Thought his cross-examination was pretty aggressive. Stressful just to read.
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Thanks very much for being ‘This Mornings’ Farmer’ -
Not been able to 100% verify but the P stands for Paul, so far as I can tell from Google.Football without Origi is nothingComment
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Hillsborough: Result of lazy 1980s prejudicesOriginally posted by Lecter View Post
If Wednesday was about truth, today is about justice. The report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel opens up a new path down which the campaigners are set to march.
There is now a very real possibility of prosecutions of police officers or others found to have been involved in the systematic amendment of key statements to the original Taylor inquiry in 1989. A case could be made that this was an attempt to pervert the course of justice, trying to airbrush out the evidence of potentially criminal negligence.
It seems likely that the attorney general will apply for the original inquest into the tragedy to be quashed and a new one opened. Were that fresh hearing to come to a different conclusion to the accidental death verdict recorded at the time, that might also open the way to criminal prosecutions.
There have been suggestions that Sheffield Wednesday FC and the city's council might face allegations of corporate manslaughter, were it to be demonstrated that they were criminally negligent in failing to protect the fans that fateful Saturday.
The former Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw said on Thursday it was "a matter of great regret" that he did not do more during his time in office to investigate the claims of the Hillsborough campaigners, while arguing that it was the Conservative Thatcher government which had created a "culture of impunity" within the police.
Interestingly, a letter from Mr Straw among the 450,000 papers scrutinised by the independent panel suggests he was not immune to that culture. He wrote to the then Attorney General John Morris in early 1998, just as Lord Justice Stuart-Smith's report was due to recommend no new inquiry into Hillsborough. Below is an excerpt.
1998 letter from Jack Straw to John Morris
Referring to the amendment of statements by South Yorkshire Police, Mr Straw said: "There are bound to be questions, however, about whether anything in this process might amount to misconduct of a criminal or disciplinary nature. Lord Justice Stuart-Smith considers it would not. It would in theory be possible to instigate a further police investigation to confirm this conclusively, but I think the outcome would be a foregone conclusion, and I do not consider that such an investigation should be instigated."
The disaster and its despicable aftermath were the consequences of lazy 1980s prejudice: that football was the preserve of yobs and drunks (this was an era when managing football crowds saw public order put before public safety) and that Liverpool was the city of rebels and chancers, with a reputation for harbouring a grievance.
It was useful for the authorities that there was a grain of truth in these simplistic portraits, caricatures that could be exploited by those engaged in official calumny.
Mark Easton on the devastating verdict on the police and emergency services
Even 10 years on when New Labour was looking to challenge what they saw as the crusty old establishment, the home secretary dismissed Liverpool's desperate pleas for a judicial inquiry.
Today those frames of reference have completely altered. Football, for all its faults, has won its reputation as "the beautiful game" and Liverpool can proudly boast it is a city of European culture.
The Hillsborough disaster and the fight for justice is now a tale that will be woven into the folk history of our islands. But it is a narrative that will be adapted to fit two competing liturgies.
For some, it represents a rare and famous victory in the epic struggle of the down-trodden working class against a corrupt and contemptuous elite. In parts of Liverpool and beyond, the dead of Hillsborough will be held up as martyrs to the cause of British socialism.
For others, the story is about the spirit of the individual against an arrogant state machine, the citizen who takes on the system. Through this prism, the 23-year long march for justice for the 96 will be held up as a victory for British liberal values.
There is always a tension between citizens with a grievance and an establishment safeguarding its authority. The question is, perhaps, whether official promises of openness, honesty and accountability from our public institutions are more credible today than they were back in 1989.
Bob Paisley - "This club has been my life. I'd go out and sweep the street and be proud to do it for Liverpool if they asked me to."Comment
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My blood boils. The lengths the police went goes far beyond what I've ever thought. It's been very hard to take in these latest development, it's hard for me to imagine how I would have felt today if I were one of those who had lost a loved one. I'm not sure I'd have found any comfort from this at all.Comment
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good to see this bringing football fans together, would be great if it could defuse the suarez-evra situation and bring down liverpool manc hate down a level.
would never happen but a couple of united fans bringing a banner/and flowers towards the kop just before the handshakes, would be greatComment
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I mentioned a few pages ago after a quick visit to RC that they are being pretty decent about it over there. Someone on there did in fact suggest a banner so I wouldn't rule it out.Originally posted by Liverpool View PostFootball without Origi is nothingComment
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Tribalism in football is as nasty as its ever been. Lots of big, brave men revelling in anonymity, shouting obscene insults at people they know they can hurt and there's nothing any of them can do about it.
