Yeah, thought that was the case. With regards to the congestion - surely it was a case of management of the gates rather than the number of turnstiles? After all, the police control box has access to cameras over the pens and can see when they are up to capacity. Comunication from the control box to ground level was slow and ensured that thw wrong gate was opened. The upper tier blocks and pens 1 and 4 were relatively quiet compared to the two central pens. Of course, fans arriving late exacerbated the over-crowding outside.
Agree. Lots of things added up to cause the tragedy, including poor stewarding and communication..
1. Theyreplaced a police officer familiar with the stadium and the problems a few weeks before hand. Duckenfield, the new guy, had no experience at Hillsborough.
2. Leppings Lane approach was used for all Liverpool fans, those in the end and those at the side stands. It was convenient for fan segregation but the bottleneck made congestion outside inevitable.
3. The small number of turnstiles, combined with 2, almost guaranteed congestion outside even if the fans turned up on time. It happened in 1981, 1987 and 1988 so clearly it was inadequate. There is no evidence the fans turned up late. It was the slow entrance to the stadium that was the problem.
4. It doesn't seem there was anyone inside the stadium trying to direct fans to the outer pens, unlike in 1981.
5. The police commanders inside and outside were not in communication. Both faced overcrowding. The one outside asked Duckenfield to open the exit gate to relieve pressure outside. Although he had a video view of the inner pens, he gave order to open the gate, even though this caused the problem in 1981. The experienced commander probably wouldn't have done.
6. In the past they did some preticketing of fans on the road to the stadium. In 1989 they didn't.
7. The only way out of the central pens was the tunnel and the gates onto the field. In 1981 there were gates to the side pens but they were now fenced off
[Correction: it wasn't fenced off in 1981 and fans were free to move sideways]. In 1981 the police let fans onto the pitchside. In 1989 they assumed it was hooligan behaviour, which was not unreasonable given the times.
The thing that becomes so clear in retrospect was that it was an accident waiting to happen. If things had been different it could have happened in 1981 or 1987 or 1988. A lot of people made mistakes on the day. I don't think any were outrageous individual decisions - opening the exit gate was an attempt to relieve the crush outside, not a malicious act - but the lack of communication and lack of knowledge of previous incidents added up to a tragic result. After being removed from the FA Cup semi-final venue list after 1981, I cannot understand how Hillsborough was reinstated without major improvements. Whoever made that decision needs to be brought to account
