Two Newcastle United fans gone too early – A very sad week | OneFootball

It’s been a sad past week in coastal North Tyneside, as two more good North Shields men and Newcastle United fans, have suddenly passed away far too young.

These lads were only in their early/mid-60s.

Jeff Sharp was a football enthusiast all his life, a well known face on the local scene.

Knowledgeable and always keen for a friendly chat, Jeff was a massive fan of Newcastle United.

His other two footballing passions were North Shields FC (where he sometimes carried out voluntary work) and the locally well known and successful Sunday League team Billy Mill FC. I played in the same Billy Mill team as Jeff’s younger brother Micky between 1983 and 1985.

The death of family man Jeff has sent shockwaves throughout our community and he is going to be so sadly missed. A Go Fund Me page (see HERE) has been set up on Facebook to help Jeff’s family with the funeral costs and arrangements. As I type, it is well on the way to reaching the original goal of £3,000.

I popped down to Whitley Bay with my mate Bob Dunn yesterday.

After doing a bit of shopping we went for our first couple of pints in the refurbished Victoria. It’s now called the Three Brass Monkeys and the builders and fitters have done one hell of an amazing job in transforming the place.

As we were leaving to head up to the Fat Ox, we bumped into one of the lads, Davy Flan. The dreaded words that we get to hear so often these days gently and quietly fell from Davy’s lips,. “Have you heard about Gippa?”

John Gibson was a bloke that I saw just about every other day. Happy and well mannered, I can never remember John ever having a bad thing to say about anybody.

He had a special place in his heart for the Toon and had been overjoyed by our renaissance since the takeover.

Gippa had been suffering from breathing difficulties for quite some time but his death was still very unexpected. All of his true black and white buddies in the Fat Ox (which is the best Newcastle United themed bar at the coast) are going to miss him tremendously.