There have been so many tributes to this great sports writer this week, that I wanted to write my own that he would have appreciated.

I was first introduced to Mr Wooldridge at the age of eight by me Dad who proudly informed him that i was going to be a writer too! He shook my hand and told me to keep on reading.

A few years later, I am on school holidays, in the village hall at my Mums amateur Table Tennis club, when the news filtered through that one of the male members had tragically died.
The whole of Ian Wooldridge`s sports coloumn in the Daily Mail the next day was devoted to his old school friend and his table tennis hobby. Quite remarkable writing and amazing editorial freedom was given to him.

At the age of sixteen, I arrived for a job interview at the local paper in which he started his career at, who were not impressed with my typing skills, but they liked my writing.

I was presented with an extremely heavy typewriter that he used to write on and I walked two miles home with it. It still survives today.

Cheers Woolers.

There is no replacement for such a varied writer as yourself.