Well There‘s Your Problem - Episode 12: Hillsborough Disaster

Episode Date: January 15, 2020

A bunch of nerds told us not to talk about sports, so we ignored them! Today @aliceavizandum, @oldmananders0n, and @donoteat1 talk about the worst disaster in the history of British football Justice for the 96, you'll never walk alone here are the slides: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2BjTfwhbh8 listen to trashfuture: https://trashfuturepodcast.podbean.com/ Here's the Patreon link so you can watch the Groverhaus episode: https://www.patreon.com/wtyppod

And here we are again back where we started back at the beginning of the podcast We absolutely did not have to go through a bunch of stuff just to get to this first slide for the second time For a bit. Welcome to well. There's your problem an engineering podcast where we have to start the podcast twice to Ensure that we got it right. I'm just Yeah For twice as many pronoun checks. Yeah, twice as many pronoun checks my pronouns are he him and he him Double way heavy. Yes

Alice go I feel weird No, I was gonna I was gonna let Justin do it cuz I cut him off So like everyone's only gonna know him as Justin Rosen. Oh, right, you know Justin Roz We gotta protect his additional ID. Yes. Mmm. Everyone knows who I am Alice calls well Kelly. My pronouns are she she and her I'm also in a podcast called trash future. You should listen to it. You should listen to it I am Liam Anderson pronouns are he him. He him. I Am on Twitter at old man Anderson and also in our comments section

conveniently We took some of our listeners that angry deranged furious opinions that we should not stick to sports Yeah, we are going to Only sports. Yeah, we only gonna talk about sports from here on out. Why did Jim Spanfella buy an engineering podcast? I Was ready to go. I thought you were talking about these spanners the guy who owns the Chargers who was a horrible fucking human being Chargers I'm ready another horrible human being no no actually where we're gonna get moved to Chicago now That's the annoying bit. Yeah, we're actually under the onion. Well on the bright side. I do like Chicago I'm just under an enormous onion. Just pinned down

Yeah, struggling to bring it. I didn't even see that get in the house. Yeah, I'm stealthy with onions All right, so we're looking at a picture of a soccer pitch or a football pitch if you're European You know, this is a lot of people on it And then back then you had to you had to pay by the pixel which is why it looks like that This is also your European Yeah, there was a there was only like they were rationed in Europe until like the 70s Yeah, everyone remembers when the world switched from black and white to color But no one talks about how many more pixels we have these days. Absolutely. That's dizzying honestly go back to 480i

That's all I can handle. No today. Today. We're gonna talk about the Hillsborough disaster, right, which was a Disaster when too many people Tried to squeeze into too small of a space at a football match That doesn't sound ideal. Yeah. No, there was too much sports and people tried to sports too much and A terrible thing happened. Yes, highly unfortunate. So I thought we'd start by talking about Stampede's right Going into this with the kind of reverence and Yeah, yeah subtlety that we are known for

Alright, so So a lot of times in the media, right? Well, they'll sort of talk about, you know, any kind of crowd disaster is a stampede, right? And sort of a stampede, I guess is a it's a sort of fast-moving crowd and you know It tramples people to death who fall over right and this is the less common of the two kinds of crowd Disasters, right? Because usually it doesn't kill a lot of people, you know, only the people who fall over. What's much more common Is something called a crush, right? But that sounds so much better. I know, right? So a crush is when you know, yeah, you have like a crowd

that's moving in one direction, right and You know, or they're moving away from something and they reach a barrier of some kind, right? And they can't stop or fall through. Yeah. Yeah, a movable object. Yes And you know, people push up against that thing, right? And they get sort of crushed into it. Sometimes this cause like Asphyxiation or physical crushing injuries Sometimes a lot of times this can kill a lot of people really quickly, right? Of course, both of these things are usually accompanied by other disasters going on at the same time

So, you know, maybe there's maybe there's a fire people are trying to get out of a theater Maybe they're trying to get out of a sinking boat. I don't know, you know Yeah, or they're trying to escape the Lion King. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So trying to escape a theater Fire on a boat and the theater is showing the Lion King. Yes The new Lion King, not the old one You don't have to do this Disney now that we've already stolen your intellectual property which shout out to that Uh, oh since my girlfriend does not listen to this podcast I can say that she is a huge disney fan. We included a disney still

And she'll never hear about it. So that's super tight. All right. Yeah I absolutely do not seek out Liam's girlfriend to like inform on us. Yeah, please don't do that Oh god, all right So, you know, if if if you're like in a crowd and you're worried there might be a crush, you know Usually you're not at a risk of that until there's like around six to seven people per square meter Right, really? That's what wikipedia said I didn't look just getting out like a a big tape measure to measure the square meter around If there's people bumping into you on all four sides, then you're in the danger zone

Oh, yeah, that was super tight. Are we gonna get are we gonna get the sting for that? Then you're shaking hands with danger Shake hands with danger with both hands On like four sides. That's actually incredibly impressive dexterity. Congratulations. I'm rolling. Yeah, totally It's like that It's like the thing where you like have a meeting or something and you have to like shake hands around a table I hate that like not knowing what you're doing with both hands. Yeah, it's like you're in church I am your business cloud. Please hire me

Yes, peace be with you shaking hands with danger Why did we stop doing the kiss of the kiss of peace for shaking hands with danger anyway? It's like a priest in a preschool Yes, you know, what how do we avoid crush disasters, right? How do we avoid stampeds and and there's there's like multiple methods, um I think one of the most extreme examples um, of course is uh in Saudi Arabia In uh, this is the other place we love. Oh, yes. This is the us ally. Yes

this is the Alice you may have to help me on this one. This is the chamarot bridge in a meeting. Good. Okay. Okay Yeah, you you noted on this one that that is um, it's part of the harsh you uh stone those You see the vertical bits at the bottom there. Those are around uh stone pillars which are kind of like walls now and you throw stones at them Uh, it's it's theologically important and also people all like to do it at the same time of day Even though you don't have to so you get like the the fucking the population of belgium All trying to get through that bridge in like an hour. It just sounds like an extreme version of hazing I mean, yeah, it's it's it's the thing is islam is not a religion that tolerates social anxiety very well

