http://www.polfed.org/magazine/04_1999/04_1999_hills.htmHillsborough
The day the unthinkable happened
Ten years after 96 Liverpool fans dieded on a sunny April afternoon in Sheffield, arguments about the worst football tragedy in English football's history rage on. Next month a private prosecution of two former senior police officers opens. TONY JUDGE reports on the calamity that befell a stadium where safety was virtually guaranteed.
The 15th April 1989, the date of the F A cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, happened to be the 77th anniversary of the sinking of the unsinkable Titanic. Just as no-one foresaw that disaster, so it was "unthinkable"' that anything untoward could happen to the 50,000 fans who were making their way towards Hillsborough, home of Sheffield Wednesday football club.
Of all the football grounds in England, this was the one that had been rebuilt with total safety in mind. The Queen had opened the reconstructed Spion Kop in December 1986. The club's Safety and Security Officer was Douglas Lock, a former Superintendent in South Yorkshire Police. In April 1987, Lock told readers of Police Review, in an article headed "Playing Safe at Sheffield", that the aim of Sheffield Wednesday was "to provide entertainment in a safe, modern stadium." Many clubs, said Lock, were at this time ignoring the needs of paying customers. The fire in 1985 at Bradford City's Valley Parade ground, when over 50 fans died, exposed the scandalous disregard for crowd safety at most of the country's outdated and ramshackle stadium.
Douglas Lock told Police Review readers, that in order to improve segregation of fans, separate entry turnstiles had been installed at the cramped Leppings Lane end.
He described how the new police closed circuit television system was operated by officers from an elevated control room at the south west corner of the ground immediately above the Leppings Lane terraces. Its occupants had a clear view of the terraces.
Lock contrasted the state of the art safety and supervision facilities at Hillsborough with the utter chaos that had reigned at Bradford. "Today at Hillsborough" he wrote, "a senior officer can follow crowd movement outside the stadium by using the closed circuit cameras as his eyes. He is able to anticipate incidents as they build and deploy necessary resources to abate them. Inside the ground he can watch crowd behaviour and identify offenders through the zoom facility." Lock explained how, as safety officer, he worked with the police on match days. "I am helped by a police officer and a television/computer engineer. Together we watch and record the entry of all supporters into the ground. The club's control is also linked to the police control by two-way back to back radio system. Club officials and security staff also carry radios and should we see, on our screens the start of an incident, we can immediately request police assistance." Two years later, this confidence in the technology; and the assumption that it could cope with any emergency; were found to be woefully misplaced. Lock explained the sophisticated system that had been devised precisely to prevent such a situation from arising; "(The system) . ... has an electronic counting device fitted on each turnstile and an infrared magic eye beam. As supporters enter through the turnstiles they trip the counter. This information is relayed back to the control room to the IGS 'gate counter' computer where it appears on a desktop visual display unit. The turnstiles are grouped into sectors. These are specified by the ground Safety Act certificate It is possible to obtain complete details of individual entries through turnstiles and to monitor sector capacities or ground capacities at any time during the pre - match build up. By careful monitoring of the digital readout, we can begin to close down turnstiles as we approach sector limits. This facility also enables police to warn police to transfer supporters to other parts of the ground where accommodation is available". On the face of it, therefore, Hillsborough was an ideal venue for a cup semi-final. It was well used to staging such matches. In fact, the same clubs, Liverpool and Forest, had contested the previous year's semi-final at Hillsborough. When the same ground was chosen again , both lodged strong protests with the FA. They wanted to play the game at Old Trafford.
The problem was the allocation of tickets between the clubs. The police, in compliance with Popplewell's recommendation that segregation of fans should be a paramount concern at matches, insisted that Liverpool's supporters must use the Leppings Lane end, as they had in 1988, with the Kop being allocated to the Forest followers. This meant that Liverpool, with twice as many fans, had to make do with 25,000, while Forest were allocated nearly 30,0000. The disparity was even greater in respect of standing areas, where there was room for just 10,000 Liverpool fans, while the Kop held 21,000 Forest supporters in comfort. This seemingly perverse arrangement was dictated by the routes by which fans were expected to take to the ground. The police feared that if fans encountered each other trouble would break out. For this reason , they refused Liverpool's request, supported though it was by the FA, that their fans should be on the Kop.
Ten years ago, the police had good reasons for treating major football matches as high risk public order events, especially when Liverpool was involved. It was this club's "supporters" who had run amok at the Liverpool-Juventus European Cup final in Brussels four years earlier, when more than fifty fans were crushed to death. As a result, English clubs were excluded from European competition for six years.
The South Yorkshire Police deployed just over 1200 officers on duties connected with the semi-final. In overall command was David Duckenfield, newly promoted to Chief Superintendent, who days earlier had taken command of "F" division, which included Hillsborough. He was returning to uniform after many years experience as a detective. He had little or no experience of policing major events.
It was one of those rare spring days when fans had every incentive to linger outside the ground (to them an alcohol free zone). In contrast, the weather for the 1988 semi-final had been cold and wet, so the crowd was packed into the stadium well before kick off. This time, the pubs around Hillsborough did a brisk trade, and the build up of fans outside the Leppings Lane turnstiles was much slower and later than the year before.
At 2pm, while the Nottingham areas of the ground were filling rapidly, the Liverpool terraces were half empty. Around twenty past two, the situation started to become ominous. There was a very rapid build up of arriving fans. The separate queues outside the turnstiles became a single phalanx filling the whole approach area. The police outside the gates were beginning to be overwhelmed by the weight of numbers. The mounted officers were hemmed in and rendered useless. Some fans, mostly young men who had been drinking, tried to force their way forward, jamming others against the walls. Police tannoy messages asking the crowd to stop pushing were ignored.
