WEBVTT - The Hillsborough Disaster 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.120 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.640 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:17.400 Chuck and it's just us and that's okay. And this 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:23.840 is our ongoing Studies Abroad ped issue. 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.160 That's right, and we you know, this is about the 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:32.360 Hillsborough disaster, which was the very unfortunate and super sad 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:38.320 and somewhat infuriating, deadly crush that happened at an English 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:42.120 football stadium in nineteen eighty nine. So we enlisted Kyle, 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.519 our one writer from the UK, to put this together 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:48.960 for us, and he did a great job and used 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:52.920 all the appropriate letters and terminology and his spelling and stuff. 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:55.880 You know, yeah, I was gonna say no z's throughout. 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:56.880 They were all s's. 0:00:57.120 --> 0:00:58.800 Yeah. Yeah. 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.080 He did a wonderful job this summarizing like a really 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:07.040 big giant story that had we done this episode like 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:09.880 when we first started, it would have been totally different 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:17.080 because around twenty fifteen, the public opinion, the entire basically 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:21.200 worldview of what happened at the strategedy completely flip flopped 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.600 and the truth finally came out. We'll get to all that, 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.560 but I'd say we kind of give everybody some background 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:30.679 about what's going on here. The whole thing took place, 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:33.800 like you said, in nineteen eighty nine at Hillsborough Stadium. 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.000 That's in Sheffield, which is in South Yorkshire, which is 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.800 a county in Yorkshire, And normally this is the home 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:44.600 of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club. That's where they play at Hillsboro, 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.760 but this day it was actually hosting an FA Cup semifinal. 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:52.160 That means it was all England teams and it was 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:56.240 between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. So far, so good. This 0:01:56.360 --> 0:02:00.600 is just a normal Cup semifinal game that's a big deal, 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:03.600 way bigger than the average Sheffield Wednesday Football club game. 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:06.279 But you know, so far it's pretty normal. 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:11.560 Yeah, for sure, they had Liverpool had more fans and 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:13.399 I'm not sure how it is now, but nineteen eighty 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.000 nine at least that was the case. I think it 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:20.120 probably still is. But they were allocated the smaller end 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:23.520 of the stadium and the entrance and you know, as 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:27.079 you'll a lot of times with disasters like these, you're 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:28.960 going to see it like a series of steps that 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:34.600 happened to kind of ensure unwittingly that something terrible goes down, 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:36.880 and this was sort of the first one was they 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:40.880 allocated the larger fan base the smaller end of the stadium, 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.440 and the entrance to that was at the end of 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:48.720 Lepping's Lane, which was a street that dead ended into 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.040 the stadium, and not only did it dead end, but 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.800 it bottlenecks. It got more narrow as you got toward 0:02:55.000 --> 0:03:00.280 that dead end, and that the turnstiles there, which is 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.440 where you get in at that part of the stadium. 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:05.920 There were seven of them. They were old, you know, 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:08.400 this is an older stadium, and they didn't you know, 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.320 they just couldn't move people through as quickly as like 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:13.480 you would be able to today exactly. 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:17.760 And you know, under a normal game for Sheffield Wednesday, 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:20.040 this was not that big of a problem. This was 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:22.600 a very big problem this day because there were ten 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:27.040 one hundred fans who were just the ones who had 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:30.799 standing room only tickets in what are called pens. Right, 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:35.760 So they're ultimately like basically little terraces with a bunch 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.360 of little tiny steps on them and some railings which 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:43.440 are called crush barriers, and you just stand in them. 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.520 You just pack everybody in. But they're supposed to say like, okay, 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:48.640 there're no more than this many people can go into 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:51.120 this pen, no more than this many people can go 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:51.680 into that pen. 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:52.160 Whatever. 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:54.640 So there's ten thousand people who are all going into 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:57.360 these pens. They have to use these seven turnstyles so 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:01.400 very quickly. Even outside of this stadium, a bit of 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.360 a crush starts to happen, in part because the cops 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:09.280 aren't doing anything about having people form a line or q. 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:14.560 They're not directing anybody to do anything. It's just get 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:16.840 in where you fit in, and whoever gets there first 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:18.920 is the one who gets through that turnstile that moment. 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:23.520 Yeah, but you know, there's plenty of surveillance footage and 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:26.680 stuff out and it was not you know, as we'll 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.520 see the story that was kind of cooked up to 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:34.520 evade I guess being responsible for this, which is what 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.200 they were, was that, you know, it was an unruly 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:40.760 crowd of drunks. Hooliganism was a thing much more back then. 