BowburnMag

Football forums are meant to be places where 'cyber' people can vent their spleen or get into debates about the good, the bad and the ugly side to their football team but one character broke that mind set for me.

That person was BowburnMag.

Today he gets more thought than normal because it is one year to the day, since we got that awful news that he lost his battle with life.

A life that was fuller than a lot of us had. A promising footballer who's career was cut shorter than it may have been due to injuries. A family man, forced to work away from home to keep providing the bread for the table. A charity worker who thought of others, probably more than himself and most of all, a fantastic writer with a smashing style and sense of humour.

Oh, how we miss him.

It spoke absolute volumes when a person who we never met touched the heart strings by the order in which he typed his words. it was as simple as that. His words made the man.

On the 11th December 2011, we got the news and it changed the forum forever. It changed me.

It went from that venting place, to me realising, by the many great words spoken about BBM by people who actually met him, that we are all people with similar interests and one massive thing in common. NUFC.

The forum went from being a football board to a community centre to me. The many problems shared or experiences explained suddenly took on a whole new meaning. Talk of the Tyne now played an important role in keeping us all in touch.

My mission from then was to try and get to know a lot of the names that I respected on screen and once i did, the respect grew. They were real people.

My biggest regret was not meeting Steve Thompson (BowburnMag) as he was a real person too.

Today, he becomes the first member of the new ToTT hall of fame.

He may be gone but he will never be forgotten on here. Rexn summed up the feeling last year with a cracking write up. (Here)

Examples of some of his finest moments can be found (Here) and (Here)

Thoughts are with his family today.



Talk of the Tyne.