Could there have been another Hillsborough Disaster last night

[CorkerSWFC 10]

I,ll be in the pub, to think of the gaffer wishing there wasn't bank holidays lol.

[Preacher Man 10]

Liverpool fans do seem to be exceptionally good at blaming everyone else for their own faults. I still get angry when I hear them trying to blame everyone else for their own selfish behaviour at Hillsborough when they crushed their fellow Liverpool supporters to death. I wonder how many of those who did the pushing and shoving actually feel any guilt about what they did?

 

its been well documented that it was the fault of the police force. i havent been to one football match yet were there isnt some pushing or squeezing when your inside the stadium.

 

its attitudes like yours which sicken me.

[Guderian 10]

The venues are decided months beforehand.

 

They are actually decided years beforehand.

 

Wembley is already "pencilled in" for 2010, after Moscow and Rome.

[Macca 10]

But that's the point, plekhanov. They shouldn't have been in the crowd outside. A similar number of Celtic fans, if not larger, went to Lisbon in 67, and Seville in 03, and there was no such trouble.

 

As we seem intent on goign round in circles, I'll repeat what I said earlier:

 

"The warning signs we there. I was in Dortmund when we filled 80% of the ground - around 50,000 fans if not more. I was in Istanbul when we did the same with roughly the same amount of fans.

 

Now, we all saw the stories about the lack of tickets being made available for the fans of the two teams, and anyone with half a brain could have told you how many fans would make the trip anyway, in the hope of snaring some of the third party tickets that have served us so well in recent years.

 

In light of this, the choice of venue and the security arrangements in place were woefully inadequate. Yes we were partly to blame, but you can place an equal share of the blame, if not more on the authorities and their lack of preparation.

 

The story listed on an earlier page of this thread mentions the Greek Police wading into fans baton first when they were merely waiting for a train, no one seem to be raising that as an issue.

 

If you want an example of how flustered Uefa were when Michael Howard decided to voice his concerns over the choice of venue, here's the response of their official spokesman....

 

"It is very easy to say it is not a suitable stadium, coming from the man that invented the poll tax"

 

Now if anyone can find the relevance of that point, I will gladly buy them a beer. Uefa cocked up on several levels, and they know it. Some of our fans let us down badly, and there is no getting away from that - but the fact remains there was precedence in terms of the number of fans travelling, they knew what might happen in this situation."

[ANGELUS 10]

My one comment about the whole thing:

Same old liverpool fans unfortunately!

 

Buy into that as you will ... but its 'never their fault is it'

[Macca 10]

Angelus - I've not defended the idiots once. The below analogy explains my position perfectly:

 

Let's say you have something you want to put in the safety deposit box of a bank and you have two choices.

 

Your enquiries reveal that:

 

Bank A often leaves the door to the vault open and employs one security guard who takes a half hour tea break. During this break there is no cover.

 

Bank B doesn't leave the door to the vault open and it is guarded 100% of the time.

 

I think you'd use Bank B.

 

To criticise Bank A for lax security in no way shape or form excuses the act of someone robbing the bank. It does not absolve the thief in any way at all.

[Strix 11]

Interesting how most posters here seem to think 'Liverpool fans' are the people to blame. No distinction at all between those with and those without tickets. No sympathy at all for those who had genuine tickets but were refused entry

 

read any thread on here and see how enraged any Sheffielder gets over a perceived injustice - and for the most part they haven't paid hundreds of pounds and travelled to a different country to provoke their outrage

 

Mr Strix was offered a match ticket on the preceding Saturday (there's a thread somewhere), but short notice and finding flights was stacking up against travel being viable. With one hour to go before kick off he spoke to the person with the ticket - and found it was 'in the Milan end'. We were glad we'd not managed to get him over there

 

Some of my family travelled to Athens with no intention of going anywhere near the ground - they were going on a holiday to include the 'aftershow party', and to see the match on tv - just soak up the atmosphere

 

blanket statements don't adequately cover this situation

 

... and why do the ticket forgers attract more distain for being Scousers than for being forgers?

Are they Scousers?

[Strix 11]

Let's say you have something you want to put in the safety deposit box of a bank and you have two choices.

 

Your enquiries reveal that:

 

Bank A often leaves the door to the vault open and employs one security guard who takes a half hour tea break. During this break there is no cover.

 

Bank B doesn't leave the door to the vault open and it is guarded 100% of the time.

 

I think you'd use Bank B.

 

To criticise Bank A for lax security in no way shape or form excuses the act of someone robbing the bank. It does not absolve the thief in any way at all.

 

similarly, the actions of Bank A don't make all banks lax on security

[Darkoak 10]

Interesting how most posters here seem to think 'Liverpool fans' are the people to blame. No distinction at all between those with and those without tickets. No sympathy at all for those who had genuine tickets but were refused entry

 

read any thread on here and see how enraged any Sheffielder gets over a perceived injustice - and for the most part they haven't paid hundreds of pounds and travelled to a different country to provoke their outrage

 

Mr Strix was offered a match ticket on the preceding Saturday (there's a thread somewhere), but short notice and finding flights was stacking up against travel being viable. With one hour to go before kick off he spoke to the person with the ticket - and found it was 'in the Milan end'. We were glad we'd not managed to get him over there

 

Some of my family travelled to Athens with no intention of going anywhere near the ground - they were going on a holiday to include the 'aftershow party', and to see the match on tv - just soak up the atmosphere

 

blanket statements don't adequately cover this situation

 

... and why do the ticket forgers attract more distain for being Scousers than for being forgers?

