Thanks to the wonderful
cyn we've recovered some of the correspondence leading to Clough's apology.
Date: 07/25/01 04:43:47 PM
Name: Paul F
Email: mailto:
Subject: email to the editor
I've followed up my previous email taking into account the editor's reply to Chris Mc.:
"Further to my previous message below, I have heard that you have asked Clough to address this issue in the next edition of FourFourTwo. Could I please ask you to ensure that he does not use the opportunity to merely repeat his outrageous views. Mud sticks, and we have had to put up with an awful lot of mudslinging since Hillsborough. The Sun's article "The Truth" on the Tuesday after the disaster has been privately acknowledged by the then editor Kelvin McKenzie to be anything but the truth, yet many Sun readers still take it as true.
Can I suggest that whoever compiles the column, and/or discusses this with Clough does a bit of research? Two sources I would recommend are the autobiography of Kenny Dalglish, and a very detailed discussion of Clough's comments and their aftermath in the book "No Last Rights: the Denial of Justice and the Promotion of Myth in the Aftermath of the Hillsborough Disaster" by Phil Scraton et al.
As with the Sun, Clough criticised a class of people, Liverpool supporters, rather than individuals. This got them both out of the potential pitfall of having defend their views in a libel trial. Please don't let him get away with it again.
Regards,
Paul Fields "
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This is situation that can work in our favour. No way are 442 going to endorse the comments made by the drunken ole twat. Keep the pressure on the editor for him to make a statement, if he wants the job it will have to be a retraction of those comments. You never know it might snowball to the S** making the same retraction. This might be the chance to bring the debate back into the headlines. I dont know what the readership of 442 is like or how big it is but if we get them on our side as a result of this it could be a real breakthrough.
Date: 07/25/01 05:22:49 PM
Name: Paul F
Email: mailto:
Subject: Great response from Mat Snow re: Clough
Dear Paul,
I have sent Brian Clough's ghostwriter Pat Murphy a selection of
emails we have received today and have asked him to ensure that Brian
substantially addresses the points raised and feelings provoked. At this
stage I do not know what the response will be, but I hope that he is big
enough to admit he was wrong and to make an apology to the loved ones of
those who lost their lives or were injured at Hillsborough.
Best wishes,
Mat Snow
Date: 08/6/01 05:10:00 PM
Name: APB
Email: mailto:
Subject: Re: ALL READ THIS!!!!
I think this is serious. He's also arguing blind and try to bluff you. Neither he nor Clough know anything about causation in this case. Do you have his e mail? He needs to be set straight. I'm going to send him this below. Anybody who still suffers maybe best not reading. Need to check figures, names, times etc. before sending tho'. Anyone help?
Further to your dialogue with Liverpool supporters concerning Brian Clough's
comments in his autobiography I would point out that Clough's views as expressed
in the autobiography were ill conceived and insensitive, but initially at least, I don't
belive they were designed to cause deliberate offense. However, as it became
apparent that the passage in the autobiography was stirring up controversy, Clough
rather than revise his opinion, not only dug his heels in, but deliberately courted
controversy, so as to aid sales of the book and in the process did deliberately cause
offense to bereaved families. It is this case that he has to answer, rather than
accounting for the words in the passage of the book per se. His appearance on
Clive Anderson's show was in my view a good example of how he deliberately
sought to stir contoversy and cause offense so as to draw attention to his
autobiography.
Two points need to be clarified here. First, why were my Mr Clough's sentiments in
his autobiography in the first instance both ill conceived and insensitive? The jist of
Clough's argument in the passage in the book, is that whilst the Police made
mistakes, one of the principal causes of the disaster was Liverpool fans arriving late
and ticketless. The verdict of the Taylor report categorically refutes this assertion by
absolving Liverpool supporters of all blame. The best way of illustrating how
misinformed Clough's views are, is to refer to the game played at Hillsborough
between the two sides in the FA cup semi final the previous year. The game passed
off without incident. The commanding officer, on that occasion ----- was
transferred a month before April 15 1989, to another divison, following a
disciplinary incident and subsequent enquiry involving officers at ------- station.