It's I I feel like that the hajh theologically was it was sort of intended that you know, maybe fewer people would do it Yeah, I mean not all at the same time People have talked about uh the possibility of like extending it. Um, so like you do it over like two months rather than one Uh, I I think that would probably be wise But yeah, nothing nothing's sort of going on with there And so we're just adding more stacks onto this giant park aid here and cramming more people into it It is it does look very much like a parking garage, right with like highway ramps going into it But it's all it's all pedestrian infrastructure

Because of you know the chronic uh Crushes and stampede's which have plagued the hajh for decades now One every ten years give or take yeah, exactly. So, you know, and they just keep getting bigger just because you know So many more people are doing it Yeah, so, you know, one of the ways you do this is through a lot of pedestrian infrastructure And the other way you do it is through, you know, good crowd control, right? It can just prevent so many people from going into one space at once You know and and sort of control them. Well, you can avoid these problems and I I do think it's interesting that you know

they're they're they In in Islam, you all are like now maybe adopting theology for practical concerns. That's very that's very catholic. Yes Well, I mean one one thing one thing with the with the jammer our bridges that like Uh, as we'll see you later on with uh with crushes and stampede's and stuff Is that if you widen one area you just kind of create more choke points further out Um, and so they had just finished expanding this one um When I think the most recent crush happened and that was like two of the sort of the off ramps of this

Uh, which were a little bit smaller because you're not as worried as about people going out Uh, sort of converged on each other and people got trapped in the middle A good part. Oops. Yeah. It is real bad. Holy shit. Yeah, but that that's kind of the problem with this is that like every time you try and Allow for more traffic somewhere. It costs you somewhere else Uh, it's very very difficult to work around that. Why don't they just add a lead? Yeah, no the most Saudi possible solution to this is to issue every pilgrim a segue and just like having an individual Yeah, just just have like one of those little airport people movers with like the individual pods And you just like go around on a rail and like throw stones out of the window

Can you do the hajj on the off season or uh, no that there is there's there's one month for uh, which is Jesus Yeah, I thought there was like an exhibition hajj or something Yeah, if you do it any other time of year, it's an umra, which is still good But it's not the thing that you absolutely positively have to do once if you can Uh, so every year uh for one month the population of mecca Goes up by like 50 times They they have a metro by the way since we're doing like a train podcast

That's literally it's almost never used apart from one month and then it's just like Japanese style dudes pushing people into carriages. Wow Yeah, I was looking at google maps at mecca and I was like this seems like uh, Islamic Pittsburgh just the general layout of the city Yeah, well, it's it's it's Pittsburgh, but then the Saudis built Las Vegas on top of it So you have this giant nice clock tower just looming over the masjid al-haram. It's it's very very ugly It's also still like all of the expensive modern stuff like the jammer at bridge or the tent city at Mina Still kills a bunch of people because they cut corners or they don't engineer things well and yeah

I I feel like the the harsh is kind of a whole episode in itself. Uh, honestly, yeah, that would be a good episode So yeah, we'll have to do that some way. All right. So stay tuned for that and like a video compilation of people Falling off of Mount Ararat. Oh It's it's just a hill it's fine. It's just the end of crowd surfing is the thing Oh, that sounds very relaxed. Hmm one of the things about like crowd control in terms of crushes is a lot of times, you know Uh, people especially the media may try and blame individuals in the crowd for causing the problem It's not like the fucking the fucking Saudis love doing this every time there's something, uh On harsh, they're always like oh, it was because there's Iranians. Yes. Did you know they don't know how to queue or whatever

With that with their like swarthy sheer ways. They just yeah, it's it's wild They just don't have respect for Yes, you know the ancient traditions and quite the way the Saudis do No, they're all fucking sagging their pants and listening to hip-hop. Uh, and yeah, no, it's unacceptable I don't like these new hip-hop Muslims coming to the hajj these days Real real lunch pail real lunch pail Muslims Gotta have that coachability

They get your lunch pail, uh, whatever not whatever two steps above the four seasons is Yes, very very down to earth, uh on the hajj as i'm being fed grapes like hedonism bot But uh, yeah, it's it's it no one has an individual control over a crowd unless you know, you're actively doing That you're the guy doing crowd control Right, they've got to give you the vest. Yeah, if you have the vest you can move crowd I have his no hard hats all you need if you have the vest and something happens, then it's your fault. Yes Yes, we'll we'll get into this with uh, south yorkshire police in a bit. Yes So, uh with that in mind, um, let's talk about the next part of this which is

What is football hooliganism? Oh boy They say they say britain has no organic culture But who else could have invented the mill wall brick folding up a newspaper So that you can sneak it through stadium security and using it as brass knuckles That's incredible. That's the necessity being the mother of invention. Uh, absolutely So football hooliganism, you know, it's basically like, you know, football fans who like fighting other football fans And it's most basic

Sometimes it's political You know, like there's there's football clubs associated with like fascists or anti-fascists Or sure like uh, fucking live on though who we should all stand for being like anti-fascist kings Oh, yeah, those guys cool or say the old firm Celtic and uh Yes, so Celtic corp the Rangers. Yes. So Celtic fans always very intersectional. Uh, when we were playing Lazio Last year we, uh, got fined because we Showed the Lazio fascist fans a big banner of Mussolini hanging upside down. Yes, you did. Yes, you did Ah the one time, uh, I've been uh, to paradise

I was in the jungle and it was both the most exhilarating and absolutely fucking terrifying thing I've ever experienced It fucking won command you boys and green, etc. So yes, uh football hooliganism It's it's a land of contrasts prices deserve it. Of course, we're talking about the 1980s. Uh, and a lot of it is just racism Uh, um, yeah Um, and for I guess an equivalent in the united states of america. I don't know that we have a real equivalent Closest thing I could think of is if you imagine, um college football college football, but also I was thinking, um If anyone's heard of the infamous 10 cent beer night Oh, yeah, buddy. Yeah, you finally achieved an almost british level of average drunkenness

