Hillsborough. The amazing bending of the truth.

[hackenslash]

Who said I haven't watched it?

[mistermack]

Who said I haven't watched it?

Now I can't tell if you're just being stupid, or being deliberately stupid. The effect is the same, anyway.

[hackenslash]

What a riposte! Was that supposed to answer the question?

[hackenslash]

Anyway, I'm off to bed while you work out if there's any way I can see documentaries without watching telly. That should give you 8 hours, though I don't hold out much hope.

[mistermack]

Anyway, I'm off to bed while you work out if there's any way I can see documentaries without watching telly. That should give you 8 hours, though I don't hold out much hope.

[JimC]

Some looking at the dynamics of how crowds work would be in order. Just the way that pressures apply in crowds is similar to fluid dynamics. The individual components have very little control over what happens. It was the opening of the gate that did it.

But humans become more instinctual in highly emotional/stressful situations. At the point that things started to go wrong, there wouldn't have been a lot of considered thinking going on. It would have been more purely reaction.

Typically in an internet debate, positions become absurdly polarised; always black or white, never grey...

Perhaps it is possible that some aspects of crowd behaviour can be captured by an analogy to fluid dynamics; but hackenslash, are you just speculating here, or can you cite reputable research in the area?

And even if that were the case, the psychological nature of each individual, suitably averaged, would become one of the important quantitative factors in any given case, in a similar way that molecular size and shape are vital factors in, for example, the viscosity of a fluid. rEv alluded to a possible example of this, although it is speculative.

If, on average, a crowd of individuals in such a situation were more impatient, aggressive and selfish in a given physical situation, one could easily imagine a different outcome. In such a way, individual behaviour can become an important component in determining whether a dangerous outcome does or does not occur.

What I wish is that debates on this forum were conducted in more measured tones, without the rapid descent to a playground tantrum.

[hackenslash]

Forget psychology, anybody who's been in a sizeable crowd will tell you how much will the individual has.

As for the rest, I agree, but when you're in discourse with planks, you get splinters.

[pErvinalia]

[mistermack]

You just have to look at everyday life, to see how crowds normally behave.

When a train is late on the London underground, do people get pushed onto the rail lines? No.
I've seen the whole platform full, and people queued up in the tunnels. Many times.

Same on the New York Subway. Same on the Tokyo Metro. Same everywhere.
Crowds do not push. If they did, people would die.

This bollocks about people in crowds having no option but to push the people in front is just that.
Invented bollocks.

There might have been some fans in the Hillsborough tunnel who realised that they shouldn't be pushing, and didn't push to get it. But the majority didn't.

I wouldn't say that what they did was criminal. Of course they had no idea what was happening, or they could have stopped pushing forward, and released the pressure in seconds.

It wasn't criminal, it was moronic. And if crowds everywhere did it, people would die by the millions.

[hackenslash]

You just have to look at everyday life, to see how crowds normally behave.

When a train is late on the London underground, do people get pushed onto the rail lines? No.
I've seen the whole platform full, and people queued up in the tunnels. Many times.

Same on the New York Subway. Same on the Tokyo Metro. Same everywhere.
Crowds do not push. If they did, people would die.

None of those activities involve real crowds. We're talking about a completely different scale here.

This bollocks about people in crowds having no option but to push the people in front is just that.
Invented bollocks.

I invite you to spend some time in a real crowd and see if you still think that.

There might have been some fans in the Hillsborough tunnel who realised that they shouldn't be pushing, and didn't push to get it. But the majority didn't

I wouldn't say that what they did was criminal. Of course they had no idea what was happening, or they could have stopped pushing forward, and released the pressure in seconds.

It wasn't criminal, it was moronic. And if crowds everywhere did it, people would die by the millions.

Nowt like ignorance to bring out the confidence in somebody.

[mistermack]

God, you come out with some shit.

I apologise. I did you an injustice. I now realise you weren't being deliberately stupid.
You're a natural.

[HomerJay]

What I wish is that debates on this forum were conducted in more measured tones, without the rapid descent to a playground tantrum.

I think the very valid point here is that this is just not possible, on this particular issue, without some scousers like Strontium Dog calling people baby rapists or even worse.

Not all scousers take this attitude, and the events happened a very long time ago now.

This weekend all 90 odd football league games were delayed by 7 minutes so that people could show their something or other for the 25th anniversary of the tragedy.

But there have been other tragedies, most notable the Bradford Fire disaster (1985) when a stand holding football fans caught fire and 56 people perished, live on TV. This didn't have a tenth of the emotional overload that Hillsborough has generated.

[HomerJay]

Get ready for a rare statement:

Strontium Dog is correct and mistermack is talking shit. The police were entirely responsible for this. mm's case rests on the behaviour of the crowd, but I suggest he has no idea of how crowds naturally work, not least when they're forced (and yes, I do mean forced) into a confined space via choke points.

The Liverpool fans were not to blame for this, it was the ineptitude of the police, hence their need to actively cover it up.

Both could be true, in that the police made bad decisions (in hindsight), and many in the crowd made stupid decisions (which is short of assigning moral blame).

Not many people think the police were entirely to blame, not even the various supporters groups, who tried to apportion blame on the City Council, the football club where the match was held, the FA for choosing the ground and the Police.

Two of the most senior police officers involved did face a private prosecution for criminal liability but one was found not guilty and when the most senior copper was let off by no verdict, the judge refused a re-trial on the basis that the lynch mob had to be stopped.

It's a very simplistic approach that says there is a single event that causes a tragedy like this, that's why none of the official narratives take this approach. The whole thing would never have happened if clubs hadn't installed fences to keep supporters off the pitch, which had been brought in due to crowd control issues in the first place.

[MrJonno]

When a train is late on the London underground, do people get pushed onto the rail lines?

Actually tube staff close the station or at least stop people entering so very bad example. If they didn't you can basically guarantee fatalities when people do end up on the rail lines.

Basically some platforms would become a death trap during the rush hour within 15 minutes without fast response from staff and if they failed to do London Underground would get sued

[Xamonas Chegwé]

But there have been other tragedies, most notable the Bradford Fire disaster (1985) when a stand holding football fans caught fire and 56 people perished, live on TV. This didn't have a tenth of the emotional overload that Hillsborough has generated.

I think it might have had had the victims of the fire been blamed en masse for setting it.

If you really want to blame Scousers for a footballing tragedy, try Heysel. Hillsborough was completely different; a fuck-up by the authorities, compounded by an attempted cover-up that ran all the way to No. 10.