Although he came from Accrington and lived in Padiham, Stuart
Limb was unquestionably a London Claret. Stuart died on Monday 28th June after a short
battle with cancer. The London Clarets AGM a couple of weeks later seemed a duller place
without him. That night we sat outside the Sekforde Arms, drunk a few appropriate beers in
his memory, and reminisced.
"Stuart was originally an Accrington Stanley fan, he's from Plantation Street
in Accrington. Some Accrington fans went over to supporting Blackburn, but Stuart came
over and supported Burnley. I don't know how I met Stuart, but it must have been on the
Cricket Field End, watching Burnley when we were about twelve or thirteen years old. I
lived in Hapton then, and I had some friends in Accrington, and we used to be in this
record club, buying all the Sixties soul, Stax, Tamla, Atlantic, plus we were mega Beach
boys fans. We saw the Beach Boys live three times in Manchester.
We started, probably when we were fourteen, hitching to London on a Friday night
to watch Burnley on a Saturday. God knows what we told our parents. We probably told them
we were going on the overnight bus to the game. We used to just get the bus out to the
motorway at Preston and stick our thumbs out.
Sometimes we got there in good time. Sometimes, I remember getting lifts across
Birmingham in Gas Board vans, Mr Kipling cake vans, all sorts of things. We weren't proud.
And sometimes we'd only get there with half an hour to go before the match started,
setting off at eleven o'clock on Friday night, and just about making it to the match.
We had a classic going to Tottenham once when, probably only about fifteen, a
horse called Red Emperor won the National at 33-1, and all the way down I'd been saying to
Stuart, come on, when we get to London we'll go and put a Pound on Red Emperor, and when
we got to a Bookie's shop we couldn't get in it, we just couldn't get near, so we went on
the ground, and at half time they announced that Red Emperor had won at 33-1, so there
goes our train fare home…
There was one year when we came back with people from the Cruft's dog show.
Stuart was an avid bus spotter and his Dad drove buses for Robinson's Coaches, and he took
this party down to the dog show and we came back on this bus on the way back.
And then he joined the army. For nine years. They came along to his funeral.
Even for me, I'd known him all my life really, I was stunned. All the people who were
there. The British Legion were there with their flag. He had a Union Jack on his coffin,
because he was a British soldier. And five different people got up and spoke about him.
His army uniform came in handy in hitching sometimes. In those days soldiers
used to get a lift. I'd hide, he'd hitch and we'd both get in the car.
He was at Catterick I think, in the Royal Signals. He went to a couple of
places, but I left England to go and work in Gibraltar in the early Seventies, and he got
posted there. So we were in Gibraltar for a year together. Following that he left the army
and he started being a truck driver. He was travelling long distances, and even then, I'd
get lifts off him from Burnley to go and watch Burnley game.
His only ambitions in life were to be a Burnley fan and to drive buses.
At his funeral all the coach drivers were there, outside the crematorium were
all these Border buses and some of his passengers were there. It was a sell out. Honestly.
It was a mega sell-out
Jan, his wife, asked the funeral directors if he could arrive at the crematorium
on a bus. She knew she could get a bus. And the funeral directors said, we don't normally
do that, so no you can't do it. But Stuart was buried in his Burnley shirt - he had a
brand new Burnley shirt on - his Burnley scarf and his jeans. His son said, the only thing
that made him not look like he was is that they'd combed his hair! But, what an event.
Stuart had a knack of falling asleep. I think his best effort was at York City
one year. He slept through a 0-0 draw. He sat down in the stand, next to me, put his head
on my shoulder and that was it.
He came down here one time, staying here. I met him after work and we went for a
few pints, and by about half past eight he was completely out of it. That night he did two
laps of the Circle Line before he got off here.
What was amazing was that at his funeral, there were so many serious people who
had so many good things to say. Five different sections of the community got up and said
something about him. Five people requested to get up and speak.
