I was saddened to hear about the passing of my old friend, Colin Norton, yesterday.

I have known Colin for 30 years after meeting him in The Wellington Arms in Baughurst, a pub that my parents went on to run for a few raucous years in the late 90’s. I am not one to indulge in the past, but they were good times. It was a time when pub goers had nicknames. He was called ‘Cottage’ or ‘Cottage Col’.

It was a pub that, when you walked through the door, it had no bias towards class, age or status. Colin was a fundamental contributor to that era, with engaging stories, the ability to send himself up, take the piss and have the piss taken back out of him.

Of course, when you make friendships, you have a common ground. Colin loved cricket (Hampshire and Lancashire) football (Manchester City) and course fishing. In his retirement years he would travel around the counties from Glamorgan to Durham, watching games of cricket non geeks didn’t know were being played.

He also watched second and third team county games and was a self-confessed cricket tragic. I always thought he would have been a great county scout. I remember a few years ago, Colin gushing to me about this ludicrous talent he had seen in a second team match somewhere in Surrey. The best young player he had ever seen, apparently.

It was Ollie Pope. Pope is now, at a tender age, an England regular and indeed, an audacious talent. Colin knew a good player when he saw one. He also took a keen interest in the recent rise of Oakley Cricket Club where I am Chairman. He loved seeing our reports and the growth of our Colts section.

Colin was also a season ticket holder at Manchester City. He would go to every home game, picking up his mother (who still lives in Manchester) along the way. It is wonderful that he and his mother, after years of abject failure, got to see a golden era where their city rivals were knocked off their perch.

What also impressed me about Colin, it’s that despite a successful career in the heart of industries dominated by Tories, he remained a pragmatic socialist. He would always put forward the argument of the oppressed and pursue the truth about the financial corruption in government with regards to donors and tax avoidance crooks. He hated them with a passion.

In my own hour of need when I got divorced in 2008, Colin took me in to his home and allowed my then young children to stay whenever they liked. I demanded I pay him rent and he demanded that I didn’t. He didn’t take sides or have a bad word to say about my ex-wife, he just felt obliged to help.  

Colin also had a cracking sense of humour. He could indulge in jokes that were basic or complex and could dead pan anyone without even knowing it. I can remember once in The Wellington, when a semi regular customer enquired as to why his nickname was ‘Cottage Colin’.

Colin, with a deadpan face, simply said, “Because my name is Colin and I live in a cottage”.

After being told he had inherited his dad’s dodgy ticker, Colin had to have a bypass and was told he would get 10 years out of it. He got 11. During those years he decided he no longer needed to work. Instead, he went fishing, watched hundreds of cricket matches and saw Manchester City in their golden era.

I spoke to him last week. He knew he was dying but he was remarkably upbeat. He had rung me to ask if I could look after all his Wisden annuals and cricket memorabilia. Knowing Colin, I will need to build an extension to put it all in. It was a moment where my bottom lipped wobbled.

I have spoken to his dear friend Steve, and we have vowed that once all this virus stuff is over with, we will get together and give Colin a proper send off and have a pint for him. Not Doom Bar though, he’d be fucking furious.

Cheers Col, it was a pleasure knowing you.