Seems that the lessons of Heysel and Hillsborough have gone unheeded:

At least 50 people have been killed and many more injured in a stampede at a football stadium in South Africa.

The deaths occurred as fans crowded into Ellis Park stadium in Johannesburg for a local derby between the Kaizer Chiefs and the Orlando Pirates.

Large numbers of emergency personnel are on the pitch treating dozens of injured people. The most seriously wounded are being ferried to hospital by helicopter.

Sports Minister Ngconde Balfour said that the number killed stood at at least 50.

"There were more supporters than the stadium could hold," he told CNN television news.

"This type of thing should never have happened."

A capacity crowd of 60,000 were already inside the ground, which hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup final, with a further 30,000 reportedly still trying to gain entry.

Crush

A crush reportedly started in the east wing of the stadium as fans scrambled for seats and spilled over into box suites.

The game was halted after about 35 minutes, and club officials pleaded for calm.

Police had earlier fired tear gas at people stampeding outside the stadium.

The injured were being carried on stretchers to helicopters for medical evacuation as emergency vehicles outside the stadium were unable to move amid the football traffic.

There were also reports that fans outside tried to push into the stadium and were trapped against barbed wire.

Tragedy

The match between the two teams is usually one of the highlights of the South African football calendar, and attracts some of the largest crowds of the year.

A similar tragedy occurred 10 years ago when the two teams met in a pre-season friendly at Orkney, a provincial town some 200km (125 miles) from Johannesburg.

Then 42 people, including two children, were killed in a stampede.

South Africa, which is seeking to host the World Cup finals in 2010, has a history of poor organisation at its local league matches.

Scrums for tickets are commonplace as few are pre-sold.

RIP.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2001

Answers

Oh grief, not again surely?
Yet another 50 fatalities in the name of football. When will it ever end?

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2001

'Security' there is a joke. They pay minimum wage to people they hire off the streets to work the outer gates, the cops stand inside those gates, well away from the crushing masses, and don't do diddly squat but pose in their uniforms when all hell is beaking loose around them. And don't bother going up to them for assistance. They just shrug and go back to discussing donuts(or whatever they were discussing), while you're left to dodge ground-level barbed wire and the crowd surging towards the second set of gates. It's every one for themselves.

Not the least bit surprised a tragedy such as this has happened. And they want to host the World Cup? They've got a lot of work to do. :-(

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2001

Apparently, some of the stewards were taking back handers to cram more people in. Most of them must have been at it to get in 30,000 more than the ground's capacity.

Then it took half an hour for the officials to realise something had gone down and stop the game.

Something to be said for all seater stadia.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001

My understanding is that it IS an all seater stadium, though there have been mixed reports. Which brings me onto my problem with the whole thing : I can comprehend the moronic thinking behind letting a few more in when it's standing, but how the feck can you 'lose' a few thousand when it's an all seater? Odd.

Whatever though, remembering my own unbelievable sense of loss and dispair at Heysel and Hillsborough, my thoughts, and I'm sure all of ours on here, are with the families. The bell tolls for us all sometimes.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001

It was a matter of time for something like this to happen in SA football.

Ellis Park is primarily a rugby stadium and the policing/ security is top class on rugby match days. They usually have two perimeters - one a couple of hundred yards away from the ground, within which only ticket holders can gain access, then an orderly procession through the gates. Key factor for success - prepaid tickets and nobody milling about with no reason for being there. Also, world class organisational abilities by the authorities, yes, yes, bar the often outrageous and underhand witchhunts after rugby coaches.

South African Football Association, on the other hand, are strictly a bunch of amateurs. Tickets are available on a prepaid basis, but there are no measures taken to enforce the policy of access with ticket only. Result, people milling about trying to obtain tickets before kickoff - automatically a problem. Can't really set up the first perimeter if nobody has tickets and they have to pay at the gate. First problem.

