Hillsborough Stadium Research Articles

Events, turns, and critical junctures: unpacking the temporality of supporter rights and democracy in English football

ABSTRACT The future of professional men’s football in England stands at a critical juncture. In the wake of a global pandemic, the national game has been beset by volatility and upheaval. In April 2021, six of the most storied clubs in England announced they would be joining a new breakaway European Super League (ESL). These proposals triggered vehement opposition from fan movements, catalysing the intervention of the UK government who established a fan-led review of football governance (FLR) to consult fans on future regulatory reform and the security and safety of supporters at major events. Emerging out of these exogenous shocks and endogenous change, the governance of English football is set to be radically transformed via the establishment of a new regulatory regime. In this article, we employ eventful sociology and historical institutionalism to operationalise the concept of critical juncture and apply this through an analysis of two temporal periods (1985-1990) and (2020-2024). In doing so, we show how the current ‘regulatory turn’ is interdependently linked to prior historical transformative events, namely the Heysel and Hillsborough stadium disasters and the subsequent neoliberal transformation of English football across the last four decades. Incorporating a more nuanced understanding of change and continuity in the governance of English football, we argue that new regulatory frameworks, despite their transformative potential, may continue to exhibit institutional legacies of the existing regime and prevailing political economy.

Early Buddhist perspectives on social memorialization

Social disasters are more than just accidents or technological disasters, they are defined as disasters stemming from a variety of causes that affect human life, property, and the stability of a country or society. These disasters can take many forms, including terrorism, crime, and violence, and have a profound impact on individuals and the public. How we respond after an event, especially how we treat victims, is crucial. In cases such as the 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster in the United Kingdom and the 2022 Itaewon tragedy in South Korea, we see a lack of adequate and sufficient response, and the nature of the problem becomes an ideological conflict. This is the result of a misperception of reality and intentional distortion of the problem, which in turn leads to social conflict and increased costs. In Buddhism, these problems can be solved through compassion and right view. Resolution is about effectively healing the aftermath of a disaster and changing our consciousness to prevent it from happening again. When the social memorialization and healing of a disaster is done properly, our society can regain stability and the victims can return to their daily lives. In particular, we can effectively respond to social disasters through four immeasurable states of mind based on the Four Noble Truths.

Research of Psychiatric Injury under the Negligence: Focusing Cases Related to Hillsborough Stadium Accident

Research of Psychiatric Injury under the Negligence: Focusing Cases Related to Hillsborough Stadium Accident

Stadium Disasters

Introduction:Stadiums are an important part of the entertainment and sporting cultures of communities around the world, but the combination of outdated infrastructure with poor safety planning, large numbers of people gathering within a confined space, and the high frequency of such events have led to a number of significant disasters in the past.This is a descriptive analysis of stadium disasters occurring between 1901-2021 which may provide useful insight for event safety personnel and disaster medicine specialists to better prevent and mitigate the effects of potential future stadium disasters.Method:Data was collected using a retrospective database search of the Emergency Events Database (EM-DATS) for all stadium-related accidental disasters occurring between January 1, 1901-July 30, 2022. A disaster is defined by CRED in its glossary as “technological accidents of an industrial nature, or involving industrial buildings”. All categories and definitions are predetermined by the EM-DATS as per their glossary.Results:The May 24, 1964 Estadio Nacional disaster in Lima, Peru was the worst (in terms of deaths) to date with 350 deaths. This is followed by the 1982 Luzhniki Stadium disaster in Moscow, Russia (340 deaths), the 2001 Accra Sport Stadium disaster in Ghana (123 deaths), and the 1985 Hillsborough Stadium disaster in Sheffield, England (96 deaths) as well as 14 of the 40 stadium disasters occurred in Africa, 11 in Europe, 10 in the Americas, and five in Asia.Conclusion:A total of 40 stadium disasters were included, leading to 2,025 deaths and 6,640 injuries. This equated to an average of 50.6 deaths and 166.0 injuries per disaster. Given the potential risk of mass casualty events, stadiums should incorporate disaster medicine education, training, and expertise in their emergency medical plans.