Yes, that was uh 1974 cleveland indians game. They were playing the texas rangers It was five to five in the ninth inning But of course everyone was wildly un intoxicated off 10 cent beers Please keep in mind who could have seen this coming. These were 12 ounce pours of 3.2 percent abv beer Um Just oh god just the like torrent of beer piss coming down the stairs Oh, yeah A bunch of wildly intoxicated fans rushed the field

Uh in the ninth inning so imagine that but imagine it happening to some extent every game Yeah, what about like, uh, uh hockey you have like you riot when you win the stanley car or whatever, right? Like lose it You know, you mean, uh when my team the boston broons, uh one game seven of the stanley cup final in van couver Uh depriving canadiens of being the best in the world with their own goddamn sport Uh A bunch of pissed off canadiens were like, uh, I can't believe our really good team collapsed out of nowhere Even though it's going to do that all season. Nah

Yeah, it's it's kind of like that It's kind of like the the hockey thing where you like set fire to your own city But also the other team is on it too. Yeah go bird Go birds Are we not moving on until I say go birds too? Yeah, you have to come on. Yeah, let's go go birds. Thank you, alice. Thank you, alice So so there were a couple uh, uh like there's a sort of moral panic about hooliganism in the 1980s, right Some of it was

Kind of justified some of it wasn't right So, you know before before the incident we're going to talk about today. There was a previous incident involving the liverpool Uh football club. There are supporters in Uh, what is it? Hey cell? Heisel heisel heisel. I can't pronounce anything fucking dutch. I yeah I hate that dutch the fans Brushed a barrier to attack uh, Juventus fans, right?

and Those fans ran away and then they crushed into a concrete wall And that killed 39 people and you know, the only way this brush was alleviated was when the wall fell over Right. Oh, well, it was it was real bad. Yeah I one thing one thing I should say about like class and hooliganism and stuff is that this wasn't just like Random fans. It was always kind of organized in some sense. Like there would be Uh, quote-unquote supporters clubs like legitimate businessmen's associations or whatever that would That would organize and seek out violence. And so like you can have

A football game with like the majority of people going to it being totally unaware of the existence of this fucking Uh kumite style martial arts tournaments on the side of it. Yeah, it's it's weird. I I don't know that we have altars or a hell of a thing Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, it's it's weird though because like in civil disorder where like society breaks down or whatever football altars like football hooligans Often end up being paramilitaries just because they're very well suited to doing that already Uh, it happened during the egyptian revolution in ukraine Bunch of other times so it for for good or ill they're kind of this this weird organized violent, uh, political force

That sounds yes for ill Yeah, it is mostly for ill. I just I just really I I don't I yeah, no I I don't want to fucking Uh Throw Celtic under the bus. Thanks. I'm being quite quite circumspect here. Yes, we're all beat up by football hooligans at the end of this episode They're already tracking us the funniest fucking thing in the world to me is the uh, oh god the the americans who try to like

Take on the uh the dressings of hooliganism So you have people fighting over clubs that were created out of whole cloth like I don't know two weeks ago It's weird because like your your your actual fascists managed to like try and Like the like aesthetic style of british football hooligans for a while like before he went all suit and tie um Richard spencer was very into like stone island and the kind of haircut stuff. Oh, of course he was Yeah, it was straight out of like 80s mill war. It was wild wasn't there isn't there a football club in uh, america

Which is is was getting like fined or like, you know, just generally Like, you know, the their supporters were you know, taken up the iron front as their um Yeah, uh one of the Sounders the sounders or the timbers. Yeah Yeah with sounders for sure, uh I don't know football football and like the class character of football is very different in the uk It's like for like a long time. It's been like the working class sport and it's been kind of gentrified since then but at the time we're talking about in the 70s and 80s, we're talking about like

the northern towns particularly in inner city areas that have undergoing brutal privatization and deindustrialization There's nothing else to do except fight people uh, and it's this kind of uh terrifying Sort of working class phenomenon to a lot of respectable conservatives Well, I guess that ties into the next thing which is like

Margaret Thatcher of course Tries to assemble like this sort of war cabinet Against football hooliganism. This is Right tries to implement a bunch of like stiff jail terms, uh, you know other other heavy-handed punishments I don't think she gets any of them through No, but it speaks to the kind of instinct and government. Um, there was a moral panic going on, right? So for sure

There's more police at matches and there's more like, you know, every fan is suspect You know, yeah, which still some of that still lingers like if you, um If you go to a football game in the uk like a big one, uh, the amount and the kind of the nature of the policing there is very very, uh I think you'll be surprised by it if you haven't grown up with it like just seeing fucking like uh armored Fucking riot police and like cops on horses and stuff Physically escorting columns of fans to the stadium and back. It's yeah, it's

This stuff has a long long memory in football. Um, I went to I went to an exhibition match, um in in, um What wasn't uh that played harrison new jersey It was uh, it was a it was a bayern munich, uh game. I think it was bayern munich and rial in madrid um, and and they uh That the the security I brought my bag because I had stuff Bring right and I searched my bag and they made me get rid of a screwdriver in there Yep. Uh-huh. Yeah, it was like this is this is a lot of security. I'm not gonna what am I gonna do with the screwdriver I mean, obviously I could stab someone with it. That's exactly what they were gonna. Yeah, man

No, I was like I was like very angry. I hit it in a bush and I got it back afterwards. So I did that or we did that When my friend and I or your friend of mine went to uh drove from pennsylvania Down to beautiful oxford mississippi It's the Ole Miss play fresno state and they wouldn't let us take our bag in which we which like was genuinely tossed like goddamn unbelievable and uh And we were so aghast and we ended up doing this. They were just threw it in a bush We're like, oh, fuck well like come back for it later

