The Collapse Of Soccer In The 1980's

Soccer in the 1970s and 1980s was filled with “hooligans” or disruptive fans. This led the British press to denounce any instance of fans behaving badly. Liverpool fans themselves were involved in another tragedy before Hillsborough. They were involved in the Heysel stadium disaster which resulted in the deaths of 39 fans, mostly Italian Juventus fans. Liverpool fans charged at the Juventus fans leading them into a corner of a wall in the stadium. The wall collapsed which resulted in the deaths and injuries of others. This gave Liverpool fans a bad reputation in the eyes of the soccer world and made for a unique experience with press in regards to the Hillsborough stadium disaster. Because of the Heysel disaster before, the press assumed fans

For these families, the inquests were supposed to give “justice” for their loved ones. They wanted to hear that it wasn’t their loved ones faults for their deaths. At the end of the original inquests of 1991, accidental death was the verdict in how their loved ones died. The families, for the most part, wanted unlawful killing as the verdict. This would mean that their deaths were out of their hands and control and blame is placed on an outside force. Accidental death in this case made the grief and suffering worse because of the contrast of this verdict and the findings of the Taylor Inquiry. While, essentially, the blame was placed on their loved ones in the inquests, in the Taylor Inquiry loss of police control was the main factor for the disaster and their deaths. The families reacted to the inquest verdict with anger and frustration. While some were silent when the verdict was read, others disrupted the

The game was stopped at 3:06 pm and, by 4:40 pm, the first reports about the fans were published. The reports also said there was no mistake the fans had kicked down the gate. However a Chief Constable had reported later that night the gate had been opened on police orders because of ticketless fans. Even with conformation of the gate being opened by police, newspapers the next morning reported fans had kicked the gate open and were ticketless. Newspapers had mixed reports with some reporting what the Chief Constable said and others reporting on the fans forcefully entering without tickets and being drunk. Some articles had eye witness reports challenging the above statements with the eye witnesses blaming lack of police control and the number of