Do We Learn From Football Crowd Tragedies?
In my lifetime, there has been three football crowd tragedies; Ibrox in 1971, Bradford City in 1985 and Hillsborough in 1989.
We may have dealt with the problems inside the grounds by better stadium design and rebuilding, but have we properly dealt with the problems the tragedies create for the emergency services and especially the paramedics.
Sadly, I think that it took some time for the message to get through. For example, with the latest news on Hillsborough, it becomes apparent that the paramedics couldn’t cope and this was probably the case at other non-football-related disasters in recent years. The attacks on the London Underground on the 7th of July 2005 come to mind. In that attack, how many lives were also saved as one bomb went off outside the Royal College of Surgeons?
We have to accept that tragedies and disasters will happen. But are we prepared for the worst, when they do? This week for instance there was a coach crash on the A3 at Hindhead, where three died. Did the emergency services of rural Sussex cope well?
Knowing the A14 well, what would happen if a coach crossed the dual-carriageway at say Newmarket and hit another head-on going the other way? The nearest hospitals are in Cambridge and Bury St. Edmunds, almost twenty miles away. Do the emergency services train for such an emergency? Or do they hope it won’t happen?
What I feel sorry about the past couple of decades is that Bradford was the wake-up call and everybody ignored it! There was a mixture there of a dilapidated wooden stand with rubbish underneath it. Just one stray cigarette was al it took.
Doesn’t that sound a lot like the wooden escalator at Kings Cross, that caught fire in 1987. It probably wasn’t that simple, but surely the engineers in London Underground must have thought about the danger, after the fire at Bradford.
But the modern safety culture may be just that. Modern!
In the 1970s, I worked on a chemical plant and an instrument that the section I worked for, found that the plant was going into a regime, where it could explode. The plant manager immediately shut the plant and informed the makers. They informed him, that what we had proven, couldn’t be measured and we should keep the plant going. Two years later their plant buried itself in a hillside, killing a number of people.
So we were right! And they were wrong! It is not a nice thing to say, as people died, because of the blinkered thinking of others.
Even today, on my travels around the UK, visiting all the football grounds, one stood out as a place, where a bad accident could happen again! Not I hasten to add in the ground itself, but in the railway station, which brings large numbers of supporters to the ground.
Murray Celebrates Like A True Sober Scot – Irn-Bru And HobNobs
The Times has reported this is how Andy Murray has celebrated his victory in the US Open.
I suppose deep-fried Mars Bars are difficult to get in New York. But then he doesn’t look like he eats many!
The First Legacy Venue Opens
I was born in Enfield and spent the first fifteen or so years of my life in Cockfosters, which in those days had a Hertfordshire postal address.
A couple of times, I cycled down to the Lea Valley to do a bit of fishing, although I wasn’t that good or keen. I also had three summer jobs at Brimsdown on the Lea, working for Enfield Rolling Mills. Incidentally, that job came because my father just phoned up John Grimston, the Earl of Verulam, and asked if they had a job for a sixteen-year-old, interested in electronics, in the company, where he was Chairman. The company was the biggest customer for my father’s printing business. I have a feeling that I have inherited my father’s nothing-is-impossible gene.
So yesterday, I was rather pleased to read that the first of the legacy venues has opened after the Olympics, on that river, which was part of my formative years. The Lea Valley White Water Centre, where I watched the canoeing, is now open and will be expanded. Who’d have thought there’d be white water sports in the mountains of Hertfordshire?
I think it just goes to show, you just have to have enough imagination.
Where Now Lord Coe?
The Times today, has a leader which praises Lord Coe for the work he did in getting the Olympics to London and making it a success.
I can remember sitting with C and listening to his speech in Singapore that won us the Olympics in the first place. As a barrister, she said it was the finest plea in mitigation she had ever heard, as it was thought at the time, that we would lose to Paris.
The Times leader also poses what Lord Coe should do next.
I only think, that whatever he does, he’ll make a success of it!
Why Do They Try To Play Cricket In Manchester?
Everybody knows that it always rains in Manchester. There’s even an old phrase beloved of cricket commentators.
If you can’t see the Pennines it’s already raining, if you can it’s just about to.
So why did they try to play a Twenty20 cricket match last night? Guess what? It rained, as is reported here.
Murder Ball At The Paralympics
I went to the Paralympics yesterday, as a friend had two tickets for the wheelchair rugby. Murderball is the film that gives the nickname to the sport.
It was a good spectacle and Great Britain beat Belgium in the match we watched.
An Insult To Ipswich and Suffolk
The Tour of Britain cycle race starts this morning in Ipswich. The BBC radio traffic reports placed Ipswich in Norfolk.
They did correct it later. Or in fact, they didn’t repeat it again.
But yet again Suffolk is treated badly by the media. As it is by government, where more funding always goes to North Anglia.
Twenty20 Upsets
England’s Twenty20 team performed badly against South Africa yesterday, but so did the Australia’s against Pakistan.
Australia now seem to be ranked below Ireland in this form of cricket.
Scotland’s Disappointment
I have been listening to the report this morning on BBC 5 Live about Scotland’s goalless draw against Serbia. I did watch it a bit last night and it would appear the team didn’t live up to the fans expectations.
But when did Scotland’s football teams not do that in recent years?
In other sports, Scotland seems to be getting better, but not in football.
AWonderful Wordsmith And A Brave Horseman
Lord Oaksey, who died today, was the sort of unique person, that occasionally, gets created in these isles. I won’t say the UK, as the Irish have produced some like him.
I did meet him and I also saw him give a very good speech, but two memories of him stand out.
In 1963, he wrote a dramatic report on the Grand National, describing how Carrickbeg was only beaten by three-quarters of a length. Only at the end of the report did you realise, that he had been riding the horse.
The other was much later, when he was broadcasting on Channel 4, at I think Uttoxeter racecourse. Someone had set up a crane to do bungy jumps and there was pressure for one of the Channel 4 team to do the jump. All the others like John Francome refused and it was the over-60-year-old Lord Oaksey who did it.
How many others have done a bungy jump on air at that age?
War correspondents these days, may have a tougher time, but has there been a racing journalist, who combined both careers with such skill at the same time?
The Anonymous Widower 