Meeting in a crowd of 50,000

When I was 18 I commuted to work in London every day (60 miles each way). During that first year at work I regularly attended football matches at Stamford Bridge to watch my team, Chelsea. In those days (1968) you could just turn up, pay on the gate, and get in. Most of the spectators stood on terracing and could choose where to stand. Even the fans of opposing teams were able to stand next to each other without restriction. For a small surcharge it was possible to buy a ticket at the turnstile that randomly allotted you a numbered seat on rows of fixed benches in front of the West Stand and these were the closest seats to the playing area. There were 1,000 numbered places on these bench seats but they weren't under cover. There were about 8 rows of these bench seats. There were 5,000 seats in the West Stand immediately behind the 1,000 bench seats. These were under cover and numbered like theatre seats Rows A-Z plus the seat number in the row. One evening, as rain was forecast, I arrived at the ground early and unusually decided to buy a ticket for one of the 5,000 covered seats rather than sitting on the bench seats, which was my normal preference. I did sometimes stand in other parts of the ground. I was lucky to get one very central in Row A. There was a wall and a drop of about 6ft between my seat and the back row bench seats. There was a big crowd at Stamford Bridge that night, about 50,000 people. At halftime, I stood up to stretch my legs, as did the person sitting immediately below me, on the back row of the 1,000 bench seats. As he turned round, I realised that person was not only one of my 30 classmates who I'd spent 6 years throughout secondary school with, but he was also captain of the school 1st XI cricket team in which I played the previous 2 summers! In a crowd of 50,000, he had been issued with one of 1,000 tickets that randomly placed him on the back row of the bench seats. Likewise, I had been randomly issued one of 5,000 tickets that placed me on the front row of the stand, immediately behind him. I never knew he was a Chelsea fan (indeed, he might have been supporting the other team!). I had never seen him outside of school before (we lived in towns 20 miles apart) and I never saw him again since that night in 1968.