On this date 21 years ago, the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster happened in Sheffield when 96 fans were crushed to death as a result of failure of police control.

The city of Liverpool will today stop and pay tribute to those who died on Leppings Lane. The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other civic leaders will meet for a two minute silence and prayers at 11.45am GMT at the Town Hall. And families of those who died on the Leppings Lane, survivors, Liverpool fans and former and current players and club staff will attend the annual memorial service at Anfield.

In the meantime, the independent review of the previously sealed police documents from the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster continue to be scrutinized. For excellent insight about the Bishop who chairs the independent panel, read David Conn’s article in The Guardian.

On behalf of EPL Talk, our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the 96 Liverpool supporters who lost their lives 21 years ago during one of the darkest days in football.

Old Trafford 1993

It seems incredible now when we view some of the impressive grounds that make up the home stadia of the Premiership clubs that in just 17 years how many of them have changed beyond all recognition from those far away days of the Premierships beginning. Looking back, the speed that some of the grounds changed is now, with hindsight, quite amazing. Back in 1992, football was still reeling from the after effects of the Hillsborough disaster and the implementation of the Taylor report.

Contrary to what some people may tell you, the majority of grounds in Britain were dirty,decrepit bowls with dreadful facilities, hard to get to and you were made to feel as if you were an inconvenience to the local constabulary. With the announcement of the Premiership’s formation though, all that changed. Coupled with the Taylor Reports recommendations, all terracing was to be removed and stadia had to become all seater by 1995 in the the top two divisions. English football was about to witness the most dramatic rebuilding process it had seen for over 100 years.

Stretford End in 1992

For the first of my stadium tours, where else can we start than Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United. United were one the clubs hit hardest by the Taylor Report recommendations.  United were planning to rebuild the Stretford End with a new terracing section which had to be completely scrapped, so when the Premiership started, Old Trafford had the incredible capacity of just 44,000!  As you can see from the picture, it seems like a different ground to the one we see week in, week out these days.

What caused a massive boost to the ground though was the decision by UEFA to award England Euro 96. This allowed the participating grounds to begin to undertake major redevelopments to the stadiums to be ready for the Championships and in 1994, United unveiled ambitious plans to increase the capacity by a whopping 11,000. The club decided to completely rebuild the North Stand with an individual capacity of 26,000, with 3 tiers and what was at the time, the largest cantilever roof in Europe.

Old Trafford 1996

Work began in 1995 to be ready for Euro 1996 and I remember going to Old Trafford for the Euro’s. The stand was mesmerising and tickets for it had a vertigo warning printed on the back of them. It seemed gigantic at the time and with United’s continued success in the Premiership and the Champions League, the club soon decided that the capacity needed to be increased further. On every subsequent visit, Old Trafford has always impressed me, it seems something is always being added to the ground.

The next stand to get attention was the East Stand with an additional tier which brought the ground up to 61,000. The stand was opened in September 2000 and was then joined by the increase to the Stretford End in 2001 to make that a two tiered cantilevered stand pushing the capacity up to a whopping 68,217 and had the seal of approval from U.E.F.A when it was awarded the 2003 Champions League final.

The increase in Old Trafford’s capacity also came to the aid of the England national team. Wembley was demolished in 2001, not before time and during 2001 and 2007, England played 23 home games around various grounds but Old Trafford hosted the national side in 12 of those matches and England certainly benefited from the atmosphere and the attendances.

Old Trafford 2002

The next alteration has so far been the last, as the club decided to complete the corners that book ended the North Stand, between both the East and West Stands. These North East and North West Stands had another tier fitted to them, which saw the club open some sections of it to record a new Premiership record high attendance of 69,070 against West Ham United on March the 26th 2006.

Old Trafford 2006

The corners were finally fully completed and used for the first time in a Premiership match in 2007, as United entertained Blackburn Rovers on March 31st, winning 4-1 setting another attendance record of 76,090. That brought the capacity up to it’s current level of 76,212 fans making it easily the largest league ground in Britain but it’s only the 3rd largest stadium overall in the UK behind Twickenham (82,000) and Wembley (90,000).

Yet, it may not be third for much longer, the club have mooted further expansion by adding a further 19,000 seats on the South Stand, using the South West and South East corners and adding a second tier along all 3 sections. It seems that United will be continually improving what is one of the best stadiums and one of my favourite away grounds in world football even more in the next few years.

On Monday’s episode of the World Soccer Daily show, radio co-host Steven Cohen failed to apologize to Liverpool supporters regarding the inaccurate statements he made about their role in the Hillsborough Disaster that occurred on April 15, 1989.

The inaccurate statements made by Cohen on his April 13, 2009 episode of World Soccer Daily were that:

1. Ticketless Liverpool supporters were the root cause of the Hillsborough Disaster,
2. 6-8,000 ticketless Liverpool supporters showed up outside Hillsborough, and
3. Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough Stadium was used week-in week-out without incident.

