15th April, 1989.

[JohnMc 2,463]

On the 15th of April 1989 I was at a football match in Glasgow. It was one of hundreds of matches I’d attended by then, I was 18 and going to ‘the football’ was something I’d done since I was at primary school. Unusually for me I was in the ‘The Jungle’ at Parkhead that day, it was the first time I’d ever been in that famous stand. It was a Scottish Cup Semi Final against St Johnstone, in those days they didn’t play 2 matches on consecutive days at Hampden so Parkhead was chosen as the neutral venue. I don’t remember much about the match itself, a nothing each draw that went to a replay, but I’ll never forget the day. The ‘Jungle’ was like a lot of terraces I visited in those days. Big, open, barely stewarded and poorly policed built in the Victorian era and upgraded in the 60s it was still controlled by men who Dickens would have thought twice of creating for believing their avarice might have been a fiction too far.

 

There was of course no mobile phones, no Facebook or Twitter, but there were ‘tranny men’ guys who had small transistors with them and would be constantly pestered for scores from other matches during the game. From them word started spreading that there had been some sort of incident at a match in Sheffield. Over-crowding, people being crushed, even talk of deaths, although no one was sure, was being passed around like macabre Chinese whispers. What did seem clear was the match in England being played at the same time as the one I was at had been held up.

 

The official attendance at Parkhead that day was given as 47,374 although as anyone who attended matches in those days knows it was always a good few thousand more. A blind eye was turned by everyone to this type of fraud, indeed it was the subject of comedy, everyone knew and no one really cared how many people were actually squashed in, as long as they’d paid.

 

After all, we were only football fans.

 

Leaving Parkhead after the match is all I really remember of the match. I’m not even sure who I was with although I could guess, it was a social event and I went with the same four or five people every week. As always happened at the end of a match thousands of people turned as one and headed for the poorly marked and criminally small exits. A crush ensued, being literally carried off your feet was commonplace and it happened that day. Most if not all the Rangers supporters around me had never been in the Jungle before, we didn’t know the layout, where the exits were or how steep it would be. No one in authority cared; there were no police or stewards around anyway. The exit involved funnelling thousands of people through a small passage, with a wall on one side and a fence on the other. It was bedlam, it was frightening but it wasn’t unusual, it was the same when you went to Tynecastle or Easter Road or Tannadice. I remember hearing a girl break her leg in a crush at East End Park in Dunfermline during a match once. The sound will live with me forever, she had to be passed down over people’s heads because medics couldn’t get through the mass of bodies in front of her.

 

That’s just how it was, more fool us for accepting it I suppose. Ibrox of course wasn’t like that, but it took the deaths of 66 people in the early 1970s for that to happen.

 

As everyone now knows that day in Sheffield 96 men and woman were killed at a football match, crushed to death in an open terrace. Ninety six people, think about that number for a minute. That’s more people than were killed in the Charlie Hebdo or recent Brussels terrorist attacks. These were people who went to see a football match and never came home.

 

On Tuesday, something that most of us have long suspected and a few have always known, the law finally accepted that they were unlawfully killed. It took this time because those responsible covered it up, there is no other way to describe what happened. People made mistakes or were criminally negligent and rather than accept that they covered their tracks and blamed the dead. They were abetted in this by large numbers of the media and politicians. The victims were only football fans after all. The victims were demonised and the survivors were blamed for their deaths.

Football wasn’t the omnipresent, class-bridging, super Sunday, bet in-play commercial love-in it is now, in those days football fans were regularly described as animals, and worse.

 

So the next time you hear someone describe the supporter of another football team as ‘scum’ or ‘sub-human’ or ‘Neanderthal’ pull them up, that language eventually leads to people being treated that way. And the next time you hear a politician or a policeman asking for your trust, particularly when it involves your life, check who is going to hold them responsible, and how, first. People in power will lie rather than face an unpalatable truth, people in power will blame those without power and it usually takes a generation before that can eventually be proved.

 

Stadiums have improved, stewarding is much better and policing too, but the attitudes of the authorities towards football supporters still leaves a lot to be desired. Football supporters are still treated differently from the rest of society, never forget where that road has led in the past.

[Frankie 8,136]

An excellent bit of writing, John - many thanks for sharing. I'll publish it soonest...

 

As Prime Minister at the time, Thatcher has to take ultimate responsibility for the cover-up but it's difficult to tell just how much she was involved. It's certainly more embarrassing for South Yorkshire Police and even their current Chief Constable appears less than convincing with his apology.

 

I struggle to imagine what the families have been through trying to clear their loved ones' names. Many of us here go to football games and have probably experienced similarly poor conditions and home and abroad (although things did improve after the Taylor report). However, as much as fans can be negatively generalised about from time to time, we've never had 96 of our own killed then blamed for the negligent actions of people in authority.

 

This was a 27 year long cover-up and we may never get those culpable to answer for their crimes. Yet it's vital we take the issue to it's ultimate conclusion to ensure what happened on that day (and afterwards) never happens again. You don't need to be a Liverpool fan (or a Tory hater) to identify with that. Just a human.

Edited April 27, 2016 by Frankie

[Frankie 8,136]

Now online: http://www.gersnet.co.uk/index.php/news-category/current-affairs/622-will-scottish-society-learn-from-the-hillsborough-disaster

[Scott7 5,108]

Frankie, the Home Secretary had responsibility for police matters in England at the time and in any event Mrs Thatcher was gone by 1992. Tony "Jackie Milburn" Blair and that well known Raith Rover, Gordon Brown didn't do much, did they?

