Just heard about the verdict.

Still can't believe it took 27 years for it to officially come out when most of us knew LFC fans were not to blame all along.

The families who kept fighting all these years are an inspiration. YNWA.

JFT96 at last!

Last night on FB I put that today was for the families - and it is - and so whatever view anybody else stated anywhere on the internet I would not argue with them and I stand by that. The dignity and integrity of the families has shone throughout the process and now they can let their loved ones rest in peace at last.

Above all I feel very emotional about it - tears welled up in my eyes when i heard the verdict I am not ashamed to say and for now that is my only comment.

Excellent.

Seen on FB that Joey Barton retweeted a letter Bernard Ingham, Thatcher's press secretary, sent to Thatcher.

In it he talks about the Liverpool fans with such contempt, and calls them "tanked up yobs". Such scum, and this guy is still refusing to apologise.

Link:

https://twitter.com/Joey7Barton/stat...13600662491137


With the verdict, and the attention that is being given to the truth being revealed hopefully it's only a matter of time before more people come round to the real truth.

The unfortunate thing now is that people now who have not come round to the truth are unlikely to be swayed. They've heard all of the evidence, well if they've chosen to pay attention to it, and most of those who are outside Liverpool will be happy for the families, and happy it's over and they will move on as they probably did some time ago.

Great news for the families, friends and the people of Liverpool. Who were so greatly affected by the tragic events of that awful day.

I couldn't hide my emotions at the verdict. Although my only connection is with the club as a supporter I was shedding a tear for all the blameless victims of mis-management by the police (not all) that very sad afternoon.

I hope the families can finally move on after 27 years of sorrow.

YNWA.

It should never have taken this long for the damning silence of 96 stolen heartbeats to shame those who let them down so horrendously - and even then the tireless efforts of the ones that were hurting the most and had to publicly drag the injustice around like a ball and chain was shamefully needed to ensure the truth prevailed.

I sincerely hope the families can finally sleep more peacefully tonight for the first time in 27 long years - a humble, modest reward cruelly overdue.

JFT96 and those who refused to be silenced.

Like during the Hillsborough anniversary it's good to see the support from other clubs and other figures in football. Here's Rafa's reaction to the verdict.


http://www.thisisanfield.com/2016/04...ing-long-time/

A Liverpool fan brought up a topic concerning Liverpool in the Liverpool supporters thread, why is that anything to do with you Mr/Mrs Neutral?

Im so glad about the verdict and i hope the police at the time get jailed for what they did, and also was it the FA that chose the stadium to host a FA Cup semi final when it did not have the proper safety certificate, They should be accounted for as well, as they knew the ground was not safe

I don't know what he was getting at with that post, but he has made some (sly) digs at me in the past, which made me wonder what he meant. I sensed some sarcasm in the post, at least. He can play his games if he wants but I'd appreciate it if he left Hillsborough out of it and didn't do it in response to a post talking about Hillsborough or people talking about it. My topic was on-topic, too, and relevant, I thought.

The Hillsborough disaster and the subsequent cover-up and lies is a sensitive subject, and to see people still mock it, continue to spread lies, or to further believe lies and still blame the fans, accuse families of doing it for money, telling people to "get over it" and whatever else annoys me. And I'm not just talking about trolls who are seeing it as an opportunities to be trolls, I mean people who truly believe what they're saying. I have no wish to take part in that thread or interact with any of the idiots doing it, so instead I decided to mention it here, where I felt more comfortable mentioning it, and linked to it to clarify what topic I was talking about in case there are others somewhere. Since this is the Liverpool thread and I'm a Liverpool fan I felt it was the right place to put it.


The thing about the Hillsborough disaster is how many people it really affects. Everyone in Liverpool at least has some sort of connection to it. You either went to it, or know someone who did, or know someone who knows someone. Similarly you're either related to someone who died or you know someone who is. One of the 96, Alan McGlone, was supposedly related to me. I don't really know how close he was to members of my family, just that he was on my dad's side. He might be a distant relative. If you go to Liverpool you're never far away from someone who has some connection to that disaster, now matter how big or minor.