And the guy's like it ain't gonna be there when you come back and lo and behold It was there when we came back because I assume everybody at that at that game was way too fucking intoxicated Do you even know what a backpack was? Yeah, sound off sound off in the comments with your favorite way to like evade security My favorite part is that the metal detectors at the wells fargo center aren't ever turned on I like the shit the shit you can get away with in uh Continental europe in there like especially like central and eastern europe their football games is wild Like you'll just routinely see like fucking road flares coming onto the pitch

Oh, I love that shit like officials getting like batteries thrown at them and stuff. Who would do that? We do yeah, who would do that? Santa Claus is an official technically, right? So, um, all right, so let's just keep in mind. There's sort of a moral panic about hooliganism going on Sort of in this era, right? okay, so, uh Now, uh, let's sort of talk about the events leading up to this disaster. I like um Like I got my um, I got my john madden thing back. Oh, oh you got your good. No, I don't know

I don't already already. Yeah. Yeah I like how they just have look at those short hydraulic pumps up here Oh, that fucking like the the advertising hoardings of british football games. Yeah, just insane stuff It's like either do you want to buy insurance or do you want to buy like a zamboni or something? Uh, I would like a zamboni. Yeah, we know Are you interested in like prefabricated concrete sections? Yes, because yeah, because we'll fucking advertise that to you and then the shirt sponsors like there's a scrap yard down here That they're advertising. Absolutely. And then especially in the lower leagues like you'll just find out that the team

Uh being sponsored uh is being sponsored by somebody who's like paid enough to get their name their company name on the jersey And the name is fucking. I don't know like sex toy dildos for sale.com It's just yeah, incredible. This is this team is sponsored by jeff Some guy named jeff What is what is sugg sport sugg? I All of this is back Yes, I like that. Is it plumbing ventilation heating and air conditioning? Yeah, basically basically you have all of the people that grover should have hired to make grover house

Of a football stadium All right, so uh leading up to the disaster, right? This is uh, this this is this game is gonna 15th of april in 1989, right? This is uh, Liverpool versus nottingham forest, right? Yep two kind of scrappy clubs at this point, I guess um, like forest coming off a kind of good decade in the beginning of a long long slow decline But they both still have this reputation of being like, I don't know scary working class thing like The thing is it's difficult because now

The premiership and especially like something like Liverpool. That's an international brand and like you see people wearing Liverpool jerseys and stuff It did not used to be like that in in the 80s. And then they got that red stocks money. Yeah, buddy. Yes Yeah, exactly But it was it was much less clean and much less corporate at this time So this is held in hillsboro, right? It's neutral ground. This is neither of the theme stadium And of course because of our hooliganism moral panic, uh, the fans are completely segregated from each other, right? They have two separate entrances For supporters of either football club, right?

Yeah, and like I say, you'll have the cops like walk them from the stadium in like a big fucking kettle Well, this is appropriate English Nottingham forest came from the east Liverpool came from the west None has a chance to fight each other Um, and there's limited access to the turnstiles as a result, especially for Liverpool, right? Um, and this turned out to be a very crowded game Right and the crowds at the turnstiles for Liverpool were dense enough that you know, they were at they were at a point where They couldn't even turn people away from the turnstiles because there was nowhere for them to go

Like if you if you had the wrong ticket or you didn't have a ticket and you got as far as the turnstiles They couldn't send you away Oh, sweet. There were too many. Yeah, perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Good. This is a life hack. Yes Not a good one No, this is more of an end of life hack. Yeah So really thought that was gonna land better So, uh, let's just look at the plan here, right? Uh, this is the Liverpool side, right? so we got some

Perimeter gates out here, right? And you get the turnstiles here and additional turnstiles over here, right? Now to get into pen three and pen four Over here You had to go through this tunnel Right And these these pens are not like modern seating, right? Because number one, they're not seating Standing room only

Seats uh seats are for real people. Uh, if you're in the world, you just have to stand. Yeah. Yes seats are aspirational Yeah, but what what you might it's it's just going to be like Terrorist steps and if you're lucky you might have like a railing to lean on Uh, probably not though. Oh, it's good. It sounds safe It sounds very safe. There was essentially no crowd control going on here, right? So fans were coming in they were going into the tunnel. They were going into pen four and pen three And they they weren't really, you know Spreading out at all, you know, they were they were just back there, right?

Hmm, like when you get people onto a train or something. Yeah, exactly You know, there's always an aspen that says move to the middle of the train and then people just don't do that No, they do not bastards So normally the the police sort of coordinated moving people over to go like into pen six or pen seven Or you know elsewhere. I don't know how you got the pence one and two. This is not obvious from the diagram Right. I don't think it was obvious to anybody there either like it's a weirdly laid out stadium And the fact that you have it in this kind of this neutral ground means that

Nobody there who's there as a supporter knows it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I didn't even thought of that I hadn't thought of that either, but yeah So normally the police sort of coordinated crowd control like this, but today they didn't really do that They're really focused on preventing hooliganism rather than focused on Controlling the crowd, right? Well, I mean the the cop brain isn't capable of doing like holding two things in the same at the same brain pant at the same time you can either Uh, fucking hit somebody with a truncheon if they look like they're gonna punch anyone or

Like do any crowd control you can't do both can't do both. No, it's unfortunate. No Unpossible so the game started about 10 minutes early Or at least that's when the fans started hearing You know cheers inside because the players have come out onto the pitch, right? um Police asked for you know the kickoff to be delayed about 20 minutes to get everyone in slowly and safely That was denied game started as usual Oh, terrific. Like whoomst just like the the the match officials or what?

