The problem was at the time, in the 80's, that football hooliganism was at it's height. This is why we ended up with fences around the terraces, segregation, heavy police presence, all england teams banned from europe for 5 years following Heysel
Between May 1985 and 1990 English clubs were banned from all European competitions, with liverpool being banned for a further year. This was because of the Heysel Stadium Disaster where 39 Juventus fans were crushed to death when liverpool fans broke through a line of police officers and ran toward the Juventus supporters in a section of the ground containing both English and Italian fans. When a fence separating them from the Juventus fans was broken through, the English supporters attacked the Italian fans, the majority of whom were families rather than ultras who were situated in the other end of the ground. Many Italians tried to escape the fighting, and a wall collapsed on them.
In this environment, it was easy to blame the fans, we'd had 20 years of blaming the fans and their actions, because it was expected, accepted, we'd seen it week in week out in all the media. It's mostly why families etc stayed away from football, it's why I stopped going.All football fans were scum, only out for violence with the football game second.
After 20 years of escalation, it was the default position, it had to be the fans fault, or even if the police made mistakes, it would be compounded by the fans fault.
What it did do was lead to a number of measures stamping out the violence and allowing the game to become a national pride again.
Today, I'm not surprised the fans have been completely exonerated, I felt it was coming, but speaking to some people there's surprise how this was reached without a fraction of responsibility towards the fans. With the revelations of the police mishandling, cover up, the lengthy delays, the impassioned stories from the families and their fight for the truth, has it been politically/morally expedient to put the full blame at the hands of the police?
Arriving with no tickets for an all ticket game, crowd mentality and eagerness to get to the game, with 2000 fans channelled/funnelled into one small area towards the pitch. How does the crush occur? Does it happen other places? The tube gets very crowded at times yet we don't see multiple people shoved onto the tracks, in front of trains.
If we ignore the hate, the very strong feelings generated from years of misjustice, should there be a small amount of blame from the behaviour of some?
The inquest has said no.
I hope now that this can be an end for the families. It's been a long fight for them to get to the truth.
http://www.lfchistory.net/Articles/Article/3228
http://flashbak.com/police-and-british-football-hooligans-1970-to-1980-3350/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19596766