A Diamond Geezer

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018:03:11:15:00:13 by BarmierKev.

Firstly, thank you Beefy for sharing you thoughts on Diamond. This can't have been easy writing so soon after this devastating news.

I was not as close to Diamond as many on here , but have some fond memories I would like to share.

Apart from myself, Diamond is the longest standing contributor to MTWD. We are talking at least 10 years. Initially, as a regular poster he chose to remain anonymous. He provided many match reports and was our reporter at Southgate. I was on a mission to seek him out. The notepad and pen, cigarette and can of best bitter was a good clue to his identity. After, in his words, being "sussed" he was introduced to many of our regulars and through this formed some close friendships.

A while back, he agreed to help me moderate the site. Perhaps , this may have not been a good choice as his IT skills were not the best and diplomacy was not one of his strong points. After accidentally deleting a whole thread from his lorry it was agreed perhaps the role was not made for him. His contribution as a moderator has since been a topic of amusing conversation.

It is fair to say Diamond had a very direct approach. You certainly knew where you stood with him and he never gave mixed messages. It was good that when we disagreed we would not let the matter linger and moved on.

The rained off day at MTS was legendary. His wind up of sending me texts saying there was going to be play when there clearly wasn't to get me to ground was a classic. The laughter shared that day will always stand out and am grateful for his devious methods to entice me.

It meant a lot to me being in the same row of seats for that Championship winning day. Diamond was not tactile , but I believe he was delighted when I embraced him after that winning moment.

One of his assets was associations with other fans. He was good friends with Hazel and Ian (Glous and Somerset), Welsh Dave Glamorgan, the Yorkshire Hobbo brothers and not forgetting Vic now at Durham. I am sure there are more who i have missed out.

Next season will be tough for many of us. His absence will be noticed. His close friends and especially his brothers, I wish much strength to.

RIP Derek.

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Barmy Kev
I'm only here for the tele

Really nice thoughts Beefy and Kev.

I only met Derek once, and it was for all of 20 seconds.

It would have been a game against Durham, because I remember introducing myself to Kev, and 666 neighbourhood of the beast (that's how I know it was Durham). It was also the only time I've met Jonathan.

Anyway, during the interval we walked round the ground, and bumped in to Diamond, so it was no more than a 20 second 'Hello' and 'Goodbye' Thus my only memory of Diamond is that he seemed to be dressed as either a cowboy, or country and western singer! Whether that was normal Diamond attire I'll never know, as sadly that is my only point of reference.

I realise the loss is much greater for those of you who really knew Diamond- went to away games together and so on, but 24 hours on and I still feel very flat and sad. I realise this is the first internet friend I've lost- so in one sense, after seven years of batting ideas back and forth, and replying to each others posts on MTWD I feel like I knew Diamond really well, but, for me, in another sense I didn't know him at all.I can have this 'idea' of what I think he was like, and you may have an 'idea' of what you think I am like, but it can never be the same as really knowing someone.

Very often logging at about 7am there would be a 'Diamond' post timestamped about 5.30, indicating he would shortly be off to work to take his lorry goodness knows where.

No more Diamond posts for me to open and read first thing in the morning anymore.

I will miss him every bit as much as those of you who really knew him.

Beefy.

Well done indeed for sharing your thoughts with us.

Though I did not know Derek as well as some on this site, I still met and talked to him on many occasions and we had some good discussions.

He loved Middlesex and the game of cricket. He was also a wonderful contributor to MTWD and I will greatly miss reading his posts.

In truth I have still not come to terms with what has happened.

Well put Beefy. On one occasion when I was well under the weather, he kindly ran me from the Tavern back all the way to Pinner.

As he lived in Ealing a gesture typical of the man.