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 left it to the fans themselves to "find their own level". Effectively, they were left to monitor their own comfort and safety so as to avoid overcrowding. The police would only intervene when there was some overt sign that an area was "full".

When is an Area "Full"?

Over the years, spectators on terraces have come to accept conditions which are often very uncomfortable and not infrequently downright dangerous. They are subjected to buffeting and squeezing to get in and out of the terraces. They are packed tightly and exposed to surging and swaying during the match. They put up with these conditions because they are devoted to the game and because there is little they can do about them. They believe the discomfort will pass and nothing very untoward will happen. Usually that is the case and they are reassured by it. Most clubs have not, until very recently, consulted their supporters as to their grievances or suggestions. The practice has been to pack them in on the assumption that if they are prepared to put up with it the conditions must be tolerable. Although crowd figures at football grounds have been reduced in recent years, this has been due principally to the increased proportion of seating as against standing accommodation. Terraces have still been packed.

It is said that many fans enjoy these features of terrace viewing. Clearly close proximity, shared discomfort, weathering sways and surges together and chanting the same songs and slogans en masse do evoke good humour and have produced a spirit or cult of the terraces which many enjoy. Equally there are many who simply endure these things for the football, for a cheap ticket or indeed for the chance of getting in at all. And before Hillsborough most fans on the terraces, even if they enjoy the hurly-burly, had not realised the narrow margin of safety between an uncomfortable crush and a fatal one.

The Green Guide sought to improve safety and comfort by laying down criteria for maximum capacity, ie defining what is "full". The standard set was 54 persons per 10 square metres in favourable conditions but fewer, down to 27, in less favourable conditions. The tendency may have been to aim off too little from the higher figure for shortcomings in the layout. Certainly the figures considered appropriate in pens 3 and 4 at Hillsborough were too high, as already indicated.

Even taking the highest figure suggested in the Green Guide, the problem remained that those supposed to be monitoring pens visually had and have little idea of what 54 persons per 10 square metres look like. Mr Duckenfield's opinion was that when a pen was full to capacity, the spectators would be "shoulder to shoulder and chest to back". That view may derive from seeing the sort of density crowds regularly endure without injury resulting. But it is much more dense than the Green Guide maximum.

The South Yorkshire Fire Brigade provided the Inquiry with photographs of people standing in an area of 10 square metres at various densities of packing. Together with my Assessors and others, I took part in a similar experiment at the Health and Safety Executive's Sheffield laboratory. We stood in a room of measured area at densities of 54, 80 and 100 per 10 square metres. It was clear from the photographs and from our experiment that the maximum density set out in the Green Guide left considerably more room than those monitoring the terraces would have left before declaring an area "full".

The tendency has been to allow the pens to fill until the fans complain or show signs of discomfort. If the density at the front appeared less than at the back, the Tannoy would invite the fans to move forward to make room for more. The evidence before the Inquiry and many anecdotal letters I have received clearly show there have been frequent occasions when the packing on terraces, not only at Hillsborough, has caused discomfort and sometimes, for brief periods, fear. Usually the surge recedes, the sway returns, the pressure eases and the incident passes unrecorded.

After the crushing at the 1981 semi-final, Hillsborough was not chosen again by the FA until 1987. There was evidence that the central pens were uncomfortably overcrowded on that occasion and again at the 1988 Cup semi-final, although entry to the tunnel was blocked off by police shortly before kick-off in 1988 because the pens were deemed to be "full".

Fear of Hooliganism

Over the last few years, hooliganism at and associated with football matches has strongly influenced the strategy of the police. In their plans and management they have concentrated on averting or containing threats to public order. This is understandable and indeed commendable. But it has led to an imbalance between the need to quell a minority of troublemakers and the need to secure the safety and comfort of the majority. In the police Operational Order, the emphasis was upon prevention of disorder and in particular prevention of access to the field of play. There was no express requirement that officers on the perimeter track Rh