediately in front of the gates.

[Junior Mullet]

I was playing in my back garden. I came in to ask what the score was and my Dad told me not to watch and explained what was happening. Will never forget that he said at the time it was because Beardsley had hit the crossbar with a good shot and the crowd were very excited.

 

I was young, but things like this seemed to happen at football fairly regularly back then. Safety in grounds has improved immeasurably. I remember watching Palace with my Dad as a kid (he being a Palace fan) and we stood on the home terrace and I couldn't believe how much it filled up and how little room we all had. I liked the atmosphere but it was bloody chaos.

[SaintBobby]

The level of Saints-relatedness here is just overwhelming.

 

I might start a new thread about the last episode of Dr Who.

 

And which teams might play in "Ice Warrior" green next season.

 

Pls move the thread, mods.