Standing ticket cost £6
A standing-room-only ticket to the Hillsborough FA Cup semifinal cost just £6, meaning the crowd was largely working-class youth rather than unruly hooligans.
Where this was said
The Venue, the Match, and the Structural Setup for Disaster
At 4:50 · chapter starts 2:10
April 15, 1989: Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield is hosting a high-stakes FA Cup semifinal between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Liverpool, with the bigger fanbase, are given the smaller Leppings Lane end — a decision that would prove catastrophic. The Leppings Lane street dead-ended and bottlenecked as it approached the stadium, funnelling thousands of fans toward just 7 old turnstiles. Under normal Sheffield Wednesday match conditions, this was manageable. For over 10,000 standing-room-only Liverpool ticketholders on one of England's biggest match days, it was a chokepoint waiting to kill. The seeds of disaster were planted before anyone arrived.
7 turnstiles for 10,100 fans
Liverpool's 10,100 standing-room-only ticketholders were funnelled through just 7 old turnstiles at the Leppings Lane end of the stadium.
How Duckenfield's Failures Triggered the Hillsborough Disaster
Match commander David Duckenfield was unqualified, had never commanded a game at Hillsborough, ignored three urgent requests to open a gate, and didn't know about a standard safety tactic called the Freeman Tactic. When he finally opened Gate C at 2:52 PM, a mass of people flooded a tunnel leading to already-overcrowded pens. His inaction directly caused the crush.
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