It was sad to hear about the deaths of two people this week. Firstly the quite beautiful Natasha Richardson who died at just 45 after a blow to her head in a seemingly innocuous fall on the ski slopes. She was having a short holiday with her two sons. Her death is tragic enough but C pointed out that her family also have to live with the knowledge that her face is sharing front page billing in every newspaper in the western world with that monster Fritzl, who really doesn’t deserve to live.
Secondly came the news that Alan Suddick passed away following a long illness with cancer. He was one of my footballing heroes when I used to watch Blackpool as a kid. He played over 300 games for the club in a 10 year period after signing from Newcastle in 1966. Effectively replacing Alan Ball, who had transferred to Everton, he swiftly became the fans’ favourite – the ‘King of Bloomfield Rd’. Though not a prolific scorer (he scored 76 goals for the Seasiders) he was one of the first outside of Brazil to perfect the ‘banana’ shot free kick, bending the ball over or around a wall of defenders. Ah nobody could swerve it like Suddick but they do say some bloke called Beckham is getting pretty good at it. Then again I bet young David couldn’t match Alan Suddick’s unofficial world record for keepie-uppy when he did it for 3 complete circuits of the Bloomfield Rd pitch without letting the ball hit the ground. Magic. Here are a couple of photos of him attempting the famous Copacablackpool bender. That’s me on the Kop in the second shot.
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Pasta Paulie 