OVER the last few days there have been some genuinely excellent articles about Hillsborough and the verdicts from the inquests, many of them appearing on this very site. Most of them have been difficult to read, with some managing to shed further light on a story that it seemed impossible to be more shocked by.
David Conn’s thorough article on everything that’s happened over the last two years is unmissable. It outlines, as simply as possible, all of the facts that have emerged during the inquest and it explains why the jury reached the decision it did; the decision we all knew was the right one and the decision that vindicated the families and their 27-year fight.
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND – Saturday, October 22, 2011: Liverpool supporters with a banner ‘Expose the Lies Before Thatcher Dies’ calling for Justice for the 96 before the Premiership match against Norwich City at Anfield. The fans are backing a campaign for the families of the 96 victims of the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster in 1989 who have waited over 22 years for Justice. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)
One of the most remarkable things about the findings of the inquest is how little they differ from Lord Justice Taylor’s findings from 26 years ago. We know more detail now, of course, and more and more evidence has been revealed about the way in which South Yorkshire Police went about the cover-up that has smeared the victims and the survivors of the disaster, as well as Liverpudlians in general, for more than two and a half decades. But, put simply, it came to the same conclusion: Liverpool fans were in no way to blame for the accident and it was entirely down to police failures that 96 innocent men, women and children lost their lives.
- Hillsborough: The Media Let The Country Down For 27 Years – And I’m Ashamed
- Hillsborough: Now To Stop Demonising Football Fans
- Hillsborough: Important Lessons Learned – And Not Just For Liverpool
- Hillsborough And Liverpool: The Generation Gap
- Hillsborough: Justice Must Be Followed By Accountability
- Hillsborough: The Verdict Isn’t About Football – It’s A National Disgrace
- Hillsborough: The Sun Shines Now
Even in spite of all of that there are still people out there that I’m going to label as the ‘what about’ brigade. You know the sort I mean. They’re the type that have sent tweets over the last couple of days saying things like, ‘The fans were completely sober and well behaved that day. Glad that’s settled then’, before signing it off with a glib hashtag like #okthen.
In the past I tried to engage with these people. I don’t know why, but I tried to help them to understand what happened and to educate them about the events that led to the darkest day in British sporting history. I tried to explain why the families shouldn’t just ‘let it go’ and why justice really did matter.
Before the jury came back and delivered its verdicts these people still had the excuse that, inexplicably, nothing had been written officially to contradict their story. Yes there was the Hillsborough Independent Panel Report and of course there was the quashing of the original inquest, to say nothing of the Taylor Report. But politicians like Boris Johnston were still saying Liverpudlians ‘refused to acknowledge…the part played in the disaster by drunken fans’.
As recently as 2011, more than 20 years after the Taylor Report was published for anyone that might want to find out about the actual facts of the case, David Cameron said that victims’ relatives would never get over Hillsborough and likened all who wanted justice to a “blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat that isn’t there”. I’m not even going to say anything about Alan Davies, the fuzzy-haired prick. The politicians that are now desperately trying to climb aboard the bandwagon of public opinion spent the previous 27 years trying to derail it.
It’s little wonder, then, that the ‘what about’ brigade felt that there was some legitimacy to what they were saying. If people in authority, despite all of the evidence in front of them and available for them to read, were still happy to make ludicrous remarks about Hillsborough then why would some pimply virgin on Twitter care?
Some people were willing to listen to what I had to say, as some people always are. I know I changed one or two minds about the tragedy and encouraged a couple of people to find out more about it. But others still were too entrenched in their tribal hatred of everything to do with Liverpool to listen or to care.
The findings of the jury have done so much for so many people that I can’t even begin to describe it all. For the families and the survivors a weight has surely been lifted, though no declaration by a court or otherwise could ever do anywhere near enough to make up for the past 27 years. They have now got what, at the very least, they deserved: They’ve got the truth.
On top of that, though, the whole world now knows the truth, too. The truth isn’t being lost in convoluted language. It isn’t being diluted by a campaign of false information. The lies told by South Yorkshire Police and the people in power that wanted to besmirch the supporters of our club and the people of our city have been exposed for all to see. Never again will someone in authority be able to suggest Hillsborough was anything other than it was: a catastrophic failure by the police to do their duty.
For that reason I’ll no longer bother to engage with anyone from the ‘what about’ brigade. The people who suggest things like ‘the fans were a little bit responsible because they kept coming even though the pens were full’ no longer have the legitimacy of moronic comments from politicians to back up their nonsense statements.
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND – Sunday, September 23, 2012: Jenni Hicks and Margaret Aspinall, mothers of victims of the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster, watch Liverpool take on Manchester United during the Premiership match at Anfield. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)
We’ve known the truth for years, of course we have. The truth was there for everyone to see as the tragedy unfolded on the television. Anyone could have found out exactly what happened by reading the reputable newspapers instead of the ones that you’d be done for animal cruelty over if you put them at the bottom of a birdcage.