Instead of apologizing, he softened his April 13 stance on his belief that there were 6-8,000 ticketless Liverpool supporters outside the ground. During the April 20, 2009 episode, he first said “There were several thousand who showed up without tickets.” But a few minutes later, when co-host Kenny Hassan gave Cohen an opportunity to retract the 6-8,000 number, Cohen replied “If it’s not the right number, it’s not the point. If I’m wrong on the number, then I’ll retract it and apologize. If it’s 25, 2500 or 25,000, my point is made for me. There were people there who shouldn’t have been there because they didn’t have tickets and they were hell bent on getting in. I’m sorry, those are the facts.”

Cohen is barking up the wrong tree when he claims ticketless fans contributed to the disaster. They did not. According to The Hillsborough Football Disaster paper entitled Context and Consequences, page 17, “[Lord Justice] Taylor surmised there was no substance to the allegation that ticketless fans caused the Disaster.”

And while there may have been some ticketless supporters outside the ground — as there are at any major football game or sporting event — “I have already found that there was not an abnormally large number of fans without tickets on this occasion,” said Lord Taylor in his interim report. “With one or two exceptions, the police witnesses themselves did not subscribe to the ‘conspiracy’ theory (of a large number of late-arriving ticketless supporters).”

Cohen has seemingly changed his tune about Liverpool — from the extreme opinion on April 13 that the ticketless fans were the root cause of the Hillsborough Disaster to a twisted logic on April 20 that insists on Liverpool fans admitting that they were part responsible for the disaster because some ticketless fans were hell bent on getting inside the stadium.

According to a report from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), “it was unlikely that the terrace exceeded 10,124 and that total admissions were approximately equal to the designated capacity of 10,100 people.”

So even if there were as few as 24 ticketless supporters who were hell bent on getting into the Leppings Lane end, it would have been impossible for those fans — who were vastly outnumbered — to have an impact on the more than 3,000 fans who were inside the central pen.

“The point is if the people [without tickets] hadn’t been outside, this never [would have] happened,” said Cohen. “This is a stadium that had no problems prior to this particular day. That’s a fact.”

Except that it isn’t a fact. It’s inaccurate. As I reported in Monday’s EPL Talk article, there had been several incidents at Hillsborough prior to April 15, 1989 — most notably a game in 1981 when 38 Spurs supporters suffered crush-related injuries in the same Leppings Lane stand.

It’s time for Steven Cohen to share the facts with us that he claims he has. It’s also time for Cohen to publicly retract his statement that there were 6-8,000 ticketless Liverpool supporters. And most importantly of all, he needs to retract his statement that Liverpool fans were responsible for the Hillsborough Disaster.

There’s no evidence to show that 24 supporters sneaking over the wall at Hillsborough were a factor in the death of the 96 Liverpool fans who died from crush-related injuries. But there are plenty of pieces of evidence that chronicle the list of mistakes that South Yorkshire Police, Sheffield Wednesday and the Football Association committed.

For Steven Cohen to not apologize on air and to carry on about the need for Liverpool to share the responsibility of what happened at Hillsborough is sickening. It’s time for Cohen to admit he was wrong, apologize to Liverpool fans and to read the Taylor Interim Report to better educate himself and his World Soccer Daily listeners.

If he doesn’t apologize to his radio listeners, I’m concerned that he may spread his misinformation about what caused the Hillsborough Disaster to the weekly Fox Football Fone-In TV show that he co-hosts on Fox Soccer Channel. Having a loose cannon like Cohen on live TV is a risk that Fox has to determine whether it’s worth taking.

EPL Talk readers interested in learning more about Hillsborough as well as the chance to see TV footage and interviews should watch the excellent BBC Football Focus video from April 11, 2009 which was a special tribute to the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster.

I should note that Kartik Krishnaiyer, from our sister site Major League Soccer Talk, had an interview previously arranged with Cohen for this Thursday, so feel free to post your questions for Cohen there. The interview is a golden opportunity for Cohen to respond to direct questions from you about his opinions regarding what really happened at Hillsborough.

You can listen to the segment of the April 20 episode where Cohen discusses the EPL Talk article below.

UPDATE: On May 18, 2009, Steven Cohen apologized on World Soccer Daily for his unfortunate and inaccurate statements he made about the Hillsborough Disaster.

UPDATE 2: The comments regarding the Steven Cohen controversy have been closed. It’s time to return the discussion to football.

Steven Cohen, co-host of the World Soccer Daily radio show, has been at it again.

While the rest of the world last week was paying tribute to the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough Tragedy, Cohen was complaining on his U.S. radio show that Liverpool fans failed to take responsibility for Hillsborough as well as claiming that if 6,000-8,000 ticketless fans had not shown up, the Hillsborough Disaster would never have happened.

