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Things we hate about modern football

parklane1 said:
And they still do it, what happened at Hillsborough was shameful but no more then what happened at Bradford and yet we hardly ever hear about the fire but Hillsborough is shoved down our throats all the time.
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Bradford was a lot worse imo

Hilsborough had many guilty parties due to the nature of what happened (and happened again in heysel with too many fans forcing their way in)

Bradford had many innocent ones
 
Bedfordspurs said:
[The Bradford City stadium fire] was a true disaster as no fans did anything wrong
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Excerpts from Wikipedia:


The stand had already been condemned, and the demolition teams were due to start work two days later.

In the penultimate game of the 1984-85 season the club had secured promotion to Division Two, thereby making the replacement of existing spectator terracing that dated from 1911 a necessary expense under safety regulations. Hegginbotham received an estimate of £2 million for the construction of a new stand. According to author Martin Fletcher, Heginbotham lacked the financial resources to pay for new terracing, and was at that time having difficulty meeting the wage bill and running costs at the club.

Just before half time in the final game of the season a fire started at one end of the stand that would have to be replaced. The wooden structure was quickly ablaze; heat and thick smoke meant spectators had only minutes to escape.

The wooden stand had been used for decades during which time on any given match day hundreds of supporters in it would smoke.

An article by investigative journalist Paul Foot in the Daily Mirror catalogued five previous fires at Heginbotham businesses, and suggested that in view of his previous experience, it was odd he had failed to effectively act on the local authority fire officers' warnings. Heginbotham threatened to sue, and Foot dropped the story.

Shortly before the 30 year anniversary of the disaster, a book authored by a survivor of the disaster pointed to Heginbotham's proceeds from insurance payouts for an extraordinary number of his business premises that had burnt down between 1967 and 1981. The book alleged there were eight fires at his premises and Heginbotham had recouped ten million pounds at today’s values in insurance before the stadium fire. His total compensation for fires including the burning down of the stand amounted to the equivalent of £27 million at current values.
 
Bullet said:
Excerpts from Wikipedia:


The stand had already been condemned, and the demolition teams were due to start work two days later.

In the penultimate game of the 1984-85 season the club had secured promotion to Division Two, thereby making the replacement of existing spectator terracing that dated from 1911 a necessary expense under safety regulations. Hegginbotham received an estimate of £2 million for the construction of a new stand. According to author Martin Fletcher, Heginbotham lacked the financial resources to pay for new terracing, and was at that time having difficulty meeting the wage bill and running costs at the club.

Just before half time in the final game of the season a fire started at one end of the stand that would have to be replaced. The wooden structure was quickly ablaze; heat and thick smoke meant spectators had only minutes to escape.

The wooden stand had been used for decades during which time on any given match day hundreds of supporters in it would smoke.

An article by investigative journalist Paul Foot in the Daily Mirror catalogued five previous fires at Heginbotham businesses, and suggested that in view of his previous experience, it was odd he had failed to effectively act on the local authority fire officers' warnings. Heginbotham threatened to sue, and Foot dropped the story.

Shortly before the 30 year anniversary of the disaster, a book authored by a survivor of the disaster pointed to Heginbotham's proceeds from insurance payouts for an extraordinary number of his business premises that had burnt down between 1967 and 1981. The book alleged there were eight fires at his premises and Heginbotham had recouped ten million pounds at today’s values in insurance before the stadium fire. His total compensation for fires including the burning down of the stand amounted to the equivalent of £27 million at current values.
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So he was an insurance arsonist
 
parklane1 said:
And they still do it, what happened at Hillsborough was shameful but no more then what happened at Bradford and yet we hardly ever hear about the fire but Hillsborough is shoved down our throats all the time.
Click to expand...

Hillsborough is still with us because of the cover up in the aftermath. Consecuently the aftermath lasted 25 odd years before the new hearing placing the blame where it belonged. Since closure has been so slow in the making, the people involved will need to mark the tragic occasion that was Hillsborough for a long time still. And we should let them.

