#hillsborough disaster

[lfc-girl]

Never forget the brave 97 Liverpool supporters, who went to watch their favourite team play 35 years ago today & never made it home due to a lack of security & poor human error. We'll never forget you.

YNWA ❤️🕊❤️🕊❤️🕊❤️

My thoughts and prayers as always, go out to the victims, the families and friends.

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in Irish History | 15 April:

1642 – Irish Confederate Wars: A Confederate Irish militia was routed in the Battle of Kilrush when it attempted to halt the progress of a Parliamentarian army. Though outnumbered, Ormonde managed to defeat the rebels and marched on to Dublin by 17 April. 1642 – A Scottish army under Robert Munroe landed at Carrickfergus. 1707 – Birth of Sir Henry Cavendish, MP and incompetent Teller of the…

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

The city of Liverpool knows how to run a boycott and hold a grudge. (Both things we should admire them for!)

[riarevenge]

i truly do think it’s so vile how normalised the chants and songs about hillsborough are, and how twitter is now filled with family members of victims talking about how they are taunted, literally taunted, by rival fans about their dead family. it’s actually abysmal. i saw a woman talk about how her father was killed by two policemen who put him into a body bag while he was unconscious and he vomited inside and asphyxiated. yet city fans get away with singing “the sun was right, you’re murderers” which not only is vile and using literal deaths and a horrific tragedy as some sort of tool to mock people, but it’s also spreading blatant lies and misinformation that the city of liverpool and its people have struggled to fight for decades. and it’s sad how normalised it is for liverpool fans to see this week in and week out, and for so many of them not to speak up on it

[rashfordxbruno]

No one should ever go to a game and never come home. A game we all love and adore!

Today, the football world should come together and pay its respects regardless of who you support.

[emergencymanagementnews]

Independent Public Advocate will guide and support survivors of major incidents such as Grenfell Tower fire

[calacuspr]

Calacus Monthly Hit & Miss – Liverpool FC & UEFA

Every month we look at the best and worst communicators in the sports world from the last few weeks.

This month, we’re combining our Hit and Miss to discuss the fallout to the 2022 UEFA Champions League Final following publication of an independent review which absolves fans of responsibility for the delays and problems ahead of the game in Paris.

The events in Paris for the UEFA Champions League final last season brought back horrible memories of past footballing tragedies.

Liverpool played Juventus in the European Cup Final of 1985 at the Heysel Stadium in Belgium, with disorder leading to 39 fans dying and English clubs being banned from European football for five years.

Four years later, disaster struck again when 97 Liverpool fans died ahead of the FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday’s ground.

More than 700 fans were injured and have fought for years to get justice after initially being blamed for the crush which led to the fatalities.

As recently as the end of January this year, police chiefs have apologised for their handling of the situation and the ‘deflection and denial’ which has led to court cases, tribunals and finally a recognition that Liverpool fans were entirely blameless.

History may have repeated itself in Paris last season, though, with the final against Real Madrid delayed after problems for fans getting into the Stade de France.

Witnesses described seeing fans scared for their lives, being pushed and assaulted by the French police, who fired teargas into crowds outside the stadium.

Broadcast coverage then reported that UEFA had blamed the delays to the start of the game on the late arrival of Liverpool fans.

The European governing body later suggested that fake tickets were the cause of the overcrowding and delays and issues a statement saying: “In the lead-up to the game, the turnstiles at the Liverpool end became blocked by thousands of fans who had purchased fake tickets which did not work in the turnstiles.

"This created a build-up of fans trying to get in. As a result, the kick-off was delayed by 35 minutes to allow as many fans as possible with genuine tickets to gain access.

“As numbers outside the stadium continued to build up after kick-off, the police dispersed them with tear gas and forced them away from the stadium.

“UEFA is sympathetic to those affected by these events and will further review these matters urgently together with the French police and authorities, and with the French Football Federation.”

That version of events was questioned by Merseyside police, which said the “vast majority of fans behaved in an exemplary manner” in “shocking circumstances”.

And The French Senate backed up Liverpool’s claims, with a report which identified French police failings, having misjudged Liverpool fans’ conduct and dated in its approach.

The report also found “major shortcomings on intelligence” – noting that there had been “an absence of hooligans” and instead, at a local French level, a “presence of delinquents in large numbers.”

The senate found there had been a failure to anticipate transport flows of supporters on the night, with pre-screening security points near the stadium leading to checkpoints becoming bottlenecks.

