Remember why we boycott The Sun. Never forget the 96.

I’m writing this on Armistice Day. The day where many of us will have been wearing a poppy. Tomorrow is Remembrance Sunday. A sad day for people all over the world as they look back and remember loved ones who lost their lives fighting for the amount of freedom we still enjoy.

On Armistice Day in 1992, the Bland family were thinking of a loved one that hadn’t yet passed away. To all intents and purposes he’d passed away long before, three and a half years before. The loved one was Tony Bland. He had been one of the victims of the disaster at Hillsborough, the disaster which had claimed 95 lives. Unfortunately Tony didn’t die straight away. His family saw him live the years following the disaster in a coma, in what was eventually described as a “persistent vegetative state”.

His family fought for the right to disconnect a tube that was being used to feed him, to keep him alive artificially. In that November of 1992 the Bland family got a decision, on November 19th, that they could disconnect that feeding tube. The High Court gave the decision, but it was sent to appeal. Finally, after almost four years, the House of Lords allowed the tube to be disconnected, the final decision on the matter. That was in February 1993. Tony passed away on March 3rd 1993, becoming the 96th victim of that awful disaster that had taken place on April 15th 1989.

You can read more about it here: BBC On This Day, including a video of the news item on the BBC on November 19th 2002.

Tony Bland was one of us. He was just 18 when he arrived at Hillsborough expecting to see Liverpool play Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup Final. The 96 people who died as a result of what is widely accepted as incompetence by the South Yorkshire Police were all just Reds like us. They went to have a big day out watching a big game of football. They didn’t deserve to die, they did nothing wrong. But to some, their deaths weren’t enough.

South Yorkshire Police wanted to deflect the blame away from themselves. So they fabricated some despicable lies. Those lies were passed to the press. More than one newspaper decided to go with the lies. Some papers mentioned the lies in passing, perhaps realising that these stories were too far-fetched to mention in anything more than passing. Perhaps realising that the victims of the disaster deserved more dignity than to be subjected to such a level of disgusting lies.

Most Reds know that one paper in particular had great pleasure in taking those lies and making them front-page news. It wasn’t the only one, but even after it became clear that it had printed lies it wouldn’t apologise. Seventeen years later it STILL hasn’t apologised. Seventeen years later and its then editor STILL finds it funny. Seventeen years later a boycott of that newspaper by Reds of the world and people of Liverpool is STILL in place.

The “newspaper” was of course, The Sun, or The S*n as it has since become known. The lies, in their words, were, “Some fans picked pockets of victims; some fans urinated on the brave cops; some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life.” Complete and utter bollocks. Totally false. And all this was under an even larger headline screaming that this bullshit was “THE TRUTH”.

I personally find it hard to look back at April 15th 1989. It still upsets me as much as it did back then. The emotions I feel over the sadness that was April 15th are strong. The emotions I feel over the way that South Yorkshire Police got away with their incompetence are strong too. That emotion is anger, and that’s the same emotion I feel every time I see the S*n logo.

The boycott is against the S*n. People choose themselves whether they spread that boycott to associated products from the same company as the S*n. People choose themselves whether they spread that boycott to other outlets used by the then editor of The S*n – Kelvin Mackenzie. Personally I won’t touch anything that Mackenzie touches. Especially when I read a recent interview with him where he found it amusing to talk about his past lies. Liverpool FC and their fans aren’t Mackenzie’s only victims.

Those who wear their poppies this weekend are remembering people who in many cases died a long time ago. It’s a pledge that began after World War I that we would never forget those who died for our good. The pledge is passed on from father to son and mother to daughter, the hope is that we’ll never forget.

In a similar way, we must try to ensure that we’ll never forget what happened in England on April 15th 1989. We lost 96 of our fellow supporters because the Police didn’t know how to deal with a situation. We lost 96 of our fellow supporters because the FA didn’t know how to allocate tickets in a way that was fair. We lost 96 of our fellow supporters and thanks to the role of the press in the aftermath we probably lost any chance of justice for our 96.

Ninety-six fellow Reds. Someone’s brother or sister, nephew or niece, son or daughter. Real people. Bad enough they lost their lives but for their mates who tried to save them to be accused of such disgusting actions is something that may be unforgivable. For the current editor of The S*n to continue to ignore their disgraceful headlines of 17 years ago may also be unforgivable too.

For the owner of a so-called Liverpool website to knowingly take money from advertising The S*n is definitely unforgivable. He knows why we boycott the S*n. He knows how that publication sickens all decent Liverpool supporters. He hates us so much though that he does not care. And anyone who still visits Koptalk and posts on its forums doesn’t care enough either.

His pathetic attempts at claiming that we are using Hillsborough as part of some plan to get rid of a rival site is just that – pathetic. We aren’t a rival. We just want our club back. We’ve nearly done it, but not quite. Liverpool FC can’t be associated with a site that pretends to be aimed at Liverpool fans yet carries an advert screaming “The S*n – We love it”. We hate it. We despise it. We boycott it. Time any last few remaining Reds did the same with Koptalk.

Boycott The S*n Loving Koptalk.coN. Now.

And never, never forget the ninety-six.

