Sweatshopboy Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 Hello Chairboy, sorry to hear about your health problems, please accept my best wishes. I have picked your brains on several occasions in the past and hope to do so for a long time in the future. May I close in an attempt at a Chairboyism, in your link of John Ritchie's obituary it states John was known as Reggie in the Stoke dressing room, but as I recall John at his time at Hillsborough, was nicknamed Cheyenne by Wednesdayites, after Cheyenne Bodie the TV cowboy (Clint Walker) who John Resembled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eater Sundae Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 I thank everyone for their good wishes and compliments regarding posts. After being in a wheelchair for 16 years - fairly content - I suffered a major blow in March. This was further paralysis caused by metastatic melanoma (skin cancer) which resulted in two rods being inserted to stableise my spine after the mass had smashed the 10th vertebrae. There is no cure for the melanoma (alas like Tommy Burns and a former tennis pal, Peter Wordsworth who suffered a similar spread.) I recall his funeral well as it was on the morning of the 2007 floods! My original mole was detected in 2004 and I was hoping I'd be lucky. Not so. I have spent my life in the communications industries and am enjoying a sojourn before the REST! Elgar and Mahler already lined up but I have been given no timescales. At the moment, still eating heartily and feel well, even though I may look uncomfortable in this current wheelchair. Thank you everyone for your concerns. Chairboy I can recommend the recently published book, "MOTTY", by John Motson. I prefer his writing to his commentaries. Just caught up with this thread and read your sad news. Like the others, I don't know you other than by your informative posts on here, but I wish you as little pain as possible and as much enjoyment of life as you can muster in your presnt state. Best wishes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanG Posted October 11, 2009 Share Posted October 11, 2009 Encore it is and it may be the correct word as I am sure I have related this factual story before but it must be one of my treasured football memories and does involve John Ritchie in a tenuous link, so please permit this indulgence. 8th April 1964 was the day Stoke were to play a Division 1 fixture at Hillsborough. We were given a half-day holiday in lieu of school Speech Day and so set forth for the number 37 bus to Bakewell. I was an avid autograph hunter at that time. We knew where clubs stayed, the times of trains, the hotels etc. and Stoke would be taking their afternoon tea stop at the Rutland, in the heart of this Derbyshire town. One of my fellow scholars Tony Hinchcliffe could testify my account. We exchanged the texts of Mee, Hill and Whitmarsh and crammed our obligatory satchels with annuals; Charles Buchan, Topical Times and scrapbooks bulging with cuttings from Football Monthly editions. There were two others in our party, one might have been someone dodging his school register – Alan Scholey springs to mind? The Stoke bus arrived, players signed some photographs and entered the hotel. We often needed more action shots signing as we played a game of counting up within the annuals, pages were bookmarked with woollen bands for quick attention. We didn’t enter the hotel, the layout, unlike the Grand in Sheffield was unfamiliar to us. The team eventually exited for the second part of their trip to S6. By this time, there was no way that public transport would get us to the game in time. There was one chance. We expressed our desperation to the Stoke team manager, Tony Waddington, and with a flick of his head, he directed us to the back seat of the coach. Wow, would be the current term. We sat like church mice not wanting to chance our arm by disturbing the card schools taking place. Stoke had several internationals at that time and we were on board with them. John Ritchie and Peter Dobing puffed pipes as they laid out their winning hands! Tony Allen was also in our company. The ego intensified as we approached Hillsborough especially when the coach turned through the Penistone Road gates. Gazing eyes looked at us as if we may be future stars. When the coach pulled up outside the players’ entrance the naughty thought was to alight and walk in with them but we decided not to do it ‘too brown’. Before the revamp of the main entrance, there were two entrances. There was one that my late uncle commissioned with Lord’s-like rigour in front of the locomotive nameplate bearing the name of Sheffield Wednesday. The actual players’ entrance would not be wide enough to accommodate my present day wheelchair. This was the door my father had used as a player in the 40s, one I had accessed after being recruited by Arthur Glaves in 1961 to act as a ball boy when the old North Stand had been demolished for greater things. It was a most unglamorous entrance as players crammed the narrow passage to give out their complimentary tickets. I recall that half-a-crown fee for match-day duties but decided to steer away that night and use my shareholder’s ticket instead. Wednesday won that game 2-0 with goals from Dobson and Fantham. Coincidentally, I have only been to Stoke once in my lifetime and Stoke beat the Owls 2-0 on that occasion in 1955, when the names of Mountford, Bowyer and Matthews ruled at The Victoria Ground. When Tony Waddington died in 1994, I must have been one of many wanting to pay tribute to the Mancunian. This story was related on Radio Stoke and I had a piece published in the ‘Pink’ of the Stoke Sentinel. I hadn’t forgotten Waddington’s generosity of 1964, then and haven’t some fifteen years on. Would it happen today? About as likely as a small town club winning the Premiership as Ipswich and Burnley had done, then Division 1 title, only a couple of years earlier. The coaches nowadays – tinted windows preclude one from viewing who is on board. There are no sliding windows through which to pass your annual with pen in page for signing. Tony Waddington offered us a window of opportunity and our quartet will remain eternally grateful! lovely story mate sorry to hear about your illness, sending my best wishes Up the owls and all the best buddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Royston Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 Chairboy Warm wishes from afar. I have read your notes, letters and responses with great interest over the past while, and thoroughly enjoyed the information you have enlightened many of us with. Please look after yourself - you have many many supporters out there that are rooting for you!! Stay well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHAIRBOY Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 Chairboy Warm wishes from afar. I have read your notes, letters and responses with great interest over the past while, and thoroughly enjoyed the information you have enlightened many of us with. Please look after yourself - you have many many supporters out there that are rooting for you!! Stay well That's so kind. A lump in my throat! Thankfully, one of emotion. Your words are very encouraging Royston and everyone else. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DUFFEMS Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 Lovely to see your name back on here Chairboy. I always enjoy reading your very informative posts, let's hope that you'll continue to join us on here. Regards, Duffems Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffusa Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 Lovely to see your name back on here Chairboy. I always enjoy reading your very informative posts, let's hope that you'll continue to join us on here. Regards, Duffems I've threatened him Duffems, in a nice sort of way and he seems to have taken it on board. Regards,Geoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DUFFEMS Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 I've threatened him Duffems, in a nice sort of way and he seems to have taken it on board. Regards,Geoff That's good Geoff, well done. Regards, Duffems Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Passitthen Posted November 24, 2009 Share Posted November 24, 2009 Chairboy lives over the road from my 94 yearold dad and we spent a little while chatting a few weeks back= light stuff and heavy stuff. Very stoic about the future, bright and alert; fond memories of our Bolehills adventures, sat, sun and all holidays godsend. Whilst cooking at dads t'other day also saw him out talking to the Mrs. Having been all over the world including livin in Beirut, karachi, lahore, damascus, sao paolo feel more at home in the Princess Royal, Slinn street or the Ship Inn Sewerby, nr Brid. Take care buddies Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redfyre Posted November 25, 2009 Share Posted November 25, 2009 Just adding my best wishes to all the other, Chairboy. Sorry to be so long being back in touch, but there have been distractions at this end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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