Fate?

[horseshoes]

15th April 1989 was my son's 12th birthday. He asked and asked if his Dad would take him to the football in Sheffield as a birthday treat; my sister was living just outside Sheffield, in Thurgoland at the time so they could have stayed there quite easily. I can't remember the exact reason why we said no - probably money, but we watched it the the telly instead. Fate was smiling on us that day as the horror of Hillsborough unfolded before us. It makes me cold every time I'm reminded of it, and of what could easily have been. Those poor families. I truly hope that SOMEBODY will, at last, be held to account.

[Kacee]

Ooh horseshoes I've got goosebumps reading that. Strange how things work out for us at times. It was my brother's 21st birthday that day, and I remember watching it on tv as it happened, thinking there but for the grace.. As you say, fate was smiling on you and your family that day.

[excelsior-1]

good afternoon horseshoes.

in a similar vain ...
... in the 80's i was a cinema manager in the west end in london - one morning, as i was on the tube heading to work - it passed through kings cross station --- five minutes before the disasterous fire.

needless to say - my parents were out of their minds with worry, until i phoned them from my office to say i was ok.

[Hopkirk]

Excelsior, I travelled on the underground that night (it was an evening not morning), and remember an announcement that it wouldn't be stopping at Kings Cross due to an 'incident'.

I felt particularly cold when I heard that the decision to allow trains to keep running contributed to the fire, with a bellows effect from below.

[excelsior-1]

yes hopkirk -- you are right..
i was on my way home from work
(sorry - i got it the wrong way round .. it was a long time ago)

[Duncer]

That does bring chills.

I remember working night shift long ago in Belfast and was about to leave at 08:00 and go for a drink in one of the "early opening" pubs on the Shankill Road. I had already ordered a taxi to pick me up at the hospital when the phone rang with one of the secretaries telling me she had organised the day off. Her offer was much better than the prospect of a few pints, so I headed in a diametrically opposed direction and made for West Belfast instead. After a "nice" morning I returned home to go to bed and, when I switched on the news, the pub I had planned to go to had been raked by republican gunmen, killing some of those drinking there. I can't remember the exact details, but it certainly made me think.

[horseshoes]

What's the saying?....... when your numbers on the ticket.... or not as in these cases.

[madmaggot]

However, knowing what went on at football matches at this time, many people made the decision not to allow young children to go. Remember how bad it was, football was no longer a family day out to the match it had become a battleground both before and after the game and also in the ground.

[BAKERS DOZEN]

My Husbands birthday is in middle of June and is always near to Fathers' Day.One year his birthday was on the day before Fathers' Day and I phoned my daughter to say I was going into Manchester to get him a birthday present and she asked me to get him a book for his birthday and a jumper for Fathers' Day. Off I went but as I got nearer to Manchester I felt strange so went to a shopping centre nearer home and did my shoppping there. That was the day the big bomb destroyed the centre of Manchester. I would have been there when it went off. I did not know anything about it and arrived home to find my husband frantic with worry. I don't know to this day why I changed my mind but I was mindful of the Warrington bomb going off the day before Mothers' Day and it must have been somewhere way back in my mind.

[horseshoes]

There you go! Your number wasn't on the ticket that day:-)