Fan Letters: Sunderland fan Paul recounts brilliant tales of his late Dad, Bobby!

Dear Roker Report,

Just wanted to share this story with you all.

My dad Bobby Lund a massive fan all his life was one of the biggest wind up merchants going and until his dying day he had his family and friends in raptures at some of his stories.

A lot of them were true and quite a lot of them were made up, part of the fun was trying to establish fact from fiction.

There are two chapters to this story.

Firstly he announced to the family that as a keen and proud pigeon fancier the film crew from Fulwell73 had been to his pigeon loft to film him and to capture his pigeons in flight.

He spun the yarn that the film crew spent nearly two hours filming while he explained that he named some of his pigeons after the players.

That one is the boss, the leader they all follow him so he’s called Cattermole.

That flighty one that flies all over the place well that’s Duncan Watmore.

To be honest we didn’t believe him but rather than wait for STID 2 to hit our screens we made some enquiries.

My son Marc tweeted the editor to ask if his granda’s whimsical story was true.

The editor sent a lovely reply saying that the film crew had actually filmed him but the footage hadn’t made the final cut.

He did however relay an even funnier line that my dad had said and that was when he was explaining the naming of the pigeons to the crew apparently one of his pigeons wouldn’t come out of the loft no matter how much he coaxed it and he turned round and said that lazy bugger is Jack Rodwell.

We have asked if there is any chance of getting hold of the footage but we fear we may be disappointed.

Sadly my dad passed away last February but even then after his funeral his legacy of making us all laugh lived on.

Me and my two brothers were overwhelmed with the wonderful red and white floral tributes and we asked the Funeral Director if we could take the flowers from the Crematorium and place them in his garden in front of his beloved pigeon loft.

This was agreed and the three of us perhaps a bit tearful picked the flowers up and put them carefully in our transit van the day after his funeral on the Saturday morning.

On the way back to Fulwell I suggested we placed the one we had bought with DAD on outside the entrance to the Black Cats Bar as this was where we took him to his last ever game v Bradford on Boxing Day.

Great idea my brothers said and the stewards at the Stadium were fabulous as we pulled up and explained what we were planning.

Sorry for your loss lads as they waved us through past the ticket office.

We were playing at home on that afternoon so it was quite an emotional sight as I passed the tribute on my way into my regular seat in the North West corner.

Well anyway we won the match 2-1 and I thought Dad would have enjoyed that.

Things however were about to get a bit weird as when we posted pictures of the flowers outside the stadium and outside the pigeon loft one of my sisters in law rang to inform me that the flowers we had brought back weren’t our Dad’s.

The flowers looked like ours but we hadn’t read the cards and in our defence we carried out the deed in a bit of a rush as we were mindful that when we arrived a funeral service was taking place and the last thing those poor mourners would want to see when they came out was three still slightly hungover daft buggers taking flowers away in a transit van.

Picking the flowers up bearing the name “Ronnie” and not Bobby we couldn’t help but think he’s done us all again.

Fortunately we managed to switch the flowers when the Crem opened at 0900 on the Sunday morning before anyone noticed.

We just hope poor Ronnie wasn’t a mag as we had whisked him off to the stadium.

It would have made a great sketch for either of his two favourite comedy shows Benny Hill and One Foot in The Grave.

Paul Lund

Ed’s Note [Tom]: Hi Paul, firstly let me offer my condolences on the loss of your Dad, who seemed like an incredible character. I have just sat here for the last couple of minutes chuckling away to myself at the story of pigeon Rodwell and Ronnie instead of Bobby. Both are wonderful stories that have certainly brightened my day, and will be fantastic memories to hold onto. Thanks for writing in, I hope this brings a smile to other people’s faces. All the best, Tom.