I remember attending Ayresome parh in the early 80 s , Not sure if there were fatalities , but after the match the away fans [ Man Utd ] left the away stand and were left waiting in the area behind the stand while the home fans were dispersed , it was brick walled with large wooden gates to exit , eventually the pressure exerted on the gates caused the hinges and surrounding bricks to give way and the gates fell outwards trapping leaving Boro supporters , a mounted police officer outside jumped his horse over the gates and reared it up to prevent us [ away Man Utd ] fans from running out over the gates and causing further injury

Watch the documentary that was aired earlier this week week on itv player, or read the report. both say that there was significant crowding and crushing in the area around the leppings lane turnstiles outside the ground and the gate was opened by the police to try and releive this. many LFC fans who were there also stated that they feared for their safety outside the ground.

the crushing outside the ground is seen now as fact!

sadly the nature of football grounds and football crowds in the 70-80s brings many tales of similar instances where this type of disaster was waiting to happen!

at least two were noted between 1981 and 1988 at hillsborough. its just that SWFC, the FA, SYP and SCC decided to ingore it! fans were routinely treated like cattle in those days.

Quite often their behaviour warranted it

!

I agree, thats the point i made in my earlier, longer post! Its important that Hillsborough and the actions of people on that day are not viewed in isolation. It was "of its time". That isnt to say the police were right, because they werent, but for people who werent around, or werent around in football grounds in the 80s, its important to make this very clear!

I have seen the video numerous times. As a SWFC fan of 30+ years who used to stand on the Leppings Lane every other week, including during that period, I am well acquainted with the location. I have been in crowds of that intensity, not just at football, many, many times. It has frequently been very uncomfortable, but I have never feared for my life, & the situations were not too different from the videos I have seen. I am not denying there was crowding & (relative) crushing, I am asking for evidence for the possible loss of life suggested & why that is different to, say, the scrum after the GF at Trafford tram stop, where I have seen far more drunkeness than I witnessed on the video.

Indeed it is. Nobody is arguing that the police didn't have a problem they had to deal with, they certainly did.



The crush was a consequence of the police, unlike in previous fixtures, making no effort at all at crowd control on the approach to the Leppings Lane End, and so you ended up with a rapidly increasing mass and it was that which put pressure on the fans nearest the front.

Opening the gates would have been an entirely reasonable response if the fans had somewhere to go. And if the police had first closed the gates to the central pens, which were already full, there would have been no death. The fans would have gone left or right and found their way into the relatively empty side pens.

The tragedy occurred because the fans were directed down a steep tunnel where they naturally assumed they were supposed to go. And had its root in the absence of any filtering, or queuing or other crowd control arrangements outside the Leppings Lane End, despite known previous serious issues.

As there was no loss of life, or injury outside the ground, it will be difficult to ascertain 100% if there was a genuine threat of serious injury or worse outside the ground. This is one thing that even going back to the time of the Taylor report, was agreed on by both fans and the police. It's easy for us to retrospectively try and use hindsight to apportion blame, or try and avoid it.

My feeling is that the fate of those 96 sould was sealed weeks before the game when the experienced police commander was replaced by someone witha lot less knowledge of the ground on busy match days like that was.

the difference between then and now is that things like tram stops, stadium concourses etc... are designed and built to avoid these problems because of the Hilllsborough disaster. People didnt think about it until it was too late! that is the same as putting speed cameras ona road when someone has been killed!

Was the match all ticket?

I doubt alcohol was anything to do with the actual cause of the disaster , it might have been brought to the table afterwards by the police , who were brought under tremendous pressure by the stupid press releases of the SUN

And to be fair most of the well behaved fans were prepared to accept a degree of heavy handed policing as a necessary price to pay to keep the nutters under control.

I can recall a couple of occasions when I was quite relieved to see a charging police horse or indiscriminately wielded truncheons, arriving just as I was about to receive a kicking or an introduction to someone's friend "Stanley".

Wrong way round! The police fed the information to the newspapaers through a news agency! again, this is all over the place in the public domain. There is/was no evidence to suggest that any of th deaths were caused by the alcohol intake of themselves, or those around them!

me too, particularly visits in the early 80s to sheffield united and Shorpe and york. remeber our special train being bricked at every bridge in south yorkshire on the way back from sheffield and my dad making sure i was hid under the table in the train to avoid the glass!

These kids today dont know they're born!

People like him wont look at the report at all. They really aren't worth bothering with mate.