I’m no royalist by any means, but for many on here, if your wife and/or children were relaxing in the privacy of a secluded garden, then someone popped up with a camera and started snapping away, I suspect that said photographer would have needed surgery to remove camera and lens.

In this case the peeping tom was too far away to be spotted leaving only recourse to law and I hope they jail the bar steward.

TB affects both beef and milk producers, any farm with TB “reacters” has to cull the infected animals and can’t move or sell any cattle until further testing gives them the all clear, not sure on this but I believe this means 2 clear tests at 3 monthly intervals.

9 Months feeding cattle without return doesn’t help the income.

Twin Otter

You’re right I wasn’t there, in fact I had cut back attending football matches due to partly work commitments, but in fairness partly because the atmosphere in and around some grounds was becoming more ugly and threatening.

I do not for one minute believe that football fans are whiter than white, I do realise that hooliganism within football had become a real and dangerous problem.

But my reaction to the event is undoubtedly reinforced by the attempts from the outset to blame and blacken the fans, the full extent of which has now come to light.

Our opinions will always be coloured by our experiences, for me I don’t live in Liverpool, but fairly close by and was a Liverpool supporter, it is also fair to say that the anger and animosity built by the establishment and certain media never truly faded, with that in mind you were never going to get an historical reference to the report.

The report would be confined to that one event and as such was accurate in spite of the deep ingrained beliefs of some.

CD

Now you’re getting into “the sins of the fathers” or “guilt by association”, you can’t apply past events and draw the conclusion that there must be some fault to apply.

Come on, if for instance a member of your family committed a crime, then later a similar crime was committed, how would you feel if the same family member and yourself were held partly to blame just because you lived in the same area.

CD

Now we are coming much closer, as in so so many tragedies and disasters it is very rarely the actions of one individual or group which precipitates the problem.

As ever it is a combination of initial bad decisions, compounded by incompetence or even just errors of judgement, may sound callous in some way, but what has caused the anger to fester for so long has been the actions and statements from the establishment.

Quite clearly there are still many who can’t accept that Liverpool fans were totally innocent, but no fans at any time have deliberately lied to create a false picture, to pass the buck, the fans went where they were told to go, they finished up in an out of control situation not of their making and were massively, some would say criminally let down.

Oh, please let’s not turn this into an argument about politics / class / religion! :rolleyes:

The last thing on my mind, but let’s not forget just who it was who stuck the “drunken rabble” label on the fans.

Certainly not my fault as to who was in charge and their take or handling of the situation, to be fair would the reaction have been any better no matter what style of government was in charge?, I certainly don’t know that, by the same token West Yorkshire police have rightly taken a hammering over this, but would other police forces have reacted better?, again an unknown.

We can only deal and comment on who did what at the time.

Start with the FA, they allocated the ground which was already regarded as unsafe, they allocated the Leppings Lane end with the worst access to the largest number of fans.

As far as criticism of the Police is concerned, the faults and organisation was lacking from the top, in reality the bosses put the ordinary rank and file copper in an impossible situation.

Policemen out there with no radios or any means of contact with control, working blind knowing that there was a problem but with no idea of the scale of that problem.

Only today an ex-policeman has come forward because he has only now discovered that his statement to the Taylor Enquiry was altered without his knowledge.

The establishment from Thatcher on down waged a propaganda campaign against the fans and even against the city of Liverpool, revealing, that the statements made by “the drunken rabble”:mad: returning to Liverpool are now found to be true and accurate.

…..but are you saying that the Police are the only ones who bear any responsibility?

The police are certainly not alone in this.

Before the match LFC tried to get the game moved to another venue over safety fears, as a last resort asked that Liverpool fans be given the other end of the ground which has better access.

Hillsborough safety certification had been refused by Sheffield Council, the ground was regarded as unsafe even by the standards of that time, but of course the suits at the FA know best don’t they?.

The local police knew or should have known the sort of problems of passing a large number of fans through antiquated turnstiles and into a very restricted entrance to the stadium all passageways leading directly to just one part of the ground, no attempt was made to direct fans to other parts which were allocated to Liverpool fans.

The police outside should have held fans into queues leading to each entrance, but allowed the fans to congregate around the entrance en-masse, then the man “in charge” gave the instruction to open the exit gates and just let the fans pour in without any direction, net result all were funnelled into just one area with the inevitable horrible results.

From now on in the police in charge are wholly responsible, the ordinary copper has been left with an impossible job, then even as the disaster occurred again those in charge wrongly assessed the situation and took decisions which made the situation worse rather than better, “refusing to open the pens or let ambulances in”, it was actually fans calling to Liverpool players, who in turn called the referee before anyone grasped what was happening.

Then of course came the blame game, the vilification of fans and even the city of Liverpool with the lies that we are now all to aware of.

I see Bettison while making a sort of apology is still trying to apportion blame to the fans outside the ground, mind you he took the job of Chief Constable on Merseyside and was made very welcome:rolleyes:, probably has no great memories of Liverpool.