Now, though, the world knows the truth in no uncertain terms. Liverpool fans were in NO WAY to blame and the 96 victims of the disaster were UNLAWFULLY KILLED.
The verdicts make those that are part of the ‘what about’ brigade look like exactly what they are, flat-earthers. They are conspiracy nuts, cranks, contemptible morons who deserve to be ignored and pitied, not risen to. They are arguing with indisputable facts that have been accepted the world over and they look stupid, small and ignorant when they try to suggest that nine intelligent people who spent two years looking at an incredible amount of evidence might know less than some dweeb who’s shared their opinion on social media.
There’s a reason why fans in places like Germany, France, Spain, and America show solidarity with Liverpool supporters over Hillsborough. They don’t have the entrenched views of the city or the club that comes with having listened to and accepted lies told about us for 27 years. They don’t feel the need to react to the truth not in a humanitarian way but in a tribalistic one. They, like us, have always known the truth because they didn’t have to put up with the lies.
The sad fact is that there will always be people who won’t accept the findings of the inquest. There will be people who ask why so much money was spent on a new inquest, as though over £20 million of public money wasn’t spent defending police officers by perpetuating lies that were proven to be nonsense 26 years ago.
Now those people don’t have a leg to stand on. Their arguments are flawed, based on nothing more than fantasy. They’re building falsehoods on a bed of sand and we don’t have to try to change their minds anymore. If people want to continue to believe the lies told over the past 27 years then it’s clear they’re nothing more than neurotic fruitcakes, standing in a room alone, agreeing with their own echo.
J4T96. YNWA
I’ve found it hard to see people on twitter/facebook still saying fans were to blame. This article helps a lot. As I’ve said to mates people believe the Holocaust didn’t happen – I put people who blame fans at Hillsborough in the same bracket
Some people also deny that the Holocaust happened…..so if they don’t believe in 6 million people being murdered what chance do you have to convince them about the 96 and Hillsborough????
One of the things that has impressed me the most and changed my own life is that I have never seen any Hillsborough family member or survivor resort to name calling or labelling those who didn’t understand or accept their struggle. They were after getting the real truth brought forward. They were after restoring the reputations of their loved ones, and by extension the Liverpool fans who were there that day. They were after restoring the humanity of those who died, who were disrespected both in life and in death. They did so with remarkable dignity every step of the way, in spite of their despair and often-shattered hopes.
I think about this a lot — that we can love our own Club without having to hate someone else’s. We can be happy for the real truth about Hillsborough finally coming into public view without looking down on those who choose to close their minds to (or are simply incapable of understanding) what a monumental thing the Hillsborough verdict is. Over time more people will come to understand. And those who don’t — life will have its own hard knocks and lessons in store for them in its own good time.
Here here..well said Ellie
I’m down with pitying the ignorant, the wilfully ignorant however, I despise.
Both Taylor and HIP exonerated the fans so the inquest was never about that.The coroner gave the police a platform to dredge up bile and bigotry which stunk nearly 30 years ago and stank even worse after all that time simmering in the fiction factory. What the inquest was about was reversing Poppers sham inquests and thankfully it did so.. I wish the old bent bastard had lived to see it
These ‘flat-earthers’ are not people who are making a judgment, or expressing an opinion, differently from the rest of us, in the face of incontrovertible facts. It’s important to think about who they are. Imagine what they’ve been saying for the last 27 years, to friends, family and workmates, and the basis on which they’ve been claiming to know what they’re talking about.
A lot of them will have been dining out on stories of Hillsborough, based on claims to insider knowledge, to having “been there”, or to knowing people who were there, a brother or mate, or they are police officers claiming to “know” more than other people. Rather than people expressing an opinion, like most others, these are people who have spent 27 years claiming to “know”. Claiming inside knowledge, or direct experience. There’s a lot of it about – people who knew the Beatles, were there when Kennedy got shot, know an eye-witness, met Kim Kardashian once, etc. Bullshitters.
So now what do they do, when the facts are known by everyone, and plain to see? They have the option of admitting that they have spent the last 27 years bullshitting everyone they know, when all along they knew nothing, and just swallowed stories from the police and the Sun. Or, they can stick to their guns, and keep bullshitting, hoping that some at least of the people who trusted them will continue to go along with it. It’s like a flat-earther having claimed to have actually seen ships falling off the edge of the world, only to be proven a liar and fantasist by feats of circumnavigation. What do they say?
These are people, I would suggest, who have massively invested their personal integrity in 27 years of bullshit, and have been caught with their pants down. They lack the character to own up, so they carry on bullshitting. But the truth is out now, their credibility blown, and their voices will be ignored.
Well said, RedTed — your last paragraph especially. It’s mostly mental laziness on the part of those who still deny the real truth. From the first day they were manipulated by the media and formed an opinion that suited their bias. Now they do what most people normally do — they filter for evidence to support that bias because it’s too much effort or too hard for them to admit they’ve been wrong for more than a quarter of a century.