Pandemic publishing: A bibliometric review of COVID‐19 research in the crisis and disaster literature

Iconic events have traditionally instigated progression in the fields of crisis and disaster science. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pressing question is how this global health emergency impacted the research agendas of our field. We reviewed contributions in ten important crisis and disaster journals in the two and a half years following the COVID-19 outbreak from 1 January 2020 to 30 June 2022. Specifically, we conducted a bibliometric review using thematic mapping analysis to distill the major themes covered by the emerging COVID-19 literature within crisis and disaster science (N = 239 articles). Our results indicate that several well-known topics are applied to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as risk, crisis communication, governance, resilience and vulnerability. The pandemic also gave rise to new topics, such as citizen behavior, state power, and the business and mental health impact of crisis measures. Several studies are already looking ahead by identifying lessons for preparedness and mitigation of future pandemics. By taking stock of the surge of COVID-19 studies while this academic literature is still taking shape, this review sets the stage for future contributions to the crisis and disaster literatures. It provides valuable lessons for what topics are studied and what themes need more attention. The COVID-19 pandemic is destined to become an iconic event for our literature that not only strengthens and deepens existing debates, but also clearly offers the opportunity to draw in new perspectives and broaden the horizon of crisis and disaster science.

Flood–pedestrian simulator for modelling human response dynamics during flood-induced evacuation: Hillsborough stadium case study

Abstract. The flood–pedestrian simulator uses a parallel approach to couple a hydrodynamic model to a pedestrian model in a single agent-based modelling (ABM) framework on graphics processing units (GPU), allowing dynamic exchange and processing of multiple-agent information across the two models. The simulator is enhanced with more realistic human body characteristics and in-model behavioural rules. The new features are implemented in the pedestrian model to factor in age- and gender-related walking speeds for the pedestrians in dry zones around the floodwater and to include a maximum excitement condition. It is also adapted to use age-related moving speeds for pedestrians inside the floodwater, with either a walking condition or a running condition. The walking and running conditions are applicable without and with an existing two-way interaction condition that considers the effects of pedestrian congestion on the floodwater spreading. A new autonomous change of direction condition is proposed to make pedestrian agents autonomous in wayfinding decisions driven by their individual perceptions of the flood risk or the dominant choice made by the others. The relevance of the newly added characteristics and rules is demonstrated by applying the augmented simulator to reproduce a synthetic test case of a flood evacuation in a shopping centre, to then contrast its outcomes against the version of the simulator that does not consider age and gender in the agent characteristics. The enhanced simulator is demonstrated for a real-world case study of a mass evacuation from the Hillsborough football stadium, showing usefulness for flood emergency evacuation planning in outdoor spaces where destination choice and individual risk perception have great influence on the simulation outcomes.

Integrity in Public Life: Reflections on a Duty of Candour

This article will evaluate whether a “duty of candour” on public employees including specifically health practitioners and police officers is an effective mechanism in terms for improving trust and openness. This is the context of the actions of the police in relation to the Hillsborough Stadium disaster in 1989 where 96 soccer fans died at the match due to ineffective policing. The formal identification of responsibility on the part of the police despite the attempt by the police to attribute blame elsewhere, was the starting point of a proposal for an explicit duty on officials in public bodies such as the police to tell the truth and be under a statutory “duty of candour.” The article provides an overview of the duty of candour, its subsequent development, legislatively and professionally in the context of the British health care system, where it currently exists, and the potential impact for the police. It is argued that engagement with the paradox between professional and organizational duty expressed through the language of culture and truth telling is necessary to reassert the importance of trust and integrity in a range of public bodies.