Media Reaction Following the Disaster 

CONFIRMED: Boycott-buster took SUN cash – blames LFC “rivals” for snitching on him

by Rupert Insider

Yesterday we exposed that Duncan Oldham has been promoting The SUN for money. Today he confirmed it.

Even though he will not allow mention of this blog on his site and bans any paying member who slips in a reference to it, we will publish his statement in full:

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Adverts that appear on KOPTALK.COM are provided by advertising agencies. When they add new client adverts, we only get to see them when they appear. They do not consult us or their other publishers first. Once ads are displaying we can disable them.

We would never knowingly advertise The Sun and if you think we would, you’ve been suckered in by those connected to other LFC websites. The only ads we can disable before they appear are those that fall into certain categories i.e. gambling, adult, tobacco.

If The Sun was to run an online campaign via any of the advertising agencies we work with, then yes, their ads could appear but they would immediately be removed, as they would on any other LFC site I assume.

Google Ads allow you to block certain domains so The Sun’s website is permanently blocked. But the other two agencies do not have this kind of block.

When annoying adverts previously cropped up on here when we had the Insider section which carries ads, if a member asked us to disable an ad e.g. because it was irritating, we simply disabled it.

Thankfully our advertising is minimal now.

Using Hillsborough and the innocent lives of 96 Liverpool fans to try and score brownie points through internet rivalry is disgraceful. Shame on those responsible

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He is the sole owner of his one-man site. The cash that it takes in from advertisers and members goes into his personal pocket. He boasts about his total control. “Dunk knows best”, he says.   If people don’t like it, they can “fuck off”. He claims he monitors his site 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

But today he says he didn’t know that he was promoting The SUN for money. He would never have done such a thing if he had known!

At least he did not say what he usually says when caught out in a lie or with his hand in the cookie jar: “It was a joke”.

The fact is that his SUN banners on Koptalk were first reported more than 14 days ago by a contributor to Est1892. Unfortunately, that poster was not quick enough to capture a screen shot. If you are already registered at Est 1892 the original thread is on the Koptalk Talk Forum

It was only when this blog published the screen shots and only after several other LFC sites started threads linking to the blog’s article and only after the blog article moved rapidly up News Now “Top Stories” that Oldham ducked for cover. He was waiting to measure the reaction to our article.  He was brazen enough to keep running the ads earlier today. He didn’t want to pull them too soon, if it wasn’t completely necessary. Why turn away money?

But he did pull them – and just the SUN Fastclick ads, not the others – which proves he could have pulled them earlier.

In his statement he does not offer to give the SUN cash back. It must add up to a tidy sum by now – at least 14 days of receipts.   He does not offer to donate it to the Hillsborough Justice Campaign – although I doubt that they would want his Judas money.

In the tradition of the Iraq Minister of Propaganda – he tries to revert blame.

He now claims that anyone who thought he was at fault is a “sucker”. They have been taken in by his “rivals”. And it is his “rivals” who are misusing the events at Hillsborough – events he dishonoured in 1998 when he published a photo of himself proudly wearing a SUN promotional hat.

As we have pointed out before – Koptalk is an anti-LFC site. His big project is a phantom book entitled Anfield Exposed. He classifies all LFC supporter sites as “rivals” and LFC’s “official” site as “the other side”.

He didn’t specify this blog as a “rival” – he never mentions us by name. He’s terrified that if he does his few remaining members might look us up. And if they did they would discover his “rival” reference doesn’t work with us. We do not advertise. We do not taken in any revenues directly or indirectly. We do not have forums or any of the other goodies of a supporters site. And we are not “banned former members” with an axe to grind. We have never met him or paid him a penny or had any personal dealings with him. We have free access to his site thanks to passwords donated by some of his paying members.

I will leave to the experts to deal with his claim that he had no control over the advertisements he profited from. Please use the Comments section below. If you have specialized knowledge perhaps you could email me an article for publication under your own name – or anonymously.

There is a larger question. Why was he advertising at all? In his most recent sales pitch he claims he has “thousands on thousands” of members who pay him ₤30 as well as innumerable others who pay ₤40 for an SMS service. He constantly tries to justify the membership fees on the grounds that it means he can eliminate advertisements.

The truth, as always with Oldham, is the first casualty of his bullshit. The fact is he does not have thousand of members let alone paying members. Indeed, perhaps it was because he has so few members behind the locked gates of his site, that he thought it was safe to run the SUN banner ads where only his sycophants would see them. And he did get away with it for 14 days.

He is financially dependent on the traffic from News Now to earn him hits with the advertisers. And that is why he has to steal news items from other sites, or make them up and give them a misleading headline. His Gonzales accident story the other day – for example. He took it from the news wires and claimed it was coming directly from his sources at Melwood. He headlined it “Liverpool midfielder” instead of “Gonzales” just to add a bit more mystery. And anyone who clicked on it was greeted with a pop-up advertisement. Thanks to the Gonzales’s accident, Oldham made a bit of money that day.

It should be obvious by now that every click on an Oldham piece on News Now is a penny in his pocket. He doesn’t give a shit what LFC fans think of him. As he said before “In this internet lark – always look after No.1 first”.

EDIT: For other stories on this issue go to the side bar and scroll down or use search feature.