We don't expect our heroes to die, not heroes like Dave Mackay.
I'd known that this day would come. Dave's daughter Valerie had phoned me at the end of last week to kindly let me know that her dad had been admitted to hospital and that the family had been told to 'expect the worst'. Bad news had been hovering like a severe weather front over the sea, it was just a matter of when it would hit.
I'd half expected the footballing gods to take Dave on the morning of the Capital One Cup Final, and for Spurs to storm to a famous victory as a fitting tribute. That sadly was not to be, although his beloved Hearts managed a far more fitting send off by beating Cowdenbeath 10-0 the day before.
Dave Mackay had a huge influence on my life. In 1964, when I was six months old, my father John White was killed by a lightning strike while out playing golf. My dad had been a team-mate of Dave's for both Scotland and Tottenham Hotspur. My dad and Dave both came from east Lothian, and although Dave was only a year older, for my dad it must have been like having an older brother to look after him. I like to think that for my dad, arriving in the big city of London, there could have been no better ally to have at your side than Dave.
Like many others in that team Dave talked quite openly about how that devastating accident involving my father had caused him so much grief, and had ripped the heart from that great side. For me growing up fatherless was tough enough - growing up without the father who was a football icon made it that much harder.
Around the time that I was nine, Dave, by then manager of Derby County, started inviting me along to matches. I was allowed to have lunch with the team, travel on the team bus, sit in the dressing room whilst the players got changed and even sit on the bench. Access all areas! This was in the mid 1970's years before mascots, it was like being a competition winner for Shoot! Magazine every week. Dave's timing was immaculate - it was at such a crucial part of my development, between too young to appreciate it, and being a bored teenager trying to disown his dad. Importantly, I was never made to feel that he was going out of his way, and never once did I feel that he was feeling maudlin about my dad. It was such an amazing experience to have been given a fantastic insight into my dad's world, and one that doubtless fuelled my appetite for football. To this day I'm still not sure as to why Dave chose that time to give me that priceless insight into the closed world of professional football, I'm just eternally grateful that he did.
Raised by my mother and nan, it was unusual for me to spend time with such a collection of males - genuine blokes who were great to be with and who were interested in me. It was fantastic to ride on the team bus ,with outriders, it felt like being a celebrity.
Dave was only 5ft 8 but he was a big, powerful presence, a barrel of a man with dark, wild, warrior's eyes. It never took too much of a leap to imagine him in a kilt, with a saltire painted in blue across his face, leading the bonnets over the border. Danny Blanchflower might have been the inspirational captain of Spurs in their greatest era but Mackay was the one whose approval was sought by the players. He was the leader who had to win at everything, a man of huge energy and almost terrifying commitment. Once my mum asked him if he thought he'd ever be made Sportsman of the Year (a precursor to Sports Personality of the Year) and he told her: 'I'll never get that. I'm too much of a winner to be awarded a sportsman's prize.'
Over the years I've managed to keep in touch with Dave and his family, and in 2009 had the pleasure of spending time in his presence whilst researching The Ghost of White Hart Lane. There were moments whilst in his company when I felt the sheer strength bestowed by his warmth and confidence, and I wondered whether this is how my dad had felt in Dave's presence. His Spurs team-mates used to say that even in training matches it was imperative to be on his side, and that if you were on Dave's side, then anything was possible.
Emotionally, being on Dave's side was the single most important thing that happened to me growing up. In this life you meet very few people who, because they are there, you know you'll be all right. If you wanted anyone to stand beside you in life, it was Dave.
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