‘We are the vocal minority’: The Safe Standing movement and breaking down the state in English football

Lord Justice Taylor’s final report into the Hillsborough stadium disaster recommended that all Premier League and Championship football grounds in England and Wales should become all-seated and that football supporters would eventually become ‘accustomed and educated to sitting’. Thirty years later, thousands of fans continue to stand at matches but in areas not designed for them to do so. This ritual has become a source of conflict between clubs, supporters and official safety bodies. In 2018, the UK Sports Minister claimed that despite this problem, there remained no desire amongst top clubs to change the all-seating policy and that it was only a ‘vocal minority’ who wanted to see the permanent return of standing in English football. However, supporters, networked through the national Football Supporters Association, had been actively mobilizing a social movement against the legislation for over 20 years. In this article, I use relational sociology to analyse empirical snapshots of the latest phase of this movement, ‘Safe Standing’, to show how the switching and cooperation of supporter networks and their tactics were successful in breaking down the state to create new political opportunities. In doing so, the article reveals the key characteristics of safe standing, including conflict, organizational form and intersubjective motivations, to represent the collective – but also often complex and contradictory – responses to the neoliberal political economy which English football, and society more broadly, has inhabited over the past 30 years.

English hooligans and Italian ultras sport, culture and national policy narratives

ABSTRACTHow has football hooliganism in England, largely, been successfully managed or displaced over the past 30 years, while violence and disorder caused by sections of the ultras movement in Italy continues to dog the domestic Italian game? This paper tries to map out the relevant developments off, as well as on, the sporting landscapes in each of these countries. Many European states have looked, simply, to legislative changes and to reforms in policing and stewarding in England, without understanding how these have been combined with a wider cultural transformation of the fan experience at football matches in a new generation of highly priced, modernized and highly regulated stadia. The Hillsborough Stadium disaster in England in 1989 - not caused by hooliganism but predicated upon expectations it might occur – provided for something of a sea change in public attitudes towards the game and football fans. It also changed the prevailing rhetoric inside English stadia from a struggle over who controls stadium space to one focused on pacification and fan safety. A forced stadium modernization programme in England in the 1990s marginalized hooligan cultures from the global sporting product the EPL has since become. By contrast, in Italy less of this modernization, or change in attitudes or approach, has occurred in quite the same way. Violent ultras in Italy are more politicized and wield more power in the Italian game than their equivalents do in England. Moreover, no major trauma has occurred in Italy to aid radically re-positioning the domestic game.

Hillsborough: The fight for accountability

This paper examines one of the most notorious episodes in the history of English football. The death of 96 Liverpool supporters at an FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield in 1989 has been the subject of a resilient opposition to the attempts by police, legal and footballing authorities and certain media to attribute the cause of these fatalities to those who died at this event. This paper examines the weaknesses in public accountability which gave impetus to a social movement mobilised to achieve justice for those who died and their families. This is a story of justice in the face of daunting odds over almost thirty years of struggle.

“Tanked up Yobs” and “Self-Pity City”. Deconstructing the Myths of the Hillsborough Disaster

On 15 April 1989, Liverpool FC played Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup semi-final at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield in northern England. Catastrophic errors by the police and other organisations led to the deaths of 96 Liverpool supporters, crushed against the perimeter fences on the Leppings Lane terrace. Though the horrific facts of the disaster were quickly and widely known, they were lost beneath another narrative, promoted by the police, numerous politicians, and large sections of the media. This narrative blamed the disaster on “tanked up yobs”: drunk and aggressive Liverpool supporters, who turned up late and forced their way into the ground. Over the subsequent years and decades, as Hillsborough campaigners vainly sought justice for the disaster’s victims in a series of trials and inquests, the destructive allegation remained in the public realm. It was reinforced by establishment dismissal of Liverpool as a “self-pity city”, home to a community incapable of accepting official verdicts or of leaving the past in the past. This essay uncovers the history of the myths of the Hillsborough disaster. It first shows how these myths were established - how false narratives, with powerful backers, shifted responsibility for the disaster from the police to supporters, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It then examines how these myths were embedded in public discourse - how Liverpool was demonised as an aggressively sentimental city where people refused to admit to “killing their own”. It finally analyses how these myths were overturned through research, media mobilisation, and grassroots activism, a process that culminated in the 2016 inquest verdict, which ruled that the 96 Hillsborough victims were unlawfully killed. In doing so, the essay shows how Hillsborough became a key event in modern British history, influencing everything from stadium design to government legislation.

