T F.

Just heard the news.

A number of my mates and classmates played for Birmingham Boys. If I remember correctly there was Micky Patrick, Paul Shipman, Noel Armstrong, Chris Ainge, Micky Pebble, Clive Whitehead who went to the Albion and my best pal Gareth Matthews. It was a heck of a team and ran just about every team they played ragged.

They were drawn in a cup game against Plymouth to be played at the MEB Ground in 5th Avenue, behind The Avenue Pub in Green Lane, Bordesley Green. A load of us went down as it was only 10 minutes walk from home and the Rec where we all played 30 a side every night. We were all predicting a cricket score, except for they had this skinny kid with a quiff. His team mates were only there to feed the ball to him and he was unstoppable. Plymouth won 5-0 and it could have been at least double that.

A year later a few of us went to Cardiff to see the Blues. Cardiff had John Toshack in the side and stuffed us 2-0. Towards the end of the game Blues sent the same skinny kid with a quiff on. Gareth was amazed it was the same kid who had run him ragged for 80 minutes. Gareth was a heck of a player and but never got within 5 yards of him.

Sensational player for us.

Gutted.

I haven't felt so sad about the demise of someone I didn't know personally since Basil D'Oliveira died - Trev and Bas were my childhood sporting heroes. Such sadness, and yet so many happy memories.

Trev was not just a player and a manager, but he was a fan. Interviewed after the 2011 Carling Cup Final, he was asked how he felt when Obafeni Martins's goal went in. He said that his first instinct was to look at the referee, because he was sure that the goal would be disallowed for some ridiculous reason. And that was mine too. Luckily our mutual Blues fan pessimism proved to be wide of the mark on this occasion. RIP Trev - and thanks for all the memories.