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Heroes

The hours I must have spent staring at that team photo on the wall and trying to mimic him: his powerful stature, the way he folded his arms, the way he looked cool, even the way he wore his hair. This was the days before the perm of course. Let's forget the perm ever happened — please. The less said about the perm the better. And now, years later, here I was only a few feet away from him. I was going to meet my hero and I was nervous as anything.

As a kid, he was everything I wasn't and everything I wanted in a hero; handsome, muscular, dashing, charismatic, heroic and some said he even walked on water; in truth a god. While I, on the other hand, was just a scrawny kid who didn't even want to be a striker, I wanted to be a goalkeeper. But it didn't matter, he was still my hero.

He was going to win a trophy or the league for me and allow me to feel what it was like to be a winner, a real winner, he was my hero. The man who helped me through my childhood with dreams of football glory.

The fact he never did win me a trophy or the league was by-the-by, he was still everything I wasn't and the hero I wanted to be. And now, I was moments away from meeting him. I was lost in the kid I used to be and worried that I wouldn't have anything meaningful to say.

Before I knew it, the queue had shrunk to the point there was only two or three people in front of me. I looked at my wife, the person who had bought the tickets for me to meet my hero and I cursed her because my nerves were jangling. What would I say to him?

“I love you”

“You were my hero”

“You were the only shining light in the dark seventies”

“You kept hope alive”

“How did you walk on water?”

It didn't help my nerves that I was clutching an old blue track top I wanted him to sign. A miniature track top that went back nearly twenty-five years to my childhood and was so small it was hard to believe I ever fitted in to it. And yet there it was, after all these years, covered in sew on badges that my dad used to buy me from the sports shop outside the ground after taking me to the match. Patches that my mum had carefully and lovingly sown on for me. A garment that revealed a happy childhood, full of colour and hope and dreams.

And then the time came, time to meet him, my hero.

Words fumbled from my mouth.

I don't know what I said to him. Those couple of minutes shot by in a second but I'm sure I never mentioned the perm.

Whatever I said I can't remember.

Besides, what could I say that he hadn't heard a thousand times before from a thousand other faces similar to mine?

The truth was, I probably said, “Blah, blah, blah.” I had had a few. To calm the nerves, of course.

Whatever I said didn't matter because the man who looked down on me from my bedroom wall when I was a kid was now shaking my hand. And the thing was he hadn't changed, he looked just like he did all those years ago. While I was no longer a boy, I was in my early thirties.

When he shook my hand, I never wanted to wash that hand again. It had touched greatness. I said to my wife that if I died tonight in my sleep I'd die a happy man. And it was true, very, very true.

The following weeks were spent talking about the time I met my hero. I'd slip it in to every conversation I could.

Someone at work would ask, “What did you do this weekend, Mark?”

“I saw Bobby Latchford three weeks ago. It was amazing.”

Politely, they'd say, “Yeah, I know, you told me that last week and the week before that. But what did you do this weekend?”

“Well”, I'd start, “a couple of weeks ago I shook Bob Latchford's hand. I haven't washed it since.”

Disappointed, they'd say, “Mark, you told me that last week, and the week before that. What I'm asking is, did you do anything the weekend just gone?”

“He signed my old blue track top, you know. Do you want to see it?”

Strangers were no different. A woman at the bus stop, “Eh lad, what times the bus due?”

“Bob Latchford, love. Should be here in Bob Latchford minutes.”

In a darkened room at a séance, “Is there anybody there?”

“Are you there, Bob Latchford!” I'd shout disturbing the mood.

“He's not dead, you fool.” A voice would utter in annoyance.

“Did I tell you I met him? He signed my blue track top, you know?”

Every time I could I'd mention it. I'd even take the track top to work to show people like it was akin to the Turin Shroud.

When I got home from work each evening I was half expecting Granada Reports or some foreign news agency to be at my door wanting an exclusive with the man who shook the hand of the man who allegedly walked on water in the 1970s.

Over time, as the years went by, I eventually stopped talking about meeting Bob Latchford. When I moved away from Liverpool for work reasons, if it came up in conversation, most people didn't know who Bob Latchford was. “You've not heard of Bob Latchford? Where've you been?” I'd scold them.

“I wasn't born until 1990, he was before my time, before I was born.” They'd say.

“You don't know of him because he was before you were born, was he? But what about Jesus, you've heard of him, haven't you?” I'd say whilst dismissing their ignorance.

Meeting my hero wasn't the greatest day of my life by a long way, but it was a great day nevertheless. When Bob Latchford left Everton I only ever had one other hero in my life after that. So, meeting one hero was a huge thing for me. The other hero was Bruce Lee. And he was already dead, so I had no chance of meeting him and he never played for Everton either.

I was content with my one and only meeting with Bob Latchford; my hero.

Then, years and years later, I got the chance to meet him again. This time in Birmingham at a book signing, and a question-and-answer session. I couldn't resist. How would things differ this time? I'd grown up and was now a proper man, in awe of nobody. Heroes were for kids, weren't they?

This time I was sober and surrounded by loads of Birmingham City supporters who still loved him. They loved him as much as we did. As I sat there listening to him, my thoughts wondered back to why he was my hero in the first place. What made him so special to me as a young boy?

When it came to asking him questions, once again I can't remember exactly what I asked him but I remember telling him that he was still a legend up in Merseyside and was still my first-ever hero. So much so that even now, as a man in his mid-forties, I named my dog, Bobby, after him. He laughed, they all laughed. They would have laughed more if they knew my dog's full name was Bobby Latchford Catweasle Cuddy.

When the obligatory photo came, I stood next to him and realised he was just another man. But he was still my childhood hero who could fill my head with dreams and make my dreams come true (even though he never did).

Bob Latchford scored a lot of goals at Everton and was a hero to thousands of kids in the seventies. He became a legend. I've heard people say "You can't be a legend unless you've won something." I don't believe that. I doubt Southampton fans think that when they think of Matt Le Tissier, or Newcastle fans when they think about Alan Shearer. I've even talked to Evertonians in their early twenties who love Big Dunc and Tim Cahill and see them as a legend. What is a legend anyway? Just a hero. If the stats add up, even you could be a hero to someone — honest!

You've got to have heroes, its all part of being a kid growing up, all part of being a human, all part of following a football team. I'm glad I chose Big Bob Latch as mine and I'm glad I supported Everton.

Heroes

Thank you, Bob Latchford.

Now, everybody, just for old time's sake, one more time…

“Bobby Latchford walks on water…”

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