Taylor Report facts for kids
The Taylor Report is the name given to the findings of an important investigation led by Lord Justice Taylor. This investigation looked into what caused the Hillsborough disaster in Sheffield, England, on April 15, 1989. This event led to many Liverpool F.C. fans losing their lives. The first part of the report came out in August 1989, and the final report was published in January 1990.
The Taylor Report found that the main reason for the disaster was that the police did not control the crowd properly. It suggested that all big stadiums should change to having only seats, meaning everyone with a ticket would have a seat instead of standing. The Football League in England and the Scottish Football League then made rules for their top teams to follow this advice by August 1994.
The report also said that standing areas were not always unsafe on their own. However, the government decided that no standing areas would be allowed in top football stadiums.
Other suggestions from the Taylor Report included rules about selling drinks at stadiums, safety barriers, fences (because many fans were crushed against fences at Hillsborough), entry gates (turnstiles), ticket prices, and other stadium features.
Contents
The Investigation
After the Hillsborough disaster, Lord Justice Taylor was asked to lead an investigation into what happened. The Taylor investigation lasted for 31 days. It produced two reports: an early report that explained the events of the day and immediate findings, and a final report that gave general advice on how to make football grounds safer. This final report became known as the Taylor Report.
Key Findings
Lord Taylor concluded that "policing on 15 April broke down." He also stated that "although there were other causes, the main reason for the disaster was the failure of police control." A lot of attention was given to the police's decision to open certain gates. The report also suggested that the game's start time should have been delayed, which had been done at other matches before.
Sheffield Wednesday football club was also criticized. They did not have enough entry gates (turnstiles) at the Leppings Lane end of the stadium. The safety barriers on the standing areas were also not good enough. The report said these failures by the club "contributed to this disaster."
Police Control Issues
Taylor found that there was "no provision" for managing how fans entered the turnstile area. Senior police officers were asked why they didn't do more to check people and improve the flow of fans coming from the west, where the turnstile area was small and poorly designed. They replied that their usual methods had not changed and they didn't expect problems. However, Taylor pointed out that the Leppings Lane entrance had only been the main access point twice before, in 1987 and 1988, and there had been crowding then. Luckily, the police's approach "was not put to the same test and strain as a year later."
Because there weren't enough turnstiles, it was calculated that it would have taken until 3:40 PM to get all ticket holders into the Leppings Lane end if an exit gate hadn't been opened. Gate C was opened to let fans in. However, the report noted that the number of fans entering the standing area was not thought to be more than its total capacity. Once inside, most fans went to the central pens 3 and 4, guided by a large sign.
Usually, for regular games, police would guess how many visiting fans would come. Then, they would open enough areas and fill each standing section one by one. For sold-out games like semi-finals, a different method was used. Fans could enter any area they wanted upon arrival. There was no automatic way to know when an area was full. A police officer would visually check before directing fans to other pens.
The official capacity for the central pens was 2,200 people. But the Health and Safety Executive found this should have been lowered to 1,693 because the safety barriers and perimeter gates did not meet safety guidelines. It is believed that over 3,000 people were in these pens shortly after the game started at 3:00 PM. This overcrowding caused the fatal crush.
Lord Taylor believed that which end of the stadium the fans were allocated to did not cause the disaster. He stated, "I do not consider choice of ends was causative of the disaster. Had it been reversed, the disaster could well have occurred in a similar manner but to Nottingham supporters."
Other Factors Examined
There were claims that the behavior of Liverpool fans, including claims about drinking before the game and trying to enter without tickets, contributed to the disaster. Lord Taylor agreed that these things made the situation worse, but he said they were not the main reasons. He concluded that these were only minor factors. He also found that the police, trying to explain their loss of control, exaggerated the amount of drinking in the crowd.
Later, the Hillsborough Independent Panel confirmed that the idea of drinking being a major factor, even though the Taylor Report dismissed it, continued to be believed. Documents showed that many attempts were made to find proof for alcohol being a factor, and that the evidence was often misunderstood. The panel noted that "The weight placed on alcohol... was inappropriate. It has since fuelled persistent and unsustainable assertions about drunken fan behaviour."
The idea that fans tried to get in without tickets or with fake tickets was also suggested as a contributing factor. South Yorkshire Police even suggested that fans arriving late was part of a plan to get in without tickets. However, checks of the electronic entry system, safety analyses, and eyewitness accounts showed that the total number of people who entered the Leppings Lane end was actually below the official capacity of the stand. Eyewitnesses also said that tickets were available on the day, and tickets for the Leppings Lane end were sold from Anfield until the day before. The report rejected the idea of a conspiracy.
Police Response Criticized
Taylor ended his criticism of South Yorkshire Police by saying that the senior officers in charge were "defensive and evasive witnesses." This means they tried to avoid taking responsibility for their mistakes.
Impact on UK Stadiums
The Taylor Report greatly changed safety rules for stadiums in the UK. Fences around the playing area and between sections were removed. Many top stadiums were changed to all-seated stadiums. Most Premier League and Football League teams now play in all-seater stadiums. Chester City F.C.'s Deva Stadium was the first English football stadium to meet the Taylor Report's safety recommendations. Millwall F.C.'s The Den was the first new stadium built that followed these recommendations.
Lord Taylor noted that most of the evidence he received supported having more seats. His final report made 76 suggestions. One key suggestion was that, after a certain time, all stadiums covered by the Safety of Sports Ground Act 1975 should only allow spectators into seated areas. Some of his suggestions were not put into action, such as making all sports stadiums all-seated, not just football.
