Changing Times

[zebo]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-12686632

How modern communications have changed how we live. My Dad had gone to this game, seen the crowds and gone into town to meet up with some ex-RAF friends. instead. He arrived home at about 8 o'clock, knowing nothing about this and my Mother, who had hours of fearing the worst, almost struck him with a rolling pin. Hard to imagine that such a thing could happen yet people in the same town can remain unaware.

[gness]

Such changes in our lifetime indeed, Zebo....but reading that I can hardly believe the game continued when the dead and injured had been removed!

[Zacs-Master]

1 year after the war had ended. I wonder if people were hardened to death and that's why the game continued?

[Togo]

My late dad was at the game. He had come home from the Navy on leave, and being Stoke mad went up to Bolton in Uniform. People in the ground didn't even know that there were people dead. I was born almost 2 years later.

[Elina]

Good point Zacs.

[Elina]

It says that people in the crowd were unaware any fans had died. Obviously someone there at the ground was aware & made the decision for the game to play on after taking the dead away. Very odd.

[bhg481]

To add to Z-M's suggestion; remember that travel was not as easy then as it is now. People had travelled from Stoke to Bolton to see the match and maybe they didn't want to disappoint them.

[Togo]

It was all rail travel bhg special trains at set times. So turning the crowd out would have put thousands onto the streets with no train available for perhaps a couple of hours.

[Elina]

Yes Togo. I wonder exactly how many were allowed in to the ground? Zebo, that must have been a very emotional wait for your mum.

[bhg481]

Good point Togo.

[Tilly2]

How did your Mother know about it, Zebo?

[Mamyalynne]

Word of mouth or The Buff (Newspaper) possibly, came out just after close of play.


Lots of my family there too, my Grandmother lived just scross the road from Burnden and she let people leave their bikes in her yard during the game.

The shock swept through the town and of course far beyond, a very sad day.

[zebo]

She tended to know what was happening, as has been said The Buff, bless it, came out late Saturday, did you go to the little window of the print place near M and S to get a copy? As has been said, people maybe had a different attitude to death after their experiences, it didn't seem to have a lasting effect on her once her came home. Oddly, an old guy here, in Norfolk, had been there for his first and last match that day at Burnden, he was amazed that someone had actually heard of it.