According to the document, leaked to the BBC, chief constable Sir Kenneth Oxford told the adviser: ‘A key factor in causing the disaster was the fact that large numbers of Liverpool fans had turned up without ticketsAn unquestionable fact? It doesn't seem to have been challenged.
This was getting lost sight of in attempts to blame the police, the football authorities, etc.’
Another – unnamed – officer was said to have directly blamed the supporters.First-hand account of the scene?
‘One officer, born and bred in Liverpool, said that he was deeply ashamed to say that it was drunken Liverpool fans who had caused this disaster, just as they had caused the deaths at Heysel,’ the note said.
We won’t concern ourselves with all that, though. After all, there’s VICTIMHOOD! to claim:
Sheila Coleman of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign said she was disgusted but not surprised at the views expressed by the police.What ‘race’ are Liverpudlians, then?
‘Those of us who were around Liverpool in the 1980s are well aware of Ken Oxford’s racist and bigoted views, Presumably he recruited senior officers with a similar mindset,’ she told the programme.
Answers on a postcard, please, as well as where they stand in ‘Victimhood Poker’…
23 comments:
'ey, 'ey, 'ey - how dare dey blame dose liverpool people d'eyve a great sense of humour and never do nuttin wrong dey do dooo dey?
I regularly policed premiership games in South London and when Liverpool or Everton were playing we always had problems with their supporters arriving late - it was almost compulsory for them, arriving pissed and trying to get in for free. I've had kids being smuggled in rucksacs (it's the diet up there), two people trying to get through a turnstile at a time, plus they're rude, gobby tossers.
Hillsborough was indeed tragic, appalling and seeing the newsreels from the time one ca only feel shocked and horrified - still. One thing is for sure, mistakes were made by the police for sure but it is time Liverpool and the various victim pressure groups stood up and accepted the part of Liverpool supporters in all this too.
Every announcement like this is publicised as if a heresy had been shouted during the Inquisition.
BBC news had a vox pop interview last night in which a Liverpudlian rubbished the assertion that fans were drunk or without tickets:
"I wasn't drunk and I had a ticket so it's not true", a feat of extrapolation that went completely unchallenged by the interviewer (at least in the edit I saw).
Has anyone, I wonder, researched the role of the false syllogism in victimhood?
I always believed that the Hillsborough disaster was as a result of a minority of pissed up, ticketless scousers shoving their way into an already full enclosure, pushing past the police line by sheer weight of number.
The South Yorkshire police and Sheffield Wednesday must also shoulder some of the blame as the policing and ticketing arrangements on the day were woefully inadequate. However, just as with politics, with the Hillsborough disaster there's no place for the truth. That would mean the people of Liverpool would have to face up to the fact that the people that died that day were killed as a result of the thoughtless actions of other Liverpudlians.
I regularly attend football matches at what is possibly the most modern stadium in the country and can safely say that a disaster such as Hillsborough is now nigh on impossible.
If Muslim can be a 'race' surely Scouse can be as well
or to answer your question.
What ‘race’ are Liverpudlians, then?
Gawd knows, but it's not 'human'
Don't get me started on this subject.........unfortunately the ones that died were mainly the sensible ones who got in early and were squashed at the front.
I bet the ones who arrived late and pushed their way in are proud of themselves.
I agree with Ranter as well.
But why were they crushed up against those dangerous fences? It's not like there was a problem with pissed-up Scallies invading the pitch and making a complete arse of themselves, was it?
A friend of mine, who policed Liverpool for 30 years and regularly worked the home matches at Liverpool and Everton is incensed that those with an axe to grind about this whole sorry episode are still, after nearly thirty years, trying to paint the football fans at the match as all being a sober as a plaster saint...
He points out that on match days the pubs outside the ground are 'bouncing' with drunken, football garb clad yobs, who, in a heightened state of inebriation then go into the ground to vent their fury; shout drunken imprecations, sing bizarre and meaningless songs at a mob of equally moronic drunken opposition fans.
To suggest that they (the fans) had no causal factor on the events of that day is farcical. I am sure that mistakes were made by the police but I am equally sure that a large crowd of pissed cretins, with no tickets, pushed their way into the ground at the last minute.
You can tell, by what those with a grudge to bear about this matter have said that they will never accept the truth of this obvious fact. It is sad that many lost loved ones that day but accidents happen sometimes, even when every care is taken.
This does not mean that someone should shoulder all the blame for it. Time to let it go. It will not bring the dead back.
Yay and nay to a lot of the things that have been said here. One thing that always seems overlooked is that the Leppings Lane terrace (I've stood on it myself) was well under capacity as a whole at the moment the situation became critical.
The wing sections were half empty, while the two central sections (everyone used to try and get behind the goal for big games) were dangerously, visibly overcrowded WAY before then.