It was revealed that two French police officers were being investigated for disproportionate use of teargas against Liverpool supporters with the report adding that the teargas “had contributed to a feeling among supporters that excessive force, or even police violence, had been used against them.”

Eight months after the final, UEFA have finally had to admit that the buck stops with them after an Independent Review Panel they had commissioned found that they had ‘marginalised’ their own safety and security unit.

The panel rejected ‘reprehensible’ claims made persistently by UEFA, the French police and government ministers, that thousands of Liverpool fans without valid tickets had caused the problems.

The report added: “It is remarkable that no one lost their life. All the stakeholders interviewed by the panel have agreed that this situation was a near-miss: a term used when an event almost turns into a mass fatality catastrophe.

“The parallels between Hillsborough 1989 and Paris 2022 are palpable. The similarities include the fact that both events were preventable and both were caused by the failures of those responsible for public safety. Neither was a ‘black swan’ event, or the result of a ‘perfect storm’. Both events were foreseeable.

“In the judgement of the panel, the different outcomes were a matter of chance. In one, nearly a hundred died, the other none — but through no merit of those in charge.”

It was particularly damning for UEFA that UEFA’s safety and security unit played no part in planning for the match, nor in dealing with the crisis as it happened.

The decision to delay kick-off was made by UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin and the Panel added: “The panel has concluded that Uefa, as event owner, bears primary responsibility for failures which almost led to disaster.”

The issue of a prepared statement put up on stadium screens was “manifestly inaccurate,” said the report which suggested that it was a “crass error of judgment.”

UEFA’s testimony to the French Senate which claimed that its previous events at the Stade de France had passed without problems was considered to be “objectively untrue,” and the lack of planning was considered to be down to a failure of senior leadership.

“Senior officials at the top of Uefa allowed this to happen, even though the shortcomings of its model were widely known at senior management level, as acknowledged to the panel,” it added.

“Subsequently, Uefa has not recognised its own role or that of other stakeholders in the problems on the night. The panel is left with a sense of real concern at the lack of insight into what occurred on 28th May and the failure to recognise the role of the authorities. The panel is also troubled by a number of stark differences as to the facts of what happened, and a general default position of blaming the Liverpool supporters, without any proper evidential basis.”

The report makes 21 recommendations for to improve , including for safety and security to be put at the centre of match planning with calls for UEFA to publish an action plan and regular updates on its progress towards implementing all the recommendations.

It was certainly damning and leaves question marks over UEFA’s leadership.

Liverpool posted a statement which said: “We implore UEFA to fully enact the recommendations as outlined by the Panel – no matter how difficult – to ensure supporter safety is the number one priority at the heart of every UEFA football fixture.

“We were determined to make sure a robust investigation was conducted in order that lessons are learned to ensure the safety of football supporters in Europe is never compromised again.

“Shocking false narratives were peddled in the immediate aftermath of that night in Paris; narratives that have since been totally disproven.

“As a football club with proud history in Europe, we call on UEFA to do the right thing and implement the 21 recommendations to ensure the safety of all football supporters attending any future UEFA football match.”

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, whose side were beaten 1-0 by Madrid in the final, expressed his outrage: “I think it’s super important that, finally, it’s official. Let me say it like this: I’m not sure, at least in my life, there was never a case with more evidence, where I knew more about [it] when I was not directly involved, because I was on the other side of the wall in the stadium, pretty much. 

“But families, friends, they were all there and everybody knew how our supporters behaved. Staying calm in a situation where nobody really can stay calm, tear gas in your eyes, pressure from up front, from the side, from behind, being locked in between thousands of people and not pushing like crazy, staying calm, is a massive thing to do and an extremely difficult thing to do,

“And then getting out of it and getting blamed for that, it’s horrible. It’s really horrible.

“It really feels good, it feels just right that it’s now official and everybody knows it now because there were so many things said after the game, which we knew they were wrong. It was just lies. So, yes, there’s a lot to improve and I hope everybody learned from it.”

More than two and a half thousand fans were caught up in the drama with lawyers reported to be planning to bring legal action against UEFA, backed by the Review.

A ‘special refund scheme for fans,’ mentioned by UEFA will have to go further than just compensate for match tickets and Tony Winterburn, partner at Pogust Goodhead who is representing more than 2,000 supporters, said: “This is a hugely damning report for UEFA, which clearly strengthens the case we are bringing on behalf of Liverpool fans.

“We are calling on UEFA and in particular its president, Aleksander Ceferin, personally, to do the right thing and publicly accept responsibility. There must be compensation for all those fans affected by this horrific event.

