Looks like the Reading Chronicle have landed themselves in hot water by running a special linking the Hillsborough tragedy with hooliganism. To make things worse, Sir John Madejski isn't happy either as the article mentioned Reading FC and terrace thuggery too.

Some papers are no strangers to sensationalism and putting sales ahead of properly reporting the facts however given the backlash when The Sun lied about the events at Hillsborough (many Liverpool fans still won't buy the paper), you have to wonder how hard this will hit the Reading Chronicle's circulation given it looks like they've wronged not one, but two football clubs.

They said

Perhaps they simply meant that Hillsborough was associated in the mind of the public with hooliganism, which because of the grotesque smear by the Sun is probably true, and it certainly seems to have been true for the reporter in question. As you suggest, very poor reporting. The picture of the "hooligan" clad in reading colours was also pretty sensationalist, plastered across the front page.

Not only do we have the media not choosing their words carefully and being guilty of sensationalism, but you then have the readers who bloody well lack any serious comprehension too. It seem clear to me that the Reading Chronicle were not reporting that the Hillsborough tragedy was a direct result of hooliganism.

All that being said, the Reading Chronicle should have used a better example. To bring Hillsborough into it was crass. As for Reading, they do have their yobs, but they are hardly the Millwall Bushwackers!

http://supportersnotcustomers.com/2014/03/...reading-ultras/

Whingeing Victim Scouse local rag makes a fuss because another local rag hasn't declared their supporters Saints and Angels. This perpetual rewriting of the events that happened that day, with the ridiculous blanket pardon of the fans while promoting the 'Thatchers Stormtroopers' theory gets up my nose. Talk about professional victims! Yep plod covered up, but to this day not one person accepts that fans pushed, pushed and even more pushed... who cares.

Idiot.

I think he's just trying to get a rise out of people, nobody is that thick surely?

I take it you're from Liverpool? (in which case you missed off an "ay wak" and an offer to take me outside and sort it....) Are you also a permed, droopy-tached, shell suit wearing, walking talking cliche?


I think you underestimate my powers of thickness... However I think you (along with hundreds of others who want to excuse everything that happened by non-police uniform persons that day) also seem to be blind to the determination of football fans in those days. Fans would go to extraordinary lengths to get a free view of an important football match.

I'm not making light of those who died in the crush, nor of the cover-up by the Yorkshire police force.... but those who were pushing their way through to the front, who gained entry without ticket or without reason to be in that part of the Leppings Lane stand, also have to take some of the blame for what happened at the front of their crush....

Take a look at this video. Skip to 3:40 and tell me if you think that it would have been any different 3 years later when the Hillsborough tragedy took place...
When Dalglish did the double in 1986



(I really shouldn't log onto this site after a long Friday night at the local ale house... )

He confirmed my thoughts below. He had drinking. Most people talk bollix when they are drinking, but Spartacus manages it all the time.

I can't speak for Hillsborough, but I used to go to football in the 80s and gatecrashing was a common occurrence in big games. One particular game - Tottenham Hotspur v Glasgow Rangers in a pre-season 'friendly' - it was a miracle no-one got killed when the big sliding doors in the away end got hammered down, the stewards just opened the gates and 'ushered' us through without paying.

In the Hillsborough case I understand that crowd behaviour wasn't a factor; crowd control was responsible. The number of fans in the Leppings Lane end when tragedy struck was below its capacity. As is often the case, the magnitude of the tragedy was caused by a coming together of a number of factors.

The editor of the Chronicle has now been suspended.