Fully committed manager

[Chaplow's Shiny Head]

Great story Second stain it demonstrates the differance in the molycodled and pampered modern player who in general show very little loyalty to anyone and the old school and in lots of cases riches to rags stories of players from previous eras.Many of whom who played through the 60s and 70s and finished up with a whole range of problems from alchohol to debt and long term health issues due to by todays standards medievel injury rehab or the lack of. George Best , Mike Doyle , Tommy Smith ,Alan Hudson, Stan Bowles our own Ron and so many more all had tough times one way or another. But what they all have that so many modern players will never have is the love of the fans at the clubs where they made their names that endures decades which gives them genuine legendry status to the point that fans dig into there pockets to help in times of need

 

[fatletiss]

Fabulous Secondstain, a great deed.

 

[Saint Sonic]

As you've mentioned Ron, St Goodness, perhaps you'd like to read of your hero's recent history. This stuff you may or may not know, but I'll venture it.

I think it was about 4 or 5 years back, IIRC, I was exchanging posts with a few guys on the Saints Forever forum. The subject of Ron came up, and where he was living at the time. Then one of the guys, who I was involved with making a Saints fans DVD, mentioned that he'd spoken to John Sydenham [name dropping like crazy here, but it is unavoidable to tell this], who'd said that he had lost touch with Ron, over the years. So we started a search for the great man.

After about a couple of months of Internet tracking, and cross referencing addresses, I managed to come up with his last known whereabouts, in Florida. Then it all died. Sadly, it looked as though we had to let it go, but then former Echo journalist Jeremy Wilson got involved, and with our data, was able to do the rest of the tracking and traced Ron to an RV [recreational vehicle] Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He had gone there for his health, and simply because it was cheaper to live there. He and his wife Chris lived a simple, but enjoyable life in the semi desert sun. But now there were people who wanted to speak to him. Jeremy Wilson got back to me that he'd spoken to Ron about a book he was doing [Saints Cult Heroes] and that although Ron was a very private man, by then, knowing little of what had been happening to Saints, he'd cooperated with Jeremy.


We tried to get in touch with Ron, ourselves, but he wanted his privacy. However, through Jeremy Wilson, we were made aware that Ron and his wife were living in very much reduced circumstances, and that his health was suffering badly, with both his hips needing almost instant replacement. I decided to make a bit of as song and dance about this on the Saints Forever website, to see if I could drum up some support, and lo and behold, someone got in touch with me. Together we set up a charity for Ron, to get his hips replaced, and recruited another volunteer as our chairman.


To cut a long story short, Ron got his hips replaced easily by some really clever help through a Saints fan living in LA, and by having well over £13,000, and possibly a fair bit more, [I actually can't remember the real total as some was spent before it all came in] donated by Saints fans, plus he got a completely new set of gnashers, paid for by an anonymous donor. Sadly, while all this was going on, Ron's wife Chris died of cancer, and she'd kept it from us and the worst from Ron himself, believing our attention should be on Ron only. If we'd known, we'd have pulled out all the stops for her too. Ron was distraught, but he did recover eventually.


Finally, when we'd realised our work was done, we closed the GIVE IT TO RON charity, leaving the website as a reminder. We were able to transfer the remaining funds to Ron's account, leaving him comfortably off in his retirement. I'll post a couple of photos when I can find them.

sadly im too young to have knowledge of Ron (i do at least know the name) but thanks for sharing, a great story. if that was now i would have donated too.
shame that back then you didnt have the power of social media to help things like you do these days.

 

[saintgreg10]

Great read Second Stain, nice work for dear Ron. What a contrast between the financial struggles faced by players of old like Ron and the personal fortunes of players today.

For me, footballers of Ron's generation were the real heroes of the sport, ordinary men who did extraordinary things - not for money but for pure love of the game.

 

[ChilcoSaint]

SecondStain, you are now second behind big Ron in my all-time list of heroes! Thanks for sharing that brilliant story mate.