[Frankie 8,136]

Frankie, the Home Secretary had responsibility for police matters in England at the time and in any event Mrs Thatcher was gone by 1992. Tony "Jackie Milburn" Blair and that well known Raith Rover, Gordon Brown didn't do much, did they?

 

I think in something as wide-ranging as this, the Prime Minister would have been a key part of any reaction to what happened.

 

However, like I say, what political party you like or dislike doesn't have much bearing given Labour's subsequent part in the cover-up.

[buster. 4,808]

I think in something as wide-ranging as this, the Prime Minister would have been a key part of any reaction to what happened.

 

However, like I say, what political party you like or dislike doesn't have much bearing given Labour's subsequent part in the cover-up.

 

Agreed, forget Tory or Labour and think the 'establishment' or 'political class' and those who surround and help shield them.

 

Forget divisiory side arguments and look towards an increasingly corrupt and malignant 'hierarchy' who serve themselves and hire professional liars to interact with the person on the street.

[pete 2,494]

Ibrox before the disaster was also literally a disaster waiting to happen. I walked those stairs many times with my father. Luckily for me I was only allowed to go to the disaster game because I could use my uncle's season ticket for the main stand and go with my older cousin.

 

While on the stairs my father always used to tell me to keep my arms crossed in front of my chest. I was a small boy whose head probably just reached about the waist or just above of the person in front so I could see nothing. You just tried to feel for the stairs and judge when to step down. Regularly the pressure became unbearable and shouts went up to try and stop people entering the queue at the top of the stairs to ease the pressure. As someone who has worked as a Safety officer I often wonder who the hell issued safety documents for Ibrox in those days, maybe these people should also be looked at in the same light as the Hillsborough disaster and be open for criminal negligence that cost 66 lives.

 

I also stood at Ibrox on cold winter nights in a ghostly Ibrox in the middle\late 70's when +-15.000 supporters turned up to watch dreadful football. I remember supporters then complaining about not spending money on players but Mr Wadell insisted the building of a new Ibrox was his main objective and that an Ibrox disaster should never be possible again. Thankfully to his his insight and persistence Ibrox became one of the safest stadiums in the world. Hopefully it will be kept that way as yesterdays safe is not always safe at all. Stadium safety has improved drastically but there is no room for complacency or taking things for granted.

[aweebluesoandso 290]

Ibrox before the disaster was also literally a disaster waiting to happen. I walked those stairs many times with my father. Luckily for me I was only allowed to go to the disaster game because I could use my uncle's season ticket for the main stand and go with my older cousin.

 

While on the stairs my father always used to tell me to keep my arms crossed in front of my chest. I was a small boy whose head probably just reached about the waist or just above of the person in front so I could see nothing. You just tried to feel for the stairs and judge when to step down. Regularly the pressure became unbearable and shouts went up to try and stop people entering the queue at the top of the stairs to ease the pressure. As someone who has worked as a Safety officer I often wonder who the hell issued safety documents for Ibrox in those days, maybe these people should also be looked at in the same light as the Hillsborough disaster and be open for criminal negligence that cost 66 lives.

 

I also stood at Ibrox on cold winter nights in a ghostly Ibrox in the middle\late 70's when +-15.000 supporters turned up to watch dreadful football. I remember supporters then complaining about not spending money on players but Mr Wadell insisted the building of a new Ibrox was his main objective and that an Ibrox disaster should never be possible again. Thankfully to his his insight and persistence Ibrox became one of the safest stadiums in the world. Hopefully it will be kept that way as yesterdays safe is not always safe at all. Stadium safety has improved drastically but there is no room for complacency or taking things for granted.

 

I remember as a young lad being in crush coming out of Ibrox on stairwell 13 some time before the disaster. I was lifted off my feet and carried by the crush of people for about twenty yards before we got to the top of the stairwell then it eased off and i could grabbed the banister, the same banister that buckled on that terrible day.

Edited April 27, 2016 by aweebluesoandso

[JohnMc 2,463]

Frankie, the Home Secretary had responsibility for police matters in England at the time and in any event Mrs Thatcher was gone by 1992. Tony "Jackie Milburn" Blair and that well known Raith Rover, Gordon Brown didn't do much, did they?

 

With respect you've got your timelines all wrong. Thatcher was replaced by John Major, not Tony Blair. When Labour, led by Blair, came into power in 1997 one of the first things the new Home Secretary Jack Straw did was order a new enquiry into Hillsborough. This second report, the Stuart-Smith report, found along very similar lines as the original enquiry did in terms of blame. The Labour government was split on the findings, with Jack Straw accepting them and indeed defending them and Lord Falconer, the Justice Minister, criticising them publicly.

In 2009, Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnston, ordered the formation of the Hillsborough Independent Panel to oversee all aspects of the documentation relating to Hillsborough. It was this panel that first uncovered the truth of the cover up.

 

Whatever faults Blair and Brown had, and they had plenty, the governments they were in did bring us to where we arrived yesterday.

[ranger_syntax 3,751]

Not sure why Margaret Thatcher is being discussed.

 

She does get a mention in a guardian article today but it is limited.

 

Later that day, the then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, and her press secretary, Bernard Ingham, visited Hillsborough. Wright briefed them. Ingham has always since said of Hillsborough that he “learned on the day” it was caused by a “tanked-up mob”.

 

Ingham, who was later given a knighthood, has confirmed to the Guardian that this was what the South Yorkshire police told the prime minister. The police, he said, never even told them Duckenfield was inexperienced.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/apr/26/hillsborough-disaster-deadly-mistakes-and-lies-that-lasted-decades

Edited April 27, 2016 by ranger_syntax