666, it clearly isn't a case of if people hadn't pushed it would have all been OK. There is no causality to the fact that some people would have pushed and the disaster happening. I think the crowd needs to be classified as a crowd which would follow typical crowd dynamics and not simply individuals who may or may not have been pushing.
I stole this bit from Wikipedia
----------------------------------------
Prevention
It has been claimed that most major crowd disasters can be prevented by simple crowd management strategies.[3] Human stampedes can be prevented by organization and traffic control, such as barriers. On the other hand, barriers in some cases may funnel the crowd towards an already-packed area (e.g. Hillsborough disaster). Therefore, barriers could be a solution to prevent or the key factor to cause a stampede to happen. A key problem is lack of feedback from people being crushed to the crowd pressing behind – feedback can instead be provided by police, organizers, or other observers, particularly raised observers, such as on platforms or horseback, who can survey the crowd, and use loudspeakers to communicate and direct a crowd
--------------------------------------------------
It is clear from our many complaints that the LFC fans who were involved in that crowd at that part of the stadium would be furious if any blame for loved ones dying get attributed to them simply for being part of a crowd or that somehow them, by nature of them being LFC fans, implies they should have known better.
"We pushed because the police allowed us to push" doesn't really excuse it in my eyes
......
Nice quotation marks - but i don't recall seeing anybody say that. Can you confirm?
Also, pushing was, like I said, the norm so fans did it at every match. But alls we're asking was why on this particular day did 96 ppl ?
Its rather straight-forward.
Imagine a boat that could hold the weight of 20 people - and only the captain knew this. 30 people approached the boat and got on and the ship sank.
Was it the people who got on the boat or was it the lack of control, and communication by the senior figure?
666, there is no disputing the fact that the crowd pushing caused the crushing in the pens.
But is that relevant? The question is why was there such a crush? It was totally preventable and probably wouldn't have occurrd if adequate crowd control measures were in place. The crowd did what crowds do. Or are you suggesting that some people were intentionally trying to inflict injury?
If a car hit a pedestrian due to driver error would you insist that the car was at least partly to blame because it actually delivered the physical blow. Or would you accept that the impact was caused by failings elsewhere in the system ie the driver?
Pushing absolutely did not cause the crush. Too many people in a penned in area caused the crush. Survivors witness accounts don't mention a packed tunnel, or running at it. They all have a common theme - pens 3 and 4 were slowly getting fuller and fuller until it was impossible to move at all.
Admin 1 - good comment. I can't believe that some are still perpetuating that it was somehow the fans fault for being directed into an overcrowded pen. They had no control over where they were led and to carry on contesting it after the panel's outcome on Wednesday is disrespectful to those poor souls who lost their lives.
1 thing that does upset me about this is in the Champions league final between Milan and Liverpool in Athens there was again overcrowding in an all seater stadium. Now when its an all seater stadium there has to be something badly wrong....This was down to Liverpool fans without tickets gatecrashing in....If it is 1 set of fans that have 1st sight of the effects of overcrowding it's Liverpool fans....But some of these people were still prepared to gatecrash....
It's clear that the police effectively created a problem, initially by refusing to delay the kick-off despite the unannounced problems on the motorway and then by relieving the crush at the gate without thought to the consequences inside the ground.
The arguments of crowd dynamics and the critical moment where fluidity turns to solidity are valid, but I cannot accept that because "it was the norm" it doesn't matter that fans pushed against fans. I'm not for a moment suggesting any malice in this action, but as we all sit here arguing the semantics of the situation we know that pushing occurred. Simply removing personal accountability and speaking of a crowd as a single entity is wrong: it is made up of individuals and is not a single cell incapable of reaction.
The crush was sustained, not momentary, which means some people continued to try to force their way in long after saturation. The police created the scenario that facilitated this behaviour, absolutely, but individuals pushed and created the pressure. Every crowd surge ever seen leaves a gap into which the mass can recede; this one didn't, because fans continued to stream in, desperate to see the match, and more pushed on behind.
