A death in the family

With a club like Tranmere we are small enough that most people know our key people. You can be on first name terms with our chair, rub along quite happily with former players and recognise all those people behind the scenes that contribute to the club in their own particular way. When they are no longer with us the gap is enormous. When I heard that Ben Harrison had died last week, it was like a death in the extended family.

I don't claim to have known Ben particularly well. We were on nodding terms, or eye rolling terms regarding Tranmere performances. I would occasionally get served by him in the fan zone, exchange pleasantries with him in Home, his coffee shop in Oxton, or meet him at Forum meetings and have a brief chat about something Rovers related. He was solid, likeable and worked hard for the club, for himself and for his family. He also seemed to represent a reliable bridge between the club and the fans, a means of passing on concerns or sometimes giving an alternative or more informed perspective. Unusually for Tranmere, given how argumentative we are, you rarely heard a bad word said against him, albeit I once heard he had a tendency to over order Tranmere Trust T-Shirts. He was, however, a massive presence, somebody who you could trust and someone who got the balance right between self-sacrifice and self preservation.

There are others that have been like him before. They may not have done quite as much, but in their own way they contributed to the glue that holds the club together. People like Barbara Jones, or Audrey who runs the club transport. Their presence reminded us that despite our disagreements, despite our moans, the essence of this club is the sum of its parts, with some playing crucial parts that cannot be replicated.

At tomorrow nights game there will be a minute's applause for Ben in memory of his life and contribution to the club. Hopefully, the new fan zone, which he worked tirelessly to promote and secure funding for, will also carry his name. In any case, tomorrow evening we have a chance to say 'thank you'. Let's make it heartfelt, Ben was one of a kind but definitely one of our broader Rovers family. RIP.