What a lot of these people aren't taking into consideration, and hopefully yesterday's disclosures will make them realise, is that the victims could have been any team's supporters.
Liverpool fans were just unlucky to have been sent to Hillsborough for that semi final, at that end, to a game that was inadequately policed at a venue that was not fit for purpose.
Those Manchester United fans who sing about Hillsborough could easily have been mourning 96 Manchester United supporting family members, who would have been vilified over the years just the same as our lost supporters.Comment
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I can't respond to that other than saying thanks for posting it.Originally posted by Shaggy View PostFelching ≠ GerbillingComment
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Hillsborough: There but for the grace of God, go us....
Yesterday's damning indictment of all aspects of the British establishment following the independent panel's investigation into Hillsborough, was shocking but not surprising for those of us unfortunate enough to follow football in the late 1980s. We always knew The Truth.
Hillsborough could have happened to any of us.
We often found ourselves in various perilous situations at different grounds (including St. James' Park) up and down the country where we were always one slip, one mounted police charge, one gate opening away from disaster.
A few years before the disaster I was in the central pen at the Leppings Lane End, packed in so tightly that breathing became an effort, my feet were off the floor and some of us were sensing the danger.
Thankfully, we were near enough to the tunnel to fight our way out and make our way, despite the non-existent signage, into the side pens which were virtually empty. It had been a death-trap for years.
My colleague was at the White Hart Lane incident, some years later, where it was nothing short of a miracle that no-one lost their lives when in 1987 United fans were almost the victim of callous policing by the Met.
The Park Lane end containing the travelling support was allowed to become dangerously overcrowded while the adjacent paddocks remained closed and unused.
The first few fans to scale the fences were arrested but gradually more joined in and fought with stewards to open gates on to the pitch. And in an eerie foretaste of the Hillsborough tragedy, seated fans above pulled some of those below to safety and disaster was averted.
The police's reaction was to stretch a line of officers in front of the away section which blotted out any view of the match and after the final whistle a vain attempt was made to hold the away fans in their pen.
A midweek game at Maine Road saw a massive crush on the stairs leading down from the away terrace on the Kippax and at one point I was jammed up against the railings staring at a 50ft drop with nowhere to go. A piece of fatigued metal or crumbling concrete would have seen dozens of us fall to our deaths.
Just a year after Hillsborough, our game in Sheffield at Bramall Lane had seen an almighty crush at the end of the match where once again the South Yorkshire police had lost control. Had they learned nothing? I remember writing to The Mag about it at the time.
But things weren't much better at St. James'. Many of the sold out games saw crowds way in excess of the official attendance figures and while some areas of the Gallowgate were packed, the "Scoreboard" section would be dangerously crammed. Kenny Wharton's testimonial game being a surprising case in point.
The "them and us" attitude of the police at the time meant that it never entered their heads that on that awful day, that they were watching a disaster unfold. They presumed it was a pitch invasion and disorder.
It says much about the way this country (still) works that all areas of society were able to collude and cover-up with senior police officers, emergency services, coroners, lawyers, journalists, politicians all in on the conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. The legal system serves victims the least.
In the end, it has taken an independent group outside of the establishment to uncover what happened that day and how the families of the victims of Hillsborough have found the strength to carry on their fight is incredible.
Five years after the tragedy Newcastle went to Anfield in a Premier League fixture on April 16th and both sets of fans paid tribute to those lost in a fitting and spontaneous show of unity. It was an extraordinarily moving occasion and like the victims of Hillsborough, will never be forgotten.
The Truth was always there and it's a national disgrace that it took 23 years to make those responsible unable to deny and ignore it.
Will justice follow? Whatever happens now, it'll be far too little, far too late.
Our thoughts go to our fellow football fans who suffered then and are still suffering now. You're not alone.Thanks very much for being ‘This Mornings’ Farmer’Comment
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Posted by a Bluenose on United We Stand
Take a long, hard look.
I am an Evertonian. I live in Liverpool. Sefton actually. Merseyside anyway.
I don’t go to as many games as I used to. I gave my season ticket up a couple of years ago. To be truthful I got a bit sick of working all week to pay the wages of the likes of Pistone. They’re just not worthy of it.
