Published: 17:00, 10 October 2025 | Updated: 17:04, 10 October 2025

They had been making plans for the future; building a new home for themselves in Donegal, on Northern Ireland’s west coast. Their conversations had been full of their interior design plans on the evening before Marion Townsend waved her husband, Mark, off to Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough ground to watch his beloved West Bromwich Albion play.

Mark had worked hard for that house by the sea, which he’d been out to see two weeks earlier. He’d worked his way up from a job in the paint shop of Longbridge Rover plant, aged 16, to a foreman's position, troubleshooting in the manufacture of BMW V8 and V12 engines for Jaguar Land Rover and Rolls-Royce at Birmingham's Hams Hall factory. He was 57. It was finally time to think of retirement.

It was a familiar lunchtime kick-off routine for him, on Saturday September 28 last year. Pick-up by the WBA supporters’ coach at 7.30am, breakfast at Wetherspoons in Barnsley, messages exchanged on the WhatsApp with his brother, Steve, and a few others in the group they...