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:45.400 They've basically eradicated that now for the most part. And 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:47.160 if you look at the footage, it's you know, it's 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:49.640 a bunch of kids, a lot of teenagers. It wasn't 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:54.800 super expensive back then to get into soccer and football 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:57.159 games like this. It was six pounds to get in 0:04:57.240 --> 0:04:59.800 for standing room only, and they were lively. They were 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:02.640 have a good time, but it didn't look like anything 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.120 threatening at that point at all. There were people just like, 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:08.120 you know, kind of trying to get into the stadium 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:09.520 to see a game. They were excited about. 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.159 Yeah and all. This really kind of starts about ten 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:14.360 minutes before kickoff. That's when people are like, come on, 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:16.000 let's go, we got to get in. And like by 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:18.960 this time that crowd had backed like the lines or 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:22.880 whatever had backed up into Leppings Lane pretty far. So 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.000 people wanted to hurry up and get through right, But 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:29.400 like you said, everybody was generally good natured. Kickoff was 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:32.520 set at three pm, and at ten till three pm 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:36.599 there were still five thousand Liverpool fans who were outside 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.120 on Lepping's Lane trying to get through these seven turnstyles. 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:44.920 And so at this point the cops, at least one cop. 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:47.280 The guy who was in charge of managing this side 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:51.599 of the outside of the stadium, got in touch with 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:54.839 the guy who was running all of the police for 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:58.560 this soccer match. His name is David Duckinfield, and the 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:01.080 guy outside said, hey, we need to open a gate 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:03.960 and forget the turnstiles and tickets. There's a bunch of 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:05.919 people who are about to get crushed out here, and 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:08.880 we need to relieve some of this pressure. Please open 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:12.000 this gate. You did that once, Duck and Field ignored it, 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.839 did it twice, Duck and Field ignored it. The third time. 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.039 It was almost frantic, and Duck and Field finally said, okay, 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.479 go ahead and open gate. See they did that at 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:22.320 two point fifty two pm and all of a sudden, 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:27.600 just an enormous mass of people stream into essentially the 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:30.440 foyer of the stadium. So now you go from a 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.360 crowd crush outside of the stadium to the potential crowd 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:35.200 crush just inside the stadium. 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:40.440 Yeah, and so, and we'll get to more about David Duckinfield, 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.800 the match commander, and his qualifications and stuff, I guess 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:46.320 in a minute. But one thing we did not mention 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:51.320 is these pins. And this was partially to kind of 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:56.960 keep hooliganism down. They were fenced within the seating area, 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.560 so once you got to this large standing there were 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:04.680 different numbered pins within that that were you know, fenced 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:07.920 off from each other. So there were literal pins and 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:11.400 when people started flowing through when they opened gate, sea. 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.480 They were all passing through towards this, you know, the 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:17.720 central part of the field, down this long tunnel. I 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:21.320 think Kyle said it was twenty three meters long to 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.600 get to pins three and four, which were basically midfield, 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:26.960 and there was plenty of room on the pins on 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:31.000 the outside. But because nobody was directing traffic, nobody was 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:35.440 relaying information, no one knew this, and those central pins 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.400 were already full at ten till when that big crowd 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:41.040 of people started to make their way to that spot. 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:45.400 Right. So again, because I was standing room ontely, it 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:46.920 didn't tell you what pen you had to go to. 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.120 You could go to whatever pen. But since that tunnel 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.120 was straight ahead, that's where people naturally went. And like 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:54.560 you said, those pins were already full. So as this 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.840 tunnel this crush of people, there's crowd of people after 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:01.080 opening gate, sea floods in connects with the people who 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.640 are all already coming through those seven turnstyles. Almost all 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:06.920 of them start to go through this tunnel, and that 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:09.880 tunnel opens up on two pens that are already full 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:13.880 of people, way over capacity already. As they found in retrospect, 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.040 there was about a thousand more people that they allowed 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:20.480 onto each pen than they should have based on the 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:23.640 kind of crowd control safety stuff they had in place. 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.640 So it was already dangerously full before those people from 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.520 Gate Sea even made their way down the tunnel. But 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.600 when they did, they encountered this mass of other people. 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.280 But there were people behind them who didn't know this, 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:38.440 at the back of the tunnel, in the tunnel, and 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:41.640 they all wanted in two so everybody was pressing forward 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:44.360 and then all of a sudden a crowd crush happened 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:45.920 in those two middle pens. 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:46.760 That's right. 