Hillsborough: FA investigating reports of overcrowding during Newcastle FA Cup tie | Football | Sport
The Football Association are set to hold talks with Sheffield Wednesday, Newcastle and the police after they received reports of concern following overcrowding during the FA Cup third-round tie between the two sides at Hillsborough on Saturday evening. While the enthralling match finished 2-1 to the spirited League One side, the impressive upset has been somewhat overshadowed by the experiences of some of the travelling Newcastle supporters who were present.
Newcastle fans on Twitter have already documented their own sequences of events, in which some of them claimed they felt in danger as they tried to enter the Leppings Lane End of the ground.
Some even had to remove seats to avoid the risk of crushing in one section of the stand which is accessed via a small tunnel.
The Times has also spoken to some of the Newcastle supporters that were in attendance at the ground and they confirmed the worrying events before raising fears for future travelling fans at Hillsborough.
The incident took place in the same end that tragically saw 97 Liverpool supporters lose their lives following a crush in 1989 when the Reds were facing Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup semi-final.
The Newcastle United Supporters Trust has asked fans to get in contact with them if any supporters were affected by their experience at Hillsborough.
They tweeted: “As with Leeds last January, any Newcastle fans involved in the situation below, or any situation similar, please email [email protected] with details of what you witnessed.”
Newcastle are yet to comment on the ordeal but they are set to cooperate with the Football Association in search of answers.
One female fan documented her experience anonymously during a conversation with The Times, stating: “We got in an hour before kick-off and I was with my 15-year-old son and we were in the lower tier.
“We were three rows back from the seats that were covered at the front, and ours were the first two at the end of the row.
“In the run up to kick-off you could feel it filling up around us. The stairs next to it were like being back on the terraces.
“People seemed to be walking past us and as people were standing on the stairs, there were two stewards stood at the front for the whole time and neither of them made any effort whatsoever to check people’s tickets or to direct them into the empty areas.
“I’ve been going to away games since the Eighties, I’ve been in crushes before and this stuff doesn’t usually bother me but this is the first time I’ve said to my son, ‘If anyone else comes through, get your elbows up’. He’s been going to games since he was tiny and it’s never been an issue.
“We ended up four seats along from where we should have been because of the amount of people who were on the stairways coming into the seats. We still had to stand two [people] to one seat during the game.”
