IT WAS Saturday, March 9, 1946, when 33 football fans died on overcrowded terracing after iron barriers collapsed.

At that game at Bolton’s Burnden Park ground were three Blackburn teenagers – and one of them lost his life under a suffocating pile of bodies.

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The others were Ken Brooks, 16, and his friend, Jack Aspin, 15, both Rovers’ fans, who went along to that FA Cup match, happy that the sport was getting back to normal after the war years.

They both worked in the offices of the British Northrop Loom Company at Daisyfield.

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Ken, who now lives in America, told Bygones: “The Football League had still not started up, instead, we still had Leagues North and South that had been set up to reduce travelling during 1939 and ‘45.

“The FA had decided, though, to restart the FA Cup for that season and with Rovers out and also playing away, we decided to go and watch the sixth round match between Bolton and Stoke City and see England’s outside right, Stanley Matthews.”

He continued: “We left early that Saturday morning, walking to the Boulevard to catch a train; when we arrived at the ground, the turnstiles had not been opened and there were long lines of men patiently waiting at the Railway End.

“This was a large, open embankment with a dirt floor and iron pipe barriers scattered about; we settled in for the two-hour wait to kick off.

“After an hour or so it started to get very crowded. We were used to being in packed football crowds but it was getting a little too much.

“At 16, I was not very tall and Jack was even shorter, so we decided to move to the far side of the goal – little did we know but we had removed ourselves from the area where the tragedy would strike.

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“As the match started the crowd started to spill over the wall and on to the pitch and it became difficult to watch because of all the commotion going on in the crowd.

“Later, we learned that one of the turnstiles had been forced open and many people had climbed over the fences and broken through them.

“The pressure this created caused some of the iron pipe barriers to collapse sending hundreds into a suffocating pile.

“Jack and I watched the police and others laying people on the pitch. We never suspected that they were dead. That didn’t happen at a football match, did it?

“After about 15 minutes the referee stopped the game and the players went off. None of us knew what was going on.

“We could see the police trying to control the crowd still spilling over on to the pitch in very large numbers. Some of the casualties had now been covered up.

“After half an hour the teams came back on. By now the crowd were stood on the pitch, behind the touchlines and when they encroached on the playing area on one side, they moved the touchline in by remarking it with sawdust.

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“There was no half-time. They just changed ends and carried on to a goalless draw.”

It was estimated the crowd that day was about 85,000 and it took Ken and Jack a long time to leave the ground and then get to the station.

Back in Blackburn they had no idea they had just witnessed the worst football tragedy of the time with 33 people killed and 400 injured.

Ken added: “Our parents, however, had radios and they knew about the tragedy shortly after it happened. They must have been worried, not knowing if their teenager was one among the casualties, and they had no way of finding out. They just had to wait.

“Jack and I eventually got home, probably after 8pm, to set their minds at rest.”

The Blackburn lad who was not so lucky was Henry Ratcliffe Birtwistle, 14, of June Street, Audley.

Ken said: “Now, 69 years later, I remember little of the actual match or Stanley Matthews, but Jack and I will never forget that massive crowd and the disaster that befell so many that just wanted to see a football match.”

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TEENAGE LIFE: Ken Brooks, third right, and Jack Aspin, fourth right at Bangor Boys Club.