This is a situation that should have been observed well in advance. In fact it shouldn't have been allowed to arise in the first place as tickets were (or certainly should have been) clearly marked for certain turnstiles which gave admittance to certain sections.
About three months before Hillsborough I was at a big cup game at a London ground and was caught up in a frightening crush. It was the only time to date in my life when i was convinced I was about to die. If wire fences had been in place at the front of that terrace I would have, and you'd never have heard of Hillsborough.
Going to break this up....
...
My clear memories of that particular occasion were of the police assaulting people desperately trying to escape. When I had got away from the immediate danger I implored a police officer to open an adjacent gate and let people into an empty section and getting a mouthful plus a half-hearted swing of a truncheon.
I'm not a cop-basher, these are honest recollections.
And I'm not overlooking the culture which existed across football support UK-wide of turning up late and pissed. I think between the contempt, indifference and incompetence of the football authorities, the mutual antagonism between fans and cops, and the reckless culture of the terraces, we may all have been galloping towards this kind of catastrophe for some time.
And there's nothing to be gained anymore from raking over Hillsborough again.
Not a Scouser nor a fan of either of the Scouse clubs BTW.
In no particular order. The fences were put up to prevent pitch invasions and fighting, a common occurrence in the 1980s.
The blame for the Heysel stadium disaster 39 dead, 600 injured had been laid on Liverpool fans, but later the Dutch Police and other officials were blamed.
CC Ken Oxford was in battle with his very left wing Police Committee member Margaret Simey.
This was about the time of Derek Hatton in Liverpool and Blunkett flying the red flag above Sheffield town hall.
Margaret Thatcher was PM and the Miners Strike had been won, or lost, depending on your outlook.
Somehow Hillsborough got mixed up in the politics of the time and it has become politically incorrect to suggest that the incident could have been caused by Liverpool fans.
I don't really have an opinion about this incident. But it was immediately clear that the BBC has.
Everyone knows the Police were completely blameless and the CCTV proves it.
Or would prove it,if only the Police hadn't 'lost' it.
Hey, who'd have known that film showing the death of nearly a hundred citizens would be considered 'important'?
They probably needed to tape an episode of 'Minder',right?
Also, rewriting witness statements is SOP for the Five-oh. In fact, they rewrote the statements in the Stephen Lawrence case too.
Except not really.
Also, history proves they issued a statement saying Stephen Lawrence was killed by Zulus. Admittedly, it's not strictly true, but anyone who says it was a crude attempt to buy time is clearly a raycist.
So there.
Everyone know that true conservatism involves a healthy contempt for agents of the State, unless Scousers are involved.
Actually, looking at that last comment, it's kind of whiny. That being so, let me rephrase it: the whole point of 'equality under law' is the belief that once you accept that police officers can destroy CCTV footage, rewrite witness statements and issue bogus press releases all bets are off. You no longer have standing to criticise much of any police misconduct, even if it involves folk you actually like.
"I regularly policed premiership games in South London and when Liverpool or Everton were playing we always had problems with their supporters arriving late - it was almost compulsory for them, arriving pissed and trying to get in for free."
I guess no-one ever thought it would prove dangerous one day.
Usually, they'd have been right..
"Has anyone, I wonder, researched the role of the false syllogism in victimhood?"
It seems to be something even the most desperate of researchers steers away from. I guess there's always more junk to research instead, and it pays better.
"However, just as with politics, with the Hillsborough disaster there's no place for the truth."
I fear you're right.
"Gawd knows, but it's not 'human'"
Heh!
"....unfortunately the ones that died were mainly the sensible ones who got in early and were squashed at the front."
That just adds poignancy, doesn't it? Do everything right, and yet still die as a result of the thoughtless and careless.
" It's not like there was a problem with pissed-up Scallies invading the pitch and making a complete arse of themselves, was it?"
Indeed. Yet again, we react to the troublesome few by blanket changes that affect EVERYONE. Sometimes fatally.
"...are still, after nearly thirty years, trying to paint the football fans at the match as all being a sober as a plaster saint... "
Yes. That's the thing that gets me. It's utterly absurd. Why do they think anyone would believe it?
"This is a situation that should have been observed well in advance. In fact it shouldn't have been allowed to arise in the first place.."
There's no question that it shouldn't. None at all.
" I think between the contempt, indifference and incompetence of the football authorities, the mutual antagonism between fans and cops, and the reckless culture of the terraces, we may all have been galloping towards this kind of catastrophe for some time."
Crowds are dangerous things. If those in them (voluntary or not) panic, that panic spreads. It's no surprise that it spreads out of the crowd to others.
"This was about the time of Derek Hatton in Liverpool and Blunkett flying the red flag above Sheffield town hall."