On another note, all three tragedies mentioned here were preventable and down to football stadiums in the 1980s generally being in a state of disrepair and neglect. Heysel was of course down to the fans attacking other fans, but also the Heysel stadium was old and did not separate the fan groups in a satisfactory manner. When you had an English team versus an Italian at that time, greater measures should have been taken to prevent the scenes that unfolded. In practice, that would mean not playing the final at that stadium.

Bradford City was down to a neglected, old stand and quite possibly insurance fraud. But again that comes down to insuficcient regulations. Practically every stadium had structures that were at least 50 years old at the time. With very few upgrades to stadiums since the 1930s, it will have bad concequences.

Hillsborough happened because a series of events went wrong, which is usually the case when disasters happen. The Leppings Lane stand was badly constructed and was not even certified for use at the time. Add the amateurish and inexperienced policing on the day and the table was set for what unfolded.

There were too few lessons learnt from Heysel and Bradford, and to some extent our own cup semi final at Hillsborough in 81 or 82, where several supporters also were injured. The Taylor report should have been made years before, but it needed a high profile, very visible disaster unfolding before the general public's eyes live on television for action to be taken (my own analysis).

It may not have changed football to the better in all aspects, far from it, but some good came from it. The policing is taking into account that football supporters are people and not animals to be herded with batons (open to debate in some circumstances) and the stadium structures are constructed in a way that fans in general can count on not being burned to death or attacked by angry mobs.
 
bjholmem said:
Hillsborough is still with us because of the cover up in the aftermath. Consecuently the aftermath lasted 25 odd years before the new hearing placing the blame where it belonged.
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Did it though?

It seems to me that the big unanswered question was never asked. Why were they playing the game there?

I've read many accounts of the 1981 (?) game involving Spurs (some from supporters here). This led to the stadium being removed from the FA list. Yet it was restored to the list without proper certification and remained on the list after crushing incidents in the 1987 and 1988 games. The game should never have been played there in 1989 and the people who determined that it should were never held to account.
 
Bullet said:
Excerpts from Wikipedia:


The stand had already been condemned, and the demolition teams were due to start work two days later.

In the penultimate game of the 1984-85 season the club had secured promotion to Division Two, thereby making the replacement of existing spectator terracing that dated from 1911 a necessary expense under safety regulations. Hegginbotham received an estimate of £2 million for the construction of a new stand. According to author Martin Fletcher, Heginbotham lacked the financial resources to pay for new terracing, and was at that time having difficulty meeting the wage bill and running costs at the club.

Just before half time in the final game of the season a fire started at one end of the stand that would have to be replaced. The wooden structure was quickly ablaze; heat and thick smoke meant spectators had only minutes to escape.

The wooden stand had been used for decades during which time on any given match day hundreds of supporters in it would smoke.

An article by investigative journalist Paul Foot in the Daily Mirror catalogued five previous fires at Heginbotham businesses, and suggested that in view of his previous experience, it was odd he had failed to effectively act on the local authority fire officers' warnings. Heginbotham threatened to sue, and Foot dropped the story.

Shortly before the 30 year anniversary of the disaster, a book authored by a survivor of the disaster pointed to Heginbotham's proceeds from insurance payouts for an extraordinary number of his business premises that had burnt down between 1967 and 1981. The book alleged there were eight fires at his premises and Heginbotham had recouped ten million pounds at today’s values in insurance before the stadium fire. His total compensation for fires including the burning down of the stand amounted to the equivalent of £27 million at current values.
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I know quite a few, now rich, people that started out with two empty hands and a box of matches....
 
Kandi1977 said:
I know quite a few, now rich, people that started out with two empty hands and a box of matches....
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I worked for a company that had years of failed planning applications for one of their empty industrial sites in the 1970's, unfortunately the building was destroyed in a fire probably caused by vagrants. Luckily they managed to develop the ruins into luxury apartments and top end retail units.
 
K.D.D.D.D.Soc said:
I worked for a company that had years of failed planning applications for one of their empty industrial sites in the 1970's, unfortunately the building was destroyed in a fire probably caused by vagrants. Luckily they managed to develop the ruins into luxury apartments and top end retail units.
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Something very similar happened to Harry "Wasn't me guv" Redknapp a few years ago in Portsmouth.
 
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