Hillsborough Independent Panel (2012). Hillsborough: The report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel. London: The Stationery Office.
The Hillsborough disaster was an incident that occurred on 15 April 1989 at the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield, England, during the FA cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest soccer clubs. The crush resulted in the deaths of 96 people and injuries to 766 others. The incident has since been blamed primarily on the police. The incident remains the worst stadium-related disaster in British history and one of the world’s worst soccer disasters.
The Football Association were intensely criticized for choosing the Hillsborough as the venue for this semi-final due to the debacle of 1989 was not the first occasion when that football supporters had experienced issues at this particular ground. The entryways would never adapt to the extensive measure of individuals going to these prominent games.
The authorities’ response to the disaster was slow and badly co-ordinated. Firefighters with cutting gear had difficulty getting into the ground, and although dozens of ambulances were dispatched, access to the pitch was delayed because police were reporting “crowd trouble
Communication errors were the core of the catastrophe. The operation of the control room in responding to messages was poor. This resulted in a lack of information, delayed response, and late request for medical services. Various safeguards were in place to prevent the event from spiraling out of control, this included: standby radio gear; cautioning signals in the club rooms ready for authorities. Every police officers should’ve been fitted with earpieces to enable clear communication.
A number of defenses were in place that should have prevented events from spiraling out of control as they did. These included: standby radio equipment; warning signals in the club room to alert officials to capacity limits in the stands; and the fitting of police officers with earpieces to enable them to communicate in noisy conditions. In addition, police presence should have acted as a safeguard against public disorder and overcrowding, and the provision of pens facilitated crowd dispersion. Unfortunately, many of these barriers were weakened.
All officials and police officers should receive event management training, in dealing with over-crowding and crisis management. The layout of the stadium should be distributed all officers, detailing the exit points, safe areas, any construction work and fire zones.
Officers working in the control room should trained to how to CCTV data and have the skills to make decisions in a crisis. Before the event a briefing session should include everyone involved with the event. This briefing should include strategy management issues, what is the organizational structure and the contingency plan, failure to do so can pave a way to tragedy.
The control room should feature a sufficient number of operators to manager the CCTV date, receive and answer radio calls. The radio system should give the operators the right to override the channel in case of emergencies to established protocol and distribute information. The control room prior to each match should liaise with all emergency services to communicate match details, attendance and routes of entry and exits points.
Each ground should be equipped with a public address system to communicate with the crowd in regards to important announcements. In case of an emergency ground stuff put lead the crowd to a safety zone. This message should be advertised all match programmers.
There are a number of people and organisations that could be held at least partly responsible for the disaster that took place at Hillsborough Stadium. It was very much a joint effort and a series of errors.
The FA can be seen as a contributable cause to the disaster with their choice of stadium. Hillsborough at the time had no valid Safety Certificate and therefore should never have even been considered. They had no specific criteria to satisfy when choosing a host ground and their reasoning of choosing Hillsborough, the fact that it hosted the previous year, was inadequate and poor. This failure to have any standards to meet when determining the suitability of a ground to host this game led the FA to select Hillsborough when it never should have done so. If they had requested production of the grounds safety certificate, or communicated with SCC beforehand, the ground would never have been chosen.
SCC can be seen as a contributable cause to the disaster with their failure to inspect Hillsborough and either update, amend or revoke their Safety Certificate. Hillsborough had an excessively high amount of breaches to the Green Guide. Although it wasn’t legally binding, the whole notion behind having the Green Guide was crowd safety after countless disasters in previous years. The failure of the council to exercise basic duties such as an annual inspection led the FA to assuming, irresponsibly, that Hillsborough was a safe ground to host an event of this calibre. If they had carried out their inspections the ground would never have been chosen.
SWFC can be seen as a contributable cause to the disaster with their failure to maintain the ground, or make the required improvements that were known over the previous eight years. The positioning of the grounds turnstiles were illogical, signage was confusing and the physical condition of the ground was in disrepair. If the club had followed the Green Guide more vigorously and invested into keeping the stadium safe and updated, the disaster may never have unfolded.
Duckenfield and the SYP however, can indisputably be seen as the major cause of, and mostly responsible for, the disaster. Duckenfield had poor leadership and didn’t have experience in managing a major event. His focus on crowd control over crowd safety, cost him dearly on that day and his lack of knowledge of the stadium was a factor as well.
As soon as Duckenfield opened the exit gate to let more people in was a tragedy waiting to happen. The FA should have realised the issue with the stadium before the match as the stadium was not fit for use years prior to the tragedy. This tragedy could have been avoided if the process where in place to better manage big sporting events.