A Leeds United supporter’s account of his visit to Sheffield Wednesday on March 8, 2024
“I was with my 78-year-old dad, going into the Leppings Lane end. The police were escorting another large group of fans behind us, and we were soon completely surrounded. As the crowd moved forwards, everyone was funnelled down towards a small entrance.
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“My dad was saying: ‘We need to get out, there’s no way out.’ An elderly lady was saying she couldn’t breathe. The thing that kept my dad from falling was that there was nowhere to fall, he was just pushed against people. Fortunately, a barrier collapsed and I bundled my dad over it.
“The lady who had been struggling to breathe also made it through, but was having a moment at the side with some tears. You could see the crowd getting angry. People were picking up the metal barriers.
“I complained to stewards and then later to two police officers, stating that it felt like the lessons of the past at Hillsborough hadn’t been learned. They told me they would pass it on.”
Hillsborough will mark its 125th anniversary next month, a period in which it has not only played host to Sheffield Wednesday, the four-time champions of England, but also 34 FA Cup semi-finals and two League Cup final replays.
For many, however, ‘Hillsborough’ means one thing: the deadliest disaster in British sporting history on April 15, 1989, when 97 Liverpool supporters were unlawfully killed in a crush at the FA Cup semi-final in the stadium’s West Stand, more commonly referred to as the Leppings Lane end.
The tragedy reshaped English football, ushering in an era of all-seater stadiums and vastly improved safety standards following an inquiry by the British judge Lord Justice Taylor.
Yet, for all the undeniable progress made in the intervening 35 years, Hillsborough — and the Leppings Lane end in particular — remains flawed.
In January 2023, Newcastle United fans experienced overcrowding in the Leppings Lane end, with Sheffield City Council’s safety officers describing it as a “near miss”. Changes were then made to the two-tier stand, which dates from 1965, including reducing its capacity.
Yet the testimony above from a Leeds United fan — who, like others spoken to as part of this investigation, has been granted anonymity to speak freely — relates to an incident that took place over a year after further safety regulations were implemented.
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The Athletic has been looking at fans’ experiences at Hillsborough for several months, contacting supporters of 26 clubs who have taken large away allocations to the stadium in recent seasons, and reviewing Sheffield City Council documents secured under Freedom of Information laws.
That investigation has revealed:
- Serious safety issues experienced by fans of at least six clubs at Hillsborough
- Crowd dynamics experts reported in September 2023 that “the upper concourse (of the Leppings Lane end) is not capable of accommodating the numbers required”
- Multiple warnings expressed by the safety advisory group (SAG, the council body responsible for the ground’s safety certificate) and South Yorkshire Police regarding the area just outside Hillsborough where away fans congregate
- An SAG meeting in January 2023 heard that “a main issue… is the physical constraints of an ageing stand”
- Significant concerns were raised about the stadium’s quality of stewarding
- Crumbling concrete and asbestos found within the Leppings Lane end
It begs the question, 35 years on from Hillsborough: is the Leppings Lane end still fit for purpose?
“Having represented many of the Hillsborough families for a long time, it is difficult to be shocked about safety at the scene of the worst UK sporting disaster in living memory, yet I am deeply shocked at the repeated recent safety issues at the Leppings Lane,” says Pete Weatherby KC, who also co-authored the UK government’s Hillsborough Law.
A spokesperson for Sheffield Wednesday told The Athletic: “Sheffield Wednesday work tirelessly with the relevant authorities to ensure the safest possible environment for all supporters visiting Hillsborough.
“The club is issued with a Safety Certificate on an annual basis, without which the stadium would not be permitted to open. The Safety Certificate is fully adhered to at all times.
“Each year, a robust and thorough inspection of all four stands is commissioned by the club and undertaken by qualified independent bodies. A detailed report is compiled on any requirements and shared with the club and Safety Advisory Group, who collectively ensure any necessary work is completed.
“We can assure everyone visiting Hillsborough that Sheffield Wednesday operate a completely safe stadium and will continue to work side by side with the Safety Advisory Group, the Sports Grounds Safety Authority, Sheffield City Council and South Yorkshire Police to ensure that remains the case.”