I think it was the match officials because I think it was a big televised game So, you know, they didn't You gotta start on time. Yeah. Yeah to alleviate the big the big crowd at the turnstiles Keep in mind there is basically a crush forming around here and around here And around here, right? They decided that These various exit gates which are over here over here and over here

Should be opened Right to a allow people to leave who shouldn't be there But also be just to let people in right Oh, there are more people in awesome Yeah, absolutely and and having envisioning this kind of Bidirectional traffic where people are coming in and going out through the same gates I don't like do we have pictures of these gates because I remember them being pretty like narrow too Uh

Well, one of the things we can do is we can play that clip you said we should play Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, so let me do that. Let me open one of the things Let me let me introduce this while you find it one of the things I found was um some of the uh police communications between uh You see the control box down there in the stand where the like the senior police officers are trying to manage all of this And the police actually at the turnstiles busy like trying to decide who's a club or whatever People with a trench, yeah

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um Being like we we have to open this gate because people are gonna die otherwise Uh, because the you know pressed up against these turnstiles that you can only get through one by one um It's a very confusing situation by all accounts. Yeah, so I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna play the clip I'm digging this that didn't work. Oh, here we go Just the Hillsborough ground comes all the calling over negative again, we're getting somebody calling us Oh

That's a big crowd Holy shit. Yeah, look how fucking packed together they are Very very very low quality cctv, but you know, oh and that was in the pixels back then Yeah, this part of britain hadn't switched over the color Yeah This is still outside right like these are these are the perimeter gates that we're seeing Yeah, because these are we the turnstiles in the foreground And so you can see like

Like one person that's fine getting through each one Yeah, that's We get Liverpool mixed up with notes for us, we're going to have serious trouble. Yes, uh, so yeah So All right, this part is after this is like in the in the actual pitch we'll get to that in a second Operation support tails That's Holy shit

Yeah, you know, you know something's really bad when somebody says how many ambulances and they say Well, how many have you got? Can you Yeah, I the thing I'm struck by is uh The first ambulance that made its way in just driving straight onto the pitch and having to like move through this Yeah, exactly. Yep. Like what the fuck are you gonna do there? All right, let's hope the uh, let's hope the independent doesn't sue us Um, yeah, cut copyright strike number two on the same video. You can get rid of Disney. Fuck you

All right, so we kind of we kind of yeah, we kind of jumped the gun there I didn't realize that was gonna go as long as it did. I just wanted the um, uh the turnstile footage, but Oh, well, yeah, we'll we'll do some editing fine. Um The editing is you say we'll do some editing and then we don't then I just don't actually do it Yeah, it's like it's like the rush is for a movie where it says like a shot to come Where you say we have to do some editing the audience has to imagine that editing has gone on in the final product seen missing Please stand by

Doctor who episode that got ridden over It's just rod's egg fix it in post Why did we only record these podcasts on individual vhs tapes and then leave them in a basement? So we have all these these serious design flaws once they open these gates fans really start Like just rushing into the tunnel, right? Because that's like the most obvious spot to go They don't know that there's other ways into other pens and how crowded pen 3 and pen 4 are right? And and there's a crush behind them like we saw that that's you want to get away from that Yeah, out of the frying pan and into the fire

Yeah So putting a mile this is this is a view from uh, this is a view from the uh Uh from the pitch into pens 3 and 4, right? Almost looks comical, but like it's not a good situation. Holy I'm I'm I'm definitely I'm going with brogel painting again or like fucking heronimus bosh, you know the fucking Triviles of the damned over here. It's horrifying So, uh, this whole incident was caught on live tv. Good, of course. Yeah Well, we'll we'll I have some legal knowledge about this that we'll get to when we get to the like aftermath of this

Uh, it being on tv is important to uh, well English law afterwards So the fans are streaming into pens 3 and 4 pretty quickly, right? Uh, the crush barriers inside the pens give way and that means all the fans get pressed into the anti hooligan fencing, right? So this this fencing is all like abnormally reinforced Yeah, so you can't climb it. Yes, you can't climb something like 12 feet tall And it like bends inwards at the top too. Um So that you can't I guess climb onto the pitch and go and fist fight people which is

I don't know that that was a proportionate response to that risk but That's what they did and so that's what people were up against. Well, it certainly kept people from getting out of the pen Oh, yeah, that that worked fantastic. Um That that the fencing in and of itself not an engineering disaster the fencing worked very well. I just shouldn't have Yeah, yes, so any fans who are able to climbed over this fencing Uh onto the pitch right and the Nottingham fans got angry about that They started jeering and whistling because they thought it was a pitch invasion, right?

And the fans are gonna come out and they're gonna fight the players or something, you know Mm-hmm. It's it one thing is it's if you see the tv footage some of which we saw It's very difficult to even notice what's going on and some like something about Uh crusher injuries that you mentioned about them killing a lot of people very quickly Um If when you watch the footage or when you look at stills like this It's not at all obvious that something is badly wrong until it's really way too late, right? Yes So luckily some of this fencing was not engineered so well

It gave way Right, it's the people we ever get out that way and other parts were cut away by the police Who saw what was happening? Um, there was also a gate that was forced open to let people onto the pitch Yeah, some of some of the fans. I think we're like we're like able to force their way out through locked gates and stuff Yeah But yeah, no it's still really bad obviously a badger trying to do that as Whatever amount of people are still

argue Yeah, just like trying to focus on ripping open offence that's specifically designed not to be tampered with As you know, 800 other people are coming to their deaths. That's that's pretty fucking alarming Yeah, I mean to like force force a padlock gate or something when you Not only can't breathe, but you also don't like have any room to move. I I don't know how Uh, anybody managed to open anything. Yeah It's just to share force of bodies And that's terrifying too because you got to imagine like

People are trying to coordinate because obviously one person's not not going to be able to do it Trying to coordinate that again as they're basically being crushed to death Yeah, Jesus fuck Some of the fans were pulled to safety by the crowds and the stands above the pens You'll never walk alone should not be possible. Like you're basically you're climbing on top of people Uh, like stacked quite deeply to even be able to reach that. Yeah So Some of the officials seem to think this is a pitch invasion or they at least recognize what's going on

There's a 30 minute postponement of the game which is ordered So, you know folks aren't streaming in the back anymore, but at this point the damage is done, right? This is about three ten or so. I think when this happens the game started at three Fuck just like like that. Yeah, that's the crazy thing to me When we talked about it in the ferry too And you mentioned, you know, you're dead 10 minutes after you hit the water just how quickly these things happen Uh, it is is kind of terrifying to me just by itself Yeah, I can't imagine the kind of presence of mind that would allow you to even really understand what was happening to you

