30 for 30: Hillsborough

• Tigerfan00

  

  ccrunner$20;1606592 wrote:215 was awesome

  Fixed
• Tigerfan00

  

  reclegend22;1607031 wrote:My five favorites: Catching Hell, Unguarded, Run Ricky Run, Once Brothers and Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks.
  
  There are so many great choices from which to choose, though. Guru of Go, Kings Ransom, The Band That Wouldn't Die, Bad Boys, etc. The 30 for 30 series is the best work ESPN has ever had a hand in producing.
  
  In the future, I'd really like to see a 30 for 30 done on the mysterious disappearance at sea of former NBA center Bison Dele.

  I just looked that whole story up as I had no clue about it. What a shame his brother Myles just shows up out of nowhere and supposedly kills his brother Brian and his girlfriend Serena and the boats captain. He was using Brians identity and eventually took off once he realized the FBI was onto him. The worst part was that his mom called Myles and tipped him off that the FBI was close to catching him and he tried to kill himself by overdosing on insulin which led to a coma and the family took him off life support. What a sad story that will never have closure.
• OSH

  

  I believe a replay of the Hillsborough 30 for 30 is shown tonight around 10pm.
• reclegend22

  

  Tigerfan00;1607098 wrote:I just looked that whole story up as I had no clue about it. What a shame his brother Myles just shows up out of nowhere and supposedly kills his brother Brian and his girlfriend Serena and the boats captain. He was using Brians identity and eventually took off once he realized the FBI was onto him. The worst part was that his mom called Myles and tipped him off that the FBI was close to catching him and he tried to kill himself by overdosing on insulin which led to a coma and the family took him off life support. What a sad story that will never have closure.

  Definitely a tragedy. While it's likely that's what happened (Dele's envious brother murdering the former NBA star to steal his identity), everyone who was on that catamaran at time it went missing off the coast of Tahiti is now presumed dead. The calamitous events as they happened that day will never be fully known.
  
  Dele was a unique and fascinating individual by nature. He retired from the NBA at the height of his powers, at the age of 30. At the time, Dele was the highest paid player for the Detroit Pistons with more than $34 million left on his contract, which he just walked away from to, as he said at the time, go explore the world.
  
  A 30 for 30 would be awesome.
• Tigerfan00

  

  I think his mom knows more then she ever told and possibly Myles girlfriend too. I just find it hard to believe that not one speck of evidence was left behind by any of the three who were supposedly killed. Just way too many things that don't add up about the whole situation.
• Sonofanump

  like_that;1605670 wrote:I stopped watching. As snot said, it was too somber. Also they couldn't start cutting the fences? What a shitty way to die.

  Watching the fans on the "pitch" trying to pull the fence down to allow the mass of humanity out was very sick.
• Fab1b

  

  I really enjoyed the Hillsborough 30 for 30 though it was very hard to watch. Those poor people being just crushed in that fashion I can't even fathom. That 3d graphic they did depicting the bodies that were smashed into the fencing was just insane. I know they smeared the fans, tried to blame drinking, etc...however after watching that film it was a combination of stupid fans and horrible event planning, and I mean horrible. Those fans didn't deserve to die that is for sure but what a wake call that was for the way the fans tried to pack into certain areas of stadiums and that wasn't even the first that had happened, though it was by far the worst.
• Scarlet_Buckeye

  

  Yeah the event planning was awful, and the local authorities tampered/doctored? the evidence/written-testimonials, but I can't believe how the "fans" got off on this and were made to look like innocent angels. The simple fact is... had these idiots not gone all honkers, then no one would have been trampled to death. No one forced thousands of people into an area that only held hundreds. All they needed to do was go thru the tunnel, look down and see the place was overfilled, and then move on to the next area. I also saw a lot of pushing and shoving. I'm sorry, but stop acting belligerent and handle a poor situation in a civil manner. There's no question the first mistake was opening the "flood gates" (so to speak) and letting several hundred people rush into the stadium without tickets. But, IMO, that didn't kill the people that died. Instead, it was the wild frenzy of blokes that apparently don't know how to act / control themselves in public.
• Fab1b

