Sporting Event Disaster –Two case studies

Sporting event disasters have occurred at the various places in the world from the start of 19th century. Till present days, there have been more than hundreds of disasters which have resulted in loss of lives of many thousands of people. The case of few stadium disasters have been specifically chosen to highlight the cause along with the identification of major lessons which is still retained in the present day for successfully managing crowd during an event. It is crucial to examine recent crowd disasters so that lessons for future events may be identified (e.g., Lucas, 1992).

Hillsborough Stadium disaster which happened on 15th April, 1989 during a semi-final match of FA Cup which was played between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield, England. Tickets to the 24 256 Liverpool fans were allocated for the West Stand, the Leppings Lane terrace and the North Stand of Hillsborough football ground. These stands were to be accessed via 23 turnstiles at Leppings Lane. There was a delay from the spectators in reaching ground and most of them arrived only 30 minutes prior to the start of the match. This resulted in bottlenecks at the entrance gate around 2:30

pm and 2:40 pm due to build-up of fans at the turnstiles. The congestion overwhelmed the police as around 5000 spectators tried to enter the stadium through the turnstiles. These movement of spectators resulted in overcrowding at the west stand leading to crowd unrest.

96 deaths, over 400 were injured due to the overcrowding at one of the stand in the stadium.

Figure 2: The Leppings Lane end of Hillsborough (Still, 2000, p.28)

Similarly, another stadium disaster which happened after a decade of Hillsborough was Ellis Park disaster in South Africa. The loss of lives and property was comparable to the Hillsborough stadium disaster in 1989. The disaster happened due to be various reasons including the improper planning for mass gathering event. On 11th April 2001, the soccer teams Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates took the field for the league championship game at Ellis Park stadium, Johannesburg, South Africa. It is one of the premium stadium in the country with a capacity of about sixty thousand spectators (NGOEPE, 2002). At the start of the game, sixty thousand capacity stadium was bursting with more than eighty thousand fans

for watching the football game live. The increased number of spectators sat on the stairs, passage and access way. Outside the stadium, thousands of fans were trying to get inside the venue to watch country‘s two popular clubs gets faceoff with each other. A portion of the waiting crowd in the north-east stand tried to surge forward. The result was a suffocating crush amongst the crowd leading to the deaths of forty three persons that included women and children with many hundreds injured to various extent.

Both the above incidents remain among the worst stadium related disasters in history and show how a joyful sporting occasion can turn into terrible tragedy. There were various reasons which led to Hillsborough and Ellis park disaster, for example in both the cases, there was severe overcrowding, kind of crowd behaviour, lack of information and communication.

There was also lack of crowd management and control by event organisers and police.

2.5.1 Changing Crowd Behaviour

The crowd behaviour for ingress in both the disasters was due to the fact that the police and crowd managers were not able to manage sudden flow of spectators entering into the stadium.

It was from their part that resulted in havoc like situation outside the stadium. Spectators started to behave in unlawful manner when they realised that other people in the crowd are too supporting the interest of others in watching the match inside the stadium. In Hillsborough stadium, spectators in large number started to enter the stadium by pushing people in front of them. The front people started to push the people ahead of them. So there was a large crowd disturbance within the small area around a particular gate (C) of the stadium as shown in the image above. With the changing behaviour of spectators outside the entrance gate, few of them managed to enter the stand gate, suddenly there was crowd unrest within the west stand which already had capacity crowd. So the flow of crowd disturbance kept on increasing till the ground grills or restriction area of the ground. With no or little space to move ahead, few people started to climb the wall of the stand in order to escape out from the crowd unrest. Similarly the analysis of the Ellis stadium disaster reveals that conditions were beyond the control of spectators when the crowd disturbance happened and transformed into a land of death and destruction. There was violent behaviour from the crowd when they suddenly came to know that tickets were sold out for the match. Spectators had come in from different locations within or outside the city with the interest of watching the match live at the stadium. However when they were informed that tickets was no more available at the counter. They behave in a manner which was difficult to manage. They

forcefully opened the perimeter gates, security personnel and ticket booths were attacked.