The Football Spectators Act 1989 included a rule that football grounds must become all-seated if the government said so. The Football Licensing Authority (now the Sports Grounds Safety Authority) was put in charge of this.
In July 1992, the government said that this rule would be relaxed for the lower two English leagues (now called League One and League Two). The Football Spectators Act does not cover Scotland. However, the Scottish Premier League decided to make all-seater stadiums a requirement for clubs to join their league. In England and Wales, all-seating is a rule for the Premier League and for Football League clubs that have been in the Championship for more than three seasons.
Several groups have tried to get the government to change this rule and allow standing areas to return to Premiership and Championship grounds.
Changes to Stadiums
Because of the Taylor Report, most football clubs either updated their stadiums or built completely new ones. This happened with clubs that often played in the top two English leagues in the early 1990s, and also with clubs from the third division that were close to moving up.
These changes meant that many standing areas, called terraces, were replaced with all-seater stands. Some early examples include Manchester United's Stretford End and Arsenal's North Bank, which were both taken down in the summer of 1992. Two years later, Aston Villa's Holte End and Liverpool's Spion Kop were also demolished.
The 1990s saw some of England's oldest football stadiums close. These included Middlesbrough's Ayresome Park and Sunderland's Roker Park. New stadiums were built in different places because it was hard to make the old ones all-seater. Middlesbrough's move in 1995 was the first time a top-division club had permanently moved stadium in over 70 years.
Clubs that stayed at their old stadiums often had fewer seats, meaning fewer fans could attend. Attendance was even lower while the conversion work was happening. However, clubs in the new FA Premier League from the 1992–93 season received money from TV rights sales, which helped pay for these changes. Some clubs that quickly moved up through the leagues in the 1990s were allowed to keep standing areas in the top two divisions after the 1993–94 season. The most recent Premier League club to have standing areas was Fulham in 2001–02. This was because they had been in the fourth division just six seasons before.
Bolton Wanderers had standing areas at Burnden Park until it closed at the end of the 1996–97 season. They then moved to the all-seater Reebok Stadium. Sunderland also moved from Roker Park to the Stadium of Light at the same time, and their old stadium had standing areas in its final season.
Southampton changed The Dell into an all-seater stadium in the early 1990s. This was a temporary solution, reducing capacity to just over 15,000, while they looked for a site for a new, larger stadium. The Dell closed in 2001 when St Mary's Stadium was finished.
Leicester City thought about moving in the early 1990s but decided to rebuild Filbert Street. They built a new 9,500-seat stand there in 1993 and filled in the remaining standing areas. By 1998, with more fans attending and the team doing well, they again considered moving. They finally moved to the Walkers Stadium in 2002.
Arsenal changed Highbury into an all-seater stadium in 1993, with a capacity of nearly 39,000 (down from over 60,000). They thought about making Highbury even bigger, but this was difficult because two of the stands were historic buildings. Local people and the council did not want more expansion. After trying and failing to take over Wembley Stadium in 1998, Arsenal announced in November 1999 that they would build a new 60,000-seat stadium at Ashburton Grove. The new Emirates Stadium opened for the 2006–07 season.
Manchester City first chose to update their stadium, Maine Road. It became all-seater in 1995 after two stands were rebuilt, giving it a capacity of 35,000. They had plans to make it even bigger, but these were put on hold after the club was relegated in 1996. By the end of the 1990s, plans for Maine Road were dropped. The club agreed to move to the new Eastlands site, which was being built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. Manchester City moved to Eastlands (now called the Etihad Stadium) at the start of the 2003–04 season.
Wimbledon left their old Plough Lane stadium in 1991. They moved to Crystal Palace's Selhurst Park, which was made into an all-seater stadium. This was meant to be a short-term move until Wimbledon found a new stadium of their own. But it lasted 12 years and ended in a controversial way. Plans for a new stadium in London Borough of Merton were announced in 1988, but they never happened. In 2003, the club moved to Milton Keynes and changed its name to Milton Keynes Dons in 2004. They moved into their new permanent home, Stadium MK, in 2007. To keep a football presence in Merton, a group of Wimbledon fans started a new club, AFC Wimbledon. In November 2020, AFC Wimbledon finally moved into a new stadium at Plough Lane, almost 30 years after the original Wimbledon club left the area.
Some clubs had already started upgrading their stadiums before these rules came in. For example, St Johnstone in Scotland began building McDiarmid Park in the mid-1980s. The stadium opened for the 1989–90 season and was almost finished when the Hillsborough disaster happened.
Coventry City had made their Highfield Road stadium all-seater in the early 1980s. But after a few years, they brought back standing areas because fans didn't like the all-seater format. The club later changed back to all-seater in the early 1990s after the Taylor Report. They left Highfield Road for the larger Ricoh Arena in 2005.
Many clubs thought about moving their stadiums because of the Taylor Report. Some did move in the years that followed. Others, like Newcastle United in the mid-1990s and Liverpool in the early 2000s, decided to stay at their original locations. Liverpool had plans to leave Anfield for a new stadium in nearby Stanley Park, which they even considered sharing with local rivals Everton. But these plans fell apart after ten years, and they decided to expand Anfield instead. Everton, however, has decided to move from Goodison Park to a new stadium, which is expected to be finished in 2024.
See also
- Development of stadiums in English football
