Hillsborough

[Neil Young]

Yes, but the clubs can also do something about it, whether through stewards or CCTV or whatever.

Ferguson's just playing politics anyway. If he really meant it he'd have criticised his own fans years ago, without always linking it to Munich chants.

[Liverpool]

Yes, but the clubs can also do something about it, whether through stewards or CCTV or whatever.

they rarely do anything, the mentality of away fans is pretty mad, whether us, united or everton

one thing though is what happened at old trafford the other day woudnt happen here at anfield with our fans

[Neil Young]

I agree it wouldn't. I think it happened there partly because there has been a false equivalence drawn between Munich and Hillsborough. The chants about both are distasteful of course and there are parallels. But there are also vital differences to do with who died, how recently it happened and of course the cause (accident or negligence) and what followed. Munich to Man United fans is mainly just a part of their club folklore. Hillsborough is something else again. I think the hurt is felt more personally, let alone the hell that the families have been through for 23 years and rising.

Plus we're nicer people than they are.

[Lee]

I understand the point but I disagree. The only way to stop the hateful chants is for each set of supporters to self-police. If there was ever a chance Man United fans would do it, this is it.

And if they do it then our fans will self-police Munich chants, although I think we should be doing that anyway.

We should challenge ourselves and them to behave properly and respectfully. It's a chance for change and I feel it should be taken.

Perfect opportunity to put these pathetic and disgraceful chants to bed once and for all.

I just can't understand anyone who would go to a football match and sing about another team and their fans (why would you do that?), and even more shocking, sing chants about innocent people who have passed away.

Can't get my head around it.

It's good to have a rival, but fans need to know where to draw the line.

[Cerbie]

I agree it wouldn't. I think it happened there partly because there has been a false equivalence drawn between Munich and Hillsborough. The chants about both are distasteful of course and there are parallels. But there are also vital differences to do with who died, how recently it happened and of course the cause (accident or negligence) and what followed. Munich to Man United fans is mainly just a part of their club folklore. Hillsborough is something else again. I think the hurt is felt more personally, let alone the hell that the families have been through for 23 years and rising.

Plus we're nicer people than they are.

about the false equivalence & that we are nicer people too!

I was at the United game in '93 when they didn't respect the minute in memory of Tony Bland. Definitely the ugliest atmosphere I had experienced on the Kop.

It is an opportunity though, IF they did respect it then the chances of fans self-policing in future would increase.

Huge credit to Everton for what they did on Monday night - respect.

[Liverpool]

anyone who thinks the idea of self policing will work hasnt hasnt been to OT away

and if there was a minute silence and heckles, followed by the self policing and following noise it would come across bad on the tele, noone will risk it

[Shaggy]

What an utter cunt

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2012/09/20/liverpool-deputy-coroner-doug-fraser-hillsborough-families-wanted-their-15-minutes-of-fame-99623-31869373/

Liverpool deputy coroner Doug Fraser: Hillsborough families ‘wanted their 15 minutes of fame’

LIVERPOOLS deputy coroner is under pressure to resign after it was revealed he suggested some families wanted 15 minutes of fame at the inquests after the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.

Doug Fraser, a leading solicitor representing families on the Hillsborough Steering Committee in 1989/90, also suggested the cut-off point for evidence should probably be 3.06pm a full nine minutes earlier than the controversial 3.15pm eventually imposed by coroner Dr Stefan Popper.

Documents also reveal Mr Fraser told South Yorkshire Police and the coroner some families wanted to use the inquests to get their 15 minutes of fame and some were hotheads.

The evidence emerged from further analysis of the Hillsborough Independent Panels report and documents.

The panel were critical of Mr Fraser saying it suggested a surprisingly critical, if not contemptuous, view of some of the bereaved families whose interests he represented.

Last night Mr Fraser refused to comment and Liverpools Coroner Court could not comment because of the on going legal process.

Trevor Hicks, president of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, who lost his daughters Vicki, 15, and Sarah, 19, at the tragedy said Mr Fraser should consider his position.

This is a form of betrayal, I am staggered. He should consider his position, any credibility he might have had has gone out of the window.

I thought I was beyond shock after last week, but I am so disappointed with him.

He said Mr Fraser was another name to add to the list of people who had let down the families of the 96.

