Suffolk Shrimper In Dorset
Director⭐⭐🦐
Ok, it was 0-0, and we've seen better games (tho there were certainly some plus points), but sometimes match day can be more than just about the 90 minutes of football.
Alan traveled down from his native North East yesterday with his daughter Claire, and today made an emotional return to The Hall. With us in the Box were old team mates Ronnie Poutney, Paul Clark, Tony Hadley, Frankie Banks, Warren May and John Walker, plus other old friends and faces from the club many of who Alan had seen decades ago. We even had a visit from the legend that is Sid Broomfield. And afterwards we all retired to the Legends Lounge where lots of fans, many of who had helped with the campaign, popped up to say hello and relive past memories.
We presented our cheque (just over £6,200,but by the time we are finished I expect it to be around £6,500) in tribute to Alan which he will use to go towards the cost of a specially adapted car, a wonderful framed print (done by Joe Smith), and various other momentoes (yes, I gave him a copy of my book - no one escapes, and he loved the framed tribute words from us all at SZ, plus Dave Goody provided a wonderful picture tribute compilation).
The club have been great in helping with the organising of the day - Danny Macklin has been superb. And thanks to Ron too for supporting it all.
And IF ONLY Cox had scored that penalty - a goal celebration had been lined up where the players were to come over tp the North east corner where our box was, line up and give a golf swing and salute. Maybe the pressure of knowing this made him miss? I apologise.
Anyway, the campaign has been a wonderful experience, the fans have shown a real togetherness in making it all work for one of our own as many of you have helped and many many more donated.
And it may yet spawn something else which some thought will be given to over the coming weeks, namely a mechanism by which we can put ex players in touch with each other and invite back to the Hall. Watch this space .......
Cheers, Andy
Alan traveled down from his native North East yesterday with his daughter Claire, and today made an emotional return to The Hall. With us in the Box were old team mates Ronnie Poutney, Paul Clark, Tony Hadley, Frankie Banks, Warren May and John Walker, plus other old friends and faces from the club many of who Alan had seen decades ago. We even had a visit from the legend that is Sid Broomfield. And afterwards we all retired to the Legends Lounge where lots of fans, many of who had helped with the campaign, popped up to say hello and relive past memories.
We presented our cheque (just over £6,200,but by the time we are finished I expect it to be around £6,500) in tribute to Alan which he will use to go towards the cost of a specially adapted car, a wonderful framed print (done by Joe Smith), and various other momentoes (yes, I gave him a copy of my book - no one escapes, and he loved the framed tribute words from us all at SZ, plus Dave Goody provided a wonderful picture tribute compilation).
The club have been great in helping with the organising of the day - Danny Macklin has been superb. And thanks to Ron too for supporting it all.
And IF ONLY Cox had scored that penalty - a goal celebration had been lined up where the players were to come over tp the North east corner where our box was, line up and give a golf swing and salute. Maybe the pressure of knowing this made him miss? I apologise.
Anyway, the campaign has been a wonderful experience, the fans have shown a real togetherness in making it all work for one of our own as many of you have helped and many many more donated.
And it may yet spawn something else which some thought will be given to over the coming weeks, namely a mechanism by which we can put ex players in touch with each other and invite back to the Hall. Watch this space .......
Cheers, Andy