“It is clear UEFA’s safety plan was written around a myth that Liverpool fans were going to cause trouble that day and it is imperative that myth stops now to avoid further unacceptable incidents occurring in the future, with possibly tragic consequences.”

The Football Supporters’ Association’s head of policing and casework, Amanda Jacks, said: “This is a total exoneration of Liverpool fans who were smeared by those responsible for this fiasco in an attempt to cover up their own failings.

“The panel has made clear to UEFA that this report has to be taken seriously and cannot be allowed to sit in a drawer gathering dust. Subsequently, the panel recommended that UEFA publish an action plan detailing how they will ensure the recommendations are acted upon.

“Supporter groups across Europe have long called for a higher standard of policing, stewarding and fan experience across all European club fixtures. Fans can continue to play a part by ensuring their own clubs read this report and take note. Lasting, positive change has to come from this.”

UEFA General Secretary Theodore Theodoridis, did at least apologise, but it shouldn’t have needed an independent review for the governing body to show contrition: ”On behalf of UEFA, I would like to apologise most sincerely once again to all those who were affected by the events that unfolded on what should have been a celebration at the pinnacle of the club season.

In particular, I would like to apologise to the supporters of Liverpool FC for the experiences many of them had when attending the game and for the messages released prior to and during the game which had the effect of unjustly blaming them for the situation leading to the delayed kick-off.

“UEFA is committed to learning from the events of 28 May, and will cooperate closely with supporters’ groups, the finalist clubs, the host associations and local authorities in order to deliver outstanding finals where everyone can enjoy the game in a safe, secure and welcoming environment.”

When Liverpool and Madrid met again in the Campions League at Anfield this month, it was no surprise that their fans held up banners taking aim at UEFA and accusing them of being liars.

Notably, Ceferin did not make a public comment about the findings of the Panel, a rare communications error from the leader of European football who hasn’t been shy to make statements in the past.

We can only hope that UEFA learns from its failures in Paris and heeds the lessons learnt so that there is no such repeat in future.

As the report concluded: “Institutional defensiveness, putting reputation and self-interest above truth and responsibility, prevents progressive change.

“A healthy organisation welcomes scrutiny and criticism based on evidence, an unhealthy one hides behind prejudice and baseless assertions and contributes to a carousel of blame, where it is everyone else’s fault.

“That is why independent investigations based on evidence are so important, because otherwise the same will happen next week or next year with devastating consequences.”

[tv4euro]

Facing disaster - the Forest fans at Hillsborough

Nottingham Forest fans occupied the Spion Kop, opposite the Leppings Lane end where the lethal crush occurred on 15 April 1989 Diane Lynn sat in terror-stricken disbelief on the side of the pitch when a rival fan offered her a cup of tea. On a famously sunny spring afternoon in 1989 Lynn, then 22, and her 17-year-old brother had been pulled from a crush of bodies at the Leppings Lane end of…

[spittingoutthebloodandscreaming]

Honestly in a crowd that size you only need 1% of them to act up to cause problems

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 15 April 1989, the Hillsborough disaster took place during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest when a crush occurred after police directed fans into overcrowded areas, resulting in 96 dead and over 700 injured. Though it was caused by police negligence and a ground which did not adequately meet health and safety standards, the police and the Conservative government, with help from the mainstream media, concocted an entirely false story blaming working class Liverpool fans for the disaster. The right-wing tabloid Sun newspaper falsely claimed that Liverpool fans robbed the dead, urinated on police and attacked officers who were trying to save lives. After years of campaigning by the families of the victims, eventually in 2012 the truth finally came to light, with the Hillsborough Independent Panel determining that the primary cause of the disaster was a "lack of police control". They also revealed that police had doctored 164 witness statements, that Conservative MP Irvine Patnick had passed lies from the police to the press. The police also went to extreme lengths in their attempts shift responsibility to the victims, even testing the blood of dead children for alcohol to try to blame them for their own deaths. New inquests held in 2016 also found that the crush was caused by police, exacerbated by stadium defects. They determined that the senior police officer responsible breached his duty of care and that this amounted to gross negligence. They determined that the 96 victims were unlawfully killed. To this day, many people in Liverpool still boycott The Sun. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8641/hillsborough-disaster https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=609058297934056&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

[hassanfield]

on april 15th not only do we remember the victims on hillsborough, we also remember everyone who indirectly lost their lives because of hillsborough, we remember everyone who has to live with that guilt and trauma.

we remember individuals like stephen whittle, who lost their lives to the guilt and grief of hillsborough, we remember the individuals who took their lives after paris as they re-lived their traumas, we remember the individuals who died before they ever got to see an unlawfully killing verdict, we remember those who have taken their lives, not wanting to face another anniversary, we remember those who died fighting for justice, we remember those who lived that day and wished they didn't, we remember the victims families and friends who are subjected to discriminative chants.

not only do we remember the 97 and these people on the 15th, but we remember them every other day, and we will continue to fight for justice for them, we will continue to fight until everyone responsible for this disaster is held accountable.