Lessons were learnt and grounds are now more safe, with a specified area for every fan admitted, but at a great cost.
Would any of you now push against the back of a crowd? Is ignorance an excuse for Hillsborough, given the events at Heysel? Or was it negligent?
The car analogy is moot because a car cannot think for itself, cannot learn.. Football fans can and have.
What upsets me 666 is that from what happened in the champions league final lest than 10 years ago some fans don't learn...
JB, to be honest I don't think people could have got into an overcrowded pen without pushing to some extent.
However, the issue as far as I'm concerned is not why pressure was exerted by the crowd but why the situation arose whereby so many fans were funneled into an inadequate space which is what created the crush..
FSB:
My point exactly. The only point I've ever tried to make is that 'justice' can only truly be served if EVERY cause of the disaster is acknowledged... Not necessarily prosecuted, because those fans who did push have had to live with the consequences of their actions for 23 years and nothing any court could impose would come close, but without honestly assessing every facet of the tragedy, it's not justice, it's a witch hunt.
As for the ensuing criminal cover up, EVERYBODY who colluded in the instigation of the smear campaign should face a court on criminal charges, not civil. What the statute of limitations on offences in a public office says I don't know, but they should be made to answer for their crimes, absolutely.
The fans were directed into a pen with no way out and no facility to turn around and go back. The survivors accounts I've read are from a) those who were there when the central pens were emptyish and filling up and the sudden realisation of not being able to move. They say you tend not to look behind you once you're in and start noticing the crush minute by minute as they gasped to breathe. It wasn't a suddenpush and crush but a slow build up.
And b) from those who came in when the pens were already overfull stating how the tunnel into the particular area we are talking about was dark and no way to see that there were too many people already there until you came back into the light, by which time it was too late - literally nowhere to go, couldn't go back and forced into a massed crowd with more coming in behind you. The pushing was from the front from people trying to get out!
"Every crowd surge ever seen leaves a gap into which the mass can recede; this one didn't, because fans continued to stream in, desperate to see the match, and more pushed on behind."
You really need to acquaint yourself with the facts!
Your comments make the fans out as being culpable for causing the crush when they weren't. A panel studying videos and reports for two years disagrees with you!
JB...Since I had typed this up....
666, the issue being how many viable directions could you in theory travel if you were in the midst of that crowd flow. If the fans were somehow aware that there were people were being crushed to death and that they by some incredible feat of synchronisation could alleviate that then I am sure they would have. But just moving forward into the Stadium, which was I believe the objective of going to the game shouldn't leave you with a degree of liability for the deaths of friends or family or fans of any team.
I think we'll respectfully have to agree to disagree, Admin.
Crowd dynamics are accepted to a degree, but once resistance is met it takes a conscious decision and effort to continue in my experience, and I was around in the old days to know.
Admin - again well reasoned comment.
I sat and watched the independent panel press conference for it's entirety on Wednesday. They have taken two years and looked at 400,000 documents together with videos and cctv footage to come to the conclusion that fans were 100% exonerated from blame. They were asked about the supposed missing tapes and their response was that it was beyond their remit to talk of items that were not included or to guess as to whether the tapes ever existed - as the footage they had was complete minute by minute as the tragedy unfolded, any tapes that may or may not have existed could not have helped them further since there were no missing sequences. The footage recovered from the cctv cameras was as crystal clear of the central pens as it could be and having viewed it all, there was no evidence that suggested the crowd behaviour was in any way responsible for the crush. They re-iterated that the fans were fully exonerated from blame, had they been in anyway responsible then that would have been in their findings.
666 where we differ is that I would attach no blame to the individuals in the crowd.