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:52.600 So it's about five till kickoff. At this point when 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.560 people like later described just sort of a change in 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:59.800 how things were going, you know, like I said, it 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:01.559 was it was people generally happy to go see this 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.760 soccer game. And by two fifty five it becomes clear 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:09.240 that like something's wrong. Four minutes later it was a 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:13.440 lethal crush had developed and those two central pins and officers, 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:16.600 some of them are telling people to move back like 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:18.959 this is part of the problem is the officers themselves 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:22.760 were very disorganized and not sharing information. So some officers 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:25.280 are telling people to move back. They're saying they can't 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:30.000 move back because there's people behind them and those fences 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:32.400 that were installed to I think that was in nineteen 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:36.240 seventy seven to prevent the hooliganism. We're keeping people like 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:38.240 once they got in from being like, oh wow, it's 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:40.840 getting like super crowded, let's move to these outer pins 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:44.400 where there's plenty of room. People started climbing fences and stuff, 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:47.280 and this is where it gets really really out of hand, 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:49.840 like the panic starts to set in. People are trying 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:53.640 to drag people over the fences to safety. Some of 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:55.760 the gates of the pins were opened by the cops 0:09:55.800 --> 0:10:01.280 at that point, but it's developed into like a real dangerous. 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.560 Right, And so inside the pens there's those railings that 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:08.560 they're kind of like intermittently staggered in the pens, right, 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:10.440 So if you walk into one of these pens and 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:12.920 you're facing the field, you'll eventually come to a railing, 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:15.840 and that's a crowd barrier or a crush barrier, which 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:19.520 means that if a crush develops, that barrier is supposed 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:21.880 to stop it from going any further than the barrier. 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:24.920 So the people behind the barrier, life's gonna suck for them, 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:27.720 but the people in front of that barrier will be safe. Right, 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:31.439 it's like limiting crowd crushes. Well, the problem is one 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.240 of them was very very old, at least one, and 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.240 it gave So there's a whole crush of people who 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:39.520 are pressed up against this and a whole bunch of 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:41.960 people on the other side of it too, And now 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.040 one of those barriers fall and that crush of people 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:47.640 just basically spills into this other group of people in 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.720 the same pen and people it just fell over. It 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.640 was like a wave of people that overcame the people 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.040 who were standing on the other side of that barrier 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:56.559 that broke. 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.280 Yeah, so all this time the match starts on time, 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.840 word is not again. Communication was just kind of chaotic, 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:08.560 and no one got word down to the pitch that hey, 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:12.000 maybe we should delay this game and get this under control. 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:16.040 And at three pm the game starts at three oh five, 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:20.439 those barriers, at least the one in Pen three, had 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:25.440 given away, and a human cascade starts. And this is when, 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:29.520 you know, the devastating stuff. We're not going to read 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:34.120 one thousand accounts of people getting you know, squeezed to death, 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:37.800 because it's pretty awful, but you know what happens in 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:41.400 a situation like that is you can't breathe because you're 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.640 so packed into one another that you can't expand your 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.240 chest out to get a breath, and you generally die 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:52.560 of asphyxiation or like your heart stops right. 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.040 Yeah, and this happened to a lot of people in 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.760 this We talked a lot about this phenomenon in the 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:03.360 Crowd episode and I think in the Black Friday episode two. 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:06.280 Yeah, the Crowd one was what inspired this episode. 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:08.920 Yeah, because we we just touched on it just a 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:09.600 little bit, right. 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:12.400 I don't even know if I mean, I think if 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:14.400 we mentioned it. I said, I brought it up because 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:15.840 I had asked Kyle to write this. 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:20.640 Gotcha, gotcha? Okay, But when there was like when this crowd, 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:24.840 this human cascade happened, people got pushed over, and you know, 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.680 there's a natural human reaction to try to get upright again, 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:30.160 which means that you were standing on people beneath you, 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:32.680 and so people got trampled. In addition to the people 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.679 who were pressed up against the other crush barriers or 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:40.760 against the fence. There's some really disturbing photos that were 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:44.080 taken very close up of the people pressed up against 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:45.440 the fence. Did you see those. 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:48.480 I saw them when I was in high school and 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.200 sports illustrated, Like, I remember this vividly. I didn't go 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:53.559 back and revisit a lot of that because it's super upsetting. 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:56.440 Yeah, it really is upsiding. And there's a guy who 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:59.280 took a lot of His name was David Cannon, and 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:04.079 he was at least partially responsible for getting the police 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:06.920 to finally stop the game. The reason why they wanted 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:08.559 to stop the game so bad is because they think 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.480 that that that crush or that movement that caused the 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.880 human cascade was in response to one of Liverpool's players 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.679 just missing a goal, and so they're like, we need 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.480 to stop the game, right, So this guy, David Cannon, 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:26.680 got them to stop the game, or at least he tried. 