Readers' letters: Let’s have a Trevor Hemmings Stand at Preston North End

PNE did our owner proud with a reduction in the admission price to aid the charities close to his heart, an emotional big screen projection of his lifetime achievements, the club captain placing a signature cap on the centre spot and a minute’s clapping before the whistle.

A pity the team performance failed to live up to the occasion.

I should add the Derby fans in the crowd also displayed their respect, behaving impeccably.

Rather ironic that Derby, a club which is the epitome of financial mismanagement, were our opponents on the day.

How the Derby contingent must have envied us and wished for their own Trevor Hemmings!

Trevor was the heart and soul of Deepdale and I have never understood his detractors. Surely his critics must realise that without his benevolence and generosity our club would no longer exist.

As with any family loss, there will now be a void and an enormous vacuum to be filled at the club.

My fervent hope is that his sons, chairman Craig and sports scientist Luke, will follow in their father’s footsteps. Big ones, I am afraid, to fill.

My final wish for a man who served the club for 48 years and is simply irreplaceable is that, as a lasting final tribute, the current Invincibles Stand be renamed The Trevor Hemmings Stand, as a permanent reminder to future generations of supporters of the entrepreneurial spirit of one man with such humble beginnings, the legend that was Trevor Hemmings, who kept our club solvent and afloat in the most difficult of times.

Jim Oldcorn

Great Harwood

From meeting VIPs to pie at the local pub

A few years ago I was in the Plough Inn (Jerrys), on Runshaw Lane, Euxton, early one Saturday evening.

Trevor Hemmings came in and stood next to one of the regular customers, a little chap who was keen on horse racing and always sat on a stool at the end of the bar.

He said: “Guess who I was talking to earlier this afternoon?”

“Who?” the man said.

Trevor Hemmings replied: “The Queen Mother.”

He’d been to a race meeting in the south of England, returning to Euxton via helicopter, in time for tea.

He then ordered a drink and steak pie and chips.

That was typical of him.

High up Britain’s most wealthy list, mixing with the highest people in the land, but quite satisfied with pie and chips in the local.

At that time he could often be seen, with members of his family, in the Euxton Mills at Sunday tea time.

Ron Smith

Leyland