I think they wanted official recognition that this wasn’t caused by a bunch of drunk hooligans as the victims were portrayed.
The thing that I don’t understand is that this fact (in the previous post) has been widely recognised for many years now, so what is the purpose of continuing bleating on about it? How does that help anyone? Of course, given I was born in 1985 I can’t fully appreciate the culture at the time, nor the full horror of the incident and the authorities’ subsequent cover up (well, worse than a cover up - actually blaming innocent parties to preserve bigwigs’ reputations). But I can’t help thinking that if my child or relative were involved in such a tragedy, I would find it far easier to move on by trying to continue with my life as normal. I can only imagine that some of the relatives of the 96 feel the same way, but of course we never hear from them, by definition. I mean yes, we must remember our dead with respect and try to ensure such a thing never happens again, but to devote your life to banging on about the same thing for 25 years - I think it’s a bit ridiculous.
Also, this is horribly regionalist of me, but I can’t help wondering whether if the tragedy had involved Bristol City fans, or Tottenham fans, or Newcastle fans, would these areas still be so obsessed 25 years later?
I know what you are saying here, but neither of us has (I hope) been in a dreadful situation like this, so best not to judge family reactions to the death of loved ones when there’s been such an obvious cover-up, not to mention a gross libel. The cover-up needs to be resolved, and prosecuted if possible.
There’s lots of blame to go around, but none attaches to the dead. They all got to the ground in plenty of time, and got themselves in decent positions well before kick-off.
Yes, agreed - I suppose the real problem here lies with the authorities, not the victims. It’s not right to moan at the families for carrying on the fight when it could and should have been dealt with properly long ago - as you say, that is not their fault at all.
And yes, you’re right - I have never been involved in anything remotely comparable. I just hope that if I were, I would be able to move on with my life sooner than 25 years hence. But again, I guess most of them would have done if they had obtained closure already.
That had nothing to do with seating, it was due to too many people exiting on one staircase, and a late goal, which caused people to stop or try to turn back, resulting in a crush.
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Welcome to Liverpool… as the train pulls in to Lime Street you saw the graffiti “Cockneys Die” and “This is gang territory.”
And I always used to think that Stanley knives (box cutters to you lot over the pond) were named after the park.
Still hope you win the league though.
“It’s Tommy Smith…”
Yeah, I didn’t know about any of this when it happened (at least partly because I had just joined the U.S. Navy at the time and had other things on my mind). Very sad. For all the effed up things that go on in the country I live in (the U.S.) I can’t remember ever hearing about anything like this (or the Heysel disaster) happening over here.
I was thinking of that Who concert too. I was in high school when that happened, and had not yet attended a rock concert. BTW, the victims weren’t trampled to death; they were suffocated in the crowd outside the arena before the doors were opened. Those doors opened outwards, and this is a main reason why they rarely do in commercial buildings nowadays.
I also remember the soccer match. I’ll see if ESPN is going to air this episode again. 
Interesting - my impression is most doors on commercial buildings do in fact open outwards, I assume this is deliberate in case of a panic caused by fire.
Reviving from zombie status in case anyone new to soccer due to the World Cup or anyone who missed it on ESPN is interested.
This is on Netflix Streaming now, as part of the 30 for 30 Soccer Stories series.
I watched it last night. It was kind of agonizing. The way the families were treated when they were brought to the gymnasium and the questions after… That was just brutal. And the police on the scene; it seemed so frustrating and horrifying for them.
I had just turned 18 when this happened and, like some of the other American posters, have that image from Sports Illustrated seared into my mind. I had several friends die in a car accident the year before and something like that starts you thinking about your own mortality, but this image really brought it home for me. So many of those people were around my age, and a bunch of them were dead, right there, in that picture. I don’t think any other image has had an effect on me like that one. And now the stories from the families and police will haunt me a little bit too.
Updating this thread:
Awfully long wait.
Here’s a documentary on the disaster:
Is there no statute of limitations? Its almost 30 years after the fact. Some of the defendants will be quite elderly.
No, there is no statute of limitations on the UK, although the defendants can argue in court that it would be an abuse of process to bring charges after so much time. I doubt that a case could be successfully dropped in the case of the official charged with manslaughter, though.
There are certainly statutes of limitations in English law, but only for summary offenses and crimes committed by elected representatives in their official capacity.