In justification of football having a minutes silence in memory of Lady Thatcher Dave Whelan, the Chairman of Wigan Athletic, is quoted in a Guardian article recently as saying: “Football was in a bad way when she was Prime Minister, we saw all the changes in her time and they should pay tribute to that”.
Roger commented: “Putting aside her destruction of the post war consensus; the closure of large swathes of manufacturing industry; the squandering of North Sea Oil wealth on 3 million unemployed; the selling off at knock-down prices of gas, electricity and water; and the deregulation of financial services which sowed the seeds of the 2008 financial crisis, what did Mrs. Thatcher do to address the problems of football in the 1980s?
Summing up Lady Thatcher’s contribution he concluded: “She forced football clubs to erect fences around pitches to pen in fans. In April 1989, 96 people were crushed to death at Hillsborough because these fences prevented people in the Leppings Lane end from escaping onto the pitch. Some legacy!!”

This article appeared in the May edition of Roger's newsletter 'Postcard from Parliament'