Are they Scousers?

 

And precisely where did I say that the ticket forger was a Scouser?

 

 

Nowhere. If you care to read my response correctly.

[Macca 10]

An interesting first hand account of last weeks events From YNWA website.

 

Several points of interest for fellow fans of the big four clubs.

 

 

Athens - I'm still furious

Sunday, 27th May 2007

 

This is my take on things as they happened, and I just wanted to share them with you. I'm very very annoyed about what has happened, I'm gutted about the result, but if I'm totally honest, I'm more gutted about the way fans of the club were treated, and about how a small number of them behaved at in Athens. I don't think there is a single contributory factor, but more a whole host of things, that combined, have left a very sour taste in the mouth of people who follow this football club.

 

The whole think has been handled appallingly, and lessons that you would think would have been learned from previous footballing disasters such as Heysel and Hillsborough simply have not been learnt.

 

For me the mistakes of Liverpool FC started the night we won our semi final. (The mistakes made by UEFA started well before that, but I'll come back to that later) It may have even started before then, but I'll give the club the benefit of the doubt on this one. Liverpool football club at this stage would have known how many tickets they were going to get, and how many would qualify for a ticket using their qualification system. This should have been communicated to the fans at the earliest opportunity. It wasn't. What happened next was fans who were assuming, rightly or wrongly, that they should be ok for a ticket due to either being a Season Ticket Holder, or having been to all the home Champions League games, going ahead and booking flights, hotels etc, at considerable cost and almost all non refundable, for the trip to Athens.

 

Liverpool FC knew this would happen. Why were measures not taken before the semi final, or even the day after the semi final, to make public the criteria for getting a final ticket? This was, in my opinion a major mistake made by someone at Liverpool FC, and this resulted directly in many thousands of fans who had already financially committed to going to Athens, finding out that they had no official ticket from the club, and as a result, many thousands of fans being in Athens trying to get tickets on the black market.

 

As a result of this, certain people decided that the only way to get into the ground was by forged tickets. They knew the market for forgeries would be there, simply because so many were booked to go to the final and had no ticket. The market was also there because fans, who had already committed vast amounts of money to get to Athens, were so desperate not to go in vain, that they were willing to risk getting caught with a forgery that they knowingly bought them.

 

At Istanbul in 2005, there were thousands of tickets on sale on the streets before the final, these tickets had been bought by the Istanbul locals and then sold onto fans for over inflated prices, but as the time to the final in 2005 drew closer, the costs dropped, and there seemed to be tickets available. Again, in Athens, people assumed this would be the case. There had been rumours abound all day that there were tickets available in Athens, and more false rumours that Milan tickets returned to UEFA would be going on sale. Both of these rumours turned out to be wrong, but people went to the ground anyway with the hope that they would be available at the stadium, or that there would be touts at the ground.

 

The problem with this, was that there were literally thousands of ticketless fans, many who had been drinking all day, turning up at the stadium in search of tickets. When they got there, what they must have seen would have given them hope of getting into the stadium. There were 3 lines of "Ticket Checks". Getting through the first ticket check was simply a matter of walking past the police. It was as simple as that. There were sporadic checks, but my ticket was still in my wallet at this stage, and I hadn't been asked to show it. Getting through the first check ticketless was simple. I personally thought at this time that this was very lax, that they were going to get overwhelmed. There was still about 90 minutes to kickoff, and there were thousands milling around the stadium grounds, and simply not enough police or stewards to check everyone.

 

I assumed that the next ticket check would be a bit more stringent, but this was just a few people stationed at a large temporary perimeter fence made of wire you sometimes get at building sites. There were gaps in this where people where supposedly checking tickets. The ticket checks in the one I went through simply consisted of being asked to "hold your ticket up in the air" there were hundreds of people trying to push through the gap, how many had tickets I don't know, but again, my ticket remained in my wallet, as I was carried through with the surge of the crowd. I did however, see some people holding up blue boarding cards from planes and getting waved through. I didn't see a single ticket getting actually checked at this point, which I would have thought would have been the most crucial, as I felt that it would stop people getting to the turnstile with forged tickets or no tickets, and would have therefore helped prevent any trouble.

 

I used the word "Turnstile" in the last paragraph. I was being optimistic. There was no turnstile at the ground. Instead, it was just a large gate, in my case, attended by two people. There were literally hundreds of people gathered outside it trying to get through. I was caught up in the middle, every now and then the gate would open, but with the sheer volume of people outside pushing, it swung open and literally hundreds surged through. My ticket, at this stage, was still in my wallet, I looked behind, as they were not trying to get the gate shut, many more had joined the surge, as they seen what was happening and trying to force themselves through. At this stage, my thoughts were simply getting into the ground, as I could sense a nasty atmosphere outside and felt that it was only a matter of time it all went off big style.

