Yes, of course, OFB. I’ll send a card on behalf of us all. No need to contribute.
Talking to a Huddersfield fan on the train home today and he has told me, tomorrow’s game against Stoke will be Warnock’s last match by mutual agreement.
Come on BORO.
Why do they play their midweek matches on TUESDAY? Perhaps it would confuse us if Wednesday would play on Wednesday? I am confused ...
Up the Boro?
@jarkko. It is partially down to the fixture list allocation. The first part of the season we play on a Tuesday whilst in the second half we play on a Wednesday but not Sheffield!
I think it is also to do with the number of days between mid week and weekend matches and player recovery times and to be fair to all teams; sometimes you have three days between matches and sometimes two. 😎
KEN SMITH
Sad to report that I’ve just been informed that Ken died yesterday afternoon.
He died peacefully and not in pain.
Ken has been a good pal. We met in 1964 when I joined Eston Council as a trainee accountant and Ken joined shortly afterwards as the senior accountancy assistant from Redcar Council. He used to come to my house to watch rugby league on BBC2 on my old tv. Upon local government reorganisation Ken became the finance officer for the Leisure Services Department and , on the next reorganisation was head of the Benefits Section which he didn’t enjoy because he couldn’t understand how people were happy to claim benefits and not work.
Ken was a man of principles. He was basically a quiet person, not one to go to pubs and clubs and always said, with a smile on his face, that he didn’t say much because his wife would answer for him
We used to meet up at one another’s house a few times a year- I had moved to West Yorkshire , and talked for hours about sport.
Ken liked most sports and particularly football, rugby league, cricket and golf. He was a “record keeper” with records of every Boro game from their very first game. Not only that, but for about the last 20 years his records included the goal scorers and the attendances. He kept the same records for Castleford rugby league club - the connection being he had distant relatives from the area. His interest in football extended beyond Boro to local teams such as Darlington, Hartlepool , Redcar and Marske plus his travels abroad extended his interest to the European leagues.
Ken’s other passion was holidays. Both he and his wife would have loved children but he always said that because they weren’t blessed with any they decided to travel. At the last count he’d visited about 60 countries and had over 10,000 photos. His memory throughout all his life was amazing - you could show him virtually any photo and he could tell you where it was from. His favourite holiday after he retired was an annual trip to Portugal to his time share apartment leaving just before Christmas for a 3 months stay.
Ken and his wife Enid were the closest couple I’ve ever known. They were never apart and did everything together and so her death some years ago was a massive blow. He firmly held the view that they would meet up again. I hope he has.
Ken loved this site and regarded the contributors as friends. Some of you may not know this, but occasionally he’d put something on the site to get a reaction/ create a discussion. He never intended to upset anyone but admitted to me that at times he had been a bit too outspoken. He would say “ it’s because I’m a Yorkshire man “ !!
I hope you haven’t objected to the above ramblings.
Good bye Ken R.I.P.
Philip of Huddersfield 👋
Thank you for the very sad update, Philip. My sincere condolences to you and others who knew him personally.
Ken has left quite a legacy on this blog with his long and detailed historical accounts that I know so many of us enjoyed reading.
A very sad day. Ken will be fondly remembered and missed.
A great eulogy for Ken which we all appreciate.
God bless Ken RIP I hope that this blog and your friends on here helped you to pass your later years in comfort and as a comrade to us all.
OFB
Thank you for taking the time to let us know as soon as heard. A sad day indeed on the one hand, but on the other a happy day for him. I do think he has been yearning to join his wife.
RIP Ken and thank you.
@philip-of-huddersfield. So sorry to hear about Ken. Thank you for updating us and condolences to you.
Ken was a big part of our wider family and his contributions to the blog have been and will forever be missed.
Thank you Ken and RIP with your beloved Edith.
I’m so sorry to hear this sad news, Philip. This morning I did send Ken a card from all of us. Tragically, this was too late.
I never met him but I spoke to him on the phone several times over the past few years. He could talk for hours about his beloved Boro and his memories of the club. As you say, Philip, he also loved other sports and he also had clear and extensive memories of clubs beyond Boro and, of course, of cricket. I was amazed by how much he could recall and in how much detail.
Ken’s last few years were racked by severe, incapacitating illnesses, which ultimately kept him confined to his house. He had little wider family, he said, and he clearly missed his wife, but people from Age Concern did visit to care for him several times per week. Through it all he showed great fortitude, which I much admired, and a determination to go on writing for the blog.
We’ll miss you, mate.
That is really sad to hear and a wonderful tribute to Ken. My condolences to his family and all, including you, who knew him. You certainly had a very long standing friendship.
I clearly never met Ken but I know I wouod have enjoyed his company and the way that he coped with all that life threw at him was admirable.
I just hope that I will have the stoicism that he displayed in my later years.
RIP
PS Lets hope that his beloved Boro will give him a win tonight!
@philip-of-huddersfield That is truly sad news and quite depressing. I loved his posts and you could see from them that he had standards from which he never wavered. You will be missed just as you were loved and respected on Diasboro.
John
Rest in Peace Ken, and thank you for for your interesting contributions to this blog. You will be missed.
