4 June 2007

Liverpool

Here is an extract from a very recent BBC news item:-
"Liverpool supporters have been branded the worst behaved in Europe by UEFA.
Football's European governing body is to hand a report to the British Government which has been compiled by undercover police agents from a neutral European force over the last four years.
The document reportedly catalogues 25 incidents involving Liverpool supporters attending away games since 2003.
It follows problems at the recent Champion league final in Athens where some fans with genuine tickets were locked out of the Olympic stadium and tear gassed - as those with forged or no tickets tried to force their way through barriers."


Now what I am about to say is the unspeakable in English football and it may cause Liverpool fans to hunt me down and beat me to a pulp but I don't care. Truth is precious. As regular readers will know, I live in the city of Sheffield where cup semi-finals used to be held almost on an annual basis at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough stadium.

That all stopped on April 15th 1989 at the Notts Forest v Liverpool semi-final when there was a huge crush of spectators at the Liverpool end of the ground causing 96 poor Liverpool fans to die. South Yorkshire police service have been derided bitterly over their supervisory incompetence but who was really to blame?

I tell you it was Liverpool fans themselves! Not the people who got crushed but the ignorant, arrogant drunken men at the back - those who arrived late and pushed and pushed to get a good view of the game. They are the real culprits and I hope that there are still homes in Liverpool where there are sleepless nights filled with guilt for the tragedy that was Hillsborough. It wasn't the police that killed those fans it was their own supporters - the wide boys at the back - and if UEFA's verdict is anything to go by - they have still not learnt their lesson.

3 comments:

  1. Not to be a smartass (okay, you got me), but I always thought it was the Peruvians and Italians who caused the biggest mobs in Football (you're football - ours is just a beat'em'bang'em'rock'em'sock'em kinda thing). Seriously, though, isn't almost always OTHER countries where we hear about the riots and crushes and such? If any of your readers take offense to this, please understand that I can only go by what the AMERICAN media tells us. We all know how reliable they are...*roll eyes*

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  2. I have to say that I agree with this post. I remember watching the tragedy unfold at Hillsborough on Television at home with my parents.

    I had to laugh when I read the top sentence of your post though lol.

    My Jeff is a staunch Liverpool fan. :P

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  3. Oh my words.... A very controversial subject indeed.

    I am surprised to find that you are still here and blogging after that one, and with only a few comments, I think you can say you got away quite lightly.

    Kudos for having the bottle to stand up for your thoughts.

    FoX

    ReplyDelete

Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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