 

When I got into the ground I was shocked at what I saw. Our end was full. And I don't mean full in the respect that everyone was in their seat and all was well, I mean it was literally packed. There were people stood on steps, with no room where the seats were, it looked like people were stood two to a seat. It was at this point that I realised that I had actually somehow managed to get into the wrong part of the ground, and I had to get to the front of the stadium, out on the track, and walk over to the part I was supposed to be in. I explained this to someone at the front, at this stage showing my ticket for the only time, and explaining I was in the wrong section, and was eventually let through. When I got to where I supposed to sit, that area was packed too, with people again stood on the steps trying to watch the game.

 

From where my seat was, you couldn't actually see the first 10 yards or so of the goalmouth, I could see from just in front of the penalty spot. The obstruction to my view of the game was advertising boards on the running track!! How can UEFA justify selling tickets to people for the biggest club game in the world, and then hindering their view with an advertising board?

There are so many questions I would want answered, I'm so angry about this I fully intend to write to UEFA, FIFA, the English FA, Liverpool FC, and the Sports minister at the Government.

 

How was this stadium picked for a Champions League Final? It's not designed to be a football stadium.

 

How come there were no turnstiles?

 

Without a turnstile, how can they know how many people are in the stadium?

 

Won't this also mean that there is a danger that the stadium could be over capacity?

 

If the stadium is over capacity, does that not render the stadium's safety certificate invalid, making it illegal for the game to take place?

 

This club of ours has been through two horrific disasters, and I don't know if people realise how close they were to being involved in another.

 

The behaviour of some of our fans at times is disgraceful. We are, and have been over the past few seasons, developing and harbouring a very nasty minority element within our support. These people need weeding out. There can never be an excuse for storming gates to gain entry to a football ground, there can never be a reason for forging tickets for people to try and get in. But until our football club, and UEFA, take away the main contributory factors, and use adequate stadiums that have turnstiles, use tickets that are difficult to be forged, then these problems are not going to go away. In fact, they are only going to get worse.

[Preacher Man 10]

fascinating writing there macca and its made me think. people are so happy to jump on liverppol fans and call scousers all the names under the sun but how was the hooligan trouble eradicated in the 80's?

 

people didnt simply say shame on the fans and it went away. it took legislation and more organisation from the authorities to stamp it out.

 

If this was another type of major event, for example a major rock concert, there would be uproar at the officials for the appalling organisation.

[happyhippy 11]

Now, we all saw the stories about the lack of tickets being made available for the fans of the two teams, and anyone with half a brain could have told you how many fans would make the trip anyway, in the hope of snaring some of the third party tickets that have served us so well in recent years.

 

In light of this, the choice of venue and the security arrangements in place were woefully inadequate. Yes we were partly to blame, but you can place an equal share of the blame, if not more on the authorities and their lack of preparation.

 

So your argument is this.

 

Despite the fact that the venue was chosen years in advance (cheers Guderian), it was UEFA's fault that it couldn't hold the number of fans who decided to turn up on masse to get in without tickets, or tickets which weren't part of the allocation to Liverpool FC, and the local authorities' fault because of the behaviour of Liverpool fans..

 

I'd throw that out of court before you even got to the chamber.

 

The story listed on an earlier page of this thread mentions the Greek Police wading into fans baton first when they were merely waiting for a train, no one seem to be raising that as an issue.

 

If you want an example of how flustered Uefa were when Michael Howard decided to voice his concerns over the choice of venue, here's the response of their official spokesman....

 

"It is very easy to say it is not a suitable stadium, coming from the man that invented the poll tax"

 

Now if anyone can find the relevance of that point, I will gladly buy them a beer.

 

If you can find the relevance of Michael Howard full stop, I'll buy you two.

 

Uefa cocked up on several levels, and they know it. Some of our fans let us down badly, and there is no getting away from that - but the fact remains there was precedence in terms of the number of fans travelling, they knew what might happen in this situation."

 

How have UEFA cocked up, aside from that I agree the number of corporate seats is a disgrace? We're talking about a stadium of over 60000 capacity. How can UEFA be culpable for a load of fans travelling without tickets, intent on getting into the stadium by any means neccessary?

 

As was posted earlier, some Liverpool fans travelled, probably hundreds, with NO intention of storming the ground, but to have a holiday, and enjoy the atmosphere, as did hordes of Celtic fans a few years ago.

 

Hassle with Liverpool. Again. No hassle with Celtic. Again.

 

On the one hand, people seem to be saying "They knew we were coming so why didn't we have a larger allocation?", and, "We always get in.". First part was never going to happen, second part illegal.

 

Following on from that, they say "And fans who had genuine tickets couldn't get in because of the forgeries.". Well let's have a look at who had the forgeries, and kept their fellow fans out, shall we? Let's have a look at which set of fans tried to force their way in? Let's have a look at which set of fans were mugging their own?

 

Clearly, that's down to UEFA.