The Hull City Southern Supporters produced and gave Les a book that paid tribute to his time at City. I’m told he was genuinely moved by this gesture during his final weeks.
He was a fine player who lived a rich and varied life. Good man.
As AlRawdah writes above, we've had a lot of contact with Les at the Southern Supporters in recent months. I first contacted him to contribute to the book that I'm writing (which I've mentioned on here). Despite it being clear that Les was very ill, he was very keen to be involved in the book. We chatted a lot and his contributions are terrific.
At the Southern Supporters AGM this summer we were generally bemoaning the lack of recognition for the great Hull City players of the past. We decided to do something about it and launch our own Hall of Fame (as nothing of its ilk exists at present as far as we're aware). The list will be announced as planned on Friday at 11am, but we'd decided that evening to have 20 inductees decided by the HCSS members and one Committee's Choice inductee. The latter would be a player/club employee who perhaps didn't quite get the recognition they quite deserved, or someone whose brilliance got a bit lost in our achievements of the past 15 years or so. Les was easily the most popular choice for this accolade.
We made up a book for Les, filled with pictures of his career and memories from fans of his (I also got a couple of quotes from Pete Skipper and Nick Barmby, both of whom were more than happy to contribute given the esteem they held Les in). We sent this off to him to mark him being the first member of our Hall of Fame. The response we got from Les and his family was wonderful. The book and the being inducted into our Hall of Fame evidently meant the world to them. His family have been in touch asking for more of the books to be printed to be at Les's funeral, which of course we're more than happy to sort out. It was lovely to be able to let Les and his family know what he meant to Hull City and the people of Hull in his last few months.
Throughout my contact with the Mutries, it's been so, so clear what a terrific bloke Les was, and what a wonderful, humble, loving family he comes from. Our club is built on working class heroes like Les, who took to the city and the club and sweated blood for us. Today's a sad day, but we were lucky to have known Les at all. RIP to a good, good man.
