It falls to me to impart to all of us a news that I had hoped I would never have to write.

It seems that unfortunately Steve is not going to make it and only has at the best a few weeks to live.
The fact is to put it bluntly if the pneumonia does not finish him off the cancer will this despite the great fight that he has put up against this evil.

Steve is a great lad and one of the few who is dear to me we both come from the same general area at around the same time even though we never knew each other back then, typical Lancashire stock brought up hard but fair among the red bricked houses that lined the cobbled streets of Lancashire in those days, the air often covered in smog from the mills and factories of the time.
Unfortunately Steve took the wrong path in life and became a Bolton Wanderers fan but then again no one is bloody perfect.
Over the years I shared some good times with Steve and we had some good laughs and Steve is a person that I came to have a great and deep respect for a true mate that you could count on when the chips were down.

Steve you will be missed greatly, well by me at least and I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for having shared a few moments of your time in this world with me and it has been a great honour to have known and to have had the privilege of calling you a friend, indeed a true and great friend of which one only finds very few in the span of a lifetime.

I for one will never forget you and I only hope that my grandson will turn out to be half the man that you have been.

Shit you bugger I know that you will get the chance to read this and it is your bloody fault that I am getting all emotional because I truly believed up until this evening that if anyone could win this battle you could but alas it is not to be.
Steve I am so sorry and once again mate thanks for having been around.


In eternal memory Paul and all of us here on these forums