I received a phone call from a friend earlier today, telling me that Dalian Atkinson had lost his life after an incident with the police. The bad news he gave me knocked me sideways, as Dalian was one of my all time favourite Villa players that ever wore the Claret and Blue. Not knowing too much about how he was as a person outside of football, I would like to pass on my condolences to his close friends and family who knew him as a human being, your grief must be very great at this moment.
In the old days of following football players, getting to know anything about them was hard. Unlike today with social media, you feel as if you are given access to get to know them up close and personal, and because of that, you form an opinion of that person good or bad, which can have an adverse affect on the way in which you take to a player. I bet some Villa players in our recent history, wish they could go back in time and take down some of the social media comments they posted. Nothing is left to the imagination these days; we know everything about you.
So back in the day and for me, what I would do is look at the way they played their football, I would study the way they looked in photographs and then innocently form an opinion of what this footballer or pop star was like as a real person, silly I hear some of you say. For me, Dalian Atkinson had the look of a kind man who would do anything for anyone, a man who loved life which was reflected in the way he played his football, and if I’m a million miles away from the truth, I don’t care, to me, he is a Villa legend.
It was the mind that built up the mystique of our heroes’ way back when (pre social media), and when Dalian Atkinson got the football at his feet, you thought that he was going to produce some sort of magic that would put you on the edge of your seat, he always did that to me. There have been many players over the years that would make you feel like they were going to produce something special, but they all played for different clubs, Dalian was the first Villa player that made me feel that way, and for me, there wasn’t any before, and there hasn’t been any since. Rest In Peace Dalian.