Hamish Remembered

News of the passing of Hamish Young will have saddened a lot of Poppies fans of a certain vintage. The words larger than life appeared in many an online comment, and he was certainly that. Noisy, passionate, abrasive, funny, thin skinned and big hearted, he was all of these things. For a number of years he was unmissable in or around Rockingham Road.  Everyone knew him and he knew everyone. Then one day he stopped coming to games and we never saw him again. Why? I imagined it was in umbrage at something or someone that had offended him. Not hard to imagine, if you knew Hamish. Probably completely wide of the mark.  But a real shame nonetheless because he was a big presence and left a lot of fond memories.

Saturdays on a Travel Club coach run by Hamish were often far more fun than the actual match we were off to see. On pulling up in the football club car park, Hamish would loom at the coach’s doorway, vast belly under a replica top, and greet boarding passengers with a mix of warmth and genial abuse. From front to back the bus had its micro communities. Closest to the driver sat Hamish, up in his cockpit. Across the aisle, Joan and Bet, the hooligrans, regularly teased by Hamish with remarks that would make Gregg Wallace blush. A few rows of respectable, generally older punters then we started to enter beer monster territory. Sometimes, briefly, a small pocket of normalcy in a group Hamish dubbed The Sophisticates (not a compliment), probably because they ate with a knife and fork, then we reached the back row of seats, the domain of the Inbred Village Idiot Faction (their words) led by DT, who by this point was thumbing the latest Good Beer guide for lunchtime ideas or had his head stuck in a railway mag.

Once safely along the winding journey to the M6 at Lutterworth (it was always Lutterworth, or felt like it) Hamish roamed the bus, dispensing badinage and body odour.  His armpits were a chemical weapon, used to neutralise dissent and deal with offenders. On one occasion I copped the treatment and from then on was a total choirboy. By noon the bus was disgorging its load in a small market town where the pubs were about to see a surge in takings, then there was a game of football, then the journey home began.

I think it was returning from Gateshead that I first had the pleasure of sharing a meal with Hamish. It was fancy dress day on the bus and he was of course dressed as Father Christmas, though not the sort you’d find in a grotto. The long journey south was broken at Retford, and whilst DT and crew went off to sink a few more ales a few of us located a curry house. There Hamish performed his party trick: order two different curries, mix them together into a giant spicy porridge, form mouth into tube and ingest.  The resulting sound was like industrial slurry disappearing up a vacuum pump.  Not for the fastidious!

These Travel Club curries became a regular feature and livened up many a homeward journey. Hamish of course loved them, because the one thing previously missing from his perfect day out was a mountain of nosh. This is perhaps surprising, as in all other respects he was an excellent organiser. He took the TC from strength to strength across several seasons, sometimes running two or even three coaches to cope with demand. Then there were the big FA Cup away days, when the Cattle Market saw 20 or more lined up under the Travel Club banner. All went smoothly and to plan.

No trip was complete without Hamish having a brush with someone in authority.  It must have been his classic Caledonian persecution complex. Things that you or I might meekly shrug off rather than make a fuss, Hamish saw as an absolute line in the sand. A typical example was at Yeovil on our first trip to what was then their new ground. The away end had yellow lines to mark gangways. Being unfamiliar with such things on what was just a normal open terrace, we stood on them until being ordered not to by the stewards. All except Hamish, who raged at this nonsensical rule and kept at it for so long, WE were begging them to throw him out!

He certainly called it right with Mark English, seeing through this gobby wide boy from early on and throwing his personality into rallying opposition, including through those tense days until we knew if we still had a club left to support. Had he stuck around, I think Hamish would also have made short work of Ladak and his Nene Park mirage.

So RIP Hamish, a legend in your own (extended) lunchtime and a big part of what made KTFC enjoyable back in the day. A lot of us would settle for even a fraction of that.   

The big man as we'll always remember him

(with thanks to Paul Cooke for the photo, and apologies for cropping him out!)