I’m off to Dublin in April though. Can’t wait. It’s not Istanbul but that’s hardly the point. There are not as many ‘I was there’ points to score. It’s watching the Blues, having a few scoops with an old friend in a city I’m very fond of. Do you still need to phone ahead for the Guinness?
My elder brother, Gary, died at Hillsborough. Asphyxiation. The breath was crushed out of him by the sheer mass of bodies squashed into such a tight space. I’m getting angry thinking about it.
He was no angel like, and I hope to God he did have a few bevies before the game.
I don’t like to be reminded of it. I don’t much like the memories of seeing the disaster unfold on the telly, not realising he was there until my Dad said so. Even then, jokily saying ‘Our Gary’ll get me one of them’ about the numerous Police helmets littering the pitch.
There was no phone call to say he was alright. This became more worrying as the day wore on. My Dad’s grim march around to the Pub. His return with the dreaded news, from his mates who had returned but couldn’t bring themselves to come to ours. I don’t blame them. What would they have said?
My mother had kept her composure all day up until that point, busily ironing every bit of clothing in the house that wasn’t on someone’s back. Upon hearing the news which was a strained ‘There’s no other way of saying this. He’s dead’, all the days ironing got flung around the kitchen and the ironing board was upended.
I escaped to the back garden and tried to fend off a particularly boisterous Jack Russell I kept there (for the rats in our council slum).
The rest of the day is a bit sketchy. I realise now I was in shock. I was seeing a girl I’d known for years at the time. Not that serious, but in my thoughts enough for that to be the first place I turned to.
The poor girl didn’t know what to do with me. I was pretty vacant. She probably just plied me with drink.
Her dad, who I regard as one of my best friends now, came in. Not knowing about my news said ‘Have you seen what’s happened? Do you know anyone that’s gone?’. My girlfriend had to take him out of the room to explain. ‘Yeah’ I said to no one.
I went to Sheffield the next day with my dad and a couple of uncles. The rest of my dad’s brothers who were scattered around the country all met up there to support us.
My girlfriend still says I shouldn’t have gone, but as I said at the time ‘I can’t remember the last time I saw him. I’ve got to’.
It was a weird dream like journey. I kept expecting him to be standing on some street corner, smiling saying ‘Where the **** have youse been ay?’.
It never happened and we set about making sure the person they had lying on some slab in this town was our Gary.
They had some kind of community/church hall set up to deal with people like us. I suppose they were doing their best in a terrible situation but the last thing we needed was to be comforted by some stranger, with that serene look God botherers have, who knew nothing about us or the person we were looking for.
‘Listen mate, where’s the nearest pub?’ My Dad said. ‘There’s one across the road. Shall the young fellow stay here?’ Lazarus says. I was at the front going out the door.
After a few pints we decided we’d better find the place where they were keeping the bodies.
We were sitting around on couches in what I think was a morgue. There were a lot of people about, crying or with worried looks on their faces.
A couple of fellas went past in white tunics. One of them was about Peter Crouch’s height and had something a bit queer about him. My uncle David said ‘I bet he does nights’. We all laughed. God you had to. The laughter didn’t last long and the smiles didn’t linger.
We were ushered into a room. There was a glass viewing window with a curtain drawn across it, on the inside. As we stood in the dark, all nine or so, there were no jokes.
The curtain went aside and there laid my elder brother, Gary. It was him alright. Or something with the life knocked out of it that resembled him.
My Dad rested his hands on the window sill and put his nose up to the glass. I couldn’t handle it and fled the room. I was off up the street and our David came after me and brought me back.
I asked my Dad days later why he did that and he said ‘Well, you have to make sure’.
The events of 15th of April knocked the stuffing out of my Mum and Dad and they began visibly ageing. My relationship with my Dad is better now as we did clash at the time. My sister and I get on better than we did at the time too but what teenager is on more than grunting terms with their elder sister anyway?
Not long after we were in one of the Cathedrals in town, can’t remember which one. They had us all lined up in some vestry as Thatcher and some Royal with the coldest hands I’ve ever shook, shook mine.
The coldest hands I’ve ever felt and the coldest heart in the same room to shake the hands of a lad from Bootle. That wouldn’t happen while I was conscious nowadays but I was young and impressionable at the time. ‘So dreadfully sorry’ I think Maggie said. ‘Yeah, I ****in bet yis are’ I can just about live with myself for not saying.
