For Mick Reed

On January 3rd a great man died. He was 59 years old. He was the father of a couple of old friends and he touched the lives of many of the people they hung around with, among others. When I was in my early 20s, Mick showed me that when you get older you don't have to become boring and out of touch. He was one of the coolest 'grown ups' I knew and in retrospect he probably had more of an influence on me than I realised.

Today is his funeral, which I wish I could have got to but unfortunately I haven't been able, so I wanted to mark Mick's passing in some way. So here's my little tribute, one of many memories of a man who certainly gave more to the world than he took.

Rest well, Mick. You'll be sorely missed by a lot of people.

I remember once when I was about twenty one I was walking across West Park with my friend Jamie on a Sunday in summer after playing football all afternoon, heading in the direction of a well earned smoke and bottle of cider. Suddenly a man came bombing across the park shouting for our attention.

Mick Reed in cricket whites.

"Lads, can you help me out, not enough people have turned up from The Tiger and we're a couple of players short for this game, we could really do with you to help make up the numbers. Come on lads or we’ll have to forfeit the game."

We reluctantly agreed, obviously it wouldn’t have been possible to say no, and Mick was over the moon. Shanghaied. We approached the green with Mick beaming, two scruffy young lads who would rather have been chugging cider and smoking fatties than playing cricket. Mick put us in our position to field and away we went.

The opposition was what looked like a bunch of self-important, miserable old men who took things too seriously. All the time. They looked at Jamie and I as though we’d just pissed on their cornflakes. Within fifteen minutes they looked like we’d turned around and shat on them as well when I made my first catch of the day, taking out a man who looked a bit like Michael Howard but with less charisma.

Mick smiled, his selection justified.

Before long I made a second catch to Mick’s continued delight and later went on to throw the quickest and most accurate ball of my life. I was fielding, the ball was played and it came to me. The batsmen had decided to run for a single and I noticed that the one running left to right was still a long way from safety. I thought sod it and decided to chance my arm at hitting the stumps from where I was – about thirty five feet away – to run him out. I went for it and it was the truest ball I have ever thrown, taking out the stumps to the dismay of the batsman but elation of the Tiger Inn team. Mick’s face was a picture of pure pleasure.

To top it all toward the end of the match, Jamie was put in to bowl and after a shaky couple of deliveries he eventually took a wicket in his second over, spectacularly taking out the stumps. The Tiger won the match.

Later that evening I was around Big Steve’s house and remembered that I’d left my sunglasses in Mick's wife, Cathy’s bag while I’d been playing cricket. Steve and I were getting settled in for an ‘all-nighter’ so to speak and I knew I’d need them in the morning so I popped round the corner to Mick and Cathy’s to pick them up. Mick was in the kitchen and he asked me if I knew who our opposition had been that afternoon. I said I had no idea and Mick smiled and told me.
The Conservative Club.

No wonder he looked so happy.