Comment

About a year ago I mentioned that Lynn Osgood, the widow of Saints and Chelsea legend Peter, wished to form a trust in his name.

I agreed to serve on the committee and contacted Terry Venables, who played with Ossie, and Lord Cadogan, who in actual fact when he was Lord Chelsea was my fellow centre half in the army team.

Both agreed to be joint presidents.

The chairman is Richard King, who is also chairman of the Chelsea pitch owners.

The idea was that it would be a grant-giving trust to raise money for under-privileged children to play football.

This was something close to Ossie's heart.

Like a lot of big names in the game, he did many good works for charities etc which were often under-publicised.

Richard organised the first function at Stamford Bridge. It took the form of a dinner attended by 160 mainly Chelsea fanatics.

The MC on the evening was Matt Lorenzo from Sky TV who conducted three question and answer sessions in between the courses of excellent food.

The first duo on the stage was David Baddiel along with the wonderful Lord Richard Attenborough, now nearly 85-years-old and one of the most charming men you could ever meet. He's a legendary film star and maker but also a passionate Chelsea supporter all his life.

Ex-players attending included Marvin Hinton, Clive Walker and Bobby Tambling and the other spot was when Matthew had Tommy Doherty and myself on stage.

The memories came flooding back.

Tommy actually signed Ossie from a minor club in Windsor as a 17-year-old and he reminded everyone how it wasn't too long before he made the step up to the first team with his natural style and grace and ability.

Dennis Bundy, a fellow committee man and great friend of Peter, held the auction with items generously provided by Chelsea FC, whose chairman Bruce Buck was also in attendance.

The technical people also gave up their time and produced a wonderful film with highlights of the King of Stamford Bridge and also messages from John Terry, Frank Lampard and John Motson.

All in all, everyone enjoyed a lovely night and over £10,000 was raised.

They intend to have that as an annual function.

At present it is intended to hold a similar evening in Southampton later in the year so that our own supporters can pay tribute and remember the great man as well.

10:28am Saturday 5th April 2008

Print

Email this

Comment

Add your comment

Name:
Email: *
Location:
**
	e.g. 123-123
Comment: Please note: All HTML tags will be ignored. Format Text:
By posting a comment, I confirm that I have read and agree to the terms of use. Comments are not moderated but we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention and we may delete inappropriate postings. Please treat other people with respect. You must not post anything that is abusive, indecent, unlawful or defamatory. Remember, you are personally liable for what you post on this site. If you wish to complain about a comment, contact us here.
* Your email address will not be displayed ** To avoid register now or login