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:29.600 He's one of the main photographers who was there at 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.199 the time, so his pictures are like you said, it's 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:35.200 very disturbing to see this because you can hear people 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:37.319 describe it, you can read descriptions of it, but when 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.400 you see the people pressed up against the fence like 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:44.120 they were, it really comes home how horrific this was. 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:46.600 Like you can kind of finally start to imagine yourself 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:47.720 in that position. 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.200 Yeah, it's yeah, it's pretty bad. That's why I didn't 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.720 go back and look at three oh six. It was 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:57.720 a superintendent who actually got the game stopped. He went 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:00.000 down to the pitch and actually went to the referee. 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.040 They had a couple of minutes before signaled to the 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:05.920 police control box to stop, but it kept on for 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:08.640 two more minutes. So that's when the superintendent finally like 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.160 literally went on the field and told the referee, like, 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.080 you got to stop this game. This isn't because you know, 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:16.880 everyone thought it was just like rowdy fans, and he 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.560 was like, no, that this is not what's happening. The 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:24.760 match commander Duckinfield requested more cops to come. It was 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:30.000 called Operation Support, and no one was explaining why or 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:32.400 what's going on though, So once the officers and you know, 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:36.280 communications are not what they are now. Certainly it's not 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:40.320 an excuse, but they were not getting briefed on exactly 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:42.760 what was going on. So a lot of the cops 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:46.840 there assumed that the fans were just rowdy and we're 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:50.280 trying to like storm the fence, to storm the field, 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:54.120 and they formed a cordon on the pitch to kind 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:56.920 of keep that from happening. And again some of them 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:59.480 are opening gates, like they see what's going on and 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:01.600 are some or trying to help the fans, but other 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:04.880 cops are either ignoring them or like shoving people back in. 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:08.160 Right or standing there facing this crowd crush in a 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.480 line according with other cops. So imagine that, like just 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:15.200 how surreal that would look because they didn't understand what 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.000 was going on. So eventually they managed to open some 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:23.680 gates which allowed the crowd crush to ease up. And 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:29.000 so the crowd crush was bad enough, like the after 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:33.760 effects like immediate after effects, or it just continued to 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:40.400 go badly. The police response, the emergency response was just 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.360 so uncoordinated that it surely I think they proved it 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.760 cost the lives of scores of people. I think in 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:52.760 the end, ninety five people died, seven hundred were injured. 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:55.720 Two more people died years later. So really ninety seven 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:57.480 people died from this crowd crush. 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:02.880 Yeah, thirty seven people were teenagers, twenty seven were parents. 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:06.640 There was one ten year old that died. He was 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:12.920 very ironically, I guess, and sadly the cousin of Steven Gerard, 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:16.120 who was became a big star for England in their 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.200 soccer team, but I think the oldest I think that 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:20.840 was the youngest at ten and the oldest was a 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.920 sixty seven year old whose brother was playing for Liverpool. 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:28.200 And it's yeah again you know to read through like 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:31.400 each account is a little too depressing for this show. 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.400 But you did mention the two that died years later. 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.960 I think Tony Bland died four years after in nineteen 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.720 ninety three. He had brain damage up into that point 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.600 and then what they count as the ninety seventh victim 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.840 didn't pass away until twenty twenty one, but they said 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:49.240 it was due to you know, these life changing injuries 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:50.360 that he suffered from this. 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:53.400 Yeah, I think also brain damage as well. Andrew Devine, 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:59.480 So there were there was like an immediate response to this, 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.880 right spite what we'll see Liverpool just taking all of 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:08.200 the blame for this, Liverpool fans, there was like a 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:12.280 public response. One of the things was Paul McCartney jumped 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.920 in because this is a Liverpool team and he's from Liverpool. 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.080 I don't know if you knew they're not Chuck, but he, 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:23.479 I guess released a charity single cover of fairy Cross 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:24.000 the Mercy. 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:25.359 Have you heard that song? 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:26.040 It's a good song. 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:29.680 I didn't think it was a great but I think 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:30.920 it was a great act. 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:33.240 Did you listen to the I didn't listen to the 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.440 eighty nine one that they released for as a charity single. 