Post by another_ruined_saturday on Dec 1, 2021 22:20:21 GMT
found out this evening that my mate, and one of the county family, rob wellings, has passed away aged 46. rob was in my brother's school year, and also lived opposite one of my mates when i was a kid, so i've known him since he was four or five. in the mid nineties, he started coming to games, and i've been to probably hundreds with him, home and away. we'd usually meet up at chesterfield or mansfield depending on whether our journey would take us down the M1 or A1. he managed to get himself banned from games for two periods, but still liked to get out for a drive, so we'd drop him at stanmore to go into london while we went off to barnet, or at the oxford park and ride when we were going to wycombe as well as many others. we did lots of singing in the car on the way to and from a variety of places, mostly eighties stuff, and also in the dreadful gaslight club in buxton when we got back from that night in chesterfield in '97 - every time the music dropped, our little group were giving it some 'scarf' and 'by far the greatest team'.
he had a massively contradictory personality - hard as f*** and with an ability to sniff out trouble, but buying and wearing a second hand dress at swindon (not in the county ground - it was during one of his bans), or turning up in a cowboy hat at solihull, just because he found it amusing to have the many many county fans he knew wondering what the f*** he was doing. he was also perceptive and deeper than people would expect of him.
hadn't spoken to him in nearly a year, as he was vehemently anti-vaccination, which is a standpoint i can't get along with. rather than have harsh words, as we were both entrenched, we just didn't have another conversation. that was a weird thing because we'd speak at least a couple of times a month on the phone normally.
was told last week that he'd got septicemia from banging his elbow at work and was in hospital in macc, then had caught covid, and finally, pneumonia. given that he was about six foot three and built like a brick shithouse, i had hoped/assumed that he'd stabilise and mount a comeback.
he leaves a wife and a primary age daughter.
goodbye mate. we'd have talked again eventually.