Human Stampedes: An Updated Review of Current Literature

Human stampedes are a major cause of mortality in mass gatherings, but they have received limited scientific attention. While the number of publications has increased, there is no recent review of new study results. This study compiles and reviews available literature on stampedes, their prevention, preparedness, and response.A search for peer-reviewed and grey literature in PubMed (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Institutes of Health; Bethesda, Maryland USA), Google Scholar (Google Inc.; Mountain View, California USA), Web of Science (Thomson Reuters; New York, New York USA), the World Health Organization Library Database (WHOLIS; World Health Organization; Geneva, Switzerland), and ReliefWeb (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs; Geneva, Switzerland) was conducted, and papers were selected according to pre-defined eligibility criteria. Included items were read and results were compiled and summarized. A total of 64 publications were included, of which, 34 were published between 2013-2016. The most studied events were Germany's Love Parade stampede in 2010 (Duisburg, Germany; n = 6) and the United Kingdom (UK) Hillsborough Stadium stampede in 1989 (Sheffield, England; n = 4). Conflicting definitions of human stampedes were found. The common belief that they result from an irrational and panicking crowd has progressively been replaced by studies suggesting that successive systemic failures are main underlying causes. There is a lack of systematic reporting, making news reports often the only source available. Prevention measures are mainly related to crowd management and venue design, but their effectiveness has not been studied. Drills are recommended in the preparedness phase to improve coordination and communication. Delay in decisions, poor triage, or loss of medical records are common problems in the response, which may worsen the outcome.Stampedes are complex phenomenon that remain incompletely understood, hampering formulation of evidence-based strategies for their prevention and management. Documentation comes mostly from high-profile events and findings are difficult to extrapolate to other settings. More research from different disciplines is warranted to address these gaps in order to prevent and mitigate future events. A start would be to decide on a common definition of stampedes. Moitinho de AlmeidaM, von SchreebJ. Human stampedes: an updated review of current literature. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2019;34(1):82-88.

Discussion: Critical assessment of evidence related to the 1989 Hillsborough Stadium disaster, UK

Discussion: Critical assessment of evidence related to the 1989 Hillsborough Stadium disaster, UK

Critical assessment of evidence related to the 1989 Hillsborough Stadium disaster, UK

The Hillsborough Stadium disaster that unfolded on the Leppings Lane terrace of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club’s ground in Sheffield, UK, on 15 April 1989 resulted in 96 fatalities. Evidence presented to the initial 1989 inquiry, the 1991 civil court case and the 2016 inquest is critically assessed, together with additional relevant research findings. The matters discussed are concerned with fundamental technical principles that provide for spectator safety on terraces such as that on which the disaster unfolded. This paper examines the significance as to the lack of compliance with the applicable guidance. The terrace barrier testing undertaken prior to the disaster is examined and considered inadequate.

Hillsborough and the Church of England

In 1989, 96 Liverpool Football Club supporters were killed at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. It was the biggest sporting disaster in British football. The original inquests returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’. For over 20 years the families of the 96 and the survivors campaigned against this verdict. In 2010 the government set up an Independent Panel with myself as its Chair. Its remit after consultation with the families and survivors was to access and analyse all the documents related to the disaster and its aftermath and to write a report to add to public understanding. The Panel’s Report was published in 2012 and led to the quashing of the original verdicts and the setting up of fresh inquests. After two years and the longest inquests in British legal history, the jury gave its determination of ‘unlawful killing’. Here I reflect theologically on the public and pastoral role of the Church of England and its mission to wider society.

The Hillsborough disaster: how it has changed UK healthcare law. Part 1.

The 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough Stadium disaster was commemorated this year with memorial services and a toll of bells to remember the 96 who died that day. Their legacy is largely seen in safe, modern, all-seat stadia but it endures beyond football. Court cases resulting from the aftermath of the tragedy have helped shape healthcare law in the UK and in a short series of articles Richard Griffith highlights the impact the Hillsborough disaster has had, beginning with the development of the law in relation to psychiatric injury arising from another's negligent act.

