Top man. RIP Roger Roger Phillips obituary David Harrison Thu 2 Jan 2020 15.13 GMT please log in to view this image Roger Phillips and his twin brother, Brian, helped transform the amateur football club Corinthian-Casuals My colleague and friend Roger Phillips, who has died aged 73 of heart disease, was a stalwart of the amateur football club Corinthian-Casuals for 30 years. Roger embodied the spirit of the club. Entirely unpaid, he and his twin brother, Brian, played a major part behind the scenes in transforming Corinthian-Casuals from a side with no ground, struggling in the lower levels of amateur football, to a club playing in the top division of the semi-professional Ryman League with a pitch and stadium to be proud of. The romance began when Corinthian-Casuals, previously with no home, took over the lease of Tolworth FC just outside Kingston upon Thames, south-west London, in 1988. “It was Casuals’ strict amateur status that appealed to us,” said Brian, “and we knew all about their name.” Tolworth was primarily a running track with a pitch in the middle and railings round the outside. The Phillips brothers helped reshape it. They did everything from laying down terracing to helping put up the stands and working with others to improve the pitch. Today the main stand has seating for 250 and there are covered standing areas behind each goal. The brothers took on every possible task on match days, arriving as early as 8am to put up goal nets, mark the pitch, man the turnstiles, sell programmes, coordinate the gate money, pay match officials, and then clean the dressing rooms when everyone else had gone home. On Sunday mornings they would be back at Tolworth, helping to mark out pitches on the outside area of King George’s Field as the club developed its youth teams; then in the clubhouse kitchen preparing and serving food for parents and players. On Wednesdays they opened up for the club’s academy team. Over the years they also ran the club shop. To achieve all this Roger and Brian cycled from their home in Sunbury-on-Thames, a 15-mile round trip, sometimes up to five times in a week. It was Roger’s proud boast that they had never once taken public transport to the ground. Roger and Brian were born in the town of Tregaron, in Cardiganshire, Wales; the family moved to Sunbury in Middlesex when the twins were three. They lived with their parents, William, a company director, and May (nee Curtis), until they bought the house next door in 1975. They did O- and A-levels at Sunbury grammar school, then Roger went to Kingston University to study economics and Brian to Imperial College London to do maths. On graduating both joined the Inland Revenue and rose to the level of inspector. At the age of 36, Brian retired, and Roger four years later, “because we’d had enough”. The twins lived together at home until Roger’s death. Neither of them married. Reading was one of their main interests; in later years they had no television. Brian said: “You won’t find anyone who’s read as much as Roger.” Roger was also a Mozart fan and made regular visits to the opera at Covent Garden. Roger and Brian were longtime members of the Corinthian-Casuals’ committee and also vice-presidents. Their experience and wise counsel, and sense of humour, were a feature of the club’s committee meetings. In March 2018 the brothers were presented with an award by the Non-League Paper at a special evening at Chelsea FC. The nomination from Corinthian-Casuals praised them as “unsung heroes … the absolute lifeblood of our great and historic club”. Roger is survived by Brian and by three cousins.
Edd Byrnes 87. Older ones will remember, when TV was new and in drab Britain shows set in California seemed impossibly glamorous, watching 77 Sunset Strip and wishing a lifestyle like Kookie. He was responsible for the phenomenon of young men walking along and suddenly stopping, whipping out a comb and rearranging their carefully coiffured quiff. please log in to view this image
Guys like him are the lifeblood of football how we know it, not the dressed-up version we now see in the EPL. RIP Roger, you're a star.
roger scruton, 75. guaranteed to have the grauniad readers twisting their underwear. "He told the Guardian that he became a Conservative when visiting Paris during the 1968 student protests, which he saw as an "unruly mob of self-indulgent middle-class hooligans" professing "ludicrous Marxist gobbledegook"." plus ca change...
Inventing small, fried toasted pieces of bread to go into a liquid starter hardly makes him an intellectual giant.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51128915 RIP Scotland manager Bobby Brown Great story about him: he played in goal for Queen's Park and always made a point of asking the ball boy nearest to him his name so he could thank the young lad. 'Thankyou Ronnie' Brown would say. 'Thankyou Mr Brown for thanking me' would come the reply to a surprised but impressed Brown. When Brown signed for Rangers, the ball boy Ronnie took his place. This was Ronnie Simpson, who kept goald for Newcastle and Celtic. . Brown surprised everyone by selecting Simpson in goal for Scotland at Wembley in 1967 to make his debut at 36 years 196 days, the oldest player to make his debut for Scotland. Famous win for the Scots in only Brown's 3rd game.
Ronan Musselwhite, 23, a junior doctor and son of an ex-footballer died suddenly The junior doctor son of a professional footballer has died suddenly aged 23 following a battle with depression. Son of Paul - very sad
Only had a half-hour chat with Muzzy but he justifies the 'top bloke' tag that many people speak of. Lots of people - Jon Whitney, Daws, Justin and a few others - really went out of their way to comment on what a great bloke he is when I was writing my book. This is all just horrible. No parent should bury a son or daughter. Utterly tragic.