An LFC letter from New York

The minds of the club's players, staff and fans, however, were not on the impending match, but somewhere 3,300 miles away as they - like the rest of the world - sat transfixed by TV pictures of the events unfolding first in New York, then the Pentagon and then a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Cesar Silva, a Liverpool fan from New York, was not one of those watching on TV. He was at work on the 72nd floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Centre when it was struck by the incredible force of hijacked American Airlines Flight 11.

A total number of 2,606 people died in the towers and on the ground in New York as a result of what happened on September 11, 2001.

Cesar was not one of them.

He survived the attack and in 2007, travelled to Athens to cheer on Liverpool in the Champions League final. This December, like every December, he'll travel to Anfield to watch his beloved team play.

Someone once said there are eight million stories in the Naked City. This is just one of them...

"September 11, 2001 started like any other day for me. I began with my usual gym work-out and then I had a construction meeting at 7.30am. Once the meeting had finished, I went up to my office on the 72nd floor of Tower One. I was 34 at the time.

"When the tower was hit, it swung back and forth a number of times. I could see debris out of the window and I thought I was dead. I thought there was no way I would be able to make it down 72 flights of stairs before the tower tipped over.

"People always ask me if we knew what had happened when we were inside the tower but we didn't. Nobody that was in the tower thought a plane had hit it. We thought a helicopter had hit it. 

"Initially I thought I was going to die, but once the tower stopped moving and the danger of it falling over had passed, I ran for the stairs. As I was also in the tower during the 1993 bombing, I thought the best course was the stairs. 

"The descent took about 40 minutes. The first plane struck the tower about 8.40am and I think I was out of the building around 9.20am. I have a degree in Civil Engineering and most of my colleagues at the time were engineers. None of us thought the building was going to come down. A few people were shaken up, but the majority of us were still quite calm as nobody knew what type of plane had hit us.

"As we walked down the stairs we were started receiving reports of a second plane hitting tower two and at that point we realised it must be a terrorist attack. 

"We were still in the building when the second plane hit. We did not realise the extent of the damage until we looked upon the plaza and viewed the damage. When I walked outside I looked up and saw the hole in tower two. 

"I was fortunate that my younger brother had an office a few streets away so I was able to contact my family and let everyone know I was out. My brother and I were getting ready to leave his office when we witnessed the second tower go down. We waited and then witnessed the first tower go down. After a period, we walked to my family's house. 

"I lost a number of good friends that day and my company lost a lot of people. It was difficult to cope. 

"Everyone in New York was just stunned and sad. It was a loss of life in such a magnitude that people just did not know how to react. People were angry. We could just not understand the attack. 

"That was 12 years ago today and it does get easier as the years pass. They say time heals all wounds and it does but when I visit the Memorial Plaza, I just feel a sense of loss of innocence. The whole world was affected by what happened that day. 

"I'm good friends with the upper management of the 9/11 Memorial Foundation and they know I am a big Liverpool supporter so when Liverpool said they wanted to educate their U18 squad about what happened, they called me and asked if I was interested in participating in the tour for the boys. 

"Most of them hadn't even started school when it happened but I was very impressed with their behaviour. They seemed to understand the significance of the site and I was very moved by their gesture of laying flowers and the signed shirt. The shirt will be displayed in the museum.

"I still work for the company that owned and operated the World Trade Centre site and as such I lost a lot of friends on that day. I think of them and all the innocent lives that were lost that day. They'll never walk alone."

Cesar Silva, September 11, 2013 - New York City.