Sheila Coleman, of Hillsborough Justice Campaign, added: I was not impressed with his conduct at the inquests, I felt he was clearly out of his depth.

Last weeks report discredited the 3.15pm cut-off for evidence and the Attorney General is now looking at whether to quash the original verdicts of accidental death.

Mr Fraser represented families while working for Runcorn-based Silverman Livermore solicitors which he joined in 1982. He remains a senior lawyer at the firm.

He became involved after Mr Hicks approached his then boss Sir Harry Livermore, who was involved in the legal cases after the Heysel disaster. Sir Harry died and Mr Fraser took over the case.

In 2000 he was appointed deputy coroner for Liverpool, a position he still holds today.

His profile on Silverman Livermores website boasts of his role in the protecting the interests of those who had been bereaved or injured at the Hillsborough disaster in 1989.

In February 1990 Mr Fraser met with the coroner, South Yorkshire Police, and the forces lawyer Peter Metcalf (who had a key role in the cover-up and changing of statements).

The meeting was set up to discuss the format for the inquests after preliminary hearings.

A note disclosed to the panel of the meeting records Mr Fraser saying: There will be some families who want their, someone said, their 15 minutes of fame. I suppose to some extent they are going to have to be given that opportunity arent they? I think the vast majority will go through very smoothly but I think that there will be one or two who are going [sic] problems.

There will be one or two hotheads who will look for the ulterior motive behind this. The vast majority will accept it in the spirit in which its done. The press will do the same.

Later in the conversation Mr Fraser and the coroner discuss start times for inquests and he suggested one family should have an early start in the morning at 9am.

There is one family who would swell the coffers of the local hostelry before they arrived, the minute quotes him saying.

In the months that followed there was a protracted argument about what statements would be made available to family lawyers.

In mid September Mr Popper wrote to the Hillsborough Steering Committee to request details of witnesses the families wanted to call at the resumed inquests.

Ten days later Dr Popper recorded a conversation with Mr Fraser in which the families reactions to the interim inquest were discussed.

The note of the meeting states Mr Fraser considered it [mini-inquest stage] went very well, finishing within a few minutes of the scheduled time over a two and a half week period.

He stated that a few families, however, had expected more and they were not entirely happy with the way that he had asked any questions... but he confirmed that the vast majority of families were very satisfied with the way the inquests had been done.

This was clearly not the view of the Hillsborough Family Support Group.

The documents include a minute of a meeting between HFSG and Sir David Napley, who had represented other families at another inquest on October 2, 1990.

At the meeting it was stated that the mini-inquests had been limited to who, when and where people died and [n]othing more apart from the alcohol levels was raised.

HFSG representatives said Dr Popper had been quite clearly aggressive towards families, despite their polite requests for information on the organisation of the inquests.

The HFSG expressed concern about the power of the coroner, the lack of information received by families, that fundamental issues appertaining to this disaster would remain unresolved, and about their lawyers strength of commitment.

Dr Popper asked Mr Fraser if families queries from the mini-inquests were substantial. Mr Fraser said he didnt think so as far as he could recollect they were relatively minor matters.

In the same telephone conversation Mr Fraser suggested a 3.06pm cut-off for evidence.

Dr Popper states in his note: I explained to him that I was not intending to go over all the ground of the rescue. Mr Frazer [sic] agreed with this. He said he thought in his view probably 6 minutes past 3 was the cut-off point.

I said I felt that it might be a few minutes beyond that but that was basically what I had in mind.

Dr Popper recorded having told Mr Fraser: I said that I thought that when we got down to it he would be quite satisfied indeed.

I had the feeling that we might be doing a more thorough job than he was expecting.

Soon after Dr Popper announced the 3.15pm cut-off point, thoroughly discredited by the Independent panels report last week.

[dom9]

will united be involved with the annie road one?

I would be very surprised if they are

Why would you be surprised?

If there is a mosaic at that end, it is only right that everyone takes part to show solidarity for what happened.

[Vermilion]

And the cunts profile credits him with helping the Hillsborough families!

[Neil Young]

anyone who thinks the idea of self policing will work hasnt hasnt been to OT away

and if there was a minute silence and heckles, followed by the self policing and following noise it would come across bad on the tele, noone will risk it

You're right it would be a risk. It's hard to judge whether it's worth taking as it depends on sentiment among Man United supporters and what the clubs are doing behind the scenes and I think it's feasible the Premier League and clubs and police won't want to take that risk. The question then is what else they do instead to grasp the opportunity for change.

