Lack of turnstiles (Liverpool were at by far the smaller end of the ground - ridiculous)

And disastrously inadequate levels of policing outside the ground, under the command of someone who didn't know what he was doing, at a stadium without a safety certificate which had ALREADY experienced 2 near fatal crushes at previous semi-finals in 1981 and 1987.

That's what led to the crush outside. There was no funneling of the fans, no organisation, nothing. Then all they had to do was close of access to the central pens - the side pens were virtually empty - before opening the gate. That's what they'd done the previous year.

Failure to close off the central pen caused the disaster - and once inside, the only sign Liverpool fans could see was one saying 'STANDING' over the tunnel leading into the central pens. Once inside the tunnel, surrounded by thousands of others, there was no escape.

The police could see the empty side pens on CCTV. They did nothing. And once the disaster unfolded, they then failed to let emergency services onto the pitch to perform resuscitation. At least 41 fans died who could otherwise have been saved because of this; the coroner then invented a cut-off time for when all the fans had supposedly died, despite many still breathing up to 45 mins afterwards.

Posted By: thebigfeller, Apr 15, 20:16:52