Heartbreaking watching Richie Mawson's wife and son on BBC breakfast a little earlier.
For those that don't know, he contracted CV the away game in Madrid, fell seriously ill a fortnight after, and sadly passed quickly after that. At 70.
It really does make you think how lucky you are personally after those two games.
I mean the first game the virus was in its infancy and there was no talk from Governments of the risks/ warnings of not travelling. But they obviously knew of the inherent danger when friends who went via Bergamo, were stopped on the way back through there and had their temperature taken, both on landing and departing, without being told why. To then be told they had to SI on returning to Britain. We flew directly in and out from Stansted and never had that but still, after spending 3 days in the Spanish capital, as City did the week after, you think 'there but for the grace of God' yanno?'
And then to have the absolutely absurd situation of the return game going ahead, or at the very least, not being played behind closed doors, when Madrid at that time had seen a massive spike in cases, was negligence in the extreme from the authorities. The manager voiced his concerns. But as he noted, he's no different to the rest of us and is no expert so we can only go with what they say. Supporters groups raised it numerous times with the club of fans fears to allow 3,000 fans from Madrid, now the epicentre of CV in Spain, into the North West. (This didn't just affect L'pool but Manchester too given routes of travel.). But ultimately, the advice from both our and the Spanish Government, and UEFA, was that it was still not that high of a risk and safe to hold the fixture. So what do you do? The club followed those guidelines and you, as a fan, as we all have through this horrible pandemic, put yourselves in the hands of those 'experts' that are advising you everything's still ok to attend and trust they know what they're telling you backed by medical science.
And the result was a massive spike in infections and lost life in the area following that scandalous decision from those in charge trusted with public safety.
I'm just relieved and thankful they finally saw sense after and stopped another 3,000 from Madrid travelling back into the North West the following week or else Manchester would have doubtless suffered as well.
God rest Mr Mawson. (And anyone else come to that lost to this horrific killer that's irrevocably changed our lives forever.).
*Edit* As has been pointed out, he caught it and fell ill after the home game.
Apologies for the inadvertent mistake between games in typing that out this AM.
