Snow stops play

Snow stopped Ottawacker Jr. and I going out for an early morning training session.
 
Snow stopped play: if only that had could have been the case in 1989. Sadly, however, it was a glorious spring day.
 
I remember it vividly. I wasn’t there, of course, in Sheffield. I was in Nancy, in France, listening in on the radio.
 
But my brother was there. And my dad. And my uncle. And my cousin. And numerous friends. All of them there, somewhere inside Hillsborough.
 
And as I listened to the BBC World Service transmission of the FA Cup Semi Final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, I paced the room. I tried to phone home to find out, in this era before cell phones and instant news, what the fuck was going on.
 
Were they alive? Where were their tickets for? Not Leppings Lane, surely. Why couldn’t I get through?
 
Three o’clock became 4, became 6, became 7. Every time I called – approximately every 5 minutes – the line was engaged, busy, incapable of receiving my call.
 
Finally around 7 o’clock, I got through. Everyone I knew was safe. I broke down. I tied one on in spectacular fashion.
 
On that sunny Saturday afternoon, in a soccer stadium 500 miles away, 96 people were killed. Thousands were scarred, either physically or mentally. Those who died were smeared in an attempt to cover tracks and shift blame – a typically English trick: the Indians are savages; the Irish revolt; the slave trade had nothing to do with us, we put a stop to it; herd immunity was a perfectly rational response to the coronavirus.
 
31 years on, we wait for justice. Never forget. Never forget. Never forget. JFT96.