Report from Norman Smith’s funeral

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The Association was represented at the funeral service of Association member and former City forward Norman Smith at Holy Trinity church Coventry continued at Canley crematorium yesterday (December 8th 2010). Coventry City’s oldest surviving player and the last surviving Bantam’s player to have pulled on the Club’s shirt before the outbreak of WW2 Norman sadly passed away on Thursday 18th November 2010 a few days before his 91st Birthday.

Committee members Bob Eales and Frank Pritchard were present to convey the Association’s condolences. Bob reports the occasion as follows:-

“Frank Pritchard and myself attended the funeral of Norman Smith today; also in attendance was Former Player Jack Evans and representatives of Bedworth United. The funeral was held at the Holy Trinity Church in Coventry followed by a cremation service at Canley Crematorium. During the service it was stated that Norman was a complete gentleman, and never spoke too much about his achievements, he lived in the north east, when he was 15 the family moved to Coventry to look for work that didn’t involve mining. It was then that Coventy City spotted his talent and signed him up.

The war stopped his career for a while, the day after the break out of war Norman joined the RAF although he wanted to join the Navy but they turned him down, as the family said it was the Navy’s loss but the RAF’s gain. Norman became a pilot for 64 Squadron, Fighter Command, he was once asked what it felt like preparing for a mission and if he ever thought about not returning, his only response was “if I don’t return then I will have done my best for King and Country”. This goes a long way to saying what type of man Norman was.

After the funeral we were invited back to the family home, we met the family including Norman’s wife Peggy, it didn’t take long for the pictures and cuttings to come out, there was a picture of Norman representing Birmingham County FA as Captain and we also saw his Cap from the game. Peggy told us how she hated football and how she got told off by one of the trainers by the name of Dick Hill for not feeding Norman properly.

The family are rightly proud of Norman’s achievements in his life and the time they had with him, we would like to thank the family for their hospitality and wish them well for the future”.

I’m sure all of our Members (and readers) would wish to echo these sentiments.

An appreciation of Norman’s career is provided on our ‘Gone but not Forgotten’ pages.