4shares'We couldn't play football that day!': Liverpool and Newcastle were due to play at Anfield

Newcastle players John Beresford and Rob Lee were in a hotel on August 31, 1997

They switched on the TV news to learn that Diana had been killed in a car crash

The tragedy happened at 5am and the Magpies were due to kick off at 4pm

Players were keen for the match to go-ahead, but it was called off at lunchtime  

The clubs face each other on Wednesday on the anniversary of Diana’s death 

Newcastle team-mates John Beresford and Rob Lee were in a Liverpool hotel room on the morning of Sunday August 31, 1997, when they switched on the television. Diana, Princess of Wales, had been killed in a car crash in Paris.

The Magpies were due to kick off at Anfield at 4pm, the only Premier League game scheduled for that day as part of Sky Sports’ Super Sunday coverage. Given the previous two meetings on Merseyside had finished 4-3 to the hosts, it was a highly anticipated fixture.

There was no social media and I’m not sure we all had mobile phones,’ Beresford tells Sportsmail, 25 years on. ‘The TV was usually your first contact with the outside world in the morning. I remember putting it on and that was when we found out Diana had died. I'll never forget it. Myself and Rob were like, “What? Really? How can this happen?

We were all staying on the same floor and the other lads started coming out of their rooms. We were talking about conspiracy theories. It didn’t add up. I remember thinking, “How fast were they going?”. You just assume that the Princess of Wales is taken everywhere safely. We were in shock.’

By a quirk of fate, the clubs face each other on Wednesday on the anniversary of Diana’s death. But, in 1997, the Premier League took the decision to postpone the game at around lunchtime, not that all of the players wanted it to be. Newcastle were on a high after qualifying for the Champions League in Zagreb a few days earlier.
Liverpool meet Newcastle at Anfield on Wednesday - 25 years on from when the fixture was called off after Princess Diana’s death.
John Beresford was in a Liverpool hotel room on August 31, 1997 when he found out Diana, Princess of Wales, had been killed
Rob Lee was in a Liverpool hotel room on August 31, 1997 when he found out Diana, Princess of Wales, had been killed.

Looking back now, the magnitude of what had happened and the sadness around it, you understand why it was called off,’ says Beresford. ‘But, if I’m being honest, one of my initial thoughts was, “I hope the game is still on”.

'It’s game day, you’re looking forward to it. We thought it would go ahead at first, but then we were told our pre-match schedule wasn’t happening and we were getting the coach back to Newcastle.

'You might think that everyone was in agreement about the postponement, but a lot of lads were thinking, “Why? This has happened in France. We want to play”.

‘I was mentally prepared for the game. I was the type who would be stretching in the hotel room first thing in the morning. It’s strange, but even going home you want to know when it’s going to be rearranged. I’m a royalist, I was upset and shocked by what had happened, but that’s just the mentality of a professional athlete. You’re probably caught up in that a bit.’
The Newcastle players were in a state of shock that Diana had been killed in a car crash in Paris.

It was not until a Tuesday night in January that the rescheduled game went ahead, Michael Owen scoring the only goal for Liverpool. He, like Beresford, had wanted to play the original fixture.

‘I remember the Sunday afternoon, walking around Chester shopping with my wife and thinking, “I wish we were playing”,’ Owen tells Sportsmail. ‘I always want to play football but, at the same time, I understood that we couldn’t, given the sad circumstances of that day.’

Richard Keys was preparing to host Sky’s coverage of the game when he received the news of Diana’s death at the Lord Daresbury Hotel in Warrington.

‘I was leaving the hotel early in the morning to head to Anfield when I found out,’ he says. ‘Geoff Shreeves then called me to ask if I’d heard. My first thought was that the suit I had planned to wear was not suitable, so I called by a family member and collected a black one.
Michael Owen scored the only goal for Liverpool in the rescheduled game in January.

We started going through rehearsals at Anfield, but we were going through the motions really. What I can’t believe, looking back, is that it took so long for the game to be called off. The news had broken before 5am. Anyone should have known we could not play football that day.

Kenny (Dalglish) was manager of Newcastle and he was ringing me through the morning to see what we knew. Finally, the news came that the game had been postponed. I understand, from a player’s perspective, why they might have wanted to play, but it was absolutely the right decision.’

Sky decided to go ahead with a 45-minute broadcast from the stadium, with Keys, Andy Gray and Martin Tyler in the studio.

‘We have done games where floodlights have gone out and games have been delayed, but nothing was as challenging as that,’ says Keys. ‘It was surreal. We opened with a shot of the empty Kop, saying, “This should have been full today”.

'I don’t know how we filled the remainder of the show. It was an extraordinary day, something you experience only once in a lifetime, thankfully.’#Allyzulu #sportsNews