Long Live The King

On Thursday, it will have been ten years since Jeff Astle - known to thousands locally simply as "The King" - died of a degenerative brain disorder. The condition had arisen in no small part from trauma inflicted on the brain tissue during Astle's career as a footballer, from heading the heavy leather case-balls of the Sixties and Seventies. Jeff loved football to the extent that it eventually cost him his life, and to me that's as tragic as the death of any tortured artist.

He's nearly hidden in the photo above, third from the left among his team-mates after winning the Cup in 1968. The position suits him; he was an ordinary, humble bloke who preferred drinking in the pub with the fans after matches to more illustrious or glamourous surroundings. In truth, he was part of a dying breed; when the money came flooding into football, transforming the game and its culture in a way that proponents argued was "for the better", there was no longer any room for down to earth lads like Jeff Astle. The baby, sadly, went right out with the bathwater.

It would be nice to go back to an age when more superstars were like Jeff (and the Albion used to actually win matches), but I fear we may be too far gone. You don't get on the cover of Heat magazine by playing dominoes down the boozer of a Tuesday night, more's the pity. Still, the fame of people like The King will long outlive the plastic personalities that currently infest TV screens and glossies, largely because it's a fame born of humour and modesty. As much as I worry that those qualities are dying out in the upper echelons of our society, they're as worthwhile as ever in the places that matter.

RIP, Jeff.