A Hartlepool player who won the European Cup twice has opened his scrapbooks in preparation for a memorial night later this month.
Former Hartlepool player John McGovern, who went on to win the European Cup as captain of Nottingham Forest twice in 1979 and 1980, will be the special guest of radio host Paul “Goffy” Gough at the town’s Rovers Quoit Club on Good Friday.
He has opened up some of his favorite photograph albums, which have been combined into video compilations that will be exhibited on March 29.
They include him putting pen to paper to become the first apprentice for Hartlepools United, as the cub was then called in 1966.
Others show John with a young Brian Clough, who he followed from Hartlepool to Derby and Forest, and celebrating Pools’ first ever promotion in 1968.
He said: “I am thrilled that Goffy has taken the lead to organise a look back at my career in town. It is coming up on 60 years since my first training sessions at Hartlepools United so it’s a touch overdue.
“It will be a magical night on Good Friday and I’m told that there will be a few surprises in store.
“I was so lucky to be part of the Brian Clough and Peter Taylor European domination as their captain and all that it brought.”
John moved with his family to Hartlepool from Montrose in Scotland aged seven and attended Henry Smiths school.
He added: “I lived on the Central Estate and loved it there, riding my bike through the docks to the Vic.”
John, now 74, made his first team debut in 1966 and together with other players was drafted in by Clough to attend fundraisers to help keep the club afloat.
He said: “I hear that sons are bringing dads to the event to recall the Clough and Taylor stories. Names such as Brian Drysdale, Bobby Cummings, George Smith, Jimmy Mulvaney and Ernie Phythian are wonderful teammates form the past at HUFC and I feel sure we will be highlighting those names and more too.”
A John McGovern Celebration Evening at the Rovers Quoit Club, Easington Road, starts at 8.15pm.
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