[St Charles Owl]

I think one question that seems to have gone unasked is, after crushes in 81 and 88, how on earth did Hillsborough get another semi?

You are bang on with that question and it also throws up why the FA are not on the list of bodies that contributed to this whole thing??  Lessons were never learned from previous incidents both at Hillsborough and at other grounds.  The Government and Police at that time were on a mission to curb hooliganism, using whatever tactics they could to prevent it, and they did this at the expenses of safety for the average football fan.

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I'm angry on a number of fronts.

Laying blame to those fans outside the ground pushing to get in, they just wanted to see a football match, had the incompetent SYP done the job of crowd control correctly nobody would've have died in a crush that day.
As for the fans who rushed through to the central pens, again what do you think anyone is going to do..they want to watch football so go the nearest and quickest rout onwards the pitch. Unfortunately the police failed to implement something called the Freeman Tactic which would close the central pens to further crowding. When asked Duckingfield said he'd never heard of it. Even though it had been used at previous semi finals

Its not a case of laying blame on the fans outside pushing and shoving, that is what happened all over the country, that was the norm back then.  But however sorry we feel for those at the front who ultimately died, one of the causes of this disaster was the pushing and shoving going on outside that eventually forced the police into opening the gate to try to ease the congestion.  If you take blame out of this and just look at what caused it, the problems outside and the ensuing crush is one of those factors.

Ultimately as with any incident like this it ends up being almost a perfect storm and one thing compounds the next as decision after decision has a knock on effect.  I believe the root cause, the first poor decision that started this whole chain of events was the day that SYP decided that they were going to replace the match superintendent with Duckenfield.  Not that Duckenfield was a bad policeman by any stretch, but they guy he was replacing had 20 odd years experience of leading the police operation at Hillsborough and it was him that altered the operation over the years to prevent over crowding of the pens and outside the turnstiles.  He was removed for disciplinary reasons but he was never involved in any meetings after that point and as a consequence Duckenfield was never fully briefed by the one officer who knew of the safety issues and how to alleviate them. Duckenfield I believe admitted that his sole focus was on hooliganism and he had zero familiarity with the ground or the surroundings.