Page:Hillsborough Taylor Interim Report Cm765.pdf/60

 '''CHAPTER 20 THE CLUB AND DR EASTWOOD'''

It should be recorded that in general the Club has over the years adopted a responsible and conscientious approach to its responsibilities. It retained the services of Dr Eastwood as consultant engineer and abided by his advice. For his part, Dr Eastwood is skilled and experienced in this field, as already indicated, and he sought I have no doubt to act efficiently and professionally in his advice and practical work. The Club also retained Mr Lock who had acquired great experience and knowledge of Hillsborough during his police service. A number of witnesses described Hillsborough as a very good ground, "one of the best in the country". The police agreed that relations between them and the Club were good. Over the last four years, the Club had spent some £ 1 & million on ground improvements.

Nevertheless, there are a number of respects in which failure by the Club contributed to this disaster. They were responsible as occupiers and invitors for the layout and structure of the ground. The Leppings Lane end was unsatisfactory and ill-suited to admit the numbers invited, for reasons already spelt out. The Club was aware of these problems and discussed solving them in various ways between 1981 and 1986. In the result, there remained the same number of turnstiles, and the same problems outside and inside them. The plan for this semi-final, involving as it did the loss of 12 turnstiles for the north stand and large numbers to be fed in from Leppings Lane, was one agreed between the Club and the police. The Club knew best what rate of admission the turnstiles could manage and ought to have alerted the police to the risks of the turnstiles being swamped.

The alterations inside the turnstiles and on the terraces clearly affected capacity, but no specific allowance was made for them. In that respect, both Dr Eastwood and the Club should have taken a more positive approach. Either a scheme such as one of those Dr Eastwood put forward should have been adopted giving more turnstiles and total separation of areas or at the very least the capacity of the new pens and of the terraces as a whole should have been treated more cautiously. The police view in 1981 that 10,100 was too high a figure was known to the Club (although Dr Eastwood says not to him). Yet, despite that and the sub-division into pens, the figure remained.

Although the police had assumed responsibility for monitoring the pens, the Club had a duty to its visitors and the Club's officials ought to have alerted the police to the grossly uneven distribution of fans on the terraces. The Club operated and read the closed circuit television and the computer totaliser. Liaison between Club and police on the day failed to alert the latter to the number of Liverpool supporters still to come. The onus here was on the Club as well as on the police.

The removal of barrier 144 was the responsibility of the Club although it clearly acted on the advice of Dr Eastwood and the Advisory Group which in this instance was misguided.

Likewise, the breaches of the Green Guide were matters which the Club should have appreciated and remedied.

Lastly, as already indicated, the poor signposting on the concourse tended to produce under-filling of the wing pens and over-filling of pens 3 and 4. Poor signposting outside the turnstiles and the unhelpful format of the tickets also led to confusion aggravating the build-up in the turnstile area. Rh