Danny (was Bickerton) MacLean

When I first meet the man back in the original colts team back in 1976, Dave Inwood had brought together a motley crew of individuals from the choice up bringing such as mine, “Animal” Giddings, Jake (Christ he’s tall) Edmonds, Chris Andrews etc at Northolt High to Damian, Dave Hasler, James Cogswell et al from St Benedict’s. We thought they were all just Idiots with wealthy parents. They thought we were just thugs with learning difficulties: It seemed we were both only half right!

But boy were they fun to be around and Damian and his brother’s lead the list of people to stay awake with when on tour. Those early tours to France, working with Damian to see how much beer we could steal from those nice people who gave us a tour of their brewery, through to playing “who could get drunk the quickest” games on the beach in Ireland, (turns out to be very difficult to judge the winner on this one), remain in my mind as some of the funniest times I have ever spent with my clothes on.

I shall remember Damian for being all things to all people at the times you needed him, a great leader and team player on the pitch and exactly the same off.