April 15, 1989 - 1510Hrs - Oval Stadium, Belfast. I’m in the sparsely populated, main grandstand at the reserved side of the ground, watching the early stages of a mundane Irish League encounter. Glentoran, their championship already drifting away, were keenly chasing a UEFA Cup spot over improving mid-Ulster rivals, Portadown.
But what happened in Belfast or anywhere else in the UK or Europe, on this particular day, would pale into insignificance, against horrific events, unfolding in the Yorkshire city of Sheffield.
In the days when it wasn’t unusual to see match-going fans with radios pressed to ears following football events around the country, news soon filtered through that the big FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest had been halted due to crowd trouble.