Footballer Carl helps tackle myth that not all our heroes disappoint
NEVER meet your heroes as they’ll only disappoint you. That’s how the saying goes, isn’t it? The film star, rock singer or politician whose public views match your own might not be quite the sound people off the screen or stage you hoped they would be.
Well sometimes the opposite is true, and that is precisely what happened to me this week in a very small way.
This is how it went.
Last weekend I was talking to a very good friend who has three sons all in their 20s. I have known them all almost since the days they were born and they are all absolutely terrific lads whose company, like their father’s, I enjoy immensely.
Anyhow, their dad told me how he had, a few days before, driven the youngest one back to university to complete his final year.
He told me how when they arrived at the room he has in a shared house he pinned two photographs above his desk where he will spend the next few months studying.
But they are not, as you might imagine, of his family or his girlfriend.
No, one is of him with the cricket team he plays for and the other is of his favourite footballer.
It isn’t Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney or anyone else so high profile as that. It is Carl Dickinson.
Now I am fully aware there will be many reading this who will immediately ask themselves “who’s Carl Dickinson?” so let me offer you some background.
A Swadlincote lad, Dicko, as he is affectionately known, currently plies his trade for Yeovil Town in the National League. But for two seasons recently he played for my club, Notts County, and was liked by most of the fans for his full-blooded commitment and refusal to shirk a tackle.
It is that dedication to the cause which quickly endeared him to the heart of Albert, my mate’s lad.
So after talking to his father I decided I would try to contact Carl to see if he might have a signed photograph he could send me to forward on to Leeds and raise a smile for a mate’s son entering his last, stressful, year at university.
I expected no reply at all but within minutes the full-back had got back to me explaining he didn’t have anything like that but would, if I wanted, record a short online video wishing Albert all the best.
Obviously I jumped at the chance and the following morning it arrived in my inbox and it was just perfect.
I forwarded it on to one of the many WhatsApp groups we belong to and Albert’s reaction was priceless.
“WAIT! WHAT! I’ve got goosebumps!” it read.
I have been fortunate in what some might see as a privileged position in my years at the Telegraph, to have met and interviewed some famous people from a wide spectrum of celebrity.
Some have been absolutely lovely, giving you as much time as you need to ask them the questions you want, while others have been not so lovely.
To many they might be seen as heroes, be they singers, actors, politicians, sportsmen and women.
I am sure to many the name Carl Dickinson will mean little but in our little circle of sports-mad mates who, in the days before lockdown, would trot to Meadow Lane every other Saturday to cheer on our side, he will now forever be held in the highest esteem.
Dicko is a hero to Albert and this week, he certainly did not disappoint.