David Duckenfield subsequently assumed charge of policing football at Hillsborough,
a mere month before the semi-final. He lacked both the necessary expertise and
experience. Duckenfield made several crucial and ultimately fatal mistakes in his
policing strategy that day. In 1989 road works on the route from Liverppol to
Sheffield caused large numbers of Liverpool supporters to arrive in the hour
immediately proceeding kick off. The year before police had set up screening points
on the approach to the Leppings Lane terrace to a) check that people had tickets;
and b) to stagger the numbers arriving at the turnstiles at one time. As someone who
attended the 1988 game I can assure you that this had the effect of lessening the
crowd outside Leppings Lane. There were also more officers supervising the queues
outside Leppings Lane than in '89. In '89 at 2.15pm, 45 mins before kick off, one
officer on horseback was trying to control the throng coming into the Leppings Lane
turnstile area. The problem with Leppings Lane is that all fans wishing to gain entry
via those turnstiles have to pass through one narrow entry gate before entering two
tightly confined courtyard spaces. As in 1988 this resulted in a crush oustide
Leppings Lane. The crucial difference was that whereas in '88 the crush was
lessened by the process of filtering and ticket checking on the approach to Leppings
Lane, in 89 fans streamed through at their own pace, worsening the bottle kneck
situation. The problem was compounded, by the inadequate number of turnstiles
serving the Lepping's Lane part of the ground and the cantilever east stand. People
accessing these parts of the ground 27,000 (Liverpool Supporters) had to do so
through 23 turnstiles, 11 at Leppings Lane for 16,000 fans. The Forest section,
(28,000 supporters) main stand and kop were in fact serviced by 53 turnstiles in
total. Liverpools fans were forced into a bottle kneck outside Leppings Lane by the
lack of a police filtering process as evident the previous year, an inadequate police
presence outside Leppings Lane, a number of turnstiles that were insufficient to
process the volumes of people arriving, and the poor design and access at the
Leppings Lane end of the ground. These were circumstance beyond the control of
Liverpool supporters, but not of those authorities who approved Hillsborough as a
semi-final venue and those charged with policing the event. Therefore, there may
have been some ticketless fans outside Leppings Lane and the situation may have
been exacerbated by late arrivals, but the lateness of these arrivals was in most
cases not of the fans own making. More importantly, a bottlekneck would have
occured oustide Leppings Lane anyway, because of the poor design of Leppings
Lane and the inadquate police presence on the approach to and immediately outside
Leppings Lane. In the light, of this I am sure you can appreciate that Mr Clough's
comments in his autobiograhy are at best imprudent. However, despite the crush that
took place ouside Leppings Lane prior to kick off (from 2.15 onwards) the eventual
disaster was far from inevitable. If you were familiar with the lay out of Leppings
Lane at that time, you would appreciate that after coming through the turnstiles for
the terraced area,. you were confronted by a tunnel, but very little in the way of
signposting. It was a natural instinct to head for the tunnel because that seemed the
only way to go. The tunnel of course, brings you into the now infamous central pens
3 and 4. By 2.30 when the side gate was opened to relieve the crush outside these
central pens were already full, yet the side pens were relatively empty. A similar
situation had arrisen the previous year. The difference was that in 1988, commading
officer...., gave the order for the tunnel to be blocked off by officers, and fans
arriving after 2.30 were directed to side pens. In 89 Duckenfield neglected to block
off the tunnel because of his unfamilarity with the lay out at Leppings Lane.
Furthermore, other than blocking off the tunnel once the central pens became
crowded there was no mechanism for filtering fans to other pens, neither was there
any means of calculating how many fans were in each pen. The Leppings Lane
turnstiles serviced Leppings Lane as a whole, not the individual pens. In other
words, even without the severity of the crush outside it is likely that fatalities would
have occured anyway because of Duckenfield's failure to block off the tunnel leading
to the central pens. I am sure that on the basis of this you can appreciate just how
crass and insensitive a statement, "Liverpool fans killed their own," is. The real
reasons for the disaster were a poorly designed ground and a hugely inadequate
policing strategy, that all but broke down on the day due largely to commading
officer Duckenfield's lack of competence and experience. The causes of the disater
were complex, and Mr Clough can be forgiven for being unaware of what actually
happened that day. What he can be accused of is laziness in failing to research the
matter prperly before making crass pronouncements. To give him a healthy benefit
of the doubt, one might say his comments were ill informed, rather than reflecting any
particular sense of malice.