Sad news. Ken and I weren’t always on the same page, but I respected his views and was in awe of his incredible memory of all things Boro. He’s seems to have had a life, well lived, and his contribution to this place will definitely be missed.
@philip-of-huddersfield - With regard to your update on Ken Smith, I had a look at the website for the Sand Bank Care Home in Kirkleatham Street, Redcar. By far the large majority of the people providing references/reviews have given gushing praise so it looks to be a decent place to stay for palliative care. The photos make it look a pleasant enough place.
Kirkleatham Street in Redcar is, of course, parallel to the Saltburn-Darlington railway line. One section of that road runs from Redcar Cricket Club to Redcar Central Station. The other section of that road, the one on which Sand Bank Care Home is found, runs from Redcar Cricket Club at one end (East) to the railway bridge at the other end (West), and that part of the road effectively runs the seafront side of the whole length of Locke Park. I remember doing a hill start during a mock driving test at that railway bridge, before taking a right turn onto Kirkleatham Lane as it runs downhill to the Warrenby/Coatham Road roundabout. On the site of the former Stead Hospital, the Care Home is just a short walk along Kirkleatham Street from Red Barns, where boarders from Sir William Turner's School (Coatham School) were housed and where the school Head also lived. Some of the Final rounds of the Speech Contest at SWT - an annual contest where each Form had its own contest to decide which of its members gave the best prepared speech/impromptu speech/poetry reading etc and therefore qualified for the Finals - were held at Red Barns which was also one of the childhood homes of Gertrude Lowthian Bell (so called "Friend to the Arabs" who assisted in deciding the border lines between many countries in the Middle East). As an old boy with good memories of School, Ken will appreciate that.
I typed the above without knowing that ken has died. Maybe I was typing when Philip was typing the news. I will now go back to read what has been said.
@philip-of-huddersfield - My "page" of the Blog must have taken a long time to refresh itself as I see your news about Ken Smith's death had been put onto the Blog about 4 hours ago (though I hadn't seen it), and therefore quite some time before my post of 3.56pm was sent.
I was saddened to hear about Ken's death but realise that, in view of his health problems, he increasingly felt he had lived long enough and he wanted to join Enid. When I visited him earlier this year it was obvious that his mind and memory were still active even if his body was giving out on him. He showed me things that carried memories of his times spent in Portugal, which he remembered very fondly. He was a great record keeper. He was FULL of conversation and gave me a book (which he insisted I should keep) about Sir William Turner's School which he attended several years before me. He had left before I started there. But his home in Redcar was only a short distance from where I lived for almost 27 years, though I guess it was a fairly recent build (1960s?) so he must have lived elsewhere in Redcar in his earlier years. He spoke very highly of the people from Age Concern who visited him and gave him help. He very much loved the Boro and Castleford RL teams and we talked about Yorkshire cricket and Redcar Cricket Club.
He will be very much missed on this Blog.
RIP, Ken.
Very sad news of Ken’s death. He was a giant of this forum and his contribution was such that I’m sure there will be many comments in the future along the lines of “Ken would have liked this” or “Ken would have said this” or maybe “I wonder what Ken would have thought about that” and for sure “We could do with Ken to give us the statistics”. Such comments will reflect the impact he has had on the quality of debate we enjoy and his memory will live on. R.I.P Ken.
@philip-of-huddersfield How sad to hear the news of Ken's passing away.
He was a GREAT part of this plog and I am so happy to know his words will stay on this site forr some good time. We all will miss him.
I was hoping he would have seen the Boro promoted before his passing away. We were so close last season, but this season started badly. But I guess he was not able to see it all anymore.
I am sorry I did not ever met him. But he reminded so much of my late pen pal Austin Marsay. I think Austin was a few years older but as ardent fan of Boro as Ken was. Both were also very keen on cricket, too.
A lengend.of this blog is gone. RIP, Ken.
Up the Boro!
Thank you for a splendid goodbye to a favourite fellow fan. We think we have the measure of someone by his many throwaway jokes etc. But you proved that I for one, knew nothing about the man. Rest in peace !
Coburn in the team tonight. Let’s hope he lives up to expectations. UTB
No Howson either and Engels at left back, Silvera starts along with McGree. Hopefully O Brien will play the Howson type role and drive us forward.
On paper it looks a decent enough team but we shall see once they start the game
Howson and Lath had to go really
OFB
I hope I am wrong but this feels a bit like swapping chairs on the Titanic, especially if we keep playing as we have been doing. 😎
hopefully not - O Brien gives us more pace and Coburn surely can’t be as wasteful in front of goal than Latte has been thus far.
McGree adds more although I am still concerned about the back 4 operating as a unit - it sometimes looks like the sum of the individual parts is less than the total!
And Sky are calling it the main event - how many neutrals will think that I wonder
I am watching to the match at Wednesday via Riverside Live. And Ken Smith was mentioned in the pre-match commentary on Radio Tees. Nice and fully deserved. Up the Boro!
@k-p-in-spain Let's hope it's NOT a Titanic moment. Please ..?
BBCTees for me.....
Wouldn't it be good for Coburn to show his worth and McGree to show it would be foolish not to have his name down first on the team sheet (but not wearing gloves & a keeper's jersey)?