  

  Yes the changing of the police statements was extremely bad and I really felt for the cops that were trying to control the situation and save lives only to have the spotlight put on them. I'm sure the people in the front of the pens had gotten there early and had no way to know what was coming from the back. It was 100% avoidable and agree the fans did get off easy however due to the coverup people will only focus now on that aspect.
• ohiobucks1

  

  Scarlet_Buckeye;1607865 wrote:Yeah the event planning was awful, and the local authorities tampered/doctored? the evidence/written-testimonials, but I can't believe how the "fans" got off on this and were made to look like innocent angels. The simple fact is... had these idiots not gone all honkers, then no one would have been trampled to death. No one forced thousands of people into an area that only held hundreds. All they needed to do was go thru the tunnel, look down and see the place was overfilled, and then move on to the next area. I also saw a lot of pushing and shoving. I'm sorry, but stop acting belligerent and handle a poor situation in a civil manner. There's no question the first mistake was opening the "flood gates" (so to speak) and letting several hundred people rush into the stadium without tickets. But, IMO, that didn't kill the people that died. Instead, it was the wild frenzy of blokes that apparently don't know how to act / control themselves in public.

  I have a family friend who was at the game. He talked to me about it last year when they re-opened the case to further exonerate the fans and blame the management. The issue was 100% due to poor management of the crowd. He was near the middle but closer to the back, and until it was too full people had NO IDEA that the people in the front were being crushed, they thought it was the typical "push" from singing and swaying as fans did back then. Also, it was not thousands in an area that could fit hundreds, it was thousands in an area that was supposed to hold thousands. The issue was that instead of using all 3 pens for Liverpool fans, they decided to only give them one, even though they had 3-4x the crowd. It was all terrible planning.
  
  The fact of the matter is, it wasn't until they opened the side gate that the issues occurred. Instead of doing that, they should have realized the crowd issue (which was their job), stopped letting people in, and gone from there. They didn't even have defibrillators or equipment to save anybody at the pitch. That's absolutely ridiculous. The fact that the police higher ups tried to cover it up merely added insult to injury. This all could have been avoided. Fans should not be blamed due to architectural deficiencies and poor event management. Their actions were not unlike any other fans at any game in England.
• Fab1b

  

  The fans have to bear a little bit of the blame seriously. How can you justify going into that pen when its already that full. They were coming in the back directly on top of people trying to get to the front and closer to the pitch than it just became too much. However its a small part of it, this should of never happened but after watching the film I was sitting there thinking how many more people are going to go into those pens look at the crowd already and they just kept coming in there.
• Tigerfan00

  

  One other thing that was terrible was when they decided to give all the dead BAC tests including kids as young as 10. They were hellbent to blame drunkenness on the people for what happened and that is wrong.
• Sonofanump

  Tigerfan00;1608040 wrote:One other thing that was terrible was when they decided to give all the dead BAC tests including kids as young as 10. They were hellbent to blame drunkenness on the people for what happened and that is wrong.

  I think that falls back on reputation, including but not exclusive to Belgium in '85.
• Scarlet_Buckeye

  

  Fab1b;1608037 wrote:How can you justify going into that pen when its already that full. ... how many more people are going to go into those pens look at the crowd already and they just kept coming in there.

  THIS!
  
  Yes there were poor management plans, but poor management plans should not give civilians an excuse to act stupid. And by "act stupid" I mean, barge the pens / overcrowd the pens / not evacuate the area in a calmly fashion so no one gets hurt, etc.
• like_that

  

  Scarlet_Buckeye;1608056 wrote:THIS!
  
