Page:Hillsborough Taylor Interim Report Cm765.pdf/17

 CHAPTER 2 15th APRIL: THE BUILD-UP TO 2.30pm

Early Arrivals

15 April 1989 was a warm sunny spring Saturday. The match was a sell-out, so 54,000 ticket holders were expected. Others would come without tickets hoping to acquire them or even to gain access otherwise. The following account concentrates, as did the evidence, on the western approaches and the Liverpool supporters since the disaster occurred at their end. They began to arrive in the Hillsborough area quite early in small numbers. Some brought cans of beer with them and were seen drinking as they walked; others took advantage of the weather and sat about on walls and open spaces. When the public houses opened, many resorted there, drinking inside or spilling out into the sunshine. Leppings Lane and its environs comprise a mixed shopping and residential area. Local residents saw groups of Liverpool supporters keen to find a public house or off-licence. Many were asking for tickets or "spares". There were a few touts selling them at inflated prices. From an early stage, some of the fans were using private gardens and yards to urinate. As the morning wore on, numbers increased. Requests for tickets and trespass to urinate also increased. Still the prevailing mood was one of carnival, good humour and expectation.

Public Houses

There were some 74 shops with off-licences in and around Sheffield. In general, they opened at 8 am. Liverpool supporters did visit them but the evidence did not suggest a great amount of alcoholic drink was bought there.

Opening time at public houses was in general 11 am. Some remained closed all day. Of the others, some 72, mostly in the city, were frequented by local patrons only. Some 23 public houses, however, served over a hundred Liverpool supporters each. Another 51 served more than 20 each. Little trouble was reported, but many supporters drank enough to affect their mood. At first excitement: later frustration.

The Gathering Crowd

Towards the end of the morning, fans gathered on and around the bridge near the Leppings Lane entrance. They seemed reluctant to enter the ground early. All turnstiles were open at 12 noon and one or two as early as 11.30 am. Some 53 police had been deployed to operate outside the turnstiles and in the Leppings Lane area. They enquired at random whether fans had tickets. Those who had not were advised to go away; nevertheless, many returned more than once. Those who had tickets were guided in the right direction. The police tried to persuade them to enter the ground early. Officers, male and female, had been posted outside each turnstile with the duty of searching entrants for weapons, drink or drugs. Once through the turnstile, an entrant was liable to be searched again by one of a serial of officers positioned just inside.

At about 12 noon Chief Inspector Creaser asked Superintendent Murray whether the pens on the west terrace were to be filled one by one successively, but was told that they should all be available from the start and the fans should find their own level.

By 2 pm it was apparent to those inside the ground and those monitoring events in the police and Club control rooms that the number of Nottingham fans in their places greatly outnumbered those from Liverpool. The Kop and the south stand were filling up steadily, but the north and west stands were half empty. It was noted about that time that the turnstile figures showed only 12,000 had entered as against 20,000 at the same time the previous year. On the west terraces, although pens 3 and 4 were filling, the wing pens 1,2,6 and 7 were nearly empty. At 2.15 pm a Tannoy message asked fans in pens 3 and 4 to move forward and make room for others.

There had been three special trains from Liverpool in 1988. This time, there was only one. It arrived early, just before 2 pm, at Wadsley Bridge station. The 350 passengers were met by both mounted and foot police officers who escorted them in a crocodile down Leppings Lane. They were orderly and passed through the turnstiles into the ground by about 2.20 pm without incident.

By this time the police Traffic Division reported that the Liverpool routes were clear, so the majority of Liverpool fans were in the Sheffield area. The numbers converging on the Leppings Lane entrance were increasing rapidly. Between the perimeter gates and the turnstiles the crowd became congested. There was no longer a separate queue at each turnstile but a single phalanx filling the whole approach area. The foot officers outside the turnstiles were no longer able to search everyone and had difficulty in searching even selectively. Rh