Secondly, on the Clive Anderson show when queeried about the lines in his
autobiography, rather than taking the opportunity to defuse the situation with a more
considered response, Clough exploited the situation for personal gain. This is the
allegation Clough really has to answer. On national television he said, "they were
drunk and they killed themselves." Moreover, a viewing of the programme would
reveal a vindictiveness in his tone. Clive Anderson may have been looking for such a
response, controvery = good television etc. , but Clough was now going a stage
further than he had done in his autobiography. He was effectively besmirching and
tarnishing the reputation of the dead. To bereaved families this was immensly hurtful
and grossly insensitive. His response seemed to me, to be the result of two things.
One, his legendary stuborness and a refusal to admit his verdict in the autobiography
may have been wrong. Two, an awareness that saying something controversial, and
reaffirming (and even going further than) what he said in the book would boost its
sales. This was a thoroughly selfish, hurtful, nasty and not untypical Clough act. It is
this case that I would like to see Brian Clough answer. Given the evidence above,
which is further detailed, and properly researched in Phil Scrtton's excellent book,
'Hillsborough: The Truth,' Mainstream Publishing, 1998, I would be particularly
interested to see if Clough still stands by what he said in his autobiography. I am
keen to give him the opportunity for him to admit that he was wrong in both his book
and on the Clive Anderson show. However, if he does stand by the intial simplistic,
but distorted, reasoning in the book, then this is indefensible, making him the
recationary, ignorant bigot, many believe him to be. More importantly, from your
perspective it would make him a great discredit to your publication. I trust that you
will do everything in your powers to address the situation and bring about a
satisfactory conclusion to the matter.
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Replying to:
The complete response from 4-4-2's editor has just come through, what he has written has struck me speechless. I nearly punched the monitor at his last snidey comment. Apparently Clough was actually in the Leppings Lane end!!!!!! F*ckwit, I am so pi55ed off now!!!
Dear Mr Ross,
Describing something as a cause of an event is not the same as blaming it. Nowhere here does Clough use the word blame when talking about Liverpool football supporters who flooded the Leppings Lane end. (He accuses the police of serious errors of judgement.) The nearest he comes to pinning blame or any measure of responsibility on Liverpool football fans was when he described them as ticketless and not orderly. And, of course, for decades lots of people turned up to matches ticketless and not orderly without any catastrophic consequences, but on that day the worst happened.
I think the issue here is the emphasis Clough places on the Liverpool supporters as the immediate (but never remotely intentional or culpable) cause of the disaster, while expressing sympathy with the police’s failure to cope. I happen to share your view that the police are paid to handle these situations much better than they did, and that they were culpably casual when the risk to public safety was becoming apparent. But I do not think Clough’s views diverge from the Taylor Report findings as much as you think. The issue is which of two inter-acting factors - ticketless fans or over-strained police - was the most significant cause of the disaster, not which was most to ‘blame’. Taylor emphasises the police in his findings, Clough emphasises the supporters in his autobiography. For what it’s worth, unlike Taylor, unlike me, and perhaps unlike some of the people who have written on the subject, Clough was actually there.
Best wishes,
Mat Snow
Editor, FourFourTwo
Date: 08/7/01 04:26:28 PM
Name: APB
Email: mailto:
Subject: Re: Latest from Mat at 442 re BC
Thought the parties were talking past one another yesterday so them the piece below about an hour ago. Is this the correct e mail address -
442@haynet.com ?
Two things. One, I'm not really interested in whether Clough gets sacked or not. But if the editor of the UK's major football magazine has his awareness and perception of Hillsborough clarified then that is a positive thing. Two, if Clough's life is made more uncomfortable, the editor gives him hassle, gets on his case and makes him squirm, makes him at least think about what he said and possibly makes him realise that some people will not simply forget, then that is to me a small victory.
Dear Four-Four-Two
It has been brought to my attention that Four-Four-Two magazine has
recently engaged in a dialogue with Liverpool supporters concerning the
views expressed by Brian Clough in his autobiography on the causes of
the Hillsborough disaster. Whilst Mr Clough's original printed comments
in the autobiography were ill conceived and insensitive, I don't believe
that they were initially intended to cause deliberate offence, even
though that was their actual impact. However, when it became apparent
that the relevant passage in the autobiography was receiving media
attention, Clough, rather than revising his opinion, deliberately
courted controversy so as to aid sales of the book. In the process, he
deliberately caused offence to bereaved families. It is this case that
Mr Clough has to answer, rather than accounting for the actual words in
the relevant passage of the book. In this respect, his appearance on
Clive Anderson's television show, was in my view, a good example of how
he deliberately sought to stir controversy and cause offence so as to
maximise media exposure for his autobiography.