Fair play to my Grandad who turned his back on the pair of them, and I’d pay money to revisit that sketch. God knows what Maggie and her mate thought. I hope they had a good think about it, but I doubt it.
I better get to the point of this, if there is one. It feels alright writing about it for the readers who will take it for what it is, on a basic human level. Something I suspect some folk are lacking. Basic Humankindness. Not a word, but **** it, this is my piece.
We as a family started getting letters and tickets through about memorials. I was all for supporting my mother and father in this if that’s what they wanted to do. I’d already explained to my mother that I wasn’t going to visit a gravestone in Thornton every week, and she accepted it. Its single figures the amount of times I’ve been there. My mum and Dad go every week, that’s their decision.
They also go to the memorial every year. One of the first ones I went to was at their yard and I remember thinking ‘Why?’ when we parked behind a taxi with Leicester plates.
I’ve had to stand on the Kop while everyone around me sang that horrible dirge of theirs. I stood there with my mouth sealed. I’ve never been to one since. I’ve vowed to never go there again unless it’s for the Derby.
What struck me was the amount of people on the Kop that day. It was full. 96 people died and they give around 5 tickets to each family. I don’t understand why you would want to be involved in something like that unless a relative or a friend had died. My mum got upset when some tit at the back was shouting about boycotting the upcoming Sheffield Wednesday game (over a plaque). She thought they were being disrespectful. Thanks lad, me mum swerved that game on your advice.
At the start of the day, we were gathered in one of their lounges. Somehow we had managed to get in the wrong place and the players walked in and stood near us.
I’ll never forget the sight of people standing their kids next to them and taking photographs. I was speechless. I suppose I wasn’t much better with my black Everton badge on.
My Mum and Dad still go to these things, but even my Mum is getting a bit tired of the whole thing. My Sister and Aunty go and I normally give my ticket to my cousin, who was very close to Gary.
I normally meet them in the Abbey or one of the many boozers along County Strasa afterwards. I bollocked my sister and (female) cousin for going on about being able to smell Baros’ aftershave last year. A couple of years before, Berger was the object of their attention.
I reckon I could tout that ticket and some weirdo would pay good money for it too.
There are probably weirdoes about that wish they had a relative that died that day, so that they could feel even more aggrieved on message boards. In the same way Brett Anderson will never forgive God for not letting him be Angie Bowie.
I was in Sheffield recently to do with work. After I’d done what I was down there to do, I very nearly stayed on the tram to Leppings Lane. I decided not to in the end. It struck me that my brother, who I used to get a hiding off for wearing his clothes (he went off his head when he saw our Isle of Man holiday snaps and I’m standing there grinning in his Adidas top, with a fish I’d caught), got another for snapping the forks on his Raleigh Bomber in Derby Park (I never went home that night but sat in my mates ****ting myself), got me caught dangling out of our bedroom window about to jump on a pile of privets my dad had chopped, on his insistence, was sleeping next to me in the same bed when a bed spring came through the mattress and gave me the scar I still have on my left knee, used to throw darts back that I threw at him, got me a hiding off my dad because he riled me to the point where I called him a ‘tool’ when I didn’t even know what it meant, used to laugh at me doing Southall impressions bouncing the ball off the wall and diving full stretch across the bed, died in a strange town at a horrible football ground with people sitting and shouting on the spot where he drew his last breath, once a fortnight and I wasn’t there to help him.
On the journey back to Lime Street that evening there was a lad on the platform with a Liverpool scarf on. I naively thought this kid who was waiting for the same train as me had taken a sickie to visit Leppings Lane.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. The carriage I was in had a few people in scarves dotted about. One lad was sat in front of me.
The ticket fella got talking to him and mentioned some European team and the penny dropped. This lad had travelled from Cambridge to watch the Mighty Reds and had changed trains at Sheffield. The lad didn’t know how to get to Anfield and the ticket fella said ‘There’ll probably be a few more getting on as we get near Warrington, you can follow them’.
That kind of sketch makes my blood boil.
At the FA Cup Final in 1989, me and my girlfriend went. We got free tickets from LFC. I had a few bevies that day, and joined isolated crowds in hurling more than a bit of abuse at the Met, who, to be fair, took it on the chin.
The games a bit of a blur. My girl’s a Blue and I remember her being stood on her seat screaming.