Eventually he was in the best situation, because all he ever wanted to do was
drive a bus. How can you get better than that? He was actually driving buses to Burnley
games in the end, working, seeing the match and going home.
Every Boxing Day Stuart would have a Boxing Day party. It meant so much to
Stuart that he had a party and Burnley fans came. And Shaggy Dog and myself I think were
probably as close as anybody to him. All the way through the years supporting Burnley,
Stuart's been a factor. Amazing person.
I remember Stuart's wedding. This is a Burnley fan for you. The wedding was in
Annan in Scotland. And he booked the Burnley team coach to take all his family up to
Scotland for this wedding. Nothing else would have done. It had to be the Burnley team
coach.
It was probably the best wedding reception I've ever been to. They had a
Scottish band on, accordion, banjo and whatever, and everybody in the room had to do a
turn. Me and Stuart did a duet and sang 'Bob Lord knows my father. Father knows Bob Lord'.
His coffin had a Union jack, and then it had a Claret and Blue bus, a Claret and
Blue car. We sent a wreath that was Claret and Blue ribbons all the way around, with 'from
the London Clarets'. Almost every flower was Claret and Blue.
The Sparrow Hawk closed the bar from two o'clock till six o'clock that afternoon
of the funeral and the reception was over bar.
Even when I was travelling up to Manchester when he was ill, I'm thinking, what
time's my next bus out of Manchester? I'll ring Stuart, because he'll have the timetable
and he'll be able to tell me.
Stuart adopted a family. I didn’t know that until last week. There's a guy
and his wife and their baby. This guy got kicked out of his home and Stuart just adopted
him. He stood up in the chapel and he made this eulogy.
There were so many people there. He would have been proud to know that he sold
out his funeral.
On the 14th of August we held a celebration in the upstairs room of
the Sparrow Hawk. The 10th of August would have been Stuart's 25th
wedding anniversary. It was a celebration."
Paul Burrows
"I'm not sure I can really add a great deal to what Paul has said.
I first came into contact with Stuart through knowing Paul. When Paul came back
from Papua New Guinea I was introduced to Stuart and John Webster. A fine bunch of drunks.
I remember Stuart doing all sorts of daft things, but the thing I remember most about him
was, as the bus driver, it just seemed that everywhere I went, Stuart was driving the bus.
You could tell whether there was a game on or not, because if you saw him
driving the bus and he didn't have his Burnley scarf on then there wasn't a match on, but
if he was going to have to knock off and then go to the game he'd have his Burnley scarf
on.
One of the very first times that I came into contact with him was when he drove
the bus to Paul's fortieth birthday to Seaton Carew when we had a game at Hartlepool.
Shaggy Dog came out with a joke that, if anybody else had said it would have
created great offence. So everybody's milling around and Jan's doing the right thing,
going round and saying thanks for coming, and we're all doing the right thing and there's
a pregnant pause and nobody knows what to say and then Dog just says, "Ah, I suppose
it's any excuse for a Burnley bus driver to have Friday off!"
Basically, Stuart's life was simple. He had his family. He had his football. And
he had his buses."
Woody
"My first memories really are in the Prince Albert in the early eighties of
being sold lottery tickets, which were the only lottery tickets that I've ever had a win
from.
Years after that he was driving trucks down to London. He used to ring me up at
work and stay over the night and we'd have a few beers.
He was a great guy, who's always been there, always a friendly face in the pub
when you turned up, and we'll miss him greatly."
Dave Parker
"I remember standing on the terrace at Chesterfield last season with our kid,
Shaggy Dog and Stuart, in that terrible game with a last minute penalty, and Stuart was
just like, I drove a load of Burnley supporters here today, at least I'm getting paid for
this.
Today was quite weird without Stuart turning up in the latest Burnley shirt and
selling people bags of dubious Claret and Blue toffee for a Pound a bag.
The celebration was after a Burnley home game, and there was no possible better
time for it than that."
Firmo
June-August 1999
