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Hillsborough Disaster
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<blockquote data-quote="Prestwick" data-source="post: 257995"><p><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Fa'atau82 @ Apr 16 2009, 06:41 AM) <a href="http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=391342" target="_blank"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div></p><p></p><p>There was a series of events that led to the crush. </p><p></p><p>First of all, there are rumours that Sheffield Wednesday oversold tickets for the game in that stand. These haven't been verified however.</p><p></p><p>Next, because of the limited number of turnstiles at the entrance to the stand the flow of people getting in was slow and the number of people waiting to get up built up and up. Police were directing other fans to queue to get in via that entrance even if they had tickets for other stands! Inside the amount of staff there to direct fans to their seats was minimal if absent which meant that fans went straight on and into the first pens that they saw which were the first two directly ahead rather than be spread evenly. Also, there was no indication of what was happening up ahead as to get to the terraces, everyone has to go through this tunnel first. </p><p></p><p>As the game kicked off, fans outside started to push and jostle to get into the ground which worried police (again minimal by the looks of it) outside trying to control the situation. As more and more people tried to get to the turnstiles, they prevented fans who had been incorrectly directed to the Leppings Lane stand from getting out and to the correct entrances elsewhere around the stadium. The decision was then taken to open a side gate to allow people out and ease the pressure that way. </p><p></p><p>When the gate opened, everyone instantly saw the new opening thinking that they were opening more gates to let fans in to watch the game and the crowd surged forward and into the tunnel and directly into the two pens straight ahead. </p><p></p><p>The problem is that logic and common sense tends to get lost in the midst of panic and excitement and again, it wasn't that apparent that something was going very badly wrong at the time because as I said, you had to access the stand via a tunnel first.</p><p></p><p>Hillsborough is why stadiums across the UK have entire legions of ground staff in flourescant jackets standing everywhere from the entrances to the stands themselves. They're there to control the flow of fans and make sure they get to their assigned area as quickly and safely as possible. Simply put, if there were sufficient levels of staff performing the same job on that fateful day then the tradegy may have been avoided because fans would have been evenly distributed across the stand rather than into just two pens.</p><p></p><p>When the crush started to happen, people tried to escape by climbing up and over the barriers seperating fans from the pitch and were immediately met by police thinking that they were hooligans bent on causing trouble by invading the pitch. As the authorities started to realise what was happening, the level of response was still awful. A single ambulance was allowed into the stadium. Of the 96 who died that day only 16 ever made it to Hospital. </p><p></p><p>The level of blame in my mind rests overwhelmingly with Sheffield Wednesday and the West Yorkshire Constabulary both of whom were woefully inequipped to handle any such crisis and had an indifferent attitude towards the welfare of fans.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Prestwick, post: 257995"] <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Fa'atau82 @ Apr 16 2009, 06:41 AM) [url='index.php?act=findpost&pid=391342']<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/url]</div> There was a series of events that led to the crush. First of all, there are rumours that Sheffield Wednesday oversold tickets for the game in that stand. These haven't been verified however. Next, because of the limited number of turnstiles at the entrance to the stand the flow of people getting in was slow and the number of people waiting to get up built up and up. Police were directing other fans to queue to get in via that entrance even if they had tickets for other stands! Inside the amount of staff there to direct fans to their seats was minimal if absent which meant that fans went straight on and into the first pens that they saw which were the first two directly ahead rather than be spread evenly. Also, there was no indication of what was happening up ahead as to get to the terraces, everyone has to go through this tunnel first. As the game kicked off, fans outside started to push and jostle to get into the ground which worried police (again minimal by the looks of it) outside trying to control the situation. As more and more people tried to get to the turnstiles, they prevented fans who had been incorrectly directed to the Leppings Lane stand from getting out and to the correct entrances elsewhere around the stadium. The decision was then taken to open a side gate to allow people out and ease the pressure that way. When the gate opened, everyone instantly saw the new opening thinking that they were opening more gates to let fans in to watch the game and the crowd surged forward and into the tunnel and directly into the two pens straight ahead. The problem is that logic and common sense tends to get lost in the midst of panic and excitement and again, it wasn't that apparent that something was going very badly wrong at the time because as I said, you had to access the stand via a tunnel first. Hillsborough is why stadiums across the UK have entire legions of ground staff in flourescant jackets standing everywhere from the entrances to the stands themselves. They're there to control the flow of fans and make sure they get to their assigned area as quickly and safely as possible. Simply put, if there were sufficient levels of staff performing the same job on that fateful day then the tradegy may have been avoided because fans would have been evenly distributed across the stand rather than into just two pens. When the crush started to happen, people tried to escape by climbing up and over the barriers seperating fans from the pitch and were immediately met by police thinking that they were hooligans bent on causing trouble by invading the pitch. As the authorities started to realise what was happening, the level of response was still awful. A single ambulance was allowed into the stadium. Of the 96 who died that day only 16 ever made it to Hospital. The level of blame in my mind rests overwhelmingly with Sheffield Wednesday and the West Yorkshire Constabulary both of whom were woefully inequipped to handle any such crisis and had an indifferent attitude towards the welfare of fans. [/QUOTE]
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