bornblueegg
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 3 Sep 2008
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- 8,167
BTH said:I was saddened to day to hear the news today that my old mate, Steve Kay, had finally succumbed to illness and had died yesterday. I last haw him in August in the car park at The Fernhurst, Blackburn. I knew he’d been ill but he assured me that he was feeling better and after a quick chat we said we’d speak soon. Alas, that didn’t happen; I didn’t realise how ill he was and he didn’t let on how ill he was…
I first made contact with Steve via MCIVTA over ten years ago. He was wondering if anyone in north Manchester drove to away games. My ex-girlfriend and I were wondering the same and so I emailed him to see if he’s had any success. No-one else had done though and Steve told me he didn’t mind driving to aways so long as he had a carload. Filling the car was no problem and a lasting friendship was born.
The first game we went to, I recall, was Ipswich away. I went to Portman Road a few times with Steve over the years, whether with a carload or just he and I. One time he insisted to listening to the commentary from the US Masters all the way home from Suffolk… golf on the radio… for five hours. That was Steve!
Steve hadn’t been to City as regularly as he’d wanted to as his job meant working Saturdays while he and wife Karen brought up their young family: Abigail and Ashley. He was a family man, but with their kids growing up quickly and finding their own interests (horse riding and Blackburn Rovers respectively) and a new job that didn’t involve working on Saturdays, Steve returned to the City fold on a regular basis until he’d clocked up an uninterrupted run of 100+ matches, home and away. He even managed to convert Ashley to the Blue cause in the process and he occasionally accompanied his dad and mates to away games.
Because he’d got out of the habit and time had moved on, Steve didn’t know too many City fans at first. Of course, he got to know a few through the rest of us in the ‘fanzine community’ and, before long, he knew quite an impressive number of Blues, including Nick Weaver’s parents, Alan and Diane. He did a few stints with me, writing and selling and once he’d earned his spurs, he forsook the glory of BTH and went to join Tom Ritchie’s CTIC, although he’s always help out with the odd picture and bit of info whenever I asked. Not long after he was named football fan of the year in a nationwide contest.
Steve’s penchant for networking was born out of his ritual of hanging about outside Maine Road’s players’ entrance as well as those at away grounds, taking photos of players arriving or asking them to autograph his union flag; I think everyone since Billy Meredith had autographed it! For a bloke who stood about 6’ 4” tall he made quite a sight standing among the schoolkids, but as he was usually the ‘wheels man,’ he didn’t spend as much time in the pub as some of the rest of us.
Still, he put his skills to good use and though we used to rib him mercilessly about DOSLA – mainly because none of us knew what it was, how it worked or even what it stood for – it became popular among MCIVTA’s geek community. Records and statistics were, of course, Steve’s forte and I understand that the website he founded with Ashley’s assistance is the highwater mark when it comes to City stats on the web.
Although Steve had the patience of a saint and was meticulous in his planning, the same couldn’t always be said for the rest of us. Halfway to Crewe on our way to London one day, I realised I’d left the match tickets at home. Steve didn’t so much as shrug. He simply turned the car round and drove back to my house to retrieve the tickets, which I’d left on the mantlepiece.
Having said that, for an intelligent fella, he could be as daft as a brush at times. Once, walking through that dodgy sink estate near White Hart Lane where away fans are jumped by home fans for fun, I had to insist that Steve covered up not the one City shirt with my coat, but two! More often that not, one City shirt was never enough for Steve, and so I was apprehensive when we went to The Den. Luckily, Steve had seen sense that day and had decided not to wear his entire City shirt collection.
My most memorable time with Steve came when we went to London for the weekend, together with Mike and Paul Billinge and my ex. Although we often went to London, this one was different: Wembley ’99 and City v Gillingham. Everyone knows what happened during the game but the night before we went on a pub crawl around the West End and, in a pub on The Strand, I asked a man why he’d brought an iron into the pub. He told me that he and his friends were on a Monopoly pub crawl, where they had to go into a pub on each of several Monopoly streets. Well, I couldn’t see anyone else but him with a Monopoly related object and so I asked him where the rest were. He pointed to his mate who he claimed had a dog, only it had run off. At this point a buxom lady came over and Steve asked: “And who’s she? The Community Chest?” Naturally, she had nothing to do with the Monopoly pub crawl, leaving her and Steve suitably embarrassed while the rest of us fell about laughing!
But that really was Steve: a daft bugger at times but with a heart of pure gold. He’d do anyone a favour and he was passionate about his family and Manchester City and do you know what? That’ll do for me.
Steve Kay will be sadly missed by many. Rest in peace, mate.
Below: Mike Billinge and Steve Kay (right) stop off at Maine Road on our way home from Wembley, 1999. Steve took this flag with him everywhere!
RIP blue, gutted