Tributes to Steve Clarke have poured in this week as people heard the news of his untimely death. Many, of course, came from the Charlton "family" but there has also been great admiration from the wider supporter movement. It is surely a sign of the immense appreciation and affection for Steve that nearly 7000 people have already visited the announcement and tribute that we published on this site last weekend: https://www.castrust.org/2020/09/steve-clarke-r-i-p/
Below is a compilation of just a very few of the tributes that have been sent to us this week or posted on Charlton Life:
"We at Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust first met Steve Clarke almost six years ago at Supporters Direct’s annual summit in Manchester. We were starting to pull together a coalition of London club fan groups to expose and oppose the unfair deal that gave West Ham the Olympic Stadium at taxpayer expense. Steve and his friend and Charlton colleague Richard Hunt proved to be dedicated, resourceful and hugely effective. And very good company. Steve was a doer, highly intelligent and practical, but also had that rare quality of maintaining good humour even in the midst of heated debate. His track record as a fan activist is outstanding. Charlton always came first and he was prepared to step up to make things work, rather than simply commentate. But he was always conscious of the wider fan movement, and ready to offer and take advice. It’s not easy today to be an effective guy and a nice guy. Steve proved it can be done. He will be sorely missed.
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"I first met with Steve through the ongoing friendship between Leyton Orient Fans Trust and CAST and our joint concerns about the Olympic Stadium. I met him at a meeting we had with Murad Qureshi at City Hall and to me he came across as a bit suave with street sus! He would have made a great Dr Who! He had a great sense of humour and knew how to get things done. He and the CAST board were so helpful to LOFT during our troubles a few years ago and their help was invaluable. Steve also worked with Mat Roper when the campaign against the Olympic Stadium appeared to have been forgotten and had run out of steam. Along with Mat, Steve and Richard Hunt he made sure the campaign would not be put on the back burner.
Steve would often message me with his own personal view and outlook on football matters. He will be missed immeasurable by the football community as a colleague and a friend."
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"While always and proudly a Charlton fan first, it is no exaggeration to say that, when the then Fulham owner moved us out of Craven Cottage, Steve played an important and unheralded part in the fightback. When we formed Back to the Cottage, which later became the Fulham Supporters' Trust, we leaned heavily on Steve's advice and experience from the fight to return to the Valley in working out tactics, positioning, campaigning approach and (in the latter stages) engagement with the Club in our ultimately successful return home. Back then, we held Charlton up as an exemplar to follow - contrasting our then owner's desire to be the Manchester United of the South with the much more realistic ambition of being the Charlton Athletic of south west London - at a time when Steve was an elected board member at the Valley. In the years that followed, as the situation at Charlton deteriorated, Steve remained a source of wisdom and counsel on the importance of good governance and sound ownership in football - helping us in Supporters' Direct and latterly the merged Football Supporters' Association to calibrate our proposals and approach - which, finally, seem to be getting some traction. If there is to be reform in football governance in the period ahead, one aspect of Steve's legacy will be the time, patience, diplomacy and determination he put into laying those foundations over many, many (often thankless) years."
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"Steve became someone I considered a very good friend. Good because of his many qualities as a human being, lifts to the Valley, offering to help my wife become a mediator, the generosity of spirit that everyone remarks upon. But also for what I discovered in these last few years, to my surprise and delight: that beneath the urbane, quietly spoken, clubbable exterior, and the search for practical middle ground solutions, a rebel heart was beating. When he finally decided that something was straight up wrong, Steve was ready to say so, to speak truth to power. So who is in the Olympic Stadium TV doc, looking and sounding proper alongside the flailing maniac in a daft gilet? That was Steve. Who was it who came up with me to the fans national meeting in Manchester, and when we found a few of them from Premier League clubs getting a bit too status quo, set about them with gusto? That was Steve."
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"He was more than a fan, always giving, always willing to push back. Intelligent and smart. God, what an awful year this has been. And what a time to move upstairs. I hope at least he has a directors box comfy seat to watch the next chapter of the club he loved."
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"I am struggling to process it all, like most who knew him. I just hope that Alex was able to whisper the news to him yesterday afternoon, and believe that he will have said to himself, "Oh well, job done, I'm out of here". Because that too, would be typical Steve."
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"He was a man ready to lend an ear and give an opinion in equal measures - prepared to give someone the benefit of the doubt, but prepared to fight for a Charlton cause. We have likely all benefitted in some fashion from his charm and endeavours."
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"I could’ve sat and listened to him speak all night. He had a voice like velvet... a lovely speaking voice."
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"He was such a good guy, one of the best - always looking to bring people together, a true gentleman, and of course we shared a passion about our wonderful club - hopefully in good hands moving forward. His family are a wonderful reflection of the man, and my thoughts are with them right now."
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"I knew Steve for 30 years from the Valley Party days onwards and while we didn’t always agree and or even agree to disagree, he was always thoroughly decent, committed to Charlton and generous with his time and support. He and his family have been part of our extended group in the east stand since 1994. It is crushing that we have lost both Steve and Craig Norris, with whom he was great friends, in the space of a few years and in similar circumstances."
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"Steve had a dry sense of humour - we had great fun recalling past players who didn’t quite live up to their early promise. When we get back to the Valley, it won’t be the same without him."
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"He had a calm, assured and unruffled manner - something vitally important when dealing with the awful shenanigans going on in the ownership of this club over the last number of years."
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"Let's hope this new era is a testament to Steve and all the others who have departed who did all they could to support and protect our club in so many different ways."
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"Without people who care that much and are willing to put in a shift we probably wouldn't have a club today."
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"I have known Steve for thirty years. It has been a privilege"