When he does, and he suggests he'll "mek one" for a team up there, it'd be advisable not to get a ball out, get fancy and invite him to get it off you. You might get a surprise.

Just stick him in your team because every decent side needs a Lukey.
You know the type. Imagine Nobby Stiles. Well, that was Lukey, even down to the chest out, arms back and love of a tackle.

And he was a little guy too. But a heart as big as a lion; great attitude; just loved being out there and the more fierce the battle the more he relished it. A lot of successful local sides down the years will have had someone similar.

Perhaps I should have asked him about the Nobby comparison. I won't get the chance now. It comes to all us ex-footballers one day. The first in your cup winning team to depart to that dressing room in the sky.

We regathered yesterday, under dark, brooding skies with the wind blowing and the rain falling - conditions that wouldn't have bothered Lukey one bit.

What do you think? Post your comment below.

I say 'we' but I'd no place in that pretty special team which, in the 70s, won what is now the Sheffield Sunday Senior Cup. I was just helping manage it and run it.

And you knew exactly what you'd get from Lukey every Sunday morning as you looked at him strapping himself up, virtually holding himself together, with enough bandage to keep the Northern General going for a month.

Injured? A knock? Nah, never made any difference to Lukey. Yards of bandage there'd be - we sometimes thought he wasn't fit unless he was strapped up. In that bright, cheery-faced way, he just laughed things off.

He'd vigorously rub on some wintergreen and I used to wince when I saw the Fiery Jack going on at the top of the thighs right near the you-know-whats. No wonder he ran about.

During that cup run, in a competition which embraces clubs throughout this region, we got drawn away to one of Doncaster's top Sunday sides. Lukey, driving lorries at the time, made quite a detour on one trip just to go and look at their pitch.

He rang me. "I've been and had a look, we'll be allreight on there," he said.

Wembley or the surface of the moon would make no difference to players with the attitude and your Lukey Brennans.

When we arrived at the venue near Sheffield for the final, the pitch was a disgrace for the showpiece game of such a prestige competition. Lukey was unfazed. "I shan't be bothering about t'pitch," he said.

In the opposition that day (and at the funeral yesterday) was Mick Hennigan, assistant under Howard Wilkinson when Leeds United won the League title in 1992 and who knew Lukey.

Leeds had just signed Chris Whyte from Arsenal and he was sitting there as a couple of blokes from this area, up there doing a job a Elland Road, were chatting to Mick.

One of them asked Mick: "Have you got any youngsters coming through as good as Lukey?"

Came back the Hennigan retort, despite the new signing sitting alongside... "we've got some in the first team not as good as Lukey."
RIP Luke Brennan.

Sorry boys, no bubbly
NOT sure what the aforementioned Lukey would make of it but it's the story this week that the police stepped in on Health and Safety grounds to stop East Fife players celebrating their title win by spraying champagne onto delighted supporters.

We perhaps shouldn't be surprised although this is absolutely laughable.

Does this now set a precedent? Perhaps those Health and Safety goons from Fife might like to put a stop to the next Formula One celebrations.

Where will it all end? Just think, though, how sterile everything connected with football is now becoming both on and off the field.
Times change, of course, and sometimes for the better but everywhere, it seems, Health and Safety is used as a handy catchall.

They'll be stopping tackling next on Health and Safety grounds. Come to think of it, they are doing away with it.

Wonder what Lukey would make of it all then? In his day, there were a few who could have done with the Health and Safety people around!


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