The crowd, now over 5000 strong, was exerting great pressure on the closed gates. Seeing that they had no chance of getting inside the ground before the kick off the demand went up to "Open the gates". Superintendent George Marshall who was in charge in Leppings Lane requested permission from Duckenfield to open the gates, fearing loss of life if this was not done.
Once all the gates were open, thousands of fans, with or without tickets, rushed inside. Most headed straight for the tunnel immediately in front of them, totally unaware of the dense crowd already trying to reach the terracing by this route, and not knowing that there was room for them in the pens on either side of the centre. Now the conditions in the crowded pens changed rapidly from uncomfortable to perilous. Fans at the front were being crushed against the perimeter fence. Some of the narrow gates in the fence were opened, allowing some to get out of the pens. Those who were unhurt were directed to pens where there was still plenty of room, but all the time the overcrowding in the central pens was getting worse. Fans had begun climbing the fences between the pens. Those being crushed against the fence were screaming for help. For some, it came too late.
By now the match had begun and within minutes the crowd at the Leppings Lane end had surged forward, causing a barrier to twist and break. This projected many fans forward and some fell, to be trampled upon by those behind. No one in the police control room, situated so close to the mayhem, realised that anything was wrong until the fans began to pour through the fence gates. Then, the senior officers assumed that a pitch invasion was about to happen and summoned reinforcements and dogs. Meanwhile, Superintendent Greenwood, the ground commander, could see from his position in the mouth of the players tunnel that something was seriously wrong at the Leppings Lane end. He ran to the referee and the match was stopped at five minutes past three.
The gruesome scenes at the Leppings Lane end have been described in sickening detail in the late Lord Justice Taylor's report on the disaster.
He writes "the dead, the dying and the desperate" becoming "interwoven in the sump at the front of the pens." There now began a frantic effort by fans, police and stewards, and ambulance volunteers, to rescue the victims. Taylor writes; "More officers arrived from the gymnasium and elsewhere in the ground. Many used their own initiative to help those laid out on the pitch, to assist in getting others over the fences and to comfort the distressed. But some stood in groups near to the perimeter fence not knowing what to do. They had been summoned in response to what was thought to be a threat to public order. What they found was a horrific scene of carnage and some young officers were shocked into impotence by what they saw.
"It was truly gruesome.......... A pile of dead bodies lay and grew outside Gate 3. Extending further and further on to the pitch, the injured were laid down and attempts made to revive them.... as the enormity of the disaster was realised, many of the fans milling about were bitter and hostile towards the police..... officers were confronted, abused, spat upon, even assaulted."
The Hillsborough disaster was unique in one respect. It was played out, as it was happening, in the full view of live television cameras. Millions of horrified viewers watched as the full scale of the catastrophe was unfolded. Those who watched would never forget the scene, or how the utter despair and desolation of so many spectators, police, and others, contrasted with the glorious sunshine and the festive surroundings of a major sporting event. The agonies of those who were watching in Liverpool, knowing their loved ones were at the match, can only be imagined. The recriminations were immediate. The air was thick with accusations within minutes of the event, and the allegations have gone on ever since. Controversy still rages about the actions of police and fans that day, although there is now a consensus that neither drunkenness nor hooligans can be blamed for the deaths.
The relatives of the 96 dead continue to grieve, and many are bitter about what they see as an unsatisfactory inquest. The refusal of the courts to compensate some relatives of victims still rankles, especially as some police officers who were traumatised by the event received compensation in court actions. In a very recent development, it has been announced that some of the relatives intend to sue their lawyers, alleging incompetence in pursuing their claims.
Lord Justice Taylor's report was scathing about most (but not all) of the senior police officers at Hillsborough that afternoon. He had this to say about the 65 officers who appeared before him as witnesses;
"Sadly I must report that for the most part the quality of their evidence was in inverse proportion to their rank. There were many young constables who as witnesses were alert, intelligent and open. On the day, they and many others strove heroically in ghastly circumstances aggravated by hostility to rescue and succour victim. They inspired confidence and hope.
"By contrast, with some notable exceptions, the senior officers in command were defensive and evasive witnesses. Their feelings of grief and sorrow were obvious and genuine. No doubt those feelings were intensified by the knowledge that such a disaster had occurred under their management. But, neither their handling of the problems on the day nor their account of it in evidence showed the quality of leadership to be expected of their rank."
Lord Taylor concluded that the cause of the overcrowding, and hence the disaster, was the failure, after the gates were opened, to cut off access to the pens which were already overfull. The police and stewards had not been in position to block off the entrance to the tunnel leading to the central pens. He found that no safe maximum capacities for each pen had been laid down. No means existed of numerical control of the numbers entering individual pens. Nor, on the day; had there been effective visual monitoring. The police were criticised for not realising that dangerous congestion could occur in the turnstile areas, and failing to provide for concentrated numbers arriving in a short time.
Valley Parade, Heysel and Hillsborough marked the end of an era. The day of the all seater stadium has arrived, and at senior grounds fans have lost the right to stand and roam at will. Ironically, the world famous Anfield Kop had to go. Even Lord Taylor, whose second report propelled football into this new era, may not have foreseen how soon the stadium would change into the super, multipurpose structures of the late nineties, or how football would cease to be the working man's sport and become the preserve of big business, millionaire players, pay for view and corporate sponsorship and entertainment. Where once it was staring at bankruptcy, football, at least at the top, is now regarded as sexy and hugely profitable. Will it remember the 200 dead fans who, during the eighties, were the price to be paid for violence, clapped out grounds or sorry incompetence?