The problem is, he’s wrong. Dead wrong.

Steven Cohen’s Statements About the Hillsborough Disaster

So what did Cohen say that was so wrong? Here are three statements that Cohen made about the Hillsborough Disaster on his Monday, April 13, 2009 episode of World Soccer Daily (note, you can listen to the entire audio clip at the bottom of this post):

“People showing up without ticket, hell bent in getting into somewhere where they shouldn’t be going because they don’t have tickets, is the root cause of [the Hillsborough Disaster].”

“I’m yet to read anybody write in this weekend’s Sunday papers in England, where they’re all doing big commemorations about the 96, and why we should never forget and how it’s changed the game, nobody discusses the 6-8,000 who showed up without tickets and my argument has always been, if those people don’t show up, this never happens.”

“[Hillsborough] is a stadium that week-in week-out, Sheffield Wednesday used without incident.”

World Soccer Daily Playing With Fire

Hosted by Steven Cohen and Kenny Hassan, the Los Angeles-based show is broadcast nationwide each weekday on Sirius Satellite Radio and also available as a daily podcast, which is one of the top 10 most popular sports podcasts on iTunes.

Without a doubt, Cohen is the voice of soccer in America. Since the launch of his network in May 2002, Cohen has succeeded in growing World Soccer Daily into the must-listen show about soccer in the United States. Coupled with his weekly co-host slot on Fox Soccer Channel’s Fox Football Fone-In show, 46-year-old Cohen has built a sizeable following, many of whom are impressionable fans who are relatively new to the sport and hang on his every word.

That’s fine when it’s fun and games, but when Cohen (a Chelsea supporter) spews out misinformation about the Hillsborough Disaster, it’s dangerous. One, because his beliefs about Hillsborough are completely wrong. And two, because by making his beliefs public, he’s giving many newbie soccer fans false information and thereby spreading the wrong information about the cause of the disaster. With such a large audience on radio and television, he has a responsibility to educate listeners on what really happened on April 15, 1989.

The Facts About The Hillsborough Tragedy

To dispel his myths, here are the facts:

1. “The immediate cause of the gross overcrowding and hence the disaster was the failure, when gate C was opened, to cut off access to the central pens which were already overfull,” — The Interim Taylor Report, paragraph 265.
2. “Planning apart, however, it should have been clear in the control room where there was a view of the pens and of the crowd at the turnstiles that the tunnel had to be closed. If orders had been given to that effect when gate C was opened, the fans could have been directed to the empty areas of the wings and this disaster could still have been avoided. Failure to give that order was a blunder of the first magnitude,” — The Interim Taylor Report, paragraph 231.
3. “I have already found that there was not an abnormally large number of fans without tickets on this occasion. With one or two exceptions, the police witnesses themselves did not subscribe to the ‘conspiracy’ theory (of a large number
   of late-arriving ticketless supporters). I am satisfied that the large concentration at Leppings Lane from 2.30 pm to 2.50 pm did not arrive as a result of any concerted plan. There were, I accept, small groups without tickets who were willing to exploit any adventitious chance of getting into the ground. They, together with the minority who had drunk too much, certainly aggravated the problem faced by the police. But that main problem was simply one of large numbers packed into the small area outside the turnstiles,” The Interim Taylor Report, paragraph 208.
4. “The police witnesses who most impressed me did not consider the number of ticketless fans to be inordinately large. This accords with two other sources of evidence,” The Interim Taylor Report, paragraph 200.
5. “Sheffield Wednesday FC’s own admission count system showed the terrace did not exceed its 10,100 capacity (for the Leppings Lane end). As part of their analysis, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) counted the number of [Liverpool] supporters entering the ground, including those through the turnstiles, through Gate C and even those who climbed over the turnstiles. They gave three admission figures based on their analysis. Their first figure was 9,267, their ‘best estimate’ was 9,734, and their third figure was a ‘maximum estimate’ of 10,124. The HSE report stated it was unlikely that the terrace exceeded 10,124 and that total admissions were approximately equal to the designated capacity of 10,100 people. Taylor surmised there was no substance to the allegation that ticketless fans caused the Disaster,” The Hillsborough Football Disaster: Context And Consequences, page 17. Also watch video evidence of the fans walking through the turnstiles and walking into the tunnel.
6. The Taylor Report exonerated the Liverpool fans of any culpability. “The main reason for the disaster was the failure of police control,” The Interim Taylor Report, paragraph 278.
7. Leppings Lane stand was deemed unsuitable in 1981 after 38 Spurs fans suffered crush related injuries. Sheffield Wednesday never carried out the work required. In addition to the 1981 incident, crushes also occurred at Hillsborough in 1987 and 1988. In fact Liverpool played Nottingham Forest in the same stage of the tournament one year prior at the same ground where Liverpool fans were crushed. Liverpool filed an official complaint prior to the 1989 FA-Cup semi final to air their concerns about safety.

