The funeral was today. I passed the last of the convoy of cars leaving Goodison as I stopped off to buy tickets for the Blackburn game. I passed Dixie's statue on the way: it got me thinking about what Everton means to us; what it means to be an Evertonian.
Dave Hickson, to me, was living proof that being a legend has nothing to do with trophies. Dave Hickson never won any trophies or broke any records. I'm not saying he wasn't a great player - he was the Cannonball Kid, let's not forget - he was. He scored a tonne of goals. Like so many players that have pulled on the blue shirt and done well, he won our hearts. But what set him apart from hundreds of others, was that we won his, too. When he played for Everton, by all accounts, he took pride in every single game; not just for himself, but for us. He was proud to
represent us. He was proud to be
one of us.
That pride didn't end with his transfer to pastures new, or even his retirement. Dave Hickson spent years giving tours of Goodison and was there every home game to cheer us. Even a heart attack a few years back never stopped him. This is what his best mate had to say on the night he spent at the Royal afterward:
Typically Dave was more worried about getting autographed shirts and balls to people he’d promised them to, than himself.
He was disappointed to have missed all those goals going.
As ever, they feel like the thoughts and actions of a real fan. Although he played in an era of modest rather than stratospheric wages and the Goodison tours were as much a necessary source of income as anything, hearing things like that you just know that not only did he go far above and beyond what was asked of him in that role, it was also the kind of thing he would have done for nothing.
I was born well over 30 years after he hung up his boots, but Dave Hickson still to me represents not only how I feel Everton should be, but much of how I feel the city of Liverpool is. He really was, and always will be, one of us. In a few years I hope I can tell my son about the Cannonball Kid, the famous quiff, the battering ram, all the goals. But I'd also like to tell him about Dave Hickson, Evertonian. And I could rest assured in telling him he was one of the best there ever was: and that, to me, is what a legend really is.
It's sad that Roberto Martinez never met or got to benefit from his warmth and joy on matchdays and around Goodison, as he would provide to everyone he met there, from the Chairman downwards. I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to teach our new manager what Everton were and are all about. Sadly they will be nothing more than two ships passing silently in the night, one heading for glory through the dark - the other a shining light, never fading, forever an unmistakable beacon of what it means to be an Evertonian.
If one day Martinez' light be even half as bright, we can consider ourselves blessed by another legend. Until then we can only mourn the passing of a name that was truly and utterly synonymous with this great club.
RIP Dave.
The Cannonball Kid