You are trying to define the action of a crowd as the cumulative will of its constituent individuals but I know from personal experience that this is not accurate. They may have a common purpose eg they wanted to get into the ground but what's wrong with that? I was once in a crowd situation where i had absolutely no control over my movements. I didn't even intentionally enter the crowd but was sucked in and the 4 of us were separated and were eventually spat out at various points on the other side of the square. Fortunately it was in an open space and so there were few injuries afaik. Given my size, total lack of control over my movement is not something I had experienced before and its not something I ever want to experience again. The idea that I could be held responsible for my contribution to that crush is simply laughable. I was there and that's all that can be said. To try and blame me for any injuries would be ridiculous.
comment by 666: Unfiltered (U11795)
posted 2 hours, 56 minutes ago
The point I'm labouring to make is that, just because it was accepted back in the day, the pushing is what actually caused the crush.
-------------
No one disputes that
Liverpool fans knew then as they know now that pushing on a terrace means that someone, somewhere, is going to have to resist that force or be overwhelmed by it.
----------------
that's the point you are missing
Those fans did NOT think that someone would nee d to resist it. Those fans were hinking they were just hurrying up the people in front of them unaware that the ones at the front had nowhere to go.
It's clealry obvious to everyone that if someone is getting squahed at the front then someone is pushing at the back but this was a large football crowd, the match had already started and they did not know they were hurrying the ones in fron of them into an area that wasn't big enough.
Saying the fans were partly to blame is way to simplistic given the situation.
If you want to lay some of the blame at Liverpool fans door you have to put the blame at ALL fans door.
Tell me, where they fenced in purely because of their own behavior? Did they build the fences because Liverpool were coming to town?
Fans of your club, and mine, have acted in the same fasion as Liverpool fans that day but fortunately for us, they haven't tried to funnel us all into an area not big enough, causing a catasrophe that should never have happened, killing people in the worst possible of circumstances, and then having those people subjected to unimaginable things like having needles stuck in them as they lay dead on the floor
Mate, you are very very wrong on this issue because all you are looking at is 'the ones at the front wouldn't have been crushed if the ones at the back were not pushing'
If you can't see why that is a ridiculously simplistic way to look at it then words fail me
Sorry
"Imagine a boat that could hold the weight of 20 people - and only the captain knew this. 30 people approached the boat and got on and the ship sank."
False analogy, Metro.
Despite what many are saying, the problem wasn't too many people in the Leppings Lane end - it was too many people in one place in the Leppings Lane end.
The boat could safely hold 20, but if 15 (below the overall capacity) stood on the rails on one side at the same time, it would capsize.
The true demons in this are not the 'extra' fans piling in to the middle pens. The problem was that they were ALLOWED to - in fact, the basic geography ENCOURAGED entry to the middle pens, despite the side ones being well under capacity.
The fault lies in the opening of the gate, the absence of stewarding and the ridiculous decision to start the game with thousands still outside. Everything else is irrelevant. Culpability is not the same as responsibility.
Comment deleted by Site Moderator
To be fair, Strett, it's not nearly as dangerous as discussing things with some of your lot; that can be like a remote lobotomy, so far does one's mind have to plumb.
Comment deleted by Site Moderator
And bull$hit is bull$hit.
666, The simple fact is that most of the people in that situation wanted to get out but were unable to do so because of the weight of people behind them who had no idea of what was taking place in front of them, and were simply trying to get in. What's wrong with that? The fact remains that if the whole terrace had been reachable from the tunnel, or if some of the fans had been funneled into the outer pens then this would never have happened. You seem to be determined to argue that it was the supporters fault simply because they were there and wanted to get into the ground.
I've repeatedly said there was no malicious intent on the part of the fans oing the pushing.
I've also maintained that after Heysel, Liverpool fans should have known the potential consequences of pushing hard. It wasn't intentional per se, but it WAS negligent in my opinion.
I just cannot agree with that. If you assemble a large crowd of people and give them a strong incentive to congregate in an area that is too small for them there will be negative consequences. To then blame them for causing those consequences is ludicrous.
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Hillsborough .... Truth.... Now justice??
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posted on 14/9/12
666, it clearly isn't a case of if people hadn't pushed it would have all been OK. There is no causality to the fact that some people would have pushed and the disaster happening. I think the crowd needs to be classified as a crowd which would follow typical crowd dynamics and not simply individuals who may or may not have been pushing.
