I have only known Bernard since we started Charlton Live on the clubs site, but very quickly Bernard became an indespensible part of our team, Bernard approached us very early on and said he could get us former players to interview, one of his first was Garry Nelson and Derek Hales who came in to the studio on the same day, brought in by Bernard, chalk an cheese these two players, but what was clear was both former players admiration for Bernard.

In the week building up to a home game, Bernard would ring and tell me who our guest was, so we were abe to get fans questions from the forums, now and again he would tease us with future guests, a popular way was for him to ring me and tell me that on such and such a date he had a real scoop lined up, he would then proceed to give me no clues whatsoever, and when I tried to get information from him he would chuckle and tell me it would be good! The last time he did this was late last year with Len Glover, and what a brilliant interview that was.

Now and again Bernard would find us former players to come in for our live show on a Sunday evening, among those that have joined us live thanks to Bernard are Carl Leaburn, Mickey Bennett, Paul Mortimer and famously for us Martin Robinson, who despite being quiet and softly spoken became the first person to swear live on our show, when I told Bernard of Martin’s slip up he was mortified.

Bernard was so much more than our man with a decent contact list, Bernard would help out with former players for Charity events, Nicky Johns annual charity golf day was testament to that.

To me personally, Bernard was a great source of encouragement, and during a difficult personal time he was always available to talk to, when he had a spare ticket for a tesitimonial event for Rob Key he gave me a call and asked if I would join him and his guests, turns out his guests were Garry Nelson and Eddie Youds, and the evening as you can imagine was a roaring success.

Bernard was a warm hearted, humorous man, a huge fan of Charlton Athletic, a man I will personally miss so much, as will all of us here at Charlton Live.