Hillsborough inquest: Why the FA's weasel words on Hillsborough are inadequate for the 96

Sign up to the Independent's betting newsletter for the latest tips and offers

Sign up to the Independent's betting newsletter

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice

The Liverpool chief executive and company secretary Peter Robinson displayed a shrewd and understated wisdom in the years he presided over the club’s extraordinary success, from the mid-1960s to the 1980s. Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness, like many around the club at that time, knew him by his initials ‘PBR’ and the formality of that moniker reflected what he stood for.

It is in that context that his telephone call to Steve Clark, the Competitions Secretary of the Football Association, on Monday March 20 1989 should be viewed. Robinson had seen on breakfast television that morning that Liverpool had drawn Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup semi-final for a second successive year and took the precaution of telephoning Clark to urge him not to stage the tie at Hillsborough. Nothing intemperate or partisan in the request: just Robinson, in his usual business-like way, reminding Clark that Hillsborough had been an entirely inadequate stadium for the 1988 game because of the way the ticket arrangements fell. An ‘89 tie, just like ’88, would probably mean Forest being allocated 4,500 more tickets than Liverpool, whose quota would be inadequate, despite their average attendance being 17,500 higher. Though Robinson did not include it in his entreaty, there had subsequently been crushing for some of his club’s fans in 1988.

Robinson checked the availability of the vastly more suitable - albeit marginally less equidistant - Old Trafford, too, though to no avail. Clark called him later that morning to say of his FA superiors that “the Committee had selected Hillsborough” and that “the police would not agree to the allocation being altered” either. History would repeat itself, with the crushing in central pens 3 and 4 of 1988, returning to wreak such devastation.

What is most striking about the vast body of evidence gathered about the Hillsborough Disaster is that the English game’s governing body has, from the immediate aftermath of the disaster until this very day, never acknowledged the fact that it made a disastrously bad call by failing to heed Robinson’s pleas about the inadequacy of Sheffield Wednesday’s ground.

Read the former FA chief executive Graham Kelly’s initial draft report about the disaster, written two days afterwards, and you will find no sign within its six pages that he was looking to investigate how the venue, which did not even have a safety certificate, had been chosen. Nor that he was willing to examine why Robinson’s request had been so rapidly dismissed. (It is difficult to imagine that he would not have reminded the FA man of it, in the ensuing 48 hours before he sat down to write.)

Kelly’s report revealed the FA’s immediate and overwhelming preoccupation after Hillsborough: covering its own backside. It tells of Kelly’s first observation that afternoon: a dreadful misinterpretation of events, we know now. “My attention was drawn to fans scaling the perimeter fence before the near miss,” he says – a reference to Peter Beardsley hitting the cross bar in the game’s early minutes.

It lets slip the need for everyone to get their story straight. By the evening of the day of the disaster, Kelly found himself called to a meeting of Sheffield Wednesday’s directors and club secretary, Graham Mackrell. He felt that “in view of the continuing media presence, their and our interests would be best served by them leaving the ground so that one could not be picked off as against the other in making conflicting statements.” More choreography.

It reveals Kelly gave immediate instructions for the insurance cover of the FA for such instances to be reviewed. He agreed “at the earliest opportunity” to put two legal counsel on a retainer. His greatest sense of urgency evidently related to a decision being reached on the re-scheduled semi-final before Liverpool forced the pace, leaving the FA with “egg on our face.” Mr Kelly could not be reached on Wednesday.

A willingness to at least investigate might have led him to ask why there had been no planning meeting to discuss the tie in 1989, as there had been in 1988, when Robinson had also raised his concerns about the ticketing. It was for the FA to check the safety and the suitability of the stadium selected for its own semi-final.

A curiosity might also have turned up correspondence to the FA from a supporter who attended the earlier semi-final. Published within the 2012 Hillsborough Independent Panel (HIP) report, the letter was sent to the governing body immediately after the 1988 Hillsborough tie, which Liverpool won 2-1. "The whole area was packed solid to the point where it was impossible to move and where I, and others around me, felt considerable concern for personal safety," the supporter wrote. "As a result of the crush an umbrella I was holding in my hand was snapped in half against the crush barrier in front of me... My concern over safety was such - at times it was impossible to breathe - that at half-time... I managed to extricate myself from the terrace, having taken the view that my personal safety was more important than watching the second half."

The letter was sent to the then Minister of Sport, Colin Moynihan, and to the FA. It was incorrectly addressed to the Ministry so did not arrive. The FA did not reply and when asked about the letter after the disaster could not locate it.

The Football Association did not cover itself in glory where the events of that day are concerned, yet amid this week’s justifiable reckoning for South Yorkshire police and David Duckenfield, it has escaped incredibly lightly. And all we have received from the so-called guardians of the game so far are two expressions of regret that Hillsborough actually happened: not exactly a sentiment of spectacular originality. The first of these, issued in September 2012 after the HIP report, was followed by then FA chairman David Bernstein releasing his own statement, in which he personally offered “a full and unreserved apology” but none such for the organisation. In a second, issued yesterday, the FA “reaffirms its deep sorrow and regret that these tragic events, which occurred at one of its own fixtures, led to the loss of life.” Weasel words, which signify and acknowledge nothing. The survivors, their families, and football at large deserve infinitely better.