The Leppings Lane end has changed little since 1989.
Built between 1961 and 1965, the stand is the third-oldest in the Championship, the second tier of English football; behind only Fratton Park’s South Stand (1925) in Portsmouth and Elland Road’s John Charles Stand (1957) in Leeds. Any changes in the past 35 years have largely been cosmetic rather than structural.
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Hillsborough disaster survivors’ groups have long been calling for reform.
“That section of the stadium needs to be pulled down and rebuilt,” said Hillsborough Survivors Support Alliance spokesperson Peter Scarfe in March. “It’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
At times, Sheffield Wednesday and some of their supporters have appeared defensive over questions that ask whether the Leppings Lane end is suitable for the modern era.
A survey carried out by the Sheffield Wednesday Supporters’ Trust in December 2023 showed that only 70 per cent of the club’s supporters were happy with the safety standards at the ground. Council documents show that the club have been reminded that it is “best practice” to have a supporter representative in ground safety meetings, but no fan has been engaged.
This is a sensitive topic, given Hillsborough’s history, and language must be used precisely. It is also important for the Leppings Lane end to be judged, as far as possible, on its level of safety now, rather than its historical reputation.
The Athletic reviewed safety documentation via FOI requests and spoke to fans of 26 clubs who had taken large away allocations to Hillsborough in recent seasons.
Not all replied, while many reported no major problems — with one common view being that while the concourses (particularly the upper concourse) felt outdated and cramped, leading to crowding, they did not feel unsafe.
But fans from six clubs reported more serious issues in recent years: Leeds, Sunderland, Coventry City, Bolton Wanderers, Port Vale, and Plymouth Argyle.
Generally, the problems can be split into two categories: those taking place during entry to the ground, around the away end’s turnstiles, and those within the stadium, generally involving Hillsborough’s two narrow concourses (the upper and lower).
The Leppings Lane end is hemmed in by a bend in the River Don on one side, and by residential housing on Vere Road on the other. This leaves a small bottleneck through which both home and away fans can approach.
Away fans must wait in the centre of the tarmacked space, separated from Wednesday fans entering stands on either side by only metal barriers. For the majority of matches, this is not problematic — but for local derbies, security must be increased. Missiles have been thrown in this area.
With the partitions spread wider, space becomes more cramped — leading to issues like those experienced by Leeds supporters.
Where fans enter the home and away sections of the stands (Jacob Whitehead)
The pervasive feeling among Leeds fans spoken to by The Athletic was of not feeling wholly safe and, although the majority did not feel in imminent danger, half a dozen said they did experience the overcrowding that day.
One supporter said that they were “essentially forced into the away end” by the crowd movement after police hurried them into the ground, causing some of the issues.
Over the course of the match, several stewards in the away end received treatment from on-site medical staff after suffering from panic attacks. According to documents from Sheffield City Council’s Safety Advisory Group (SAG), the stewards’ briefing at this game “did not cover emergency procedures”.
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In an email to The Athletic, South Yorkshire Police (SYP) said it would be seeking a debrief with Sheffield Wednesday and the SAG over the incident. SYP does not keep a record of complaints made to officers, instead passing information over to the matchday controller, who is an employee of the club. It is then up to that individual to decide whether it merits inclusion in the post-match report, which is passed on to the SAG.
The SAG’s report on the Leeds fixture states that “following many Leeds supporters arriving at once, search procedures were halted” which “caused some queues at the turnstiles”. It adds: “The club needs to look at how this area can be managed more robustly”.
But this incident against Leeds came just over a year after the “near miss” experienced by Newcastle fans in January 2023, where supporters in the lower tier reported a bottleneck at the end of the central gangway, exacerbated by poor signage. Some fans ripped coverings from seats to alleviate the pressure.
After that FA Cup match, Wednesday commissioned a review with Sheffield City Council — and stated on their website that “all aspects of safety at the stadium complied fully with the club’s safety certificate. They said that only “minor recommendations” were made about the matchday experience.
Newcastle asked Sheffield City Council to clarify the extent of these recommendations — a query dealt with by the council’s Freedom of Information (FOI) team — which revealed that these “minor” changes amounted to a capacity reduction of 20 per cent (from 4,700 to 3,700 fans).