Second problem. There is no way Ellis Park should have been used for the Chiefs - Pirates game. It has a capacity of +- 65,000. That game, being the Soweto derby regularly attracts crowds well in excess of that and are normally played in bigger grounds in and around Soweto, not in the centre of town. So, why at Ellis Park? I'm not over there any more, but one possibility is that to stage the World Cup, SA will need to use the rugby stadia across the country and the few reasonable football grounds. This could have been a dry run. On the other hand, for the two big Soweto teams, they pick and choose home grounds according to which offers the best financial deal. Its a logical explanation for choosing a smaller capacity stadium in the centre of Jo'burg rather than near Soweto.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001

There'll be an investigation into this matter. But the whole thing reminds of the African Nations Cup Final in 1996 in Soweto. Tickets were prepaid, but about forty thousand ticketless people started gathering at the ground, immediately outside the gate some six or seven hours before kickoff. There was little else to do but to open the gates early to avoid serious trouble and injuries outside the ground. We arrived two hours before kickoff (with tickets) to find the ground absolutely packed, people filled the stairs and all exit routes, people hanging off the roofs, people clambering over fences from enclosure to enclosure, teargas in the air, and a genuinely frightening experience. The situation was lost and couldn't be redeemed. Needless to say, we didn't hang around and watched from the comfort of a pub. The experience soured (for us, anyway) one of the country's great sporting moments and nothing was made of the safety situation, with South African Football Association successfully doing their best to sweep the issue under the carpet.

Condolences to all those who lost friends and family in this latest disaster.

Overriding impression, and the reson I left the continent, is that when things go wrong in Africa, they really do blow up spectacularly. Not much you can do about it from a personal aspect, but accept that fact. Death is a a very real fact of life there and the price of life to some people is pitifully cheap.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001

Interesting reading your insights as a former resident, Bok. Your last sentence really seems to sum up the situation. Quite the culture shock for a group of American tourists! We would never have believed things could be so chaotic until experiencing it when U2 played there in 98. I think until, reading your post, I still hadn't really been able to understand why things are that way. It was certainly culture shock. I only hope and pray that international attention on this incident might encourage the authorities to have a serious look at how things are run if they want to host a successful World Cup.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001

Really appreciate your posts Bok. As Ciara says, a great insight to the way of South African sporting life.

So why is it that rugby can organise things and football can't? Is it just the typical divide between the round and the oval ball game? Certainly the attitude of supporters of both games over here tends to be a lot different, with football typically appealing to the masses while rugger tends (or at least used to) hold a higher stance and hence attract a different type of spectator.

I don't know the answers, but somebody has to find them before a major tournament goes disastrously wrong over there. The WC is the flagship of football, and I understand why the authorities are so keen to hold it there. But not with the organisation you have described

-- Anonymous, April 13, 2001

Well, given the logistics, you're not likely to see the same happen in the World Cup with all games presold. You would be unlikely to see large crowds apart home games and noticably partisan support (from expats as well) in the group games. I would imagine you will see common sense prevail from now on, give the sensitivity of this issue.

Whether you will see the same in domestic games, I don't know. All local first division games aren't played in top class facilities, and I've seen and heard of whole grandstand scaffolding collapsing under crowds and crushing some.

I would imagine that home games involving South Africa would be held at the Superbowl (very near Soweto) holding a really large crowd and having the biggest moat (I kid you not) between crowd and pitch.

-- Anonymous, April 18, 2001

Ciara

That U2 gig may have been in Joburg in the Athletics stadium right next to Ellis Park. I was there...and loved it.

Unfortunately Chiefs played some games there in the past, limiting crowds to a dull 25 - 30,000 compared to what they could attract, and based upon financial incentives put to them. Compare that to the ellis Park ground holding 65,000 right next door. Security was obviously optimal on those occasions. Note the perimeters as you entered.

-- Anonymous, April 18, 2001

Ahh..thought I remembered a bigger stadium next door to the one holding the concert. I remember those perimeters all too well. Can't ever forget them after thinking I was about to meet my maker trying to get through. *shudder* One of my friends only missed being crushed when some of the barricades started falling over, because he's a 6'5" Ironman athlete and was able to hold the barricade up just long enough to get out from under it.

It was an amazing night and amazing show. I'd do it again....only next time I'd skip the all day GA mob and stroll in after they all went in. ;-)

-- Anonymous, April 18, 2001