Yes. It seems so long ago, doesn't it? And yet...not really.
"I don't really have an opinion about this incident. But it was immediately clear that the BBC has."
Yup! 'Unbiased' my foot!
"Everyone knows the Police were completely blameless and the CCTV proves it. "
No, they certainly weren't. No-one here's claiming that, are they?
And was there widespread CCTV at that time? Certainly nothing like we've got today, surely!
"... the whole point of 'equality under law' is the belief that once you accept that police officers can destroy CCTV footage, rewrite witness statements and issue bogus press releases all bets are off."
Can we accept that because it happened in one known case, it's therefore widespread?
"You no longer have standing to criticise much of any police misconduct, even if it involves folk you actually like."
If we don't criticise it, then what do we do? Just accept it?
My understanding at the time was
a) lots of drunk, ticketless Scallies trying to force their way into the ground by weight of numbers.
b) police who didn't want a ruck or were outnumbered (or senior officer didn't want a ruck) gave in and opened the gates
So there's no reason why it can't be both the fault of the police, who failed in their duty to the people who actually had tickets, and the fault of the Scallies who had form (only the year before) when it came to crushing people to death.
People who lived round the Hillsborough ground at the time of the disaster can tell you what it was like for ordinary people to be confronted, outside their homes, by a lot of drunken people with little regard for others or their property. It wasn't, by all accounts, pleasant for them and many of them had no interest in the outcome of that football match.
The story back then was there were counterfeit tickets on sale in Liverpool, there were delays in people getting to Sheffield over the Pennines, fans were pretty drunk when they turned up and large numbers of Liverpool supporters stayed in the pubs to the last possible minute (which was one of the reasons the disaster happened as late as it did) and the idea was among some ticketless fans to cause a commotion outside and someone to be worried about a crush and open the gates for free admission.
Well, one way of another all of these things played a part.
It is, of course, impossible to say this without causing a huge amount of offence and indignation (and I am sorry for the loss of loved ones for many families and the pain and suffering of the injured) but though the football club involved and the police made errors, there is no getting away from the fact that on that day Liverpool fans were complicit in the deaths of other Liverpool fans.
But sometimes the truth, unpalatable though it is, cannot be heard over the din of protests.
Always love the anti-police comments. Can't wait to get out the job.
It is about 20 years ago i used to have to police top-flight football matches. Briefings were always the same, the majority were there to watch the game but there are a substantial number who are here to cause violence and trouble. You would get mobs sometimes of several hundred on each side out to smash each other up.
We were always outnumbered and if we arrested anyone then that would be us away from the scene whilst we spend the rest of the day booking the prisoner in and sorting out a solicitor for him.
Remember playing cat and mouse with a group of Sunderland fans one day who were circling the ground looking to jump the turnstiles. Our focus was entirely on the thugs and containing them. A lad had been killed at Birmingham, i think it was 1985, crushed by a wall same day as Bradford Fire, it was a different era to the Health and Safety minded society we have today.
The police were not responsible for stadium design. Remember the famous policeman on a white horse the first match at wembley? Why could he control a crowd as opposed to all those on that fateful day? Nothing to do with the kind of fan and respect shown to authority i suppose.
Were it not for the drunken animal thuggery from supporters in that era then there would have been no disaster. Police made errors in handling the situation outside, but if the gates had not been opened, then people would have been crushed to death outside and the police criticised for not opening the gates.
No police officer set off that day to kill anyone or deliberately take a decision to want to put people in danger. That is not enough for those that hate the police.
The thugs, drunks, ticketless violent mob....well that is just a myth to the scousers. The kind when they get shot or stabbed to death are dscribed as 'loveable rogues'. You can look at some of the football hooligan websites where they fondly recall their past exploits. Scousers had a reputation for their 'Stanley Knives', why would police behave like social workers to them. It was an era of robust policing, such as that which recently won acclaim.
It's only a couple of years since Liverpool fans stormed the Champions League Final venue.....guess that never happened either.
Let them believe what they want....reality is not compatible with their beliefs. Just like some feminists can't handle the fact that some women are violent to men....it doesn't fit their world view. Bless them.
Oh, and my uncle is a Liverpool fan who has been going for years.....he knows they have their share of violent thugs. Some can see it, some don't want to.
I went to Hillsbrough several times in the 70's and early 80's. After the first time I learned to avoid the both Leppings Lane end and the steep bank behind the other goal. Also, I have been to the old Burnden Park and The Heysel. What the story was that when the game started the police bunked off.
Not sure what you are referring to there.
It used to be standard practice for police to leave grounds whilst the match was on. Clubs used to object that some officers would watch the match so requested they all waited outside.
Liverpudlians are a race apart. One of my lady friends is one and she's ... interesting.
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