One thing that stands out from that day is during the minute’s silence, someone started playing reggae music full blast from somewhere. Cue shouts of ‘****in shut up!’ and the like.
I don’t like minute silences, there’s far too many of them and they’re never completely silent. This clapping larks a much better idea.
The thought of armchair fans clapping at the telly is marvellous.
A few things I’m going to leave you to chew on.
I am an Evertonian. I live in Liverpool. I am a Scouser. What’s so hard to understand about that?
No amount of profound banners, car stickers or cheap wristbands is going to bring our Gary back.
It’s hard to explain to children why they would have had another Uncle only he was killed at a football match.
Boycotting The Sun is pointless. The lazy ******* journo that wrote the offending crap and the editor who let it go have probably moved on and not missed a night’s kip over it.
If you would read The Sun anyway, without the boycott you need to have a rethink of your world view.
A gang of Mancs and assorted wools singing beauties such as ‘96 is not enough’ to a load of wools, Southerners and Scandinavians, and them getting wound up about it reeks of phoniness.
I hope no-one ever sings anything similar near me. Then again, why would they at a match where Everton were playing?
I hope my mother never gets to hear about other human beings singing songs about her dead son.
Justice is never going to happen. Let it go. I’m trying really hard to. Some of you have even more reason to do so.
I’ve visited Hillsborough since 1989. It was a horrible game, it rained, I sat in the home bottom bit with the Evertonians above me, and a mate shouting down to me who I thought was going to get me filled in.
Bakayoko shot a sitter over the bar to cap an awful day I’d sooner forget. 3 points would have been nice, but the game summed up that season.
I am proud to say I have sat in Wembley and sang ‘Merseyside’ at a Cup Final. I’ve also sat on the shoulders of a huge Watford fan when they were two Nil down. I was with my dad. I‘d like to take my kids to see Everton in a Cup Final one day. I’ll be ****ing annoyed if it’s spoilt by a gang of dickheads.
I’m still with the girl who looked after me on the night of 15th of April 1989. We have three kids. I couldn’t imagine how Id feel if I lost one of them. Let alone hear or hear about people singing songs about it. I hope it’s never called 4/15.
She still plies me with drink.
Take it Easy.
Come on the Blue Boys.
(From United We Stand, 2005)Thanks very much for being ‘This Mornings’ Farmer’Comment
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Patnick has "apologised". Lying ****er.
"Sir Irvine was revealed to be one of the sources behind The S*n's controversial coverage of the Hillsborough tragedy and today said he was 'deeply and sincerely sorry' for the part he played in the scandal.
Speaking in statement issued through the Conservative Party, he said: 'I would like to put on the record how appalled and shocked I was to discover the extent of the deceit and cover-up surrounding these events.
'It is now clear that the information I received from some police officers at the time was wholly inaccurate, misleading and plain wrong. However, I totally accept responsibility for passing such information on without asking further questions.
'So, many years after this tragic event, I am deeply and sincerely sorry for the part I played in adding to the pain and suffering of the victims' families.'"Thanks very much for being ‘This Mornings’ Farmer’Comment
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Another powerful read. FFS, the poor bugger.Originally posted by Shaggy View Post
I know it's trivial but I have to agree with this re The Sun (and it also applies to people's current thoughts of the SYP).
Boycotting The Sun is pointless. The lazy ******* journo that wrote the offending crap and the editor who let it go have probably moved on and not missed a night’s kip over it.
If you would read The Sun anyway, without the boycott you need to have a rethink of your world view.Comment
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Some of it is quite powerful stuff but to be honest I didn't like some of the other stuff he said.Originally posted by Lee View Post
It's out there and doing the rounds so I thought I'd post it and let people make their own minds up.Thanks very much for being ‘This Mornings’ Farmer’Comment
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Either way that should make some blues stop and think before they come out with some of the bile that has been said in the past. It didn't matter wheather you were red, blue or neither as everyone was effected in some way shape or form.
All i have heard all day is that it was a football tragedy which it was not it was a human tragedy.Comment
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What stuff weren't you keen on mate?Originally posted by Shaggy View Post
In fairness, it's difficult enough replying to these from a distant / unaffected point of view so I can't imagine what it's like for people such as this chap and RS4, Captain_Stu etc.
Cheers for the pdf's this week too. I know the damage has been done in more ways than one, but the revelations this week seem to have opened everyone's eyes.Comment
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