It’s an unhappy day for the club when one of our members ‘Crosses over the bar’ as they say.
We have just had the sad news that Sam ‘Gunner’ Potts has passed away after a short illness.
Our condolences go to his family and friends for their loss is the greatest.

Here he is, on the left, with one of his club mates, Mick Edwards.

Sam had been a member of the club for many years; as his nickname ‘Gunner’ will tell you, he was in the RN as a gunner, and was very proud of it.
Last season I photographed him with other members of the Type 21 association at their annual reunion.

Being in the Navy and in Devonport, he naturally came to play for us; he came as a forward. One look at his stocky and strong physique from fifty yards away told you that.
He not only played for us for many seasons but, on retiring from the game, continued to support the club and in the mid 1980s was the first team manager for a number of years; there he is on the left in the team photo.

In 1999, he was made a life member, of which he was very proud.

When the club was promoted to National 2, one of the teams in it was Macclesfield.
As anyone who knew him would tell you, he was clearly a proud northerner, and Macclesfield had been his club; he would have played for them and been a member. So when the club travelled up there for the away game, Sam was there to watch and have a pint or two with his mates; he never told me which team he cheered for.

For my part, I would always see him on match days. He almost always turned up in his No.1s, and as the saying goes, “You can always tell a military man”, and that was Sam.
He had a fold-up chair and always sat next to the scoreboard with a pint. At half-time he would say to me, “I’m off to the bar”, and he would return with his pint for the second half a short while later.
If the weather was hot, sometimes you could see his eyes start to droop only to snap open when a cheer went up for something.
When it was cold, he might arrive a little late. “How are we doing?” he would say, and, for good or bad, I would point to the scoreboard.
The club will miss him; I will miss seeing him sat on the fold-up chair, pint on the wall next to him.
Most of all, his family will miss him.
Let’s all raise a glass to him, and I am sure that at our first home game we will stand for a minute in silence to remember him.