BBC Football is good.
I’m afraid your access to video/audio may be restricted because you’re not in Britain but not certain so it’s worth having a look at.
The changes made after Hillsborough affected match violence in the sense that everyone has a seat between them now and that makes it a little tougher for things to kick off. What really put a dent in unruly behavior and changed supporter culture was the advent of the Premier League, which put the casual fan at the forefront. There’s plenty of good and bad in all that, though, and it’s a different issue altogether. (And a lot of it is just my opinion, so it should be taken lightly.)
Different podcasts? Well, I don’t know what club you support and all I know about your taste is WSD, so you can take my suggestions here lightly, also.
The Game - The Times Online
BBC - 5 Live Football Daily and 606 Football Phone-In. If you’re wanting something more reactionary, I’d suggest 606.
Champions Soccer Radio has some different programs. I haven’t listened to any of them (because I didn’t know they existed until now), but maybe you’ll find something there you like.
I’ll give a shoutout to MP Red, although you’re probably not amenable to a Liverpool podcast right now. It’s not entirely LFC-centric, though, as they do talk about football in general, too.
I’m not going to defend the Munich songs, but Munich is a very different thing to Hillsborough. Munich happened to the team, not the fans. I’ll admit to having cheered when a player was stretchered off the pitch, but would never cheer if I saw a fan in the same situation.
Nick Hornby (as ever) summed up a lot of our feelings re Hillsborough. Why it hit so hard, and continues to hit so hard, is that it could have been any of us. We had all been in that situation before; pressed into too small a space. And we all knew that nothing could really go wrong - we could see the police standing there, it was all just part of the afternoon out. Then those of us lucky enough not to be at the ground turned on the TV and saw that things really could go very badly wrong, and it was just sheer luck it hadn’t happened to any of us.
Pile on top of that the lies told about Liverpool fans in an attempt to whitewash the incompetence of authorities, and you will see why Hillsborough is so sensitive. Munich just isn’t the same thing. Not that Munich wasn’t a tragic accident, but it was a tragic accident that doesn’t resonate with all of us who have spent our Saturday afternoons on the terraces.
Well, I’m a Spurs fan, I listen the Spurs Show with Phil Cornwell for Spurs-centric talk. I need a more wide-ranging podcast. I’m going to try the BBC5 one first. Thanks for the suggestions.
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I believe that, years ago, I made some comments about Hillsborough that, er, did not reflect the current beliefs. I can take the occasional burnt ass, so I will not try to conjure them from the mists of time. :eek: Suffice it to say, EVERYBODY fucked up.
And I get my footie results where I get my cricket sports, from the Beeb.
As dropzone just said, everybody screwed up. The Liverpool fans were not blameless, nor were they to blame. Untold numbers of fans showed up at the stadium without tickets. Alcohol was a factor, they arrived late, etc. So there is some blame there. But having said that, these issues were not uncommon to English football and should an could have been anticipated. Unfoprtunately several other bade decision were made that day, most of them not malicious.
The second tragedy of Hillsborough was the way that the local officials tried to cover their asses by decrying “holliganism” as the cause, when it had no effect. Trying to pin it all on the Liverpool fans, when in fact their portion of the blame, while ther was a fraction of the mismanagement of at the stadium. Liverpool fans are not necessarily sensitive about the lives of the 94 that day (they certainly are, of course), but also how that tragedy and their memories have been disgraced by the CYA actions after the fact and how 20 years later fols still distort these facts.
As for Cohen, it is unfortunate, sine there is not much of a voice here in the US for football, but in the end he made remarks that got people to act against him. Now I will say that if there were threats made against his wife and kids, then that is outside any reasonable lines and I am sure other Liverpool fans would be equally condemning of those folks. But I have no problem with folks boycotting if they feel strongly about it. Boycotting is not something I can argue with, I applaud when Glenn Beck loses sponsors due to boycott, I cannot criticize to heavily when others do it.
I say this as a Villa and an Arsenal fan.
Gangster Octopus, you’ve just highlighted why the truth about Hillsborough is still being fought for 20 years later. Bear in mind that I’m not comparing you with Cohen, but some of what you’ve said here is basically what he said - that Liverpool supporters share responsibility for what happened. That simply isn’t true, but the misinformation just won’t seem to go away. The Taylor Report disproved both the alcohol and ticketless fans myths. I’m honestly mystified as to why both of those are still put forward as legitimate reasons for what happened.
I’m reading the report right now, as I’ve been somewhat interested in this incident for some time. And as I read it, it clearly states that ticketless fans were not an issue, but also clearly states that “an unruly minority who had drunk too much aggravated the problem.” (page 47 of the interim report - perhaps the final report has different language, I haven’t gotten to it yet).