We all pay too much attention and give too much attention to the ignorant. We do it on Twitter every day. We do it when we fall for lazy journos who stir the shit with controversial headlines and stories designed purely to draw in clicks for advert revenue for their fat cat editors and bosses — journos who play football with their fingertips and loose lips. It’s wise to ignore and marginalise small-minded, mentally lazy people, so that we don’t contribute to promoting their ignorance. With the filthy press, though, it’s better to talk back to them and tell them directly that you’re not buying what they’re peddling. This is what Jürgen often does in his press conferences. Otherwise, we continue to be pawns in their dirty game.
Just yesterday I had an American friend who lives in France tell me a story his English girlfriend told him her father, a retired Yorkshire policeman of 20 years who was called ‘there’ (an alleged eye-witness, an actual participant observer), told her, to the effect that (brace yourselves, you’ve heard it before): “there were drunk fans pissing down on people whom persons of authority (unclear if it was cops or emergency personnel or both/neither) were attempting to resuscitate them.”
I just about lost it. I ended up ascertaining that said retired Yorkshire police officer (a 20-year veteran at the time of the tragedy) in fact retired right after Hillsborough. My friend’s ‘interpretation’ was “what he experienced must’ve really fucked him up”. (I bet it did).
Suffice it to say, I am trying gently to extract as much additional information about this fine lying gentleman, who’s been telling tall-tales to his daughter (and whoever else would listen, I am sure) about Hillsborough from my friend (who’s going to be gathering it from his English girlfriend, the daughter of said upstanding and honorable gentleman).
When/if I get an actual full name and further details, I’ll make proper contact and share with ‘interested parties’.
There are many things that still concern me about Hillsborough.The verdicts and open and closed conclusions.
Dr. John Ashton gave evidence about taking casualties to the gym and seeing a large board displaying photos of potential hooligans and troublemakers.Later replaced by polaroids of the victims.
Duckenfield said that the fans broke the gate.Now if I was Columbo I would have wanted to interview the police who attended the scene of the crime and looked for CCTV and evidence of broken locks and hinges and fingerprints on the gate.Maybe some of the rogues gallery could have been identified.But that didn’t happen.
Then Duckenfield admiitted that he ordered the opening of the gates.Now as a senior manager or police officer you would expect the reaction to be that he made a dreadful and catasrophic mistake.He would have to face the consequences and probably have to throw himself at the mercy of a court on a charge of criminal negligence at the very least.But they didn’t.
They formed a close-ranked defence involving dozens.To protect a single copper who had already put his hands up?Something not quite right here.
Friends and others who I have spoken to about that day all recall the absence of police control as you approached the ground.I’ve heard people talking about Forest coaches being directed to the Liverpool end and Liverpool coaches being directed to the Forest end.And as fans attempted to take short cuts through the side streets they were blocked off by police standing shoulder to shoulder at each end of the streets.Supporters had to “confront” each other to get to their specs.
The term used by the police for support as the disaster unfolded was “Major Incident” which was intended to indicate a public order breach requiring police dogs and heavy handed tactics.The correct term was “Catastophre”which instigated and alerted hospitals and amblulances.
Just what had they been gearing up for?
I watched as that line of police formed arm to arm across the pitch as fans took matters into their own hands.Where did they come from and how did they take their positions like well rehearsed formation dancers as though they were already prepared for it?
Thatcher was desperate to instigate I.D. cards on the back of football hooligans in those days.How come she was there on horseback the next day? Was she there to be be briefed by the police or there to brief the police?
There are still too many questions for me.
The cover up and lies were disgraceful and those responsible should be punished.
However, if you are in a massive crowd and someone shoves a person, that’s going to escalate and the injury will occur where that pressure can no longer escape.
I spend hours on tube trains. I spend so many hours in massive ques in ticket halls, platforms. Worse crowds ever. Do I push and shove people forward? No? Why because the poor person at the front would end up on the track under a train. Doesn’t matter what the circumstances are or why you are there if you are in a crowd that’s going nowhere pushing and shoving serves no purpose whatsoever and will result in injury.
Are the police to be held accountable? Most certainly. However, had those people not shoved or pushed no one would have died.
Ask yourself this, that same crowd, if there had been no pushing everyone stood still, patience, would have anyone died? No. Would they have missed the game? Yes. Is that worth a life? No.
The main culprits of responsibility is the police but a small part is still those that insisted on shoving. Sorry but it’s a fact.
What’s the point in this comment? The longest inquest in British history has reached a conclusion, the right one based on the evidence, and you think you’ve uncovered an overlooked factor in “shoving”? For fuck sake. Educate yourself. Read the report. Watch the documentary. Understand the facts. Like how it was policed. Who it was policed by. The number of turnstiles. Duckenfield’s experience of managing such an event (none). The history of crushing incidents at the same venue (plenty). The refusal to delay kick off. I could go on. But then I suspect there is little point. Events are managed by experienced people at safe venues for a reason.