One of the most irritating and disturbing things about the fallout from Athens is some are using it as a stick to beat us with over Hillsborough.
It's like they've been waiting for a couple of decades to say "I told you so" and now they're grabbing their chance.
Far be it from me to spoil their fun, but the only similarities between Athens and Hillsborough are that both involved Liverpool fans and both featured organisational ineptitude of a staggering level.

I wasn't at Hillsborough, thankfully, so I can't recount any first hand stories to prove that the two incidents are totally and utterly different.
Fortunately, Lord Justice Taylor's report into events that fateful day provide more than enough evidence to discount much of the nonsense which is currently being spouted.
Look on the internet forums of rival clubs and the chances are it won't be long before you come across a load of posts claiming ticketless Liverpool fans were the cause of 96 deaths on April 15, 1989.
Lord Taylor saw things quite differently. His main findings were:
1. The immediate cause of the Disaster was the failure to cut off access to the central pens once gate C had been opened. This caused the overcrowding which led to the disaster.
2. The central pens (3 and 4) were already overfull because there was no numerical control of entry nor any effective visual monitoring of crowd density.
3. Under the strain of overcrowding in Pen 3, a barrier collapsed, exacerbated by what Taylor referred to as the "sluggish reaction and response when the crush occurred". Lack of leadership and the small size and number of gates in the perimeter fencing hindered rescue attempts.
He also pointed out that "in selecting Hillsborough as the venue for the cup semi-final, the Football Aasociation did not consider in any depth whether it was suitable" and that "The Leppings Lane end was unsatisfactory and ill suited."
There was no vindication of reports in The Sun newspaper that the disaster had been caused by ticketless fans smashing their way in through a gate.
And yet, here we are, almost two decades on and Liverpool fans are still having to defend themsleves over what happened at Hillsborough.
If Lord Taylor was alive today he would no doubt look at what happened at the Olympic Stadium and think "an unsuitable venue with no numerical control of entry and they wonder why there were problems".
But somehow, his findings have been conveniently forgotten by many who are instead using Hillsborough as a stick with which to beat the Liverpool fans.
The thing is, it will always be thus. People will believe what they want to believe and no matter how much we protest and tell them to look at the facts far too many of them will prefer to believe the version of events which has us painted as the villains.
Hillsborough was a tragedy caused by organisational ineptitude and indifference in which the Liverpool fans were the victims.
Athens was a shambles caused by organisational ineptitude and indifference in which Liverpool fans were again the victims (although, it must be stressed, there were those in our number who would have had as much blood on their hands as UEFA as things gone as badly wrong as they could have done).
But the two incidents do not go together and the actions of a mindless minority in Athens in no way justify the totally inaccurate opinions held by many people in this country about Hillsborough.
Just look at the Taylor Report if you don't believe me.

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