Two points need to be clarified here. First, why were Mr Clough's
sentiments in his autobiography both ill conceived and insensitive? The
gist of Clough's argument in the relevant passage in the book is that
whilst the Police made mistakes, one of the principal causes of the
Hillsborough disaster was that Liverpool fans arrived late and
ticketless. The verdict of the Taylor report categorically refutes this
assertion by absolving Liverpool supporters of all blame.
The best way of illustrating the inaccuracy of Mr Clough's views is to
refer to the game played at Hillsborough between Liverpool and
Nottingham Forest in the FA cup semi final in 1988, the year prior to
the disaster. The game passed off without incident. The commanding
officer on that occasion, Chief Superintendent Brain Mole, was
transferred a month before April 15 1989 to another division, following
a disciplinary incident and subsequent enquiry involving the misconduct
of officers at Hammerton Road police station. Chief Superintendent David
Duckenfield subsequently assumed charge of policing at Hillsborough
football ground, less than a month before the semi-final. He lacked both
the necessary expertise and experience. Duckenfield made several crucial
and ultimately fatal mistakes in his policing strategy that day.
On April 15 1989, road works on the route from Liverpool to Sheffield
caused large numbers of Liverpool supporters to arrive in the hour
preceding kick off. In 1988, the police set up screening points on the
side streets approaching the Leppings Lane terrace to: a) check that
people had tickets; and b) stagger the numbers arriving at the
turnstiles. In 1989 there was no screening or filtering process on the
approach to Leppings Lane. As someone who attended the 1988 game, I can
assure you that the filtering process had the affect of lessening the
crowd congestion outside Leppings Lane, although there was still an
uncomfortable degree of congestion that year. In 1988, there were also
more officers supervising the queues outside Leppings Lane than in 1989.
In 1989, just after 2.15pm, more than 40 mins before kick off, one
officer on horseback was trying to control the throng coming into the
Leppings Lane turnstile area. The problem with Leppings Lane was that
all fans wishing to gain entry to the West Stand, Leppings Lane terrace,
and the North Stand had to pass through some narrow entry gates, or a
bottleneck, before entering two tightly confined courtyard spaces. As in
1988 this resulted in a crush outside Leppings Lane. The crucial
difference from 1988 was that whereas the crush had been lessened by the
process of filtering and ticket checking on the approach to Leppings
Lane in ‘88, in 1989 fans streamed through at their own pace, making the
bottleneck situation worse. The inadequate number of turnstiles serving
the Lepping's Lane part of the ground and the North Stand compounded the
problem. People accessing these parts of the ground, 24,356 Liverpool
Supporters, had to do so through a mere 23 turnstiles, 7 at the Leppings
Lane terrace for 10,100 fans. For the Forest sections, 60 turnstiles
serviced 29,800 supporters entering the Main Stand and Kop. In other
words, all of Liverpool’s 25,000 fans were forced into a congested
bottleneck outside Leppings Lane by circumstances beyond their control.
These circumstances included the lack of a police filtering process as
operated in 1988, an inadequate police presence outside Leppings Lane,
an insufficient number of turnstiles to process the volumes of people
arriving, segregation concerns, and poor design and access at the
Leppings Lane end of the ground. Therefore, whilst there may have been
some ticketless fans outside Leppings Lane and the situation may have
been exacerbated by late arrivals, the lateness of these arrivals was in
most cases not of the fans own making, and more importantly, a
bottleneck would have occurred outside Leppings Lane regardless of
lateness. The supporters of any team who played in the semi-final that
day and had been allocated Leppings Lane would have found themselves in
the position Liverpool supporters found themselves in, both inside and
outside of Hillsborough stadium. Late, ticketless, arrivals were
irrelevant to congestion that built from 2.15pm onwards. Late arrivals
did not cause the situation and the contribution of this factor was
negligible in the context of the overall disaster. These were the
findings of the Taylor Report.
