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As inferred above, there was previous at Hillsborough. I was there for a league cup semi between Sheff Wed and Liverpool. I was on the leppings lane end. It was scary. The authorities were ill prepared. The ground wasn't prepared. Decisions on the day exacerbated these issues and decisions since conspired to deflect responsibility. Even then, every human being had a right to expect to be reasonably safe when attending a high profile showcase football match.
There are a few issues that wrankle me.Firstly heart felt simpathy for the 96 innocents who were killed and also for the families,As for the 2,000 or so Morons that turned up at leppings lane without tickets and fully intent on rushing the Gates to get in,their behaviour was abhorrent, how they get off Scott free is bewildering.Next you have the Cowboys in the SYP senior command team who thought it would be a nice little tick in the book for Duckenfields career and advancement into the ranks of ACCPO.How wrong they were to put their fate into the hands of a man who was regarded by the rank and file as a buffoon long before Hillsborough ever happened,maybe he was in the right Lodge or something.What happened next needs to be heavily scrutinised,instead of throwing themselves on their swords the senior command team looked for scapegoats and decided that they were clever enough to dig their way out of trouble by throwing a lot of Muck about.Clearly they weren't and I hope that some of them are brought to book.What I don't want to see is the rate payers of South Yorkshire having to foot a very hefty bill to pay for something which had nothing to do with them.
Just read SM's post,Roger Marshall was spot on, SYP had been expecting another walk in the Park as per the previous year,they did not think that the predicted Gate Rush was going to occur and just weren't prepared for it.
I haven't pored over the evidence however it occurs to me that, at that time, it would/should have been expected and anticipated that the crowd would behave - well - as a crowd! There may have been too many fans arriving at one time, ticketless or not, ans some may have been drinking beforehand. But the point I make is that that would have been expected and therefore planned for and managed.Therefore, and this is my opinion only, that the crowd behaving as a crowd would have been expected to, in the 80s, was perhaps a contributory factor but not a cause. Hence the fans weren't to blame directly.
It is a terrible thing what happened on that awful day, no one should ever have to grieve for the loss of a loved 1 who goes to a game of football. But this is got to be said that a section of LCF fan's went without tickets and had no intention of paying for 1 plus we're drunk and pushed their way into the ground. The majority of the blame was undoubtedly the fault of the police and stewards and Sheffield City council. That said this was in the 80's so why should the current Chief police of South Yorkshire have to resign or be made to retire early. This is going to have a massive financial impact on the South Yorkshire Police, as well as having the cost of council tax in the South Yorkshire area going up as well. I am a married man with a family and I feel for those who are grieving and will carry on grieving but there's got to be a time when you should say enough now. Their has to be closure and some sort the LFC fan's saying that our fans will never behave like that again and we did not have tickets and we did push our way in and help create to those terrible events.
Duckenfield clearly made errors but I am uncomfortable pinning the blame solely on him. The guy had no experience of games this size and precious little of football matches more generally. Who on earth approved him being put in charge of any game let alone one of this magnitude? Absolute madness. Always feels bit surreal walking into Leppings Lane end to sit in my comfy seat and watch Rovers play there, looking down a few rows on where those poor buggers died.