Yeah, exactly Yeah, just just in terms of like your own ability to Perceive risk and perceive the situation. You are kind of stuck in your own head. You can't see anything right because there's bodies all around you Yeah, that's what's happened with the the gate, you know the sheer coordination required To break that thing open and then you have to coordinate with everybody else who presumably is also having a panic response That's that's un fucking real to me There's some more here are some of the highly pixelated fans being Uh taken out of the pens below

You can see one of the the advertisements we saw earlier just to give you An idea of where we are Um, yeah, you know, here's you can see how far above that is. Here's presto engineers cutting tools Um, well, that's a fucking bitter. I don't know right And yeah, there's there's presto engineers cutting tools fucking ride to safety from a shipwreck on a big Advertising hoarding for lifeboats It's fine. We'll use the uh, the big billboard for fire extinguishers as a fire blanket Yeah, so the the whole incident lasted no more than 10 minutes, right and it left, uh

96 people dead and Injured, uh, and two of those people injured were in a persistent vegetative state. Um Yeah, the the last the last one died. I think something like 15 20 years later. Oh, yeah So afterwards, um, there was a report issued Uh, sort of an inquiry into what happened, right? That was the taylor report put together by well Well, not an inquiry is the thing the the families wanted an inquiry, but a public inquiry is like a different, uh More it has more powers to like compel evidence and stuff And the government very fiercely resisted that and so you ended up with this first report that was kind of this whitewash

They only got bullied into doing a public inquiry into hillsborough literally the last five years um I didn't know that Yeah, but even even the the taylor report You know, it it estimated. Okay. There's about 3000 people in these pens Which uh had an official capacity of 2200 and a more likely safe capacity of around 1700 people um And they just said straight up even in this first report, which is a whitewash

It said, you know police failed to adequately control and direct the crowd Probably get mildly Yeah, yep That the kickoff should have been delayed to allow for crowd control Which had happened in prior Matches at the stadium Uh, this report also recommend doing away with standing room terraces entirely Yes, which they did and it's it's been kind of a mixed bag. Um, it

It's part of a A lot of like a series of packages for stadium safety that were absolutely necessary and also bankrupted a lot of small clubs Uh, just for like refitting entire stadiums being very expensive. Um That they're kind of bringing it back now. There is quote unquote safe standing. Yeah, uh, I Yeah, we'll see how that works. I guess So makes go into the football more expensive because now you gotta buy a seat Yep. Yeah Makes it makes it more expensive

Uh more sort of genteel for better and worse Um And also is is not very good if you're a small club Yeah, this this report also sort of discredited. Um, so called aggravating factors, right? You know, there's ideas that you know, this this was caused because the crowd was all full of drunkards, right? and the drunkards caused the crush Or you know, the whole bunch of people would try to get in with that tickets Right. Yeah, the antifa style thugs had like incited

Uh an ms 13 style attack or whatever. Yeah, exactly. And this was you know, so the police could rationalize their loss of control ultimately Who would do that? How the police The police are being dishonest. I I don't believe it. Oh incredible. Yeah I've watched local news and the police are very nice and honest and upstanding. I just it's it's so, uh, fucking A tragic comic that the cop instinct to lie and blame somebody else and be like Oh, you see what I have to deal with when you fuck up leads to on the one end This where you kill a hundred people and on the low end

Like trying to get a barista fired because you wrote pig on your own starbucks cup I I don't know how to explain that that continuum of behavior The cop brain is very confusing to me Yeah, I don't I don't understand the cop mentality It's it it it it for will forever be a closed book to um The the wise and learned scholars That we are. Yeah So now despite that despite the fact that even the first report which was you know, supposed to be the whitewash report

Completely discredited, you know all these ideas aggravating factors, you know being The primary cause, you know, their secondary cause is at best and completely meaningless most likely Because you know, this wasn't a particularly drunk crowd right no, um Well as as evidenced by the fact that so many of them are able to save themselves. Yeah, uh, yeah That's gotta be fucking a lot more difficult if you are Drunk and intent on violence rather than like, I don't know just trying to go to the football and possession of your own faculty But these ideas gained a lot of traction. Thanks in no part to

the sun the scum Fucking awful The worst is a shit newspaper on the face of the fucking earth one thing I will say I I don't know if If I don't know if this has been proven So I'm I'm being slightly tentative here, but South uh, south yorkshire police In the 80s like you think cops are bad now anywhere

just insanely dirty like What you think of is like a fucking like rural louisiana parish sheriff's office kind of corruption Uh, and so it absolutely is not beyond the realm of possibility to say that this front page came straight from the police to The sun and the sun prince. Oh, yeah, gordon sykes. Uh, he was a rowdy sheriff Yeah, gordon sykes is the one. Uh, he was the police inspector who, uh Made those claims about pickpocketing the dead

Yeah, yeah But it's it's fine though if you're a sun journalist because you have a source for it and You know a police officer wouldn't lie. No, no You don't have you don't have to do any journalism. You can just say this and you can attribute it and then you can move on with your life Yes Yes, we are um, that's how journalism works. If you have a source, it's real it happened Yes, absolutely. I I do I do want to to highlight like one of the um

one of the consequences of the hillsborough disaster was Liverpool always been a very, uh Work in class city always been a very politically active and mobilized city with a strong sense of its own identity, which is why it irritates tories so much Uh, because they think they're like entitled and whiny and stuff, uh, but like one of the absolute community solidarity in the wake of this led to Not only campaigning for a public inquiry for fucking 30 years and getting it but also

A total lockout of the sun in Liverpool. You basically you cannot buy that paper in Liverpool Uh, because whether or not the news agent wants to sell it or not. No one buys it Uh, it just has an absolutely, uh, like close to zero readership in Liverpool to this day And I I think that's the only correct response to something like this. What are my favorite things? There's a silver lining to every cloud Yeah, that's it one of my favorite things that I'm actually, uh

part of the whatever us, uh Liverpool supporters facebook group And it's funny because every so often you will just see someone who's an american who has like, you know Not a ton of like reason to be speculating or talking about the sun just going full bore Over how pissed off they are like on vacation in london to even see it yeah Hacing the sun becoming part of, uh,

