This is it, the new 3pm on Saturday: the time you have traditionally associated with noise and excitement, with dreams and expectation, is now a time for silence and uncertainty.
We are standing on the corner of Skerries Road, adjacent to the towering presence of Anfield. The stillness all around us will be the same outside football stadiums, however big or small, up and down the country. There is something unnatural about this scene, not to mention unnerving.
Wonderful chaos should have been eddying around these streets. March 21 had been circled in the calendar for Liverpool supporters as the date, potentially, for their coronation as the country’s finest team and the visit of Crystal Palace had conjured glorious possibilities.