This story will conclude with a ringing bell and thunderous applause but it must start with a blaring siren and flashing blue lights.
It was Monday, November 11 when the ballet class Jessica Matteo was teaching was interrupted by a phone call. Her husband Dominic was in Calderdale Hospital, near Huddersfield. His condition was critical.
‘It’s the call everyone dreads,’ Jessica tells Sportsmail from their home near Halifax. ‘It’s the one where your world falls apart.’
Dominic — a cultured defender who played for, among others, Liverpool, Leeds and Scotland during a 15-year top-flight career — had been due to go to Singapore with his old Anfield team-mates for an exhibition game and had seen some of them the previous day.