Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

[Satchmo Distel]

My reason for starting this thread is that I have two examples from this year: the recent death of Paul Futcher hit me quite hard because I have vivid memories of him at Oakwell in the 80s. I saw Trifon Ivanov at Elland Road in 1996.

[Jobi1]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

Two stick out in my memory. Striker Steve Cooper, who died in 2004 following an accident, played for York for a season in 1993/94, which is still the club's highest league finish in my lifetime (got the now League 1 play-offs). He didn't score too many goals unfortunately, but his athleticism made him highly entertaining to watch and still pretty handy to have in the team.

Mark Ovendale kept goal admirably in our 2003/4 relegation season. Despite the season's negative outcome he rarely put a foot wrong and was also apparently a bloody nice bloke; it's a shame he didn't stay with the club longer. He sadly died of cancer in 2011.

[Gangster Octopus]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

I will always remember seeing Gerry Gow playing for Rotherham. And, famously, not seeing him...

[Jah Womble]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

Satchmo Distel wrote: My reason for starting this thread is that I have two examples from this year: the recent death of Paul Futcher hit me quite hard because I have vivid memories of him at Oakwell in the 80s. I saw Trifon Ivanov at Elland Road in 1996.

Paul Futcher featured in the very first match I attended at White Hart Lane, playing in the defence of Luton Town, then in an April 1975 relegation battle with Spurs in the old Division 1. He lined up alongside his twin brother, Ron - who managed to get himself sent off around the 75-minute mark. (Spurs won 2-1, sending Luton down alongside Chelsea and Carlisle...)

I guess one recently-deceased player I can add to this list is Johan Cruijff: I saw him play in - and illuminate - an otherwise-mundane NASL match in Washington during 1980. Naturally, Cruijff provided the winning goal.

[jameswba]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

There'll be many for sure. Mention of Stevie Cooper reminds me of him scoring a late equalier for Barnsley at the Hawthorns around 1990. It was a header following a great leap from a standing start, thus endorsing the point about his athleticism.

Mel Rees, who was in goal for Albion the day they lost to Woking, passed away not too many years later. And Ian Crawley, the first player to score goals in both the FA Vase and FA Trophy finals, for VS Rugby and Telford United respectively (I was at Wembley for the latter), died of motor neurone disease in the early 90s. He was a fine non-league striker for Kettering besides the two cup winners he scored for.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

May as well stick with the greats. I saw George Best play in the Gareth Davies testimonial in November 1979. Here he is in his Wrexham shirt.

[beak]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

Many years ago?

The only now-dead footballers I can recall watching with any regularity are Gary Speed and Pavel Srnicek.. .

[Gerontophile]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

Jimmy Johnstone. Tommy Burns. (Probably a few other ex-Celtic that I watched in the 70's.)

[G-Man]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

Köln's Heinz Flohe and Roland Gerber obviously come to mind immediately.

Kaiserslautern defender Hans-Günter Neues died recently. I remember seeing him in a 2-2 draw with Köln in 1981. That game also featured Gerber, who died last year, and for Kaiserslautern the also now dead Reiner Geye (who scored that day), Johannes Riedl and Lutz Eigendorf.

Five dead guys in one game.

[elguapo4]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

Saw the great jackie jameson play many times for bohemians, also dundalk legend barry kehoe, both left us far too young. I was also in landsdowne road for the late austin hayes only Irish cap

[Patrick Thistle]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

When I read 'A Life too Short' I realised that one of the last international games Robert Enke played was at the Millennium Stadium. I was at that match. Gave me more of a connection to him and somehow made the story even more emotional.

Saw Gary Speed several times for Wales as well.

[Arturo]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

I saw Justin Fashanu and Graham Paddon in my first season watching at Carrow Road (80-81). Paddon lived a couple of minutes walk from my house, opened our school fete and there is a photo of both of us somewhere at said event. He was only 57 when he died. Fashanu was only 37.

David Rocastle played 11 times on loan for us during 1996-97. He looked terrific for the first few matches, then faded badly and wasn't kept on. I had forgotten how soon afterwards he passed away. It was only four years later.

[longeared]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

Seen four Wednesday players who are no more - Srnicek, Phil O'Donnell, Klas Ingesson, Dalian Atkinson.

First match I ever went to featured Wayne Harrison, who passed on a few Christmases ago.

[jwdd27]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

I can't immediately recall any home players who have passed away, I'm sure there are many, but Scunthorpe players don't have the highest profile after football.
I'm sure I saw Paul Futcher in his brief spell at Halifax before his resurrection at Grimsby, although Ron was a more frequent 4th division visitor. Paul's son Ben would feature in a "Footballers who are now retired whose father you remember also watching, Christ I'm getting old" spin off thread.
Other opposition deceased include Keith Alexander who always seemed to score against us for Grimsby and Lincoln, Alan Davies (Swansea) of 1983 FA cup Final fame, and league cup visitors Robbie James (Leicester) and Gary Speed (Everton).

[Amor de Cosmos]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

Too many to mention. Two that particularly come to mind from the QPR team of the early-mid 70s are Dave Clement and Mick Leach. The former was pretty well known, as much for his tragic death as for his achievements on the pitch, the latter for being the epitome of the, largely unsung, journeyman footballer. Both were consummate 'club' men. Clement joined QPR as a schoolboy and was with the club for over fifteen years. Leach, a local boy from Hackney — frequently the team's "twelfth man" in the days of single substitutes, — signed professional forms at sixteen and stayed at Rangers in that capacity for seventeen years.