I completely understand why you posted, and it's a shame that due to petty point scoring you've had to explain.

Frankly, I think it's disgusting for a poster to come onto the Liverpool thread and use Hillsborough to try and have a sly dig at someone.

I couldn't help getting involved in that particular thread, it made my blood boil to be honest.

It's taken some restraint from me to not go in there but honestly I just can't be bothered, some people are just set in their ways and I don't have the fight in me to argue with anyone. There are some good people in that topic anyway so I'll leave it to them.


And now I'm more annoyed at the fact that I can't edit my post to fix a couple errors caused from me changing what I was going to say a couple times. I can tolerate "my topic was on topic" because it can sort of make sense, but this part:


is really annoying me.

A great day for all the families; at last they have peace of mind and a new hope of justice for the 96.

Dukenfield, his commanders at S.Yorkshire police and a few bods in the home office now have to think about giving answers to a whole load more questions. There's nothing 'accidental' any more and there certainly never is about a cover-up.

You see this is my problem - yes of course Duckenfield was guilty of gross incompetance and lack of leadership on the day and it took 26 years before he owned up to it in his evidence at the inquests last year but there is so much more.

The people who swore at and told those in the crush to get back in the pens, those who fed the stories to the Sun leading to the headline, the people who systematically went through the police statements and changed those which made the police look bad ... etc.

One story which I cannot forget which I heard on the radio a few years ago was a guy whose brother died - an EFC fan actually. He rang up the help lines repeatedly on the evening of 15/4/89 and was told his brother was not a victim even tho he was worried and had not heard from him. Eventually he went to Sheffield the next day to investigate and was told there was one as yet unknown victim. He was shown to a room where a policeman threw a polaroid picture across a table at him which landed face down. He turned it over and there was a picture of his brother - that was how he found out his brother was dead. I want to know who was that policeman? - and I want him to be brought to book for the way he behaved. But you see that was the way they saw our city in those days and how football fans in general were seen - Ingham's statement of the tanked up mob tells us that - and I see that even yesterday he still refused to give anything resembling an apology to the people of Liverpool. That was the culture of the Thatcher government of the day.

So yes for justice really Duckenfield should be put on trial - but it was not just him, there were so many more who were guilty - and if it was just him who took the rap I am not sure that would be altogether fair. I end up having to conclude that it does not really matter that much what happens to the guilty - I do believe everyone has a conscience and for them to have what they did on their conscience must be an awful thing to live with. It is a tricky one tho - the posts on the last page that said Duckenfield was unlikely to be brought to court did not feel right to me as it felt like once again it would be a case of the establishment protecting its own - and that is not justice.

Btw I see that today the Sun and the Times (its sister paper) were about the only national papers which did not feature Hillsborough on its front page - no surprise there then.. I know people who still buy the Sun and tbh it makes me fume.

Re the thread in general discussion I have not even read it as I would be unable to resist posting in there and it would waste a lot of time arguing with people it was not worth arguing with.

Sakho has decided not to challenge the results of his failed drug test.

How long do you think he is going to be banned for?

I honestly don't know. I also don't know if it's a length of time or number of games. I'd guess number of games given that we're coming into the summer, but then there's the Euros. It'd suck to miss out on playing for France in France but he'd only have himself to blame. He might not know it was banned but he should know what he's putting into his body.

It might be worse for us now than it'll be at the start of next season where we'd have Matip and Joe Gomez, and anyone else we might bring in, possibly Skrtel's replacement.

Picking out and developing 2 parts of my earlier post (which was done in a bit of a hurry as I had to go out).

Imo what happened in the 26 years from 1989 till 2015 in relation to Duckenfield was worse than what he did on the day. On the day as part of his work he was given a job to do which was beyond his capabilities and it went disastrously wrong. As it went wrong he lied to try to make himself look less in the wrong - and that is the place where it all starts (altho the SWFC safety certificate and the FA complacency in choosing Hillsborough for the semi without properly looking into whether it was fit for purpose could also be brought up).