[disasterarea-podcast]

Okay, I know I probably don’t need to explain this to all of you, but also I want to talk to *somebody* about how I wish I had the sort of pull that would let me see “Society of the Snow” before it ends up on @netflix on January 4th.

“Alive” came out when I was in high school. I was a sophomore, I think? I just know I watched it a bunch for historical reasons (disaster! Survival! Struggle!) and superficial reasons (I was sixteen and Ethan Hawke was in danger!). It was on HBO a lot back then. Or it felt that way, because I watched it every time it came on.

As per usual, I watched the movie, so I went and got the book. (I have an Audible credit, so I’m preordering the audiobook of “Society of the Snow” for work. It comes out in a couple of days, FYI.) The movie is … sanitized, to say the least. They can’t avoid the eating of the dead, or showing it on occasion. But in real life, the situation was more blatant, because … well, who are you going to hide it from? They ate everything else, or at least tried to, before resorting to the dead. And then when they did resort to the dead, they ate it ALL.

The thing is, Uruguayan culture was heavy on beef. “Alive” (the book) describes it the way the Irish depended on potatoes. Eating the dead was difficult, but as Catholics they were able to talk it out and tie it into the rosary and taking the body and blood of Christ into their own. I’m not even a Catholic anymore, but I think even my latent Catholic training might kick in just a tad to help reassure me in a situation like that if I had doubts. (Note: I have been doing this podcast for WAY too long. Survival cannibalism wouldn’t even make me bat an eye at this point.)

My point is that in the real situation, the survivors used everything. And I mean everything. There were only three or four parts of the body they couldn’t eat - I think the genitals were on that list, but don’t quote me on it - but the rest? They picked the bodies clean. They needed to. There’s a photo of the survivors sitting outside the plane, hanging out, smiling for the camera. It’s usually edited. Everything else is kept, but what is usually clipped or blurred is a very clear shot of a human spine, not a spot of meat left on it, just … lying there. It might as well be an airplane seat, or a discarded jacket, or any of the other items scattered about.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for every single one of the people who went through that ordeal. The details are traumatizing enough without having lived through it. Every time somebody makes a “rugby players eat their dead” joke, I cringe.

So here I am sitting watching “Alive” again, because fuck it. The thing is, I have a fondness for this movie based a lot on high school and watching it lots and it introducing me to a survival story I’d never heard of. But I would always be the first to point out I’d love a redo. It’s not as accurate as it could be, it’s in English, it misses out on things like Carlitos Paez’s father searching for him and the others the whole damn time and the reception after they came back.

I’m hoping “Society of the Snow” has all of the things the first movie lacked. I want to see the reception when they came back. I can’t wait to see Carlitos playing his dad, and I hope we get that moment where he reads the list of survivors over the radio and his voice breaks when he gets to his son’s name. I hope we get the reality of survival cannibalism — that it’s not murder, that it’s not pretty, that you might get a little blinded to the horror of the reality.

The trailers for “Society of the Snow” gives me hope it does the story the justice it deserves. There are so many disaster stories that, while they may have gotten TV movies, I would love to see done for the big screen. Hillsborough. The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. The Galveston Hurricane. The Johnstown flood. But honestly, the trailers for “Society of the Snow” look gorgeous and respectful. Let’s do more movies like this for more disasters.

[macallisters]

The 35th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster.

We will always be a voice for the victims, we will never let them be forgotten!! My thoughts are with the victims families and friends on this terrible day.

Justice for the 97.

[waglifeornolife]

writing essays on Hillsborough always makes me so sad man, how are you allowing 3,000 people into two pens that were only able to hold 929 people altogether? like how? how incompetent do you need to be? not only that, the fucking stadium didn’t even have an updated safety certificate at the time of the disaster, the fact that this was so easily overlooked by the authorities is a joke

[youvebeengreeked]

The HILLSBOROUGH DISASTER has NOTHING on the NIKA RIOTS

ON THIS DAY, 532 AD