Cohen was absolutely wrong on his April 13th show regarding the statements he made about the Hillsborough Tragedy. There were not, as he claimed, 6,000-8,000 ticketless fans. Cohen was emphatically wrong when he claimed that Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough Stadium was used week-in week-out without incident. And the reason none of the English newspapers last Sunday discussed the “6-8,000 who showed up without tickets” is because they didn’t exist. The vast majority of English journalists and pundits know better because they’ve taken time to study the facts rather than to believe the lies told by The Sun and the South Yorkshire Police.

Sure, there were a very small minority of ticketless fans at the ground. And sure, some of the supporters were drunken (as at any football game or sporting event), but the fact of the matter is that Cohen is living in the 80s with the inaccurate statements he’s spewing out.

The Liverpool supporters were a victim of a combination of mistakes by the South Yorkshire Police (for failing to notice that the central pen was overcrowded while the pens to the left and right had room for more spectators, as well as not directing the Liverpool fans who came through the turnstiles away from the central pen), Sheffield Wednesday Football Club (Leppings Lane was ill-suited to admit the 10,100 fans, had too few turnstiles and the club failed to fix those and other issues between 1981-1989 even though they were well aware of them) and the Football Association (for deciding to play the semi-final match at Hillsborough despite previous crushing incidents).

Cohen’s History of Blaming Liverpool Fans For Hillsborough

Cohen’s comments last week aren’t the first time he’s created controversy on American airwaves regarding Hillsborough. On December 5, 2006, he appeared on the Fox Football Fone-In TV show on the U.S. network Fox Soccer Channel and claimed that Liverpool fans were responsible for Hillsborough. He then apologized on the December 12 episode of Fox Football Fone-In, but the damage was clearly already done.

In April, 2007, he again blamed the Liverpool fans for causing the Hillsborough Disaster, this time on his radio show.

He may have apologized on Fox Football Fone-In December 12, 2006, but his views haven’t changed one iota — rendering his 2006 apology virtually meaningless.

Comparisons to Kelvin MacKenzie

Cohen’s misinformed views about what caused the Hillsborough Disaster are similar in context to those of Kelvin MacKenzie.

On April 19, 1989, MacKenzie, the former editor of The Sun newspaper published a sensationalized account of what happened at Hillsborough. MacKenzie’s newspaper that day alleged that ticketless and drunken Liverpool F.C. fans were responsible for the disaster, having supposedly tried to fight their way into the stadium by rushing the turnstiles and attacking policemen outside the ground.

It’s taken 20 years of education in the United Kingdom to try to get the public to understand what was the real cause of the Hillsborough Disaster.

Then in November 2006, just days before Cohen said basically the same thing, MacKenzie again claimed that drunken Liverpool fans caused the disaster.

“I’m still reading the same old stuff about who’s responsible. And it’s the police, it’s the stadium, it’s whatever,” said Cohen in the April 13 radio episode. Cohen then inferred that the Liverpool fans don’t take responsibility for their own actions regarding the events that led up to the Hillsborough Tragedy. Despite his December, 2006 apology, he obviously hasn’t changed his controversial beliefs and he continues to appear on the Fox Football Fone-In show week-in week out.

It’s fitting that on the April 13 episode of the Fox show, it was co-host Nick Webster who paid tribute to the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster in a pre-recorded segment at the end of the show. Cohen wasn’t included.

Conclusion

Twenty years after the Hillsborough Disaster, we’re still hearing the same old lies about what happened on that fateful day. It’s time for people to educate themselves about what really happened and stand up against those who fabricate misinformation. For our current generation and future generations, we owe it to them and the 96 who died to tell the real truth of what transpired in Sheffield on April 15, 1989.

To learn more about what really happened at the Hillsborough Disaster, read the Interim Taylor Report, and visit the Hillsborough Football Disaster and Hillsborough Justice Campaign websites.

Also, read the follow-up article to this one entitled Steven Cohen Offers Liverpool Fans No Hillsborough Apology.

UPDATE: On May 18, 2009, Steven Cohen apologized on World Soccer Daily for his unfortunate and inaccurate statements he made about the Hillsborough Disaster.

UPDATE 2: The comments regarding the Steven Cohen controversy have been closed. It’s time to return the discussion to football.

UPDATE 3: Fox Soccer Channel announced on July 29, 2009 that Steven Cohen’s position on Fox Football Fone-In has been filled by Eric Wynalda.

UPDATE 4: Steven Cohen announced on August 21, 2009 that his World Soccer Daily show that day would be his last.