Liverpool and Liverpool football clubs identity is one of the best things That could have that could have happened because they deserve every inch of it So, so this article as we can see headlined the truth, you know, Very large front page spread on, you know, uh, one of, uh, britain's respected tabloid Uh, newspapers, I I think had the highest readership in the uk at that point Uh, I can't fucking believe british journalism just in general Yeah, but the sun is the worst Yes

Yeah So they they mentioned like, oh drunken Liverpool fans viciously attacked rescue workers as they tried to revive victims You know, they said police officers firemen and ambulance crew were punch kicked and urinated upon Liverpool fans pickpotted the pickpocketed the dead You know, and of course, you know, they got these they editorialized a bit here, you know Some fans urinated on the brave cops Oh, of course Fans beat up

PC's a police constable, right? Yes, okay giving the kiss of life I don't know if I want that Yeah, I think they literally had to change it to like mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or rescue breath because kiss of life sounded too sus Fellows is it gay to save someone's life? Yeah Um, now the editor is it kelvin mckenzie kelvin kelvin mckenzie is it really kelvin, of course it is his name is kelvin mckenzie

kelvin mckenzie apologized for this front page in 1993 then in 2006 he unapologized for it. Oh, fuck That's a very that's a very posting move to be like actually when I said this was wrong. Fuck you Yeah The um, the sun did try to like rebuild that bridge by I think in After the the inquiry came out They had another front page that was like the real truth where they were like talking about um Liverpool supporters like providing first aid to each other and stuff and Predictably and joyfully Liverpool just told them to go fuck themselves again. So nice. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Do not forgive

Uh, the sun for anything. Yes So this is not the only crappy media portrayal of the uh incident right afterwards a lot of uh newspapers Tried to link it to hooliganism and drunkenness Um, but this is certainly the most infamous of them mm-hmm Yeah, I you have uh south yorkshire police going on a like uh years long campaign of disinformation and smears to try and Like burnish their own reputation. Oh, of course. Why would they not?

They would never do anything wrong. Yeah, no, and then uh, you know, sort of the aftermath after this, um So premier league football stadiums are now all seats. There's no standing room, right? Yep, most of the lower leagues too. Even still There's there's uh Certain moves towards or experiments with safe standing where there's a railing on every row um You know and that has some protection against crushing and they's probably the biggest Yeah, the the biggest protection against repeating this is just taking down the fucking 20 foot

razor wire fences from the front of the um the front of the pitch and Yeah, no, so that that's gone pens are gone. Um That absolutely needed to happen uh standing itself Is Hard to say one way or the other Later on the uh Hillsborough independent panel was uh commissioned You know and they found that Liverpool fans were no way responsible for disaster

lack of police control was and you know, there was some there was some uh Debate as to whether lives might have been saved with better emergency service coordination They also found that 164 witness statements had been altered Of those no 16 were amended to remove or change negative comments about the south yorkshire police Including my favorite detail of this including statements taken from south yorkshire police officers They fucking Doctored the statements of their own guys who were like

We did this wrong to say actually no, we didn't and lied about it for a decade. It's just breathtaking this this only came out like the independent panel only existed because um the survivors and the relatives Absolutely refused to be satisfied by the tailor report And kept pushing and pushing and pushing through government after government for uh an independent review into it and They eventually got it and what they got out of it was this

Absolute affirmation that south yorkshire police had been lying through their teeth the whole time at the report. Uh Yeah, it just just incredible And I believe after that there was a coroner's healing a coroner's hearing after that Um, yes, which you know sort of affirmed everything which had previously been said And they tried taking a bunch of people at court over it And no one was actually prosecuted. That's fucking gross. Well, that's that's uh, that they did prosecute one Finally they prosecuted, uh I think chief superintendent david duck and field. This is hell of a name. Uh,

Wow. Yeah, it's extremely british guy. He was the senior police officer there He was in the control box and he was the one who ordered those gates opened Uh, he they prosecuted him for manslaughter on uh, like the grounds of criminal negligence and he was acquitted of all charges Yeah, so I don't know I A jury decided that there was like reasonable doubts about whether or not he was criminally negligent to do that Uh, and you know, I'm I'm I'm not gonna I'm not gonna second guess them, but I can't I can do that

I mean, I guess I guess there's a reasonable doubt You know, maybe he didn't know that no one was gonna direct them to the other pens Everyone was gonna shove into the same single space, but like everyone was gonna shove into the same singles What the fuck else are they gonna do man? I know I know I know that like, you know, we're socialists and therefore, you know the wisdom of the crowd Uh, but it turns out that does not this fucking time to actual crowds No, if if a vanguard party means anything it is having a guy in a high vis who knows where people should be going. Yes Lenin in high vis

Somebody please photoshop that for us. He's got he's got like those big those big lights to use the direct airplane Yeah It's yeah, I it's it's it's grim, but I between this and Heisel those were kind of the two High watermarks of the moral panic about hooliganism and it did kind of seem to recede after this just because The obscenity of it was so great that it didn't make sense anymore to um the kind of stigmatized football fans as this like

uh, beer-swilling racial, uh Like fist fights sort of monoblock I I feel like on some level there was some Institutional sense of shame which is never going to be enough. It certainly wasn't an apology and it's not going to bring anyone back And it didn't stop them lying about it to cover their own ass But I I think there was a point where Police and the government stopped being able to look people in the eye and say yeah, the problem was hooliganism here exclusive

Yeah, it's like this this was oh my this was caused You know, uh, this was certainly maybe not caused by anti cool hooliganism measures, but it was certainly exacerbated by it You know for sure. They're so they're so you know concentrated on uh, well make sure these people don't kill each other that you know, they're not gonna take any actions to prevent them from Well killing each other in a different less direct way You know, you have you have to like yeah, you have to have this Sort of disconnect in the cop brain between oh what i'm doing is a public safety thing and oh what i'm doing is the violence thing

