|
Post by northstaffycher on Feb 5, 2021 12:42:30 GMT
Goooarrrn Nello!
|
|
|
Post by Malcolm Clarke on Feb 5, 2021 14:11:48 GMT
Yes, Ken Wood. Good friend of mine too. The last time I saw him was visiting him in hospital but he sadly died. That was a few years ago. Nello and I went to his funeral. Before taking over the post office he had been the manager of the shop in the Students Union which in my day was owned and run by the Union. Long after my time, some new arrangement was brought in when they built the Union extension and moved the shop into it, and Ken wasn't part of the new managers plans, to use a football analogy. But I think he was very happy running the Village shop ( which also closed some years ago). His son, Tony, still goes to games and we always have a chat when we bump into each other at aways. Selling off the Hawthorns has only happened in the last few years. The University will have gained a large capital receipt for it, being a very attractive site for housing. It no doubt made financial sense to move everything on to the main campus, given the amount of land they have, and I would guess that the Hawthorns blocks were outdated and expensive to maintain, but with it went part of the old Keele's heritage and personality. Random piece of information - throughout his time at Stoke, Tony Pulis lived in the management centre at the 'Thorns. I know someone who worked there. TP apparently used to sit for hours in the lounge on his phone, and the person I know used to try to get near enough to earwig his conversations so that he could become ITK on transfers etc But I don't think it ever really worked. I thought TP lived at Wychwood, or at least did so during our Premier League days when he "went up in the world financially". It was Tony I used to speak to (I'm not as old as you remember . He used to help his parents out on a Sunday. I'm sure his mum was alive then as well. She was lovely lady. I give myself some credit for getting Tony back into being a regular at away games as I talked him into coming to a few with me at the end of my student days to share fuel costs then took him for nowt when I'd got a company car and felt like a millionaire working but still living student life with my mates and girlfriend . He got the bug back for away games and I see and speak to him regularly at away games (or used to pre-pandemic). Ah, right - as you say I was in the wrong generation ! I often forget and can't really believe that it's now over 56 years since I went to Keele Ken was a stokie as well, and I remember his wife who also as I recall worked in the Students Union back in day - well back in the day ! Tony did indeed take over the shop when Ken retired. TP no doubt had a posh family house somewhere else ( I always thought it was Sandbanks near Bournemouth, near neighbour to Harry). I think the 'Thorns management centre, a sort of hotel for visitors to Keele, was his Monday to Saturday pad during the season.
|
|