I stole this bit from Wikipedia
----------------------------------------
Prevention
It has been claimed that most major crowd disasters can be prevented by simple crowd management strategies.[3] Human stampedes can be prevented by organization and traffic control, such as barriers. On the other hand, barriers in some cases may funnel the crowd towards an already-packed area (e.g. Hillsborough disaster). Therefore, barriers could be a solution to prevent or the key factor to cause a stampede to happen. A key problem is lack of feedback from people being crushed to the crowd pressing behind – feedback can instead be provided by police, organizers, or other observers, particularly raised observers, such as on platforms or horseback, who can survey the crowd, and use loudspeakers to communicate and direct a crowd
--------------------------------------------------
It is clear from our many complaints that the LFC fans who were involved in that crowd at that part of the stadium would be furious if any blame for loved ones dying get attributed to them simply for being part of a crowd or that somehow them, by nature of them being LFC fans, implies they should have known better.
posted on 14/9/12
"We pushed because the police allowed us to push" doesn't really excuse it in my eyes
......
Nice quotation marks - but i don't recall seeing anybody say that. Can you confirm?
Also, pushing was, like I said, the norm so fans did it at every match. But alls we're asking was why on this particular day did 96 ppl ?
Its rather straight-forward.
Imagine a boat that could hold the weight of 20 people - and only the captain knew this. 30 people approached the boat and got on and the ship sank.
Was it the people who got on the boat or was it the lack of control, and communication by the senior figure?
posted on 14/9/12
666, there is no disputing the fact that the crowd pushing caused the crushing in the pens.
But is that relevant? The question is why was there such a crush? It was totally preventable and probably wouldn't have occurrd if adequate crowd control measures were in place. The crowd did what crowds do. Or are you suggesting that some people were intentionally trying to inflict injury?
If a car hit a pedestrian due to driver error would you insist that the car was at least partly to blame because it actually delivered the physical blow. Or would you accept that the impact was caused by failings elsewhere in the system ie the driver?
posted on 14/9/12
Pushing absolutely did not cause the crush. Too many people in a penned in area caused the crush. Survivors witness accounts don't mention a packed tunnel, or running at it. They all have a common theme - pens 3 and 4 were slowly getting fuller and fuller until it was impossible to move at all.
posted on 14/9/12
Admin 1 - good comment. I can't believe that some are still perpetuating that it was somehow the fans fault for being directed into an overcrowded pen. They had no control over where they were led and to carry on contesting it after the panel's outcome on Wednesday is disrespectful to those poor souls who lost their lives.
posted on 14/9/12
1 thing that does upset me about this is in the Champions league final between Milan and Liverpool in Athens there was again overcrowding in an all seater stadium. Now when its an all seater stadium there has to be something badly wrong....This was down to Liverpool fans without tickets gatecrashing in....If it is 1 set of fans that have 1st sight of the effects of overcrowding it's Liverpool fans....But some of these people were still prepared to gatecrash....
posted on 14/9/12
It's clear that the police effectively created a problem, initially by refusing to delay the kick-off despite the unannounced problems on the motorway and then by relieving the crush at the gate without thought to the consequences inside the ground.
The arguments of crowd dynamics and the critical moment where fluidity turns to solidity are valid, but I cannot accept that because "it was the norm" it doesn't matter that fans pushed against fans. I'm not for a moment suggesting any malice in this action, but as we all sit here arguing the semantics of the situation we know that pushing occurred. Simply removing personal accountability and speaking of a crowd as a single entity is wrong: it is made up of individuals and is not a single cell incapable of reaction.
The crush was sustained, not momentary, which means some people continued to try to force their way in long after saturation. The police created the scenario that facilitated this behaviour, absolutely, but individuals pushed and created the pressure. Every crowd surge ever seen leaves a gap into which the mass can recede; this one didn't, because fans continued to stream in, desperate to see the match, and more pushed on behind.
Lessons were learnt and grounds are now more safe, with a specified area for every fan admitted, but at a great cost.