[dom9]

You're right it would be a risk. It's hard to judge whether it's worth taking as it depends on sentiment among Man United supporters and what the clubs are doing behind the scenes and I think it's feasible the Premier League and clubs and police won't want to take that risk. The question then is what else they do instead to grasp the opportunity for change.

I think the mosaic is a better solution than a minute silence, which I think is better observed around the anniversary anyway. A minute's applause is wholly inappropriate imo.

If a couple of idiots don't hold up their piece of the mosaic, the impact on the greater procedings will be negligible. If their fans don't participate in the mosaic en masse, then that will look really bad, but I don't think that would happen.

[Buzzo]

An interesting article, particualrly interesting to hear of Gordon Browns support, first time I have heard of him being referenced.

Andy Burnham: 'I vowed to find out the truth about that day'

Labour MP and Everton fan Andy Burnham was at the other semi-final in 1989. Twenty years later, he persuaded the Government to launch another inquiry

At 10am on Wednesday, I sat alone in the august and still surroundings of a panelled room in 10 Downing Street. Before me on the antique table was tea in a bone-china cup and saucer and a copy of the report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel.

As I turned its 395 pages, a swirl of emotions transported me straight back to a very different time in very different surroundings: a pub in Warrington, the Cherry Tree, where as a 19-year-old I had felt blind rage as I listened to friends recount the horror they had just witnessed at Hillsborough.

Earlier on that fateful April day, I had been at Villa Park with my dad and two brothers to watch Everton in the other semi-final. My only real memory of the game is seeing "5 dead at Hillsborough" flash across the scoreboard. Normally, a semi-final win would have sparked jubilant scenes in the Everton half of the Holte End. But, at the final whistle, it was subdued. Everyone was thinking about friends and neighbours who were in Sheffield.

As we made our way up the M6 and listened to the first radio reports from the disaster scene, conversation in our car turned to our own experience there one year earlier.

In January 1988, we had stood on the Leppings Lane, crammed into the central pens. It was one of those match experiences that don't happen any more; when your feet were lifted off the floor and you felt the fear of not being in control of your legs. That day, I did not watch the second half; I had my eyes pinned constantly on my dad and 13-year-old brother John and didn't want to let them out of my sight. If I was feeling this ill and struggling to breathe, how were they coping?

One year on, even though the radio reports kept mentioning "fans forcing a gate", we all agreed: the inadequate ground design must have played a part.

In those days, there were no mobile phones. I had to wait until we got home to call my friend Stephen Turner. His mum answered after half a ring: "Stephen, Stephen, is that you?" I felt terrible for having called and put the phone down without speaking.

It was a huge relief when he finally arrived in the Cherry Tree. He was not in a good way. That night, we tried to help him make sense of what had happened, with our own experiences of the ground.

I wonder how we would have reacted if we had known that, at the same time, parents arriving at Hillsborough to identify the bodies of their children were being questioned as if they were criminal families under suspicion.

How would we have felt if we'd known that: senior officers were ordering the taking of blood alcohol levels from people who lay dead; were in the early stages of fabricating stories about supporters' "animalistic behaviour"; and heading back to the station to run PNC checks on the names of the dead?

Hillsborough made me furious back then – and I felt the same fury, even more, sitting in Downing Street sipping my tea on Wednesday 12 September. When I saw the reports of "near misses" ignored, and I thought of my own experience in 1988, it was clear that this was a tragedy that could have been so easily avoided, 96 lives saved.

When it had finally arrived, I found the truth much harder to take than I ever expected – the passage of time has made things worse, not better. All day, I kept asking myself: how could an injustice on this scale have been hidden for so long? Why did my own party not do more to help the Hillsborough families?

Hillsborough has always been an issue where, for me, the personal and political come together. It's about who I am, where I come from, the people I love. So it was a source of great pride to me that Labour fought the 1997 election with a commitment to reopen Hillsborough.

In 1998, when Lord Justice Stewart-Smith announced the results of his "scrutiny", I was working out of the old Football Trust on the new Government's football task force. I can still remember the abject disappointment I felt that day, and my utter shock at the reaction of an employee of the trust. He said he had always found the lack of accountability on Hillsborough hard to understand given one simple fact: it didn't have a valid safety certificate on the day of the disaster. I had never quite taken this in before. No valid safety certificate.

