spire1986, on Jun 25 2010, 07:44 PM, said:
In 20 years of being on the kop I'm struggling to remember a single fatality or injury. Hillsbrough had nothing to do with the terracing. Bad management and a lack of organisation caused the Hillsbrough disaster. The Ellis stadium was all seater and look what happened there.
Yes. Preferable than sitting down.
For what it's worth i can remember several occasions during the 'Cox era' (i.e. when we used to get bl00dy good crowds) that i was physically lifted by a surge and pressed against the barriers to be left unable to move or breath for what seemed like a prolonged period (i was a youngster back then). As was said in 'Fever Pitch' though, you just didn't expect to get injured at a football match, it just didn't happen.
Then came Hillsborough.
I don't think anyone can attribute what happened that day to one, or even a few, individual factors, infact it was a culmination of many factors that'd developed through preceeding years: hooliganism dictating barriers were in place; Liverpool fans becoming accostomed to behaving in a certain manner; inadequate stadiums; over-zealous policing; and, as i mentioned before, a general complacency amongst all parties when it came to supporter safety.