Would any of you now push against the back of a crowd? Is ignorance an excuse for Hillsborough, given the events at Heysel? Or was it negligent?
The car analogy is moot because a car cannot think for itself, cannot learn.. Football fans can and have.
posted on 14/9/12
What upsets me 666 is that from what happened in the champions league final lest than 10 years ago some fans don't learn...
posted on 14/9/12
JB, to be honest I don't think people could have got into an overcrowded pen without pushing to some extent.
However, the issue as far as I'm concerned is not why pressure was exerted by the crowd but why the situation arose whereby so many fans were funneled into an inadequate space which is what created the crush..
posted on 14/9/12
FSB:
My point exactly. The only point I've ever tried to make is that 'justice' can only truly be served if EVERY cause of the disaster is acknowledged... Not necessarily prosecuted, because those fans who did push have had to live with the consequences of their actions for 23 years and nothing any court could impose would come close, but without honestly assessing every facet of the tragedy, it's not justice, it's a witch hunt.
As for the ensuing criminal cover up, EVERYBODY who colluded in the instigation of the smear campaign should face a court on criminal charges, not civil. What the statute of limitations on offences in a public office says I don't know, but they should be made to answer for their crimes, absolutely.
posted on 14/9/12
The fans were directed into a pen with no way out and no facility to turn around and go back. The survivors accounts I've read are from a) those who were there when the central pens were emptyish and filling up and the sudden realisation of not being able to move. They say you tend not to look behind you once you're in and start noticing the crush minute by minute as they gasped to breathe. It wasn't a suddenpush and crush but a slow build up.
And b) from those who came in when the pens were already overfull stating how the tunnel into the particular area we are talking about was dark and no way to see that there were too many people already there until you came back into the light, by which time it was too late - literally nowhere to go, couldn't go back and forced into a massed crowd with more coming in behind you. The pushing was from the front from people trying to get out!
"Every crowd surge ever seen leaves a gap into which the mass can recede; this one didn't, because fans continued to stream in, desperate to see the match, and more pushed on behind."
You really need to acquaint yourself with the facts!
Your comments make the fans out as being culpable for causing the crush when they weren't. A panel studying videos and reports for two years disagrees with you!
posted on 14/9/12
JB...Since I had typed this up....
666, the issue being how many viable directions could you in theory travel if you were in the midst of that crowd flow. If the fans were somehow aware that there were people were being crushed to death and that they by some incredible feat of synchronisation could alleviate that then I am sure they would have. But just moving forward into the Stadium, which was I believe the objective of going to the game shouldn't leave you with a degree of liability for the deaths of friends or family or fans of any team.
posted on 14/9/12
I think we'll respectfully have to agree to disagree, Admin.
Crowd dynamics are accepted to a degree, but once resistance is met it takes a conscious decision and effort to continue in my experience, and I was around in the old days to know.
posted on 14/9/12
Admin - again well reasoned comment.
I sat and watched the independent panel press conference for it's entirety on Wednesday. They have taken two years and looked at 400,000 documents together with videos and cctv footage to come to the conclusion that fans were 100% exonerated from blame. They were asked about the supposed missing tapes and their response was that it was beyond their remit to talk of items that were not included or to guess as to whether the tapes ever existed - as the footage they had was complete minute by minute as the tragedy unfolded, any tapes that may or may not have existed could not have helped them further since there were no missing sequences. The footage recovered from the cctv cameras was as crystal clear of the central pens as it could be and having viewed it all, there was no evidence that suggested the crowd behaviour was in any way responsible for the crush. They re-iterated that the fans were fully exonerated from blame, had they been in anyway responsible then that would have been in their findings.
posted on 14/9/12
666 where we differ is that I would attach no blame to the individuals in the crowd.
