King for a Day

Now then dear readers, every once in a while I divert away from my adventures on the bike to bring you some non-cycling related scribbles.

Andy King: Everton v Liverpool, Goodison Park.
October 1978

It's Tuesday September 12th 1978 in Ballybofey Co. Donegal, and local football team Finn Harps are at home to the might of English First Division side Everton in the first round of the UEFA Cup.

Everton had actually been drawn at home in the first leg but generously agreed to switch the ties to play first in Donegal thus generating more interest in the game. (Finn Harps had once played Derby and lost big time, ruining interest in the home game)

The game was roughly 20 minutes old when Everton star player Andy King, who five minutes earlier had opened the scoring, chased a long pass.
However the pace of the ball was great and it ran behind the goal nestling next to a young 12 year old lad sitting on the grass near one of the goal posts.

King's pace was such that he just managed to get stopped in front of the lad who by this time was holding the ball and looking up into the eyes of this superstar before him.

As he retrieved the ball from the starstruck youngster, the Everton midfielder looked down, bounced the ball gently on the lad's forehead, smiled and winked at him and then returned to the action leaving behind a memory which has lasted to this day.

That lad was me.........and that brief encounter with this football star is something I have always remembered and still talk about fondly when the situation presents itself.

Back then I was, and still am, a devoted Arsenal supporter, but the opportunity to see a top side like Everton in the flesh, so to speak, was something even a young 'Gooner' could not pass up.

Andy King scored twice that day in Everton's 5-0 win against Finn Harps, and Andy King was a brilliant footballer.
One month after our 'meeting' in that small football ground in Ballybofey, he struck a 20-yard winner against Liverpool in the Merseyside derby at Goodison Park, and although our lives were like the proverbial chalk and cheese we did come to have one thing in common. 

As the year's passed, within three years of each other, we would be hit with heart trouble and this has ultimately taken his life at the young age of 58.

I am genuinely saddened to hear of Andy's passing and that encounter with him on an autumnal day in Co. Donegal almost 37 years ago is something I have, and never will, forget.

RIP Andy and thank-you.