British newspaper The Daily Mail subsequently ran a column accusing the club of a “scandalous cover-up” for which they were subsequently banned from Hillsborough. Over a year later, the ban remains.
Other issues have been flagged inside the ground. One Plymouth fan with disabilities who attended a game last season told The Athletic: “I felt it was very unsafe for disabled supporters. The ambulant disabled were placed in the upper tier. Although we were in early, our seats in the front row felt very unsafe — if there was a surge of supporters all standing up we would have been over the edge barrier.”
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In a meeting held by the SAG in March 2024, the upper Leppings Lane end — which is all-seater — was described as “high-risk for standing”, with the club considering implementing physical infrastructure to reduce the risk of people falling.
The Plymouth supporter also reported major overcrowding at half-time when attempting to reach the toilets.
That message was echoed by a Bolton supporter.
“At half-time, the walkways were so congested that you couldn’t go anywhere,” they told The Athletic about their visit in 2018. “It was uncomfortable. You get people getting impatient, trying to move past. I’m 6ft 4in, 19 stone — I’m not moved easily — but I can still remember swaying on my feet with people crashing into me.”
“I’ve been to 84 grounds in England, many more in the league — but I’ve never experienced anything like that before. It wasn’t the allocation that overwhelmed the away end, but more the away end itself.”
A view from the upper tier (Jacob Whitehead)
“There were two to a seat for quite a lot of us,” one Sunderland fan added. “The away end capacity had been reduced after the Newcastle game, but when we were there, we could only see closed-off seats in the top tier. The bottom tier was full-capacity.
“It’s not built for seating, it’s really shallow, and so everyone stands up at the front, people stand up further back, and it becomes almost lawless.”
In a derby between Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United in March 2019, supporters from both clubs reported severe overcrowding in this area after the match, with one Wednesday fan writing that an opposition supporter “literally saved my two granddaughters from being crushed… they were lucky to be plucked to safety and sheltered on a Unitedites coach.”
“My girls would have been crushed to death if it wasn’t for the United fans,” wrote another supporter on social media.
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South Yorkshire Police subsequently hired an expert in crowd dynamics to investigate and they made their own recommendations ahead of a game against Barnsley. According to South Yorkshire Police, Wednesday did not attend the relevant feedback meeting — and provided an “inadequate response” at the follow-up gathering. The SAG subsequently imposed a prohibition notice forcing Wednesday to comply with police advice.
A Wednesday statement subsequently “made clear in the strongest possible tone that (the club) took serious issue with the findings of the report… (and) also questioned its timing, and the fact the report was conducted without the knowledge of the club.” South Yorkshire Police continued the public disagreement by calling the statement “factually incorrect and misleading.” In the end, Wednesday complied.
The Athletic attended Wednesday’s final home game of last season to experience the Leppings Lane end first-hand alongside visiting West Bromwich Albion fans.
West Brom were bidding to retain their spot in the Championship play-offs, while Wednesday, who had been mired in the relegation zone all season, needed a win to lift themselves clear of it.
West Brom brought 2,400 fans, filling the upper tier. The lower tier, slightly unusually, was being used by Wednesday fans.
Outside the ground, there were no apparent issues, with fans flowing freely into the Leppings Lane end.
In the aftermath of the Newcastle incident, several complaints about signage were made on social media and to the Newcastle Supporters’ Trust. Pictures of the area while empty had made the signage appear clear. However, in practice, the upper concourse’s long and thin shape, with signs mounted on the wall next to each gangway, rather than overhead, meant it was difficult to see any numbering except for the exit directly beside you.
The away end concourse during Wednesday’s final home game of last season (Jacob Whitehead)
Before kick-off, there were long queues for each of those gangways — but that is not unusual at football grounds across the country.
Instead, the most troubling moment came in the centre of the concourse around 10 minutes before the game started. The away end’s bar, situated in the middle of the space, narrows its width even more, with toilets located at either end.
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At one point, the crowd stopped flowing, tightly bunched in a group of supporters, shoulder to shoulder and unable to move. It was only for around 60 seconds — and felt uncomfortable rather than explicitly unsafe.
