I have never met anyone who dedicated their life to providing sporting and outdoor activity opportunities for others, as Pete did. He loved to have a good moan about things, usually to the people who
I have never met anyone who dedicated their life to providing sporting and outdoor activity opportunities for others, as Pete did.
He loved to have a good moan about things, usually to the people who could do the least about whatever he was saying. We knew that this came from a good place and stemmed from his incredible passion.
Pete always wanted the best for us, he wanted us to win but never forgot to remind us of the importance of our academic studies. He didn’t just want us to excel in our sport but wanted us to develop into decent young people with prospects, careers and a sense of social responsibility, sometimes he even achieved this. This has been reflected in the number of people in the club for whom he has helped with good employment at some point in life. The number of volunteers from Viking VSU that are still involved in youth sport are testament to his legacy. Pete was a great networker (everyone remembers the Viking directory), when you travelled around Derby with him, it seemed like he knew everyone, even when travelling around the UK or sometimes abroad. There would always be someone that popped up to say hello to him and talk about the good old days, you could see the gratitude that they had for him, it was obvious. He was a man with fingers in many pies and you knew that a good word from Pete would point you in the right direction.
He made our club the best in Britain and spent days and often nights too on the phone or on his computer sorting out all of the admin that goes alongside running an organisation like Viking. We would regularly knock on his door and find him passed out on his sofa exhausted from the amount of work he’d done the night before.
Although people paint Pete as being occasionally miserable, he was often quite the opposite and had a great sense of humour.
With Pete, it was a case of “do as I say, not as I do”. He’d lecture us on the importance of fitness, health and diet whilst smoking and drinking cans of red bull. He seemed to care more about what we were doing than looking after his own health at times. He used to attend all of the pool sessions that we went to, Mondays at Queen Street, Tuesdays at Moorways, Thursdays at Belper Leisure Centre and usually whichever weekend tournament with one of the Viking teams. He still found time to attend training sessions on the river down at the field and also used to come to the Unit to open up the hall so we could use the gym facilities and the kayaking ergo during the winter months (somehow this usually ended in a game of street hockey much to Pete’s frustration). How he kept all this up, alongside everything else he did was truly impressive. He continually emphasised the “pass and move” nature of Viking’s attacking play which was subject to much praise and admiration from teams around the world. Pete taught us how to play as youth players and ensured that we had plenty of good advice from the senior team to help us improve.
The time and effort that Pete invested in club fund raising was exceptional! We were all shown the importance of community spirit and club investment through stamp and deliver sessions, scrap metal collection and bag packing. Although sometimes we would rather have done other things with our spare time, I’m grateful for these experiences as Pete showed us what was possible with a little bit of teamwork from each club member. We always had a minibus and always had plenty of kit for our youth players, looking back, we were incredibly fortunate for these things. Pete lead our club to a record of 11 National League titles and a whole host of international tournament victories, coaches or managers from any other sport would be heralded as a genius with these types of credentials and Pete was no exception to this. He would be bursting with pride every time one of our club members put on a Great Britain tracksuit and even more so when they won a medal at a World or European championships, of which there has been more than you could count over the years. He knew, as well as we all did that he had played a huge role in these successes but never took the limelight and forever directed all of the praise to the players themselves. This was such an honourable, humble and also typically British trait of his.
He loved a coffee and a chat about all kinds of things. Pete was a very well-read and intelligent man, I feel like I’ve learned a lot from him about life in general, as I’m sure we all have. When Pete called you up, you’d easily say goodbye to the next 1-2 hours of your day (speakerphone became a godsend). You knew that he did this with the best intentions.
Pete was the club’s fatherly figure, you could have a laugh and a joke with him but when Pete put his foot down, you did as he said. He was one of the most well-respected people I’ve ever met. He built our club and made it sustainable for what is hopefully many future generations.