THE BIG END

AS SOMEONE FROM LIVERPOOL, I cannot help but be pleased and relieved over the final publication of what is now perceived by the authorities to be the truth about the disaster at the FA Cup semi final that led to the death of ninety-six young Liverpool FC fans, forty-one of whom, we are now officially told, were still alive and could have been saved if the South Yorkshire Police and Ambulance Service had done their jobs.

 

THE BLAME IS NOW BEING POINTED in the right direction after this final inquiry twenty-three years after the event. The report suggests the police, the ambulance service and even the coroner’s office not only did not carry out their duties correctly but then covered up their incompetent and probably prejudiced actions by falsifying their reports to make it look like the Liverpool football fans themselves were guilty of some misbehaviour that led to their own deaths and to the deaths of others.

 

MANY GULLIBLE CLOWNS LISTENED to the fabricated rantings of the (then) Conservative and Unionist Party MP for Sheffield Hallam, Sir Irvine Patnick, a hideous, neo-Fascist right-winger who was the first to spin the idea that it would be best for everyone concerned if the world believed that all Liverpool fans were drunkards (including ten year olds), were drunk at the time, and attacked the police. Those who listened to his idiotic arguments included Margaret Thatcher, who lapped up his muddled beliefs as being perfect sense, The Sun newspaper and its editor Kelvin Mackenzie, and Boris Johnson, who ought to have known better, as nothing anyone in Liverpool does on a drunken day out can rival what he used to get up to at Oxford.

 

THE SUN AND BORIS JOHNSON have now apologized, and Margaret Thatcher no longer knows who she is, and so, in a sense, is beyond reproach. Those who have not yet apologized, and  are thus in need of a good whipping, will probably die before the families of the ninety-six who died get their day in court.

 

These are: Peter Wright, (now deceased) then Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, who stated that details of fans' alleged misbehaviour were crucial because “if anybody should be blamed, it should be the drunken ticketless individuals”;

 

Paul Middup, (retired) then secretary of the South Yorkshire Police Federation. Source for a front-page article in The Sun newspaper accusing fans of urinating on police officers and stealing from the dead;

 

David Duckenfield, (retired on full pension due to post-traumatic distress). Chief superintendent in charge of policing at Hillsborough on the day. Lied about Liverpool fans forcing open an exit gate, when he in fact ordered that it be opened;

 

Sir Norman Bettison, (pictured above) the current Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police. At the time he was Chief Inspector at South Yorkshire. He today continues to state that – even in the light of the new report – the Liverpool fans were to blame for the tragedy.

 

Despite howlings from all quarters that he should resign, he continues to state that no one did anything wrong on the policing side.

 

Dr Stefan Popper, the coroner for South Yorkshire West. He refused to consider events after 3.15pm when he held the inquests, suggesting that anyone who died after this time was unable to be saved. Eyewitness accounts suggest that basic CPR techniques, oxygen masks or even rubber tubes down the throat would have saved the lives of many.

 

YET THERE IS MORE TO THE CASE THAN THIS. I watched the events live on television in 1989, as the result was important to me. I believe that a small aspect that is not being mentioned here should be looked into. Besides the confusion and carnage, I distinctly remember a young lad from Liverpool coming close to the camera and the microphones and shouting and gesticulating, in great distress, “Why didn’t the FA give us the big end? Why didn’t they give us the big end?” (This is the larger end of the Sheffield Wednesday stadium, as Liverpool have more fans than Nottingham Forest). Shouldn't the FA be blamed as well? Wasn't the first mistake theirs? And why is no one talking about the FA today?

 

WHATEVER. NOW IS THE TIME TO GIVE THE BIG END of their lives to the culprits for this incredibly tragic event. We can at least strip two of them of their dubiously-awarded knighthoods, and perhaps we can at least allow the other three the chance to come forward and admit what scoundrels and villains they are before they are up for manslaughter.