Tributes to longest-serving Minehead Football Club supporter (From This is The West Country)

Tributes to longest-serving Minehead Football Club supporter

11:30am Thursday 21st March 2013 in News By Hannah Green

A MINUTE’S silence has been held at Minehead Football Club in honour of its longest-standing supporter after he lost his battle with illness.

Tony Corrick, 78, went to almost every game atThe Recreation Ground since the Second World War until just before Christmas, despite being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness five years ago.

He had been club reporter for the last 20 years and only last year admitted to being the anonymous Gerry Hatrick, adjudicator of the Home Player of the Season Award – he did not pull any punches in either role.

He was awarded the ‘True Blue’ lifetime award at last season’s presentation evening for his unstinting support.

Chairman Brian Walder said: “He was an immense statistician, who told numerous stories of players and incidents from even his earliest days of watching the club as a youngster just after the Second World War, and his memory was just as sharp when we said our goodbyes two weeks ago.

“Although some say I can talk the hind legs off a donkey when I get going about the club’s history, Tony was in a different class – I could rarely get a word in – even if we were travelling on a long away trip.

“His knowledge of Minehead Association Football Club, local football and local cricket in his younger days when Minehead Cricket Club played at The Rec, can never be replaced.

“He supported The Blues for over 60 years and this, in my opinion, makes him Minehead’s greatest ever supporter. I cannot imagine that anyone else ever has, or ever could have, watched as many Minehead matches as he did. In his terms, he started watching Minehead before Pontius was a pilot.

“Incredibly sadly, Tony has not seen a ball kicked in our recent run, but he died very proud of how the team have pulled themselves up the league, although wishing he could hang on until the end of the season.

“Several years ago a youngster asked if he had supported Minehead all his life, to which he replied, ‘not yet son, not yet’. Sadly for us, he has now.”

Tony leaves behind his wife, Christine, and sons Wayne and Lee.

His funeral is at 12noon today (Thursday, March 21) at Taunton Deane Crematorium in Wellington New Road, with food and drinks atthe football club in Minehead at around 2.30pm.