Anyone watch....

[JPaul]

I too remember watching the events unfold.

It was truly a tragic evening and provided images that will live for a lifetime.

I thought the Belgian authorities held an enquiry. There were certainly arrests made and people went to jail for their part in it.

[(>Zero Cool<)]

A couple of things I took from last night was that however many areas were at fault something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. Also th*tch*r was set on making changes no matter what the outcome of the inquiry was. I agree that changes needed to be made somewhere but am not sure that those that were made were the correct ones. Hindsight is a wonderful thing though.

@JP there was an inqury made by the Belgians. About a dozen plus Liverpool fans were given jail sentences but as they had already been held up until the time of the inquiry many were released for time-spent. There was also a call for an interior minister, who basically was in charge of policing etc to resign. He refused and was backed by the Belgian government as he/they believed that would mean accepting the blame (according to last nights documentary).

I'm not sure but some of the footage shown last night wasn't shown at the time as far as I can remember...they were horriffic images.

[JPaul]

Afterwards, there were moves from fans to initiate friendship exchanges after the official enquiry rightly blamed Uefa and the Belgium police for their part in the tragedy as well as both sets of fans. Some fans were extradited to Brussels to stand trial over the following three years for hooligan offences. Not one Juve fan was I think ( but I stand to be corrected on that one) and I think Liverpudlians were given suspended sentences. Some of them serving about a month in Belgium after their initial arrest at the game.

From http://www.redandwhitekop.com/article.php?id=480600

[manker]

I agree, I think it was very much an action-reaction thing.

I wasn't trying to apportion blame if that's how it appeared, merely pointing out that they weren't solely responsible. And that last night's program, while more balanced than most have been in the past, still did not show the full story.

No, I thought your post was good and wasn't trying to contradict anything, mainly I was musing because I can't polarise my opinion like the Everton and Juve fans seem to be able to.

[(>Zero Cool<)]

I thought last nights program never really got down to deciding what the catalyst for the events was, though it suggested that it was the charging Liverpool fans (I had forgotten that there were accusations of missle throwing inciting the charge), but showed that there were many ares that contributed to the scale of the disaster.

[JPaul]

I agree, I think it was very much an action-reaction thing.

I wasn't trying to apportion blame if that's how it appeared, merely pointing out that they weren't solely responsible. And that last night's program, while more balanced than most have been in the past, still did not show the full story.

I agree, the enquiry blamed many people / groups, including UEFA for using a totally crap stadium to hold such a big game.

One suspects that these Liverpool fans were used to get the English fans out of Europe. Whilst they did play their part in the tragedy they were also paying for various other incidents involving English football hooligans. Ti's a shame that the vast majority of good fans were tarred with the same brush