Quote ="DHM"I don't usually post personal stuff but this is an exception. I heard some awful news this week regarding a childhood friend of mine and to be honest it's been very difficult to get my head around. A guy I grew up with suffered a terrible stroke which has had dramatic consequences. I'm told he will never walk again and at the moment has no use of his arms and cannot speak. He basically suffered every complication in the medical book.
I guess I posted it here because if it wasn't for Andy I wouldn't have started going to Leeds games when I was in my early teens - he had the idea because we were not the kind of kids who hung around shops smoking and scaring grannies and we wanted something to do. All my best, and worst, memories from watching Leeds from the early eighties right through the nineties, all the stories I tell and all the things I share from those days I had Andy stood next to me. We went, home and away, to pretty much every game during those years, sometimes on the Wally Arnold coach and sometimes in the back of another mates Dad's van. His energy and enthusiasm for Leeds drew practically everyone he met into the game, but then that's what he is like with everything, one of the rare people you meet who make things happen and gets you involved. He was, in many ways, an irresistable force and without any doubt my life would have been much less without him.
I drifted away from Leeds, mainly with work and travelling, and I drifted away from my friends up there. I don't know how often he went to games these days or even if he posted on here, but I've known him since I was 4 years old (we both turned 50 this year) and has always been a great friend.
He always spoke his mind about the game and the team (which one time got him a visit from Craig Innes) but it was always from the heart. If any of you guys know Andy Reynolds you'll know what I'm talking about.
Get well Andy.'"
My sympathies for what they're worth. Like you I too have known a guy for a similar length of time: we became friends at 5 years old in infants' school and both turned 52 this month. I can't imagine what it must feel like for that to happen to him. We stay in touch but although he still lives in Leeds he gave up on supporting them in the 1990's. Better things to spend his money on he said and never looked back. He always was a 'tight b'stad'.