  Yes there were poor management plans, but poor management plans should not give civilians an excuse to act stupid. And by "act stupid" I mean, barge the pens / overcrowd the pens / not evacuate the area in a calmly fashion so no one gets hurt, etc.

  I am sure this thought process would go through your mind if you attended the 2006 UM/OSU game /sarcasm.
• Sonofanump

  Was there not a speaker system where they could order the fans out of the area?
• ohiobucks1

  

  Scarlet_Buckeye;1608056 wrote:THIS!
  
  Yes there were poor management plans, but poor management plans should not give civilians an excuse to act stupid. And by "act stupid" I mean, barge the pens / overcrowd the pens / not evacuate the area in a calmly fashion so no one gets hurt, etc.

  I asked him what he thought of what you just said. He said that nobody had any idea it was THAT overcrowded until they got in and by then it was already too late to evacuate (because of the way the stadium was set up). The reason that they didn't know until it was too late was because most fans were forced in through the bottleneck at Hillsborough (the entrance). HE said once you were in the bottleneck area, you couldnt go backwards even if you wanted to with the amount of people moving forward. The set up of the stadium was fundamentally flawed. The bottleneck made it almost impossible to move anywhere but forward (think the documentary sorta showed this). Once he was in, he said so many people came in behind him that it would have been 100% impossible for him to move backwards, only side to side (and with the gates, once it was full, side to side was impossible).
  
  Also, since it wasn't that crowded when he arrived, #1 he thought he was entering a normal situation (until it was so crowded behind him that he couldnt move back) and #2 nobody else in front knew it would be an issue. By the time he (or anyone) knew there was a problem, it was so crowded that nobody could move back and the people coming in had no ability to move back either (because of the bottleneck). THEN (and only then) the '****' opened the side gate which only worked to allow all the people who were in the back of the bottleneck to run in and fill in the tiny amount of space that was left. When they moved in, they had 0 idea they were crushing the people in the front until it was too late and they couldnt move back.
  
  Not sure the documentary said this, but he told me that there were triple the amount of liverpool fans as nott'm fans and yet they put the liverpool fans in 1 pen, and the nott'm fans in two. What a fucking joke. Blame the fans all you want, but they had little chance.
• Sonofanump

  ohiobucks1;1608122 wrote:Not sure the documentary said this, but he told me that there were triple the amount of liverpool fans as nott'm fans and yet they put the liverpool fans in 1 pen, and the nott'm fans in two. What a fucking joke. Blame the fans all you want, but they had little chance.

  I took the reasoning was they did not want the fans to cross each other to get to the opposite gate?
• Fab1b

  

  I am not blaming the fans as a whole, but it is still a small part of the problem. Yes the problem lied with event managment and the police's ability to control (or lack there of) the crowd. However you can't tell me from that footage that people still weren't trying to pile into that pen long after it was filled and that they couldn't see the sea of people in there already? From the gate that opened you still had to walk into the entrance to the pen (standing area), you could have turned left or right to other areas but they all rushed for that specific standing area pen directly behind the goal as that the was "place to be" at the games. Like I said, and they showed it, it happened before minus the tragedy. The fans learned a hard lesson as well but when you say blame the fans all you want, you really don't think they deserve a very small portion of that blame?
• ohiobucks1

  

  Fab1b;1608187 wrote:I am not blaming the fans as a whole, but it is still a small part of the problem. Yes the problem lied with event managment and the police's ability to control (or lack there of) the crowd. However you can't tell me from that footage that people still weren't trying to pile into that pen long after it was filled and that they couldn't see the sea of people in there already? From the gate that opened you still had to walk into the entrance to the pen (standing area), you could have turned left or right to other areas but they all rushed for that specific standing area pen directly behind the goal as that the was "place to be" at the games. Like I said, and they showed it, it happened before minus the tragedy. The fans learned a hard lesson as well but when you say blame the fans all you want, you really don't think they deserve a very small portion of that blame?