Individuals became part of groups and groups turned into crowds which were trying to get inside the stadium even by pushing people with tickets. There was sudden crowd unrest from spectators within the crowd. It was difficult for the crowd to move in as the passage to the main stand was full of people and there was continuous pushing from outside along with the movement of back-forth from inside. This led people falling all over the place. Crowd behaviour in these situations is unimaginable as all of them have some kind of motivation which they wanted to fulfil. A big screen facility was proposed outside the stadium in order to pacify impatient crowds. However, no facility of such screen was provided which made crowd to move into the venue. If screen facilities would have provided, people might have not behaved in this manner. The use of teargas or a similar substance to control the crowd led to more crowd disturbance and created panic situations for many. In various reports, security personnel were also claimed for accepting money from the spectators to allow them access to the entrance. This allegation of corruption at the gates made over capacity at the stadium which turned violent as tickets were not sold at the counter and security personnel‘s were accepting money more than ticket amount and allowing people to enter the stadium. This kind of allegation or rumour was spread which might not have been true, however this become part of changing crowd behaviour and led to crowd disturbance.

2.5.2 Lack of crowd management and control

At Hillsborough stadium, there was failure of police and steward control which were cited as the main reason for the disaster in the official inquiry (Taylor, 1990). There was a lack of proper crowd management from stewarding, organisation and crowd filtering meant that there was increase in number of fans at the turnstiles which was unexpected and crowd pressure kept mounting outside the ground as soon as the match was about to start. According to the author Sime(1995), He describe the situation as ―poor crowd management by stewards and police inside the ground, resulting in an uneven distribution of people in the terraces, and ultimately leading to the overcrowding in pens 3 and 4‖. A crush was inevitable due to the crowd increase and after some hesitation, Chief Superintendent decided to open an exit gate (Gate C) for making the fan enter the stadium bypassing the turnstiles. The opening of Gate C led to a rush of over 2000 supported entering the stand which went overcrowding. There was no uniformity in distribution of seats as there was lack of crowd managers at the stand. The push-pull among the fan led to collapse of Barrier 124A resulting in people falling over each other, being trampled and, ultimately, being crushed to death. Also, Lack of management for

the delayed incoming fans outside the stadium was not handled by the organizers as crowd witness a shock when they realise that the crowd inflow is more than expected.The spectator holding capacity of the stadium was around 60000; however more than 80,000 spectators were allowed to get into the venue. Also, less than 4000 tickets were pre-sold (NGOEPE, 2002). Rest of the tickets were sold at the entrance gate on the match day. In one of the reports given for the Ellis stadium disaster, Lack of coordination among all the stakeholders appointed for managing the event. Each organisation operated basically independently (NGOEPE, 2002) was mentioned. The South African Police forces were not provided trainings to handle crowd in large numbers related to sporting previously. They were in place to handle only the smooth flow of crowds and make sure there was no bottle necks created.

Along with improper crowd management to manage such crowd effectively, there was a lack of communication system to alert crowd at various places within the stadium. There were only two spotters or crowd monitors who were deployed inside the stadium to monitor the crowd movement of 60, 000 spectators. Proper contingency plans were not prepared or implemented to handle for such kind of mass gathering. Prior risks assessment was not carried by the event organisers and also they didn‘t took assistance of professional crowd management personnel for planning and preparedness for such a sporting event. Guidelines of the IFFA (International federation of football associations) and South Africa Football Associations which state that a game should not be started until the situation inside and outside the stadium are under control. Even though the game had started, there were still thousands of fans waiting outside the grounds to gain access to the venue. Also, there was failure of the traffic management plan which led delays in medical services to the affected people.

2.5.3 Learning from past sporting event disasters

Is there a general failure to learn lessons from previous sporting event incidents? (Elliott &

Smith, 2006). For example, there was almost similar kind of experience at the Hillsborough stadium first in 1981 and then in 1988 both times for FA cup semi-final match i.e. at the same venue where poor crowd management led to crushes at the stadium. The first disaster incidentally led to a decision to suspend all big matches at the venue for six years between 1981 and 1987. Before 1989 Hillsborough disaster, hooliganism was rife in football and, therefore, disorder was expected. The focus of the organisers was on crowd control rather than safety, again influenced by the expectations of violence and football hooliganism (e.g., Scraton, 1999). The management was more focussed on crowd control which led to improper planning for management of crowd before and during the event. Consideration was never kept in mind for the safe evacuation of spectators.

The Ellis stadium disaster could have easily been prevented if lessons were learnt from previous sporting event disaster like Hillsborough where the situation of crowd management was similar. If there would have been a proper risks assessment carried prior to the match, better planning can be implemented through management and contingency plan. No expertise help was taken into consideration. It would have created a major impact in planning and preparation for such an important event. There are competent and highly experienced South African safety professionals and organisations that could immediately demonstrate safe crowd management planning systems, but they are presently ignored (NGOEPE, 2002). The safety aspects of the spectators were not looked into by the authorities. They were more concerned about the result of the game than the lives of the people.