My story is positive. So much good has come out of it

THE hush was ghastly. Seldom, if ever, has a congregation of 35,000 people made so little noise away from a dedicated minute's silence.

As the penny dropped that Fabrice Muamba's collapse off the ball was a life-or-death emergency, the suspense tore at the soul.

Bolton Wanderers' travelling fans momentarily broke the pall of silence by chanting Muamba's name.

For those of us who had been at White Hart Lane 21 years earlier, when super-middleweight boxer Michael Watson was evacuated on a stretcher with his life in the balance, the same sense of dread fell.

Bolton were relegated at the end of the season, and their tailspin down three flights of stairs was a trauma in itself, but Muamba's miraculous recovery was their best result this century. Or probably ever.

Despite his heart stopping for 78 minutes, Muamba's life was saved by a coalition of doctors, paramedics and Tottenham fan Dr Andrew Deaner, a consultant at the London Chest Hospital, who was at the game with his brothers. When Deaner rushed down from his seat to help, two jobsworths initially thwarted his efforts to reach the stricken midfielder, but a senior steward stood aside when he realised he was obstructing an eminent cardiologist.