Also, it is plainly clear that the presence of the barriers and fences were a significant cause of the problem. And their necessity was a result of a long history of soccer hooliganism, including attacks on other teams supporters as well as players and officials on the pitch.
Was hooliganism the primary cause of Hillsborough? Obviously not (police negligence and poor layout of the Leppings Lane end were both much more significant). But to claim that it would have happened without the “tradition” of violent hooliganism (including the fatal events of Heysel) seems too much.
I think a lot of the reaction to Cohen comes from the complete crap The Sun put out. When a group is so viciously smeared it’s easy to see even the mildest of comments as akin to “Liverpool fans pissed on the corpses and attacked the rescue workers”.
In the end, though, what Cohen said was incorrect and obviously unwise. He had already made the same mistake in the past and should have known better. As someone who listened to his show quite often I’ll miss hearing his views since there is a distinct lack of soccer commentary in the US.
This Liverpool fan finds it fucking weird that people thousands of miles away are sufficiently tribal about English domestic teams to even be having this sort of argument. I also find it hard to see why anyone would find a radio show featuring that sort of ill-informed idiot to be worth preserving (particularly when there are so many great podcasts out there), but then I never was able to watch most American TV for more than five minutes without wanting to scream. Each to his own, I guess.
The Guardian’s Football Weekly podcast is also pretty good, mainly for James Richardson’s terrible puns and Barry Glendenning’s general grumpiness.
I don’t think anyone has argued that hooliganism hasn’t had serious repercussions on English football. The myth that I and others are trying to dispell is that hooliganism was a primary cause for the crush because, you see, it’s rarely someone stating that a culture of hooliganism was responsible for many of the problems within English football. I can’t imagine anyone could argue that with a straight face. What usually gets thrown around is that hooligans, specifically Liverpool hooligans, were partially responsible for what happened that day, in that ground, during that match, which isn’t true. Would any football ground have had barriers and fences if hooliganism wasn’t a problem during matches? Of course not. They wouldn’t have been needed, but, if that’s given as a legitimate cause for the Hillsborough tragedy, then hooligans everywhere are partially responsible for any and all incidents that happen during a match. If it’s always a cause, then to get to the bottom of things, you have to look at everything else that happens during an event.
As far as alcohol being a factor, Lord Taylor also said most fans that day “were not drunk nor even the worse for drink” and that alcohol was an “exacerbating factor.” I’m sure it was. I think most of us know what alcohol does to people. It slows reaction time and it makes you less aware of what’s going on around you. This is complete speculation on my part, but it’s probably true that less people would have died at Hillsborough if no one there had had a drink before the match. More fans would have realized sooner what was going on and, just that knowledge alone, could have prevented some of what happened. Again, though, that’s not the kind of talk that we usually hear. What we usually hear is “drunk, ticketless fans.” (You’re not saying that and I’m not accusing you. It’s just the talk, in general.) Alcohol is an aggravating/exacerbating factor is a hell of a lot of what goes on in this world today, but it’s not always to blame. I’m sure the people responsible for Heysel had been drinking, as well, but we don’t put the blame on the drink there. We blame the people who decided they’d rather hurt someone than watch the match.
I agree with you about The S*n. This is just my opinion, but I honestly think their lies are responsible for the misinformation about Hillsborough. Lots of people believe that a paper wouldn’t print something if it weren’t true and, once they read that kind of filth, their minds are made up. As far as Cohen is concerned, I’ll go out on a limb here and say that the original comments weren’t as much a problem as the jokes and meaningless apologies that followed. I will admit that I didn’t listen to the entirety of every show during the boycott, but if any kind of thoughtful discussion of the events (such as you and I are having here) ever occurred, I’ll eat my hat.
I think the OP said The Guardian was too dry for him. That’s why I suggested 606.
And I could explain my feelings for Liverpool, but it’s really something better suited to a Livejournal.
Ah yes, so he did. Blimey, though, if that’s dry I’d like to hear what light-hearted sounds like. 
Edit: oh, and I wasn’t meaning to disparage fans in the US, I just find it weird things can get this heated is all.
Like an idiot (meaning Cohen) who knows nothing about football, apparently.
No problem. I didn’t think you were.
I do require a fair amount of idiocy in my pundits. Getting all riled up by them is half the fun.
RomanMachine I’m sorry I wasn’t clear in my comments. I do retract what I said about the ticketless fans, but I was tryingto say is that alcohol was a factor. Not THE factor, not a main factor. Just a factor.
But there was nothing about the fan behaviousr that day that was particularly noteworthy. In fact I beleive Liverpool played a semi-final at the exact stadium the year before with no problems. So I was trying to point out (not well, apparently) that the mistakes were really made in the crowd control and such and not in the crowd and that tragedy was made doubly so by the cover-up.