At that stage whilst critical of him I have some sympathy as who among us has not messed up at work - most of us tho when it happens has not resulted in the deaths of 96 people. Even lying to Kelly was a bit excusable as he was probably not thinking straight as he saw the enormity of the situation altho that lie had enormous effects as people believed that it was the 'LFC hooligans again' - and perhaps even I and other LFC fans did as at that stage on the evening of 15/4/89 we knew no better.

What is harder to forgive is the 26 years of silence which followed and the way he allowed his lie to be perpetuated - probably in the hope that he would get away with it. - and he did for many years so in a way it worked. If a day or two after the event he had come clean and said he had messed up and unreservedly apologised to the families then that would have been acceptable (to me anyway whether it would to everyone i am not so sure). That however is all hypothetical as he didn't and only did so last year when it was obvious that he was going to be 'found out' and exposed anyway. So the families could not accept the apology as being really genuine - and who can blame them for that.

Also altho I am not a Tory voter re the Thatcher government sentence (which I totally stand by) I would have to publically say that May and Cameron have been very good in their reactions over the last 5 years. Burnham and Rotheram were obviously the best 2 politicians in terms of advancing the cause but it has to be said Straw and Blair were dreadful in their 12 years in high office as they totally let the families down after making promises to them prior to their election in 1997. It does expose what many politicians are like - only interested in votes and in the Labour government years Blair saw no votes in justice for Hillsborough and so did not push it. Hypocrits!! Thank goodness for the courage of Andy Burnham in doing what he did at the 2009 service is all I can say.

I can't recall how Lucas did as a CB recently, was thinking that maybe he could fall back into that position, but we have Can out as well - so really, only Kolo to go there? Issue with him is he's inclined to cramp up after an hour or so - looks like the young 'uns will need to be utilised.

Really is totally insane, and frankly, one of the last I would have thought this of, he spends such a lot of his off time doing good for the kids in Liverpool - it totally beggers belief in my book.

Anyhow, do without him we must, so Klopp will have his work cut out - and some, must be wondering now just what he signed up for!

Next iffy item to come our way could be the fee for Ings, hope it's sensible for both sides, but probably neither will be happy with the outcome.

Lucas has done good whenever we've asked him to cover at CB. But then even Enrique did an alright job when we put him there.

As I said the hardest part of this is the remainder of this season. Next season, however many games we'll have to do without, we'll be able to handle it with new players and players coming back. For now we're a bit limited. Maybe we should rest Kolo during the league games? Play Skrtel there, or even Caulker if Klopp remembers he exists, and that he is in fact a centre-back!


In other news, Christian Benteke has travelled with the Liverpool squad for the Villarreal game.

After it was revealed that the Times and The Sun were not putting the verdict on the front page, Tony Barrett of the Times put out two tweets, opposing the decision while at the same time avoiding criticising it. You can tell he's bothered by it.

The first tweet being "Unbelievable", the second:

"To everyone who's been let down I'm so sorry."

Many journalists could learn a few things from this man.

I've seen Benteke has travelled, but can't find out who else went, is Stewart in? he would be a decent player to have along for the 'just-in-case' scenario.


Are these rags still owned /influenced by Murdoch, he owns so much now it's hard to keep up! But yes, kudos to Barrett - it might cost him his job, but he would have no problems getting another.

Yes the Times is owned by Murdoch.

Tony Barrett doesn't need the Times, if he left he'd have his pick of papers. Don't know if they'd sack him though. They're not ones for caring about public opinion but if they fired him they'd be looking pretty bad. Not sure they'd want that to happen after this. But if it did he'd have the last laugh.


Not sure who else has travelled for tomorrow. I only know about Benteke because of a FB page reporting it. I'd imagine Stewart would travel. With Can and Henderson out, and Lucas possibly being needed at CB we might need him.

Just seen that Clyne is only a maybe for our next PL match because of illness - so I would assume he may be out for tomorrow as well.