[Rob Ban Fan]

Originally Posted by Loose Cannon I didn't even know this happened until I read about it this morning. Wow, what a tragedy. What a way to die. I am trying to picture it in my head though cause I can't grasp how 96 people were crushed like that. Like could they not even move or go over the wall. I need a visual.

Basically back then football had problems with crowd control and hooliganism and fans invading the pitch to fight etc. So to try and stop this they put huge fences up around the side of the pitch to stop people running onto the pitch. They also put up dividing fences in the stands to stop fans moving sideways too, basically forming a series of fenced off pens.

The two pens directly behind the goal at Hillsborough got over crowded, the people at the front were pushed from behind right up against the steel fences and the people at the back had no idea what was going on at the front.

At the very beginning the police saw people trying to climb the fences and kicking gates open but they thought people were trying to invade the pitch to get to the Nottingham Forest fans, so the police actually shoved fans away from the gates and shut them back in. The police then went and formed a corden across the centre of the pitch to stop the Liverpool fans attacking the Nottingham Forest fans...meanwhile the Liverpool fans were actually being crushed to death.

A few people escaped by climbing the fences, but they were designed to keep people off the pitch, so that wasn't as easy as it sounds. Also the sheer number of people in the pen made movement nearly impossible. Other fans were lifted up to the top tier.