Club Stalwart Adrian Priestley Passes Away

“We moved to Glossop on a Friday, then on the Saturday I came down to look for the football club.  Since then, I’ve hardly been away.”  – Adrian quoted in David Conn’s book, ‘The Beautiful Game?’

The passing of Adrian Priestley will leave a huge hole at the heart of Glossop North End.  His contribution to the club can only be measured in one way – that it is still here at all.  In the late 1980s and most of the 1990s when, as he liked to say, “it was so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face”, Adrian was one of the small group of people who kept the club alive.

The club continued to struggle financially into new century, right up to the FA Vase run in 2009 and Adrian was a director in all those difficult days, and remained so until 2011.  He fought for the club daily, trying all he could to raise sponsorship, running quiz nights, arranging the ball boys, manning the turnstiles, leading the work parties for ground repairs and most of all, bigging up the club to whoever would listen.

He loved talking about the club over a Diamond White and a Hamlet.  When things had gone badly, as they often did, he would vehemently defend the clubs man between the sticks, a proud member of the goalkeeper’s union having played there in his younger days.   If you were in earshot, you were in the conversation –there are many people who remember him as the first person they met at the club.  He probably wasn’t, he was just the one who welcomed new faces with the most big-hearted warmth.

He had numerous tales of home and away days from the not-so-glorious days where he, Barry Jones, John Catlow and Andy McCoy would head to all corners of the North West, get into the odd scrape and have many a pint.  Big men and big characters, they understood what the non-league game was about – support your team passionately, have a friendly drink with the opposition afterwards.

No-one at the club was more keenly aware of the club’s football league history, and Adrian almost took it upon himself to ensure that the stories of 100 years ago never died.  He tried to keep the links with Arsenal going, writing to the Gunners’ Chairman Peter Hill-Wood to let him know how his grandfather’s team was doing. There was obvious pride in his voice when he read the stories of the North End figures down the years at the club’s 125 years dinner and his delivery brought the tales to life.

Famously, he in that FA Vase run he would take a detour on the way to games, heading to St James’ Church graveyard to ‘say hello to Sammy’, nodding a greeting at the gravestone of Samuel Hill-Wood.  He was convinced it brought the club luck, and there was only one tie in the run where it wasn’t possible to visit on the day of a game – the final.

On the way to that FA Vase final at Wembley in 2009, Adrian was torn.  As a Director he had all the trimmings awaiting at the ground – a pre match meal, meeting the dignitaries and an access all areas pass.  He was tempted by this special treatment, but ultimately preferred to do what made him comfortable and headed to The Green Man to drink with the supporters, his mates.  He loved the whole weekend, memorably singing to himself contentedly on the way home, a very happy man.

Adrian always said that the Directors of the club were custodians.  They were in the privileged position of looking after the club for the community – whether the community wanted it or not – to pass on the baton when their time was up.  In 2011, he finally felt that his work was done and stepped down, but still showed up at every game, helped at every fundraiser he could, shouted “BEST OF ORDER PLEASE” at every presentation night and now had the time to talk proudly of his son’s achievements until he began to feel poorly and we saw him less.

In all Adrian was working for the club for over 25 years.  How can we not miss him dreadfully?  But with every game the club plays, the legacy of his stress and effort is there for all to see.   Just look around you.

A selection of the many messages and tributes can be found here.

Arrangements for the funeral can be found here.