article: Media playback is not supported on this device And at Aintree in 2017 we have plenty to play with: it's half a century - to the day as it happens - since Foinavon's shock success at 100-1; and 40 years have elapsed since Red Rum, the all-time greatest Grand National horse, raised the roof with his historic third win. Gilded as their places in the race's long and colourful heritage undoubtedly are, the events of 20 years ago - 5-9 April 1997 - will have their own unforgettable place. And not just in Aintree history; the dates of the weekend when IRA terrorism delayed the world's most famous horse-race by two days - recalled in BBC 5 live's 'Evacuate Aintree: 20 years on' - still resonate far further afield. Two decades on, I recall that as the sun rose over the blocks of flats in the Fazakerley district of Liverpool which borders Aintree, the 150th Grand National felt to me like, for want of a better expression, a 'standard' Grand National day. Nerves always jangle alongside excitement at Aintree, but I suspect that as four years earlier the infamous false start-drama saw the race declared void, we probably considered that we'd 'had' our major incidents for now. That said, we were entering the closing stages of a general election campaign punctuated by republican terror threats. Only two days earlier, three motorways had been closed by bomb alerts, but the feeling was that as the fixture was a big favourite with visitors from Ireland, we'd be OK. Among the police, however, there was a degree of nervousness as Sir Paul Stephenson, then Assistant Chief Constable of Merseyside, and later head of the Met, told 5 live. "We'd seen a new development using telephone calls indicating there were devices on motorways and other national infrastructure - I coined the phrase 10-pence [cost of a phone box call] terrorism - and this had become a very serious challenge," he said. "And not only did we have potential terrorist threats, but we had the threats from extreme animal rights people, so the Grand National was not just an iconic event, but a threatened event." However, the atmosphere remained relaxed as thousands on the course - including the Princess Royal and soon-to-be cabinet ministers John Prescott and Robin Cook - watched the early races. Barely an hour before the runners, headed by Go Ballistic and Suny Bay, were due to line-up for the feature at 15:45 came the first of the bomb warnings, which ultimately forced the evacuation from the stands and into the surrounding enclosures of 60,000-plus people. I think most of us thought we'd be back in place quickly, but then came the words, live on BBC TV, from Charles Barnett, the MD, which still ring in my ears today. "There have been two coded bomb warnings received by the police," he said, "and there's no possibility of taking any chances. "So, I just ask everybody here, including you the BBC, to leave the course and get out onto the public highway, immediately." Including you
summary: Programme producers love a 'round-figure' anniversary.