The late-ticketless arrivals explanation as promoted by Clough is
further invalidated by another factor. Despite the crush that took place
outside Leppings Lane prior to kick off (from 2.15pm onwards) the
eventual disaster was far from inevitable. The lay out of Leppings Lane
at that time was such that, upon coming through the turnstiles for the
terraced area, supporters were confronted by a tunnel. There was very
little in the way of sign posting offering direction. Instinctively
people headed for the tunnel. It seemed the only way to go. The tunnel
of course, brought supporters into the now infamous central pens 3 and
4. By 2.47pm when the order was given to open exit gate C to relieve the
crush outside, these central pens were already full, yet the side pens
were relatively empty. A similar situation had arisen in 1988, when just
as in 1989, the central pens were full by 2.35pm. The difference was
that in 1988, commanding officer Mole, gave the order for the tunnel to
be blocked off by his officers. Consequently, Liverpool fans entering
the Leppings Lane terrace after 2.35pm in 1988 were directed to side
pens. In ‘89 Duckenfield neglected to block off the tunnel because of
his unfamiliarity with the lay out of the ground at Leppings Lane.
Furthermore, once the central pens became crowded, there was no
mechanism for filtering fans into the side pens other than by blocking
off the tunnel leading to the central pens. Neither was there any means
of calculating how many fans were in each pen, other than by observing
the rate at which the pens were filling. The Leppings Lane turnstiles
serviced Leppings Lane as a whole, rather than the individual pens. A
failure to block off the tunnel would lead to a severe crush in the
central pens regardless of the extent of congestion outside. In other
words, even without exit gate C being opened it is quite possible that
fatalities would have occurred because of Duckenfield's failure to block
off the tunnel leading to the central pens. In this context, the
statement, "they were killed by Liverpool people," is not only
inaccurate but highly inappropriate. The real reasons for the disaster
were a poorly designed ground and a hugely inadequate policing strategy
that all but collapsed on the day. However, causation is complex, and Mr
Clough can be forgiven for being unaware of what actually happened that
day. What he can be accused of though, is laziness in failing to
research the matter properly before making crass pronouncements. To give
him a healthy benefit of the doubt, one might say his comments were ill
informed, rather than reflecting any particular sense of malice.
Efforts by the South Yorkshire Constabulary (SYC) to divert attention
from themselves and on to the fans started as early as 3.20pm on that
fateful April afternoon, when David Duckenfield lied, telling FA
secretary Graham Kelly that Liverpool supporters had forced exit gate C,
which he had in fact ordered open. Grieving relatives travelling to
Sheffield to identify their next of kin were processed on that Saturday
evening by the SYC as if on a conveyor belt. They were also subjected to
aggressive questioning by police officers asking how much alcohol the
victims drank. The bodies were not even cold when SYP’s diversionary
tactics began. Press coverage gave credence to these diversionary
tactics. Moreover, the inadequate response of the emergency services, in
the hours proceeding the disaster, particularly the South Yorkshire
coroner and SYP, is a story that is still to be told and acknowledged
publicly. Many relatives remain unsure of the precise time of death and
whether their loved ones would have survived if adequate medical
treatment had been forthcoming. In this context, the wounds of survivors
and families of the bereaved on Merseyside run deep. This is why the
subject remains so sensitive and raises such passions amongst
Liverpool’s support. Liverpool supporters were dead and within twenty
minutes of the first fatality the police, the FA and the media were
blaming other Liverpool fans for causing the deaths. That is the very
definition of a tragedy. It was also a slur on all football fans. Mr
Clough’s comments contributed to the hurt brought about by misallocation
of blame and helped to sustain the prejudice and misunderstanding
surrounding the disaster. Hillsborough is a subject that remains barely
understood and misperceptions abound. I hope you agree that it is a
story that needs to be told properly. Without this the real lessons will
be lost.
The second point, is the question of how Clough managed to compound the
damage caused by his autobiography by going even further in his
condemnation of Liverpool supporters, and by association all football
supporters, whilst being interviewed on the Clive Anderson show. When
questioned by Anderson about the lines in the autobiography, Clough,
rather than taking the opportunity to defuse the situation with a more
considered response, exploited the situation for personal gain. This is
the allegation Clough really has to answer. On national television he
responded, "it’s got to be said they were drunk and they killed their
own." Moreover, a viewing of the programme would reveal vindictiveness
in his tone. Clive Anderson may have been looking for such a response,
controversy = good television etc., but Clough was now going a stage
further than he had done in his autobiography, introducing not only
lateness, but also drunkenness into the equation. He was effectively
besmirching and tarnishing the reputation of the dead further. To
bereaved families this was immensely hurtful and grossly insensitive,
given the questioning from SYP they had been subjected to, and the
tabloid press coverage of the disaster, - remember the Sun headline,
‘The Truth’ about picket pockets and urinating on bodies, that was later
shown to be false. With his comments Clough had resurrected old lies and
misperceptions.