The legacy of Hillsborough: liberating truth, challenging power

In April 1989, ninety-six men, women and children, supporters of Liverpool Football Club, died in a severe crush at an FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield. Hundreds were injured and thousands traumatised. Within hours, the causes and circumstances of the disaster were contested. While a judicial inquiry found serious institutional failures in the policing and management of the capacity crowd, no criminal prosecutions resulted, and the inquests returned ‘accidental death’ verdicts. Immediately, the authorities claimed that drunken, violent fans had caused the fatal crush. Denied legitimacy, survivors’ accounts revealed a different story criticising the parlous state of the stadium, inadequate stewarding, negligent policing, failures in the emergency response and flawed processes of inquiry and investigation. Reflecting on two decades of research and contemporaneous interviews with bereaved families and survivors, this article contrasts the official discourse with those alternative accounts – the ‘view from below’. It demonstrates the influence of powerful institutional interests on the inquiries and investigations. It maps the breakthrough to full documentary disclosure following the appointment of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, its research and key findings published in September 2012. The campaigns by families and survivors were vindicated and the fans, including those who died, were exonerated. The process is discussed as an alternative method for liberating truth, securing acknowledgement and pursuing justice.

Case Law on Artificial Nutrition and Hydration Since Bland

The legal basis and principles for the lawful withdrawal of artificial nutrition and hydration (ANH) from people in a persistent vegetative state (now termed permanent vegetative state), was laid out in the case of Anthony Bland, who sustained catastrophic and irreversible brain damage as a result of being crushed during the Hillsborough stadium disaster in 1989. Anthony Bland was medically diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery or improvement. Since the Bland case the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the Human Rights Act 1998 have been introduced and must be considered in all such cases. This article provides an update of the legal basis for the withdrawal of ANH from people in a permanent vegetative state or a minimally conscious state. In this regard, it analyses the cases of Re C [2010] and W vs M & Ors [2011]. Analysis of these cases demonstrates the decision-making process and current legal basis for the lawful withdrawal or withholding of ANH from people in a permanent vegetative state or a minimally conscious state. Conflicts of interest: none

Public order policing in South Yorkshire, 1984–2011: the case for a permissive approach to crowd control

The Metropolitan Police Service's handling of the anti-G20 demonstration on 1 April 2009 attracted widespread public criticism and indignation. Mass media coverage of the event emphasised how police officers had reacted to protesters in a sometimes violent and allegedly indiscriminate manner, and had resorted to the now familiar and controversial tactic of ‘kettling’ demonstrators into a confined space before detaining them for several hours. Media reports initially echoed police briefings in disclosing that the death of a male passer-by, unintentionally caught up in the event, was due to natural causes. Video footage of the incident subsequently contradicted this account, suggesting that the fatality resulted from an unprovoked attack by a police officer. Reports prepared by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary have since called on the police to adopt a more permissive approach to managing political protest, predicated on a commitment to facilitating the right to protest. This paper lends weight to arguments in favour of such an approach by highlighting the experience during the last 28 years of South Yorkshire Police, a force which has not only revised its practical and philosophical approach to handling public dissent, but also developed a more open attitude in its dealings with the media in a bid to restore public confidence and staff morale, following nationwide controversy around the Orgreave mass picket of 1984 and the Hillsborough stadium tragedy of 1989.

Condolence Books: Language and Meaning in the Mourning for Hillsborough and Diana

This article reports empirical research into public books of condolence signed following two key mourning events within British culture: the 1989 Hillsborough soccer stadium disaster and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997. The author suggests that not only do condolence books provide valuable historical record of the way contemporary society mourns, but also that they reflect attempts to language loss in ways that can be used to evaluate the extent of society's engagement with death. In so doing, he points to ways in which condolence messages signed following these events oscillate between “conservative structures of meaning” (Marris, 1974) and contemporary “structures of feeling” (Williams, 1971). In turn he suggests that such distinctions—between public and private, modernity and tradition—are destabilized by the postmodern cultural forms that these events appeared to inaugurate. In addition, and in the purported absence of expressivist mourning rituals (Gorer, 1965), the author suggests that condolence books may provide a useful social platform for the social expression of grief.