There were no issues at half-time — where the main anger was the lack of food and drinks in the away-end kiosks — and similarly at full time, though Wednesday’s 3-0 win meant that the majority of West Brom fans had left in dribs and drabs throughout the second half.
By the memorial to the supporters killed in the Hillsborough disaster, a West Brom fan had neatly folded a shirt as a tribute.
The Hillsborough memorial outside the ground (Jacob Whitehead)
The past seven Safety Advisory Group meetings about Hillsborough — each one since the Newcastle fixture — highlight ongoing concerns and actions being taken at the stadium. Groups present include club representatives, council officers, SYP, Yorkshire Ambulance Service, and the Sports Grounds Safety Authority.
Names were redacted in the documents obtained by Freedom of Information requests, but at one meeting on April 18 2024, an attendee expressed concern over the content of minutes from a previous meeting which were released to The Daily Mail.
These minutes, also seen by The Athletic, reported that the Sports Ground Safety Authority had found there were “insufficient turnstiles” to service the home end opposite the Leppings Lane for one match against Rotherham United in October 2023, with the pre-match stewards briefing and the number of stewards deemed “inadequate”. The SGSA representative also reported that the club “had the lowest proportion of (SIA standard stewards) of any club he dealt with.”
The complainant over the meeting minutes was Alastair Wilson, Wednesday’s general manager, who leads the commercial and operation arm of the club, who stated that he had proof that contravened the SGSA’s finding about insufficient turnstiles.
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But other conversations within the SAG’s meetings demonstrate continued concern over numerous other areas of the stadium.
Though some concerns around facilities are dismissed as “21st-century fans attending a ground built in 1913”, reports gathered from Newcastle supporters after the January 2023 match show there was overcrowding as early as 45 minutes before kick-off, fans who had been given the wrong directions to their seats, and others who were directed through the wrong turnstiles.
An emergency meeting held on January 20 suggests the issues arose “possibly as a result of a lack of proactive stewarding and a layout not conducive to balanced access to the seating area”.
A lack of balanced access to the seating area of the lower Leppings Lane end, with fans all directed into the old all-standing central pens, was labelled as one cause of the original Hillsborough disaster by subsequent inquests.
Another meeting later in January 2023 also discusses the “standard of stewarding… as well as the physical constraints of an ageing stand structure” at the Leppings Lane end.
A company named Crowd Dynamics Ltd was commissioned by the club in the aftermath of the Newcastle incident to investigate supporter movement in the away end and put the issue more bluntly.
“The upper concourse is not capable of accommodating the numbers required,” its report concludes.
At the time of the Newcastle game, the upper concourse was 295 square metres — providing a capacity of 974 people, given the upper-end recommendation of 3.3 people per square metre.
That number is 30 per cent of the stand’s capacity — while the Green Guide, a government-funded guidance book on stadium safety, on which most licensing bodies base their certification, says that their recommendation for new stadiums is 50 per cent.
Hillsborough 2023.
Newcastle fans trying to get through the tunnel at the Leppings Lane end with more or less no stewarding ten minutes before kick-off.
Unbelievable: pic.twitter.com/FR169L1xKc— Martin Hardy (@mhardysport) January 7, 2023
One of the findings of Lord Justice Taylor’s Hillsborough report was that “the Green Guide may not be followed as closely as is desirable… it needs to be given more effect.” But evidence suggests, at the time of the Newcastle game, the concourse was around 60 per cent busier than governmental safety regulations for new stands.
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After a capacity reduction post-Newcastle, the upper concourse can now hold 40 per cent of stand capacity, while the club also discussed knocking down part of the toilets to increase the concourse’s footprint. The Athletic has asked if that work has been completed, but this query was not addressed by the club.
In subsequent reports, the SAG says it is happy “looking for 40 per cent concourse capacity”, with the SGSA stating that “concourse capacity at 40 per cent of the seating deck compares favourably with other similar stands”.
Asked by The Athletic for further clarity on this case, the SGSA responded: “The recommendation in the sixth edition of the Green Guide that ‘the available floor space of the concourse should be able to accommodate 50 per cent of the capacity of the viewing area that the concourse serves, at any one time’ applies to new constructions.