In the last couple of years Hitchin Town — my first footballing infatuation — have lost several players from their glory days in the early 60s. They include centre forward Den Randall, scorer of over eighty goals in two seasons. Half back Terry Craddock, to this day the only player I've seen break the net with a shot, and Tony Horne, a classic winger who had hair like a pocket-sized Gene Vincent. Thanks for the memories lads.

[Jah Womble]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

Arturo wrote: I saw Justin Fashanu and Graham Paddon in my first season watching at Carrow Road (80-81). Paddon lived a couple of minutes walk from my house, opened our school fete and there is a photo of both of us somewhere at said event. He was only 57 when he died. Fashanu was only 37.

(That quote won't now show up because of yet another stupid glitch in this unnecessarily-revamped board, but anyway...)

Was anyone else watching that BBC Whites vs Blacks football doc as bemused as I was by Adrian Chiles's failure to mention Justin Fashanu even in passing?

[Kevin S]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

Just about the first match I remember going to - Les Sealey saved a Robert Fleck penalty but it was re-taken for encroachment, and converted.

[Capybara]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

Amor de Cosmos wrote: Too many to mention.

Indeed. I've been watching since 1964 so it will be dozens. Most recently from my lot it was 'Give us a goal' John O'Rourke who died earlier this year. But the first player who came to mind when I saw the thread was Adam Stansfield who I saw playing for Hereford in the Conference Play-off Final in 2006 and on several other occasions. He passed away in 2010. I didn't know about Paul Futcher either. He was almost exactly my age which is always a bit more shocking than if they are older or younger somehow.

[jameswba]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

Jah Womble wrote:
Was anyone else watching that BBC Whites vs Blacks football doc as bemused as I was by Adrian Chiles's failure to mention Justin Fashanu even in passing?

I wasn't, but I wonder if Chiles was at the game I was at - WBA vs Torquay in February 1992, in which Fashanu was playing.

I don't know the exact chronology now, but this would have been a matter of a few weeks, perhaps even days, after Fashanu revealed that he was gay. The abuse he took from sections of Albion fans at the game was horrific. It's still upsetting to recall the chants, and to think that I paid money that day to be among a bunch of people tormenting someone who was clearly going through enough torment already.

If Chiles was at the game, perhaps his failure to mention Fashanu in the documentary is his equivalent of my highlighting Cooper, Rees and Crawley upthread, but - again - not Fashanu.

[jameswba]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

In case it wasn't clear, my previous post was a response to Jah Womble re Adrian Chiles and the 'Whites vs Blacks' documentary.

Really can't get on with this new board.

[G-Man]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

What amazes me is that the entire West-Germany team that won the World Cup is still alive. Most of them are now in the 70s. The youngest, Rainer Bonhof, is 63. Even of the squad, I think it's only Heinz Flohe who has died.

[Big Boobs and FIRE!]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

I spent many a childhood afternoon in the 1980s watching Dean Horrix waltz past half the opposition with consummate ease, before falling over his own feet.

He then moved on to Millwall, however, he stayed living in Tadley. This meant an early start to get to training each morning. His journey always started off with a stop off at the shop on the main road in Burghfield where I did a paper round. He was always greeted by a heckle of abuse from the paper boys in the shop, about why a footballer was driving the most knackered mini-metro imaginable, let alone 150 miles a day to South East London.

This carried on for a couple of years, before he moved to Bristol City, where his still Mini Metro facilitated journey took him in the opposite direction, so we no longer go to see him.

A few weeks after his last visit, it was poignant to come into the shop one morning, to pick up a paper to find that Horrix was on the front page, said car having been stacked into a tree outside a Garden Centre in Kingsclere, by his wife. She survived, tragically, 'Deano' was in the passenger seat and did not.

For those of us that started watching Reading in the 1980s, the death of Robin Friday meant little or nothing to us. The death of Dean Horrix in the same year, was immeasurably more poignant.

[Third rate Leszno]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

Quite a few former Carlisle favourites have slipped away, including Russell Coughlin just this year, but the one that stands out is probably Keith Walwyn.

Wikipedia tells me he played 62 times for us between 1989-91, scoring 15 times, but the bare figures don't tell the story of how a journeyman striker coming to the end of his career and having far, far more enthusiasm than talent could win over a sceptical crowd at a time when the club was at it's lowest ebb in many a year. It's also worth noting that he was, I think, the first black player that held down a regular place at Carlisle, a uniformly white, distinctly northern British city at that time, with mindsets that were not entirely attuned to this multiculturalism thing that they had down south.

Despite all that, Big Keithey with his squeaky voice was very much loved for his wholehearted effort, and I remember being shocked to hear that he'd had to retire soon after leaving us when collapsing during a match for Kettering. Sadly, Keith passed away in 2003 aged just 47 whilst undergoing a heart operation.

[Mockswing]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

Seconded, was superb at York City, especially in partnership with John Byrne, when York won the 4th Division Title in 1984 with 101 points.

[blameless]

Players Now Deceased Whom You Watched In Person Many Years Ago

Fucking hell, I try to give this fuckup of a board one last chance and it loses my post.