That's my actual job and so i'm just gonna have to like hurt these people into these cages. Um It's yeah, it's very bad. Yeah, i'm gonna go do the black hole of calcetta, but for um But for football yeah Just like fucking Squeezing more and more people into this fucking thing. Uh, yeah Yeah, so, um well

That that wasn't I I I fucking I fucking I did my best to get a silver lining out of this to end on but it's Yeah, it's yeah Uh, I we're all fucking uh upset now once again. It's the Grenfell thing all over again It's gonna be like that when we do bo pal So we can't do bo pal next because we have to do like a palette cleanser where somebody drives a train into a painted on tunnel And it like smashes it into a pancake Yeah, we gotta come up with a a goofy thing to do next because now we've done two depressing ones in a row It's an engineering disasters podcast, man

Well, we we knew what we were signing up for yeah But uh, I mean obviously that that'll have to wait because of course our next episode It will be on the jacob and narrows bridge disaster. That's less depressing. Well, but I don't I don't know I'm still you can get really upset about like the car with the dog in it. Yeah, the dog is very sad Probably really apart from everything else like the the pictures for that one. It's gonna involve less acid washed denim This is true small small. Why did why did everyone? Why did everyone in britain in the 80s just wear acid washed denim? Just from top to bottom. Just uh, this is like fucking canadian tuxedo ass country

Very very very fancy Yeah, the more denim you have the fancier you are Dog. Yes doing great Yeah, well We made it. We made it. Uh, all right, so Everyone's gonna be mad at us for different contradictory reasons. Um, some of us for doing too much sports Some of us are not doing enough sports Um, yeah, let's hear it. Yeah

Yeah, we're we're all permanently banned from visiting Liverpool because of everything that we've said uh You might have thought we were taking their side. Hmm. Well, I wouldn't be so sure. So you'll never walk alone. Yeah, I've done it. I've done it Pulling it pulling it back into the yeah All right, so I guess that's the end of the podcast. Uh Does anyone want to do a commercial? Uh, I did mine up front. Oh, that's true. Yeah, I'm glad aren't you all uh streaming now On twitch, that's fair. I haven't I haven't been doing that yet because I uh,

Don't want to download fortnite Twitch link is uh twitch.tv slash trash future podcast Is it is it a fortnite twitch? Uh, well so so far. That's what we've done. We've been trying to get Riley to do grand strategy Uh, just because people want to see him play uh fucking uh victoria 2 or something like that. I see Yeah, uh should be good. I'm I'm gonna talk them into letting me do farming simulators soon. I think Oh, that'd be fun. I'd watch that hard time

Yeah um I guess what watch my youtube channel franklin 11 is coming out and I got a whole I got a whole bunch of work done. Yeah. Yeah, I got a whole bunch of work done this weekend. Oh boy I'm so proud of you, buddy It's gonna be on banking in the early american uh, colonize in the early american republic I, a jewish man, is not consulted. I saw a musical about that No, he was just like transcribing the entire libresso from hamilton into the thing. No, so

See another musical I'm so fucking sick of hearing about hamilton. You just you have It wasn't that good. It wasn't that fucking good. When you're making it. Can you edit in a single frame of the tumblr art of the asexual Transboy thomas jefferson Because that's just the yeah, the most cursed thing to come out of hamilton You think there's like a hamilton Harry Potter slash fiction? You know there is you know, there is Yeah, we can read those fanfics on air and you won't spite me. Busing your larity. Hamilton slack. Yeah singularity of woke liberalism

Read another book Watch another musical do anything else. Fuck What yeah, what watch watch a lesser known sun time, please I'm begging you. I need someone else to have seen assassin. We'll go watch comfortable way, which is good and about newfoundland Oh, yeah. Hmm. Yeah, there you go uh All right, play us out with the ballad of show gosh. Yes All right, that's my that's my commercial watch my youtube channel. Uh, go go to our patreon too. Oh, yeah

Oh I have a bonus episode update. I do. Uh, I have not forgotten about recording about my own van um I am going home Uh on saturday possibly do not he is coming with me. We had to talk about that I Where I will be talking to a friend of mine who was one of the only people to have actually ridden in this van Uh before it bet it's untimely and you're doing a fucking you're doing an oral history of your own. Yes. I am

Yes, I am And uh, so look forward to that. I'm hopeful that we can record that Next week at our normal bat time normal bat channel Uh, I am Liam Anderson. I am an old man Anderson on twitter Uh Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah, uh, please Uh continue to get real fucking mad in our comment section about the absolute dumbest shit Like the guy who got mad at us 11 episodes in 11 episodes in

for swearing and going off topic Uh, because nothing makes me happier than when fucking morons have no idea about what they're talking about And I I guess I'm sorry to that guy for swearing too much Uh, my bad chief, but also get fucked So the guy who got mad at us for even mentioning the nfl. Oh, yeah Like apparently like even mentioning the nfl even in a critical fashion is the same as endorsing the nfl Yes, I know we are all big friends of rape culture now somehow. Yeah We're like we're like Dengas Roger Goodell. Yeah, that's us. That's us support. We defend the shield on this podcast

Critical support for Dan Snyder Oh I do I do not have critical support for Dan Snyder. I do not have any support for him. Um Yeah, uh fucking so yeah go birds justice for the 96. Um What else? Um, I think that's it go birds go birds again. Yeah Uh, yeah, uh, so now it's time for nfl chat. Uh Uh

So, uh, yeah go Titans. I want to see an absolute fucking ragtag bunch of weirdos with a super bowl All right, that'd be fun Oh, the show a special super bowl episode just to just to irritate that one guy Yeah, well the college football championship is on tonight and uh, You're a you're a bad american if you're root for Clemson. So go tigers Hmm That's g e a u x tigers. Yeah, that's right. Yes, and pay the kids. All right. Yeah pay the kids All right good

Yeah, I think we're good. It's a podcast. Bye. That is a podcast. Bye