“For existing constructions, control measures should be put in place to help effectively manage crowd safety. This can include the local authority implementing a reduction in the capacity for sections of the ground. This is what occurred at Sheffield Wednesday.”
In the initial meeting after the Newcastle overcrowding incident on January 20 2023, the club voluntarily offered to reduce the capacity from 3,200 to 2,000 in the upper tier, and from 1,400 to 1,000 in the lower tier. This would have placed their concourse capacity at close to 50 per cent of the seating capacity.
The entrance to the lower tier in a picture taken in 2021 (Mick Walker – CameraSport via Getty Images)
However, by the next meeting on January 31, the club had changed their mind and requested for the capacities to be 2,400 and 1,300 respectively. Their justification was that the upcoming fixture against Plymouth Argyle “was more popular than the club anticipated”. Neither the SAG nor SYP objected.
As of last September, Wednesday were still attempting to increase the capacity of the upper tier from 2,400 to 2,800 spectators, which would have a corresponding effect on the concourse capacity.
Problems have also been identified outside the stadium.
In May 2023, South Yorkshire Police noted that the “Leppings Lane forecourt on big fixtures is causing some concern”. It cited an incident in a League One match against Derby County that month, where away supporters moved through a separating gate between home and away fans, injuring a steward in the process.
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In arguably Wednesday’s biggest recent fixtures — Derby in League One, Newcastle in the FA Cup, Leeds in the Championship and the Sheffield derby — safety issues in the Leppings Lane area arose.
As well as issues with the turnstiles in the Leppings Lane end, which were reported at the first game of the 2023-24 season against Southampton, SAG meetings revealed Wednesday had considered implementing “a roller shutter door” in order to “control access to the Leppings Lane central tunnel”.
That idea was later dropped after Building Standards “raised concerns over the potential closing of an access/egress route” and the “unease that may cause amongst supporters”.
Hillsborough is an old stadium, and its general levels of corrosion — while not deemed a threat to public safety — are continuously raised. The SAG’s most recent report, carried out in May 2024, mentioned there is “spalling concrete in the columns between the upper and lower seating tiers” in the Leppings Lane end, while “category one asbestos” was also identified within the stand.
The SAG warned Wednesday that if remedial work is not completed, “any further delays could prejudice the issue of a certificate for the new season”.
In response, Wednesday told The Athletic that: “All recommendations made by the Safety Advisory Group have been implemented where possible, significant remedial work has taken place over the summer, and the club comply absolutely with the Green Guide guidance.”
During the meetings, discussions had also been held over the potential splitting of the Leppings Lane end between home and away fans — in which visiting supporters would be placed in the upper tier with Wednesday fans beneath them in the lower end.
In September 2023, the club said they had “no intention to split the stand”, while SYP said they “would object to the split use of the stand, particularly given the issues experienced at the Derby County fixture towards the end of 2022-23.”
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However, when The Athletic visited for the West Brom fixture in April, the Leppings Lane end had been split. No explanation was offered from Wednesday when asked why. SYP also declined to comment.
It is 35 years since the Hillsborough tragedy and yet the continuing issues highlighted by The Athletic mean some groups still feel the Leppings Lane end is not up to standard.
“It is deeply disturbing that 35 years on from the tragic events of 15 April 1989, lessons appear not to have been learned in the very place where gross mismanagement of a crowd and a complete disregard for safety led to the loss of 97 football fans’ lives,” said Gareth Roberts, a representative of Liverpool supporters’ union Spirit of Shankly.
“The echoes of the 1980s and the evidence related to the Hillsborough Disaster are chilling. Back then, there were near misses and clear red flags about the ground’s suitability. The Leppings Lane end of Hillsborough was not fit for purpose in 1989 and before. That it seems to remain inadequate in 2024 is shameful, shocking, and tragic.
“If any club should be leading the way on safety, it should be Sheffield Wednesday. If any police force should ensure this, it should be South Yorkshire Police. Football should have learned its lessons. The pursuit of profit should never override the need for safety.”
(Top image design and graphics: John Bradford and Drew Jordan for The Athletic)