When I finally made it into Parliament, I often thought about whether there was any way I could reopen Hillsborough. The inquiries I made always drew the same response: too difficult, best to leave alone, all avenues exhausted.

Then, by twist of fate, I was made Culture Secretary in 2008, Liverpool's year as Capital of Culture. I spent a lot of time in the city and got to know the then Lord Mayor, Steve Rotheram. Early in 2009, Steve said I would be getting an invite to speak at Anfield at the Hillsborough 20th anniversary memorial service. I agonised about whether to accept, knowing the Government had nothing to say. I talked it through with the family, and the consensus was that I'd never forgive myself if I didn't.

It seems strange to say this now, but my main worry before giving the speech at Anfield that day was whether I could get through it without breaking down and crying. When the first "Justice for the 96" chants rolled off the Kop, I was not surprised, as I half-expected them. I wanted the country to hear them.

Minutes after the service, as I recovered my composure in the Centenary Suite, my phone rang and it was Gordon Brown. I was worried that I had brought some extra bad publicity on a Government for which good publicity was in short supply at the time. He told me I had done a brilliant and brave thing.

I came off the phone and Steve asked me to come to the town hall to speak at a reception for all the families. I told him I'd rather get off home, given the day I'd had. He forced me into the car and, 10 minutes later, I was walking up the grand staircase to be greeted by the worst possible welcoming party for an Evertonian: Kenny Dalglish, Alan Hansen, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher. "Oh no," said Kenny when he saw me, "you've not come to upset them all again, have you?"

It raised a good laugh and they all did their best to bring me round. When I spoke to all the assembled families, I made them a promise: I would try to get them the truth about Hillsborough.

The next day, I travelled to Glasgow for one of our cabinet meetings outside London. I had told Gordon I wanted to raise Hillsborough at the end of the agenda and a call I had made with Maria Eagle in advance of the 20th anniversary for full disclosure of papers. In a discussion, a number of issues were raised. Gordon concluded: "There are issues to resolve but we need to back Andy up on this." That was the moment when government policy on Hillsborough changed and the road to Wednesday 12 September began. He knew I cared deeply about it. It was real loyalty to me and I'll for ever be grateful to Gordon for his role in all this.

Now the truth is out, the fight for justice is starting in earnest. I won't be able to rest until we have overturned the inquest verdict of "accidental death". I'm no lawyer but the centrality of the safety certificate issue – that the authorities knew Hillsborough was not a legally certified safe venue – means "unlawful killing" must be a real possibility.

Other questions need to be answered as we digest the panel's comprehensive report. Will individuals now be held properly accountable for unforgivably blaming the survivors of a tragedy? If the authorities were aware of a cover-up, why didn't they do something about it? How did Parliament allow injustice on this scale to stand for so long? Was it in part down to the anti-Liverpool feeling that was stoked by some politicians and the London-based media in the past two decades?

The families will never achieve closure, but, for now, they can at least find some comfort in truth.

As I sat on the train to Liverpool on Wednesday, I got a text from Stephen Turner. He said he'd struggled with memories of Hillsborough for 23 years and this was the first day he'd felt hope. It was the best text I have ever received.

[Chazza]

Spirit of Shankly is working with the Hillsborough Family Support Group, Hillsborough Justice Campaign, Hope for Hillsborough and Liverpool Football Club, to mark the publication of the report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel with a crowd mosaic at the forthcoming home game with Manchester United.

The mosaic will cover three stands, The Kop, Lower Centenary and the Lower Anfield Road (home section). Spelling out the words "Justice" and "Truth", together with the number "96", the mosaic has been organised to enable Liverpool supporters to show their continued unequivocal backing for the families of the Hillsborough victims and all those whose lives have been affected by the disaster and the ensuing cover-up.

The organisations involved would be grateful if supporters would display the mosaic for the first minute of the match.

Thank you for your support.

http://www.spiritofshankly.com/news/a-minute-for-truth-and-justice

[Mostar]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNla2vF0zF8"]Celtic V Benfica - You'll Never Walk Alone - JFT96! - YouTube[/ame]!

[yamiedo]

Celtics song is You'll Never Walk Alone too.