Match Day Thread Euro 2020 Final. Italy v England

There are numerous fully detailed reports about Hillsborough that you can read to educate yourself What. I'm pretty sure once you've done that you will come to a very different conclusion to the one you wrote above, I know I did. The people outside the ground were let in to avoid a massive crush at the turnstiles - people were in danger of dying there, such was the appalling organisation at the stadium and its surroundings that day.

 

I absolutely agree with you. The organisation was not there. But if people hadn’t pushed to get inside, the disaster would not have happened. The massive crush at the turnstiles was crowd psychology gone wrong. I’m not saying fans were trying to kill each other - they were not- but pushing others against a gate is dangerous and ended in death. Collective responsibility is necessary.

 

They had tickets and wanted to get in to see their team

 

Doesn't happen at WI events but does happen at rugby and horse racing, and society pretends it doesn't; only football. No one's saying it isn't the fault of the people involved. It's the idea that football fans in general are to blame, rather than coked up tossers who happen to be at a football match, that is being challenged. The recommendations of that report seem to further punish normal football fans with further criminalisation and restrictions, like has happened for the last few decades already. There aren't any proposals to introduce specific legislation against horse-racing goers.

Earlier in this thread I posted that if it had happened at a concert people wouldn't blame the venue, the act or general concert-goers. Turns out, something similar did happen last week at a concert, I posted a tweet with the footage. It's barely been reported at all though.

 

A lot of them are just there because football has big crowds and they can act like twats. Doubt if most of them are following their local club during the football season. They just turn up for certain events. Same, to a lesser degree, at Ladies Day where people who never go near a racecourse during the rest of the year descend on Beverley and act like twats. Of course the police describe a day with 14,000 people there ending with more arrests than City get in a season as generally good natured with a few exceptions whilst City games would have prohibition and a state of martial law declared if Humberside's Finest had their way.

 

Not disputed. Should have delayed the game, absolutely. But pushing through a crowd is dangerous, whatever the motive.

 

Your absolutely right that it’s ignored in other sports. The problem isn’t any one sport, it’s society. But this doesn’t mean that it isn’t a problem for football. If you look at the recommendations from the report there’s nothing wrong with them, but I can bet you that the next time you have a large police presence at a game and they prevent trouble, there will be back lash about police heavy handed tactics.
If there wasn’t a review and the authorities continued to make the same mistakes, and it resulted in a repeat with a loss of life, you can only imagine the reaction from fans.
I would challenge anyone to come up with a solution to make sure that there isn’t a repeat of the euro final.

 

I don't think you ever can make absolutely sure it won't happen again. You can certainly learn lessons and do things differently, but bringing in even more football-specific legislation isn't the answer.