  
  #1. Like I said, Liverpool fans were only allowed in the middle pen. They could not go to the other pens. They were blocked by the same gates as the gates in the front.
  #2. The were pushed all the way back to the bottleneck opening. The people coming in from the back made it so that the people who had walked in couldnt go backwards, only forwards. The people who rushed in from the opened gate, could not know they were crushing people in the front, as they weren't crushing them in the bottleneck, they just assumed they were pushing forward to get in. This was not the first time that end had been crowded to the point of problems.
  
  I think youre not understanding how english fields (especially ones back then) worked so I'll try to help explain.
  
  
  I went to a stoke game last year (a ground similar to Hillsborough but without the bottleneck). Unlike a stadium like Ohio stadium, they have these little turnstile rooms t hat you walk through. They're like narrow hallways that have the little turnstiles we see in america. However, theyre all individual rooms to walk through. You couldnt jump them because theyre in little booths.
  
  The problem at the bottleneck area of Hillsborough, and the difference between the Britannia regular entrances (stoke) and this was where Stoke's stadium has a concourse (like Ohio Stadium for example to walk around in, get food, etc). At Hillsborough when you walk in the turnstile from the bottleneck area, you walk through the tunnel straight into the ground. The gate that they let people in, was never supposed to be opened when the pen was filled. The people walking through the turnstiles could not exit and the people who rushed in through the gate (over a thousand according to some estimates) could have never seen (since they still walked through the tunnel) that they were crushing people in the front. They just kept pushing forward assuming that there was just a ton of people and they could walk forward like they were in the bottleneck when they were let in BY COPS. Only once chaos started did they realize they had to leave, and by then there wasnt enough exit space to get them all out and the damage had mostly been done.
  
  Does that make sense? The fans who were already in the stadium, literally had nowhere to go but forward (or for a few, up) because of the fans who went in the side gate + the turnstile rooms. The fans that walked in normally wouldn't have had a problem, because they could have gone back towards the back and exited from the sides but since it was so crowded that people literally could not move backwards (and they were blocked off from the other pens); they were stuck.
  
  That's why you saw people literally being lifted up the stadium and why people got crushed against the gates in the front. Do you think that the fans would have done that if they had any ability to exit from the back or had any idea they were crushing people in the front? No way. Theyre all Liverpool fans, they simply had no idea what they were doing. THAT is on those responsible for fan control and those who designed the way the stadium worked, NOT the fans.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  Tigerfan00;1608040 wrote:One other thing that was terrible was when they decided to give all the dead BAC tests including kids as young as 10. They were hellbent to blame drunkenness on the people for what happened and that is wrong.

  The drunkenness is a big problem, regardless of this tragedy. The night before big matches the hooligans trash the city and as long as there aren't any fights the cops just let them drink and trash and throw their beer bottles shattering on the ground. We took our niece to see a show and it took us 30 minutes to walk to dinner afterwards (normally a 5 minute walk) just to avoid the glass on the street.
• SportsAndLady

  

  Manhattan Buckeye;1608206 wrote:The drunkenness is a big problem, regardless of this tragedy. The night before big matches the hooligans trash the city and as long as there aren't any fights the cops just let them drink and trash and throw their beer bottles shattering on the ground. We took our niece to see a show and it took us 30 minutes to walk to dinner afterwards (normally a 5 minute walk) just to avoid the glass on the street.

  Lol
• Tigerfan00

  

  MB just doesn't know when to shutup.
• Dr Winston O'Boogie

  

  That was an excellent documentary. The whole situation was setup to fail in hindsight. What a terrible waste of life.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  Tigerfan00;1608325 wrote:MB just doesn't know when to shutup.

  Do you and sports and dumbass live in england?
  
  No, you don't. I'm the only one that lives with this. It isn't as bad as it used to be, but stop acting like you fucks know what it is like to be at a pub when Arsenal or Chelsea is having a big match. Alcoholism is still a problem.