by sussexpob » Tue May 06, 2014 11:48 am
Its hard to bear the calls for "Justice 96" when every high profile Liverpool sympathiser begins their points on Heysel with the "well, we did say about the state of the stadium before hand". It seems that every player in that Heysel team distances and twists the arguments away from the sole biggest cause.... the Liverpool fans charging. Even when Liverpool hosted Juventus in 2005 for the first time, they never apologised by memory, they only tried to create this fake friendship and embrace the positives.... which was a pretty lame apology, in my eyes.
Having said that, Juventus hardly acknowledged Heysel afterwards.... and that is a ticking time bomb waiting to happen. While Liverpool conveniently buried the issue when it happened to them, their reaction has at least made sure that the process of change and improvement occurred, and is not forgotten. Post-Hillsborough action made football the family sport it is now, and made it a safe venture that is well policed.... it changed the event management and safety management of all events!
In contrast, Juventus are to this day criticised by their handling of their fans.... the poor transport links to the game, the poor state of the grounds and the way fans are treated, the violence in the sport.... they didn't learn anything by ignoring the implications of Heysel.
Then again, did Bradford not already give us the lesson we needed? Or was a few 2nd division lives not as convincing as top division?
In the end you have to say that Britain should have moved on after Bradford, should have learned another quick lesson after about grounds and policing, and should have made sure Hillsborough never happened. Those lessons weren't learned, and that was to do with Thatcher and her government hating the sport and seeing it as scumbags who wanted nothing better to fight(the links to those that were fighting were often found in the discontent they showed Thatchers government, ironically), rather than provide better conditions and thought processes.
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And a hat and bra to you too, my good sirs!