On 20 March 1989, the FA announced that Hillsborough Stadium had been selected as the venue for the FA Cup Semi-Final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on 15 April. This was a repeat of the previous year’s semi-final.
SYP officers have repeatedly stated that the planning of the police operation for the 1989 FA Cup Semi-Final was based on the plans for the 1988 FA Cup Semi-Final, which was viewed within SYP, SWFC and the FA as having been a success. The grounds for this are not wholly clear, but they appear to have been that there was no serious disorder and that the match had adhered to its intended schedule.
However, the HIP Report identified that at the 1988 match “at least 62 people experienced crushing in the central pens, some sustaining injuries such as bruised ribs.” There had also been a small pitch invasion at the end of the game.
It is not clear whether the overcrowding at the 1988 Semi-Final or the resulting injuries were recognised by any authorities before Hillsborough Stadium was selected to host the 1989 Semi-Final. It appears that the fact that supporters had been injured was not covered during debriefs following the 1988 Semi-Final and the evidence indicates that the police planning team was unaware that there had been crush injuries. The pitch invasion, however, was known.
The planning process for the 1989 game largely followed the approach used in 1988. This consisted of some planning meetings involving representatives from most of the different organisations who would be part of the match day operation, and the development of Operational Orders.
There were three planning meetings in total, on 22 March, 29 March and 10 April. However, in a change from the process used in 1988, there was no meeting between SYP and SWFC in 1989. It is not clear why such a meeting was not arranged, when it would have provided an opportunity for all the relevant parties to discuss issues and review plans.
There were also three Operational Orders, each prepared by a different division of SYP.
F Division was responsible for policing the area where Hillsborough Stadium was located. The F Division Operational Order was the main one for the match and involved the most officers.
D Division was responsible for policing Sheffield city centre, including the main railway station. The D Division Operational Order covered operations beginning the night before the match.
Road Traffic Division was responsible for road safety and traffic flow on roads in South Yorkshire. It had no responsibility for roads in other forces’ jurisdictions, which covered the main part of the journey from either Liverpool or Nottingham to Sheffield.
For F Division, Ch Supt Mole appointed a planning team of three officers: Supt Murray, who was his regular deputy match commander at league matches, Chief Inspector David Beal (Ch Insp Beal) and Inspector Steven Sewell (Insp Sewell). The latter two both had considerable experience in planning police operations for matches at the stadium.
In his 1989 account, Supt Murray recalled meeting with Ch Supt Mole on 20 March to start the process. He said that “as this was a repeat of the same fixture the previous year, which had passed without serious incident we decided to base the order on the previous year's event.”
However, Supt Murray also said he was “asked by Chief Superintendent Mole to aim for a manpower reduction on 1988 of 10% in the interest of most effective and efficient utilisation of resources as it was to my knowledge that the previous year, some officers had been under employed.”
In the same account, Supt Murray said that following the 1988 game, he had identified a number of areas where he considered arrangements could be improved. None of these referred to overcrowding. Supt Murray did, however, refer to reinforcing security on the perimeter track at the end of the game to prevent a pitch invasion as occurred in 1988, and instructing officers in the West Stand to be particularly vigilant about preventing spectators from climbing into that stand from the terraces below.
A planning meeting was arranged for 22 March 1989 at Hammerton Road Police Station. The meeting was chaired by Ch Supt Mole and attended by the core planning team plus representatives of other organisations involved in the match, such as British Rail, local public transport providers and the Highways Authority of the County Council. Representatives of SYP’s D Division and Road Traffic Division also attended the meeting. No one from SWFC was present.
Supt Greenwood and Supt Marshall were both there; both had been sector commanders at the 1988 game and were selected by Ch Supt Mole to serve as sector commanders again for the 1989 Semi-Final. Ch Supt Duckenfield also attended, having been appointed as chief superintendent of F Division, taking effect from 27 March 1989. This meant he would be in post for the 1989 Semi-Final and would serve as match commander. According to his own accounts, and those of others present, he did not contribute to the meeting.
No minutes or other notes have been found for this meeting. Notes were first sought in 1989, shortly after the disaster, by SYP colleagues and then by WMP, but could not be located. Operation Resolve has also examined all available documentation but has not found anything relevant. The details of the planning meeting are therefore taken from the accounts of those present.
The overarching impression is that the meeting largely confirmed the intention to repeat arrangements from the previous year, with just a few changes, such as around traffic operations.
Police Sergeant Kenneth Jones (PS Jones) was one of the officers responsible for producing the D Division Operational Order. He commented that “The tone of the meeting from memory was that the F order and the D order would be based on the previous year.” However, he said that he and his colleague wrote the D Division Operational Order from scratch.
PS Jones also said that at the meeting on 22 March 1989, he arranged for further meetings with South Yorkshire Transport (SYT), British Transport Police (BTP), British Rail and the SYP Road Traffic Division. These meetings did not include the F Division planning team, but he did liaise with Insp Sewell in respect of the unloading points for the SYT buses.