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:38.560 Did you listen to the original, because that's very good? 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:41.920 Oh? No, I listened to the one that pertained to 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:42.280 the show. 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:46.200 Okay, Well, at any rate, it's a good song originally, 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:47.960 and it was, like you said, a very cool act. 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:51.080 There were also tons like you can also see photos 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:57.320 of just the the whole entire soccer pitch covered with flowers, 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:00.840 just as in Memoriam. It was just there was a 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:05.200 there was a good public response, but ultimately public opinion 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:07.440 was much more venomous. 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:10.080 Yeah, I guess that's probably a good time for a break, 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:13.400 and we'll come back and talk about that venom right 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:37.359 up for this, all right, So, right after this, the 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:42.320 police basically immediately started trying to engage in successfully as 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:44.160 we'll see for a while, engaged in a cover up. 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:47.520 They wanted to, you know, not be on the hook 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:51.080 for this, and the hooliganism that I talked about had 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:54.680 been blamed. I thought we had done an episode on hooliganism, 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:56.760 but I don't think we ever did, did we? 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.000 No? Surely we talked about it in our soccer episode, 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:01.800 but I don't think we ever did one just on that. 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:03.280 Yeah, it was on the list for a while, but 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:06.320 maybe we should wait in case things change again. Okay, 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.879 but that was the narrative that was fed the public 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.439 basically that match commander, and I guess we should go 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:16.800 ahead and talk about David Duckinfield a little bit. He's 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:19.840 the one that first started saying was that gate was 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:22.639 forced open by Liverpool fans, Like he denied even opening 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:27.840 that gate. This guy was not qualified for this job. 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:33.200 I think previous commanders did things like go down before 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:36.320 the game, like hours before, check things out, walk around, 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.399 identify choke points or potential hazards, because this had happened 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.040 a couple of times before, one time in this very stadium, 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:46.800 I think in nineteen eighty one, and so it was 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:50.160 top of mind or should have been, and he did 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:55.240 not do that. He never actually inspected the grounds beforehand, 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:58.480 and he kind of went missing from about noon to 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:01.920 two o'clock on the day, never accounted for his whereabouts. 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:05.560 Yeah, he had never commanded a match at the stadium, 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:09.680 let alone a semi final match. Just even a regular match. 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:11.600 He'd never commanded it, so he had no idea what 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:14.560 he was doing. He was also a very arrogant person, 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.720 so he felt like he could just do it naturally. 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:22.400 He didn't need to familiarize himself. And he had served 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:29.160 as a rank and file patrolman or PC like ten 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:31.760 years before. That was the last time he'd worked a match, 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.080 and he was definitely not in charge of it. So 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:39.359 he was very much out of his league and like 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:45.920 it took him decades to finally acknowledge that. Instead, he 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:49.480 helped lead this police cover up that shifted all the 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:54.159 blame unfairly and untruthfully toward the fans for Liverpool and 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:56.920 off of the cops who were really responsible for the tragedy. 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:00.840 Yeah, for sure. So we'll get to kind of what 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.439 happened in a timeline since as this goes on in 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:09.240 a minute, But initially the police watchdog recommended that there 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.800 was like a disciplinary case would be brought against Duckinfield. 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:16.479 That did not happen at the time, and he was 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:20.960 medically retired two years later on full pension, basically to 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:27.280 evade these discipline from this incident. The case again that 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:31.200 the cops built was that people were drunk. They got 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:34.080 there late. It was the Liverpool fans, a lot of 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:36.119 them didn't even have tickets and they were trying to 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:39.680 just force their way in. And over the years they 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:43.439 found out that they had gone back in. Even this 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:45.560 is how despicable it gets. Not only did they cook 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:49.600 up this narrative, but they went back in and cooked 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:54.679 the books and altered witness statements and removed comments about 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:58.360 that were unfavorable to the police and how things were handled, 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:00.000 and they torched it basically. 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:06.320 Yeah, and the force was very regimented, I saw, right. 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:08.600 So there wasn't there wasn't going to be any descent. 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:10.760 There wasn't going to be any secret tip offs to 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:13.440 the press about what really happened by any of the 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:17.600 police constables, you know, under these guys charge, right, So 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:20.280 the top saying this is what happened. That's what everybody 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:22.120 on the police force was going to say, what happened. 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:26.959 And so that's what the media heard. And the British 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:32.600 tabloids typically have like a fairly bad reputation, and they 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:37.040 really showed up for it for this one. The whole 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:41.560