When I started this blog, it was intended to be an amusing and thought-provoking study into the emotional overtones of owning one pair of shoes, which see you through all manner of life's big events (christenings, weddings, funerals, etc), and how they become synonymous with those events. I then realised what a crock of shit that was for an idea and settled on something far more worthy instead.
Kev Buckley was the manager of the Sunday league football team I played for in the nineties and early noughties, and this week I went to his funeral. He was 44.
I hadn't seen him for a couple of years, but I was informed of his incredibly untimely death whilst he was on holiday and made arrangements to be at his funeral. I'm glad I could be there to express my condolences and pay my respects, and am happy to report that a great many others did likewise.
He was a good man was Kev. Generous, amusing (often unintentionally), fiercely loyal and a strong family and community man. He leaves behind a wife and three children in their late teens and early twenties, and will be keenly missed by all around him.
His was a life you could measure by the amount of people there to pay their respects. More than 200 people crammed themselves into his local church, each one touched by him in some way. Away from football I barely knew him, but I was surprised at the impact he'd had upon me when I found out he'd died. I've known friend-of-a-friend types die before and I haven't made an effort to attend their funerals, but this was an event I wanted to be there for.
Sadly, with the service being on a Friday, a lot of people had to work in the afternoon so we didn't get a chance to fully celebrate his life. However, in the short time we were together, a few things were said about him, all of them good. It is a fitting tribute to him that I find it much harder to think of him not being at that kind of event than that he isn't around any more; at any other time he would have been in the centre of that get-together, having organised it at his own inconvenience.
If there's one thing I will always remember about him, it's his sense of humour, summed up when he said this to me shortly before coming on as a substitute (again):
"Go out there and use your pace"
If that's not a man capable of telling jokes, I don't know what is.
Rest in peace, Kev.
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