You are trying to define the action of a crowd as the cumulative will of its constituent individuals but I know from personal experience that this is not accurate. They may have a common purpose eg they wanted to get into the ground but what's wrong with that? I was once in a crowd situation where i had absolutely no control over my movements. I didn't even intentionally enter the crowd but was sucked in and the 4 of us were separated and were eventually spat out at various points on the other side of the square. Fortunately it was in an open space and so there were few injuries afaik. Given my size, total lack of control over my movement is not something I had experienced before and its not something I ever want to experience again. The idea that I could be held responsible for my contribution to that crush is simply laughable. I was there and that's all that can be said. To try and blame me for any injuries would be ridiculous.
posted on 14/9/12
comment by 666: Unfiltered (U11795)
posted 2 hours, 56 minutes ago
The point I'm labouring to make is that, just because it was accepted back in the day, the pushing is what actually caused the crush.
-------------
No one disputes that
Liverpool fans knew then as they know now that pushing on a terrace means that someone, somewhere, is going to have to resist that force or be overwhelmed by it.
----------------
that's the point you are missing
Those fans did NOT think that someone would nee d to resist it. Those fans were hinking they were just hurrying up the people in front of them unaware that the ones at the front had nowhere to go.
It's clealry obvious to everyone that if someone is getting squahed at the front then someone is pushing at the back but this was a large football crowd, the match had already started and they did not know they were hurrying the ones in fron of them into an area that wasn't big enough.
Saying the fans were partly to blame is way to simplistic given the situation.
If you want to lay some of the blame at Liverpool fans door you have to put the blame at ALL fans door.
Tell me, where they fenced in purely because of their own behavior? Did they build the fences because Liverpool were coming to town?
Fans of your club, and mine, have acted in the same fasion as Liverpool fans that day but fortunately for us, they haven't tried to funnel us all into an area not big enough, causing a catasrophe that should never have happened, killing people in the worst possible of circumstances, and then having those people subjected to unimaginable things like having needles stuck in them as they lay dead on the floor
Mate, you are very very wrong on this issue because all you are looking at is 'the ones at the front wouldn't have been crushed if the ones at the back were not pushing'
If you can't see why that is a ridiculously simplistic way to look at it then words fail me
Sorry
posted on 14/9/12
"Imagine a boat that could hold the weight of 20 people - and only the captain knew this. 30 people approached the boat and got on and the ship sank."
False analogy, Metro.
Despite what many are saying, the problem wasn't too many people in the Leppings Lane end - it was too many people in one place in the Leppings Lane end.
The boat could safely hold 20, but if 15 (below the overall capacity) stood on the rails on one side at the same time, it would capsize.
The true demons in this are not the 'extra' fans piling in to the middle pens. The problem was that they were ALLOWED to - in fact, the basic geography ENCOURAGED entry to the middle pens, despite the side ones being well under capacity.
The fault lies in the opening of the gate, the absence of stewarding and the ridiculous decision to start the game with thousands still outside. Everything else is irrelevant. Culpability is not the same as responsibility.
posted on 15/9/12
Comment deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 15/9/12
To be fair, Strett, it's not nearly as dangerous as discussing things with some of your lot; that can be like a remote lobotomy, so far does one's mind have to plumb.
posted on 15/9/12
Comment deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 15/9/12
Fair's fair is all.
posted on 15/9/12
And bull$hit is bull$hit.
posted on 15/9/12
666, The simple fact is that most of the people in that situation wanted to get out but were unable to do so because of the weight of people behind them who had no idea of what was taking place in front of them, and were simply trying to get in. What's wrong with that? The fact remains that if the whole terrace had been reachable from the tunnel, or if some of the fans had been funneled into the outer pens then this would never have happened. You seem to be determined to argue that it was the supporters fault simply because they were there and wanted to get into the ground.
posted on 15/9/12
I've repeatedly said there was no malicious intent on the part of the fans oing the pushing.
I've also maintained that after Heysel, Liverpool fans should have known the potential consequences of pushing hard. It wasn't intentional per se, but it WAS negligent in my opinion.
posted on 15/9/12
I just cannot agree with that. If you assemble a large crowd of people and give them a strong incentive to congregate in an area that is too small for them there will be negative consequences. To then blame them for causing those consequences is ludicrous.
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