And while we’re at it...

NOT many parents of sports people are as widely known as Neville Neville. The name helped, obviously. Not one you’d forget in a hurry. Behind most successful athletes there is a mum, or dad, who has made sacrifices and invested time and love in pursuit of the dream. Neville, and his wife Jill, were exceptional people because they raised three world-class competitors: footballers Gary and Phil and Tracey, a netball international who now coaches the England team. Between them, they won 225 England caps. Neville was in Australia to watch his daughter’s team in the Netball World Cup, when he died of a heart attack last week, at 65. He was a good man, Neville. In 2006, when the families of the England football team found themselves staying in the same hotel in Baden-Baden as the football writers it was Neville who cut through a rather awkward Mexican stand-off at the bar to make sure everyone got along. Parents are more sensitive to criticism of their offspring than wives, girlfriends, even the players themselves, but Neville (below) made it work, for the most part. I remember one of those nights he told me that his fondest memories were of the times when one of his kids had played a big game, an international or a final maybe, and the adrenalin was still pumping and they didn’t want to go to bed, and they’d sit up and talk until the small hours of the morning, in rooms stacked full of their trophies and achievements. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone sound happier, or prouder. It’s no age to go, 65; but it was a good life.