His response to Anderson’s question seemed to be motivated by two
factors. One, his legendary stubbornness and a refusal to admit his
verdict in the autobiography may have been wrong. Two, an awareness that
saying something controversial, and reaffirming (and even going further
than) what he had said in the book, would increase publicity for the
publication, thus boosting sales. This was a thoroughly selfish, hurtful
and nasty act. It is this case, – these allegations, - that I would like
to see Brian Clough answer. Given the evidence above, which is further
detailed, and properly researched in Phil Scraton's excellent book,
'Hillsborough: The Truth,' Mainstream Publishing, 1998, I would be
particularly interested to see if Mr. Clough still stands by what he
said in his autobiography. I am keen to give him the opportunity to
admit that he was wrong in his statements both in the book and on the
Clive Anderson television show. However, if he does stand by the initial
simplistic, but distorted, reasoning in the book, then this is
indefensible. I believe it will discredit Four-Four-Two amongst football
fans the length and breadth of the country. Ultimately, such a view of
the tragedy would be contemptuous of all football fans.
In this context, I don’t think the response that Mr Clough is entitled
to his opinion is adequate. His is an opinion based on prejudice and
ignorance of the facts. It clearly ignores the evidence detailed in the
Taylor report, and Scraton’s study, which both show that the late
arrival of ticketless fans was not a contributory factor to the
disaster. More importantly, Clough’s opinion if it remains unchanged, is
offensive, dismissive and alienating to the families affected by the
tragedy, and to that considerable portion of your readership who were
going to high profile football matches prior to and during 1989. In the
final analysis, Brian Clough’s public statements have compounded the
lies that have been told. They have also contributed to the cover up
initiated by media and police that have caused so much hurt to bereaved
families. I trust that you will do everything in your powers to address
the situation and bring a resolution to the matter that is satisfactory
to all concerned parties.
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Replying to:
The issue of semantics is generating a lot of heat. Clough does not use the
word blame, but his simplification of a complex chain of events to "those
Liverpool fans who died were killed by Liverpool people" is both undeniably
a fact and a gross distortion of what actually happened. He then goes on to
assign culpability to the police for their handling of the large number of
Liverpool fans who arrived late and ticketless. What I think has angered so
many Liverpool fans is his statement that had those supporters not turned up
late and ticketless, the police would not have acted in such a panicky and
reckless fashion, and the disaster would not have happened. That the Taylor
Report resulted in mandatory all-seater stadiums for the game's top flights
suggests that the ultimate cause of the disaster is that overcrowding leads
to loss of crowd control which, in such a potentially unsafe environment as
a huge raking terrace, is a recipe for catastrophe.
As I've written earlier today to John Whitlow, I've ordered the Scraton book
so that I can inform myself as to how far the Taylor Report assigns total
responsibility for the disaster to the police, and also to read up about
Clough's comments on Clive Anderson and elsewhere. I will then, I hope, be
in a position to make a fully informed decision on this issue.
Thank you for your forbearance in this matter. I am glad that you understand
that I have a responsibility to hear all the sides of the issue before
considering such a step as dispensing with the services of FourFourTwo's
most popular contributor.
Best wishes,
Mat
Date: 08/7/01 06:33:29 PM
Name: Bob K
Email:
bobk@lpoolfc.f2s.com Subject: Or maybe not - just got this email from Mat Snow
Dear Bob,
Today I received a very informative and cogent letter from Dr Andrew Baker
which I have forwarded to Pat Murphy, Brian Clough's ghostwriter, with my
own comments. The essence of that message is that while the analysis in his
autobiography can be defended up to a point, his remarks on the Clive
Anderson show cannot. It is up to Clough to retract and apologise for those
comments. Were he to do this wholeheartedly, I feel that most of the people
he has angered would give him the benefit of the doubt. His reputation as an
entertaining curmudgeon would not suffer; if anything, he could emerge with
this tarnish on his reputation expunged. So much for enlightened
self-interest. Pat Murphy - who entirely shares your views on Clough's
blinkered stupidity and insensitivity over the Hillsborough disaster - is
not optimistic that his pal will see reason; Clough's best friend died very
suddenly the other day, so at the moment he is less than usually susceptible
to appeals to his better nature. I live in hope.
Meanwhile, I have ordered a copy of Phil Scraton's book and hope to become
better informed on all the facts.
All best wishes,
Mat Snow
