Wanderers mourn passing of “Elder Statesman”

It is with great sadness that the Wanderers announce the passing of one of its “Elder statesmen” Dave Webber.

In his 70+ years with the club first as a player, a wing and occasional scrum half in the 50s and more recently as committee man, trustee and loyal supporter Dave was an ever present on the touchline and his shouts of “Tackle!” as he moved up and down the ground, enjoyed by many a generation, will be sadly missed.

The comment “you will never meet a nicer Wanderer” has been echoed about the club since his passing. Always the first to seek out the opposition committee on match days for a friendly chat and he would make a point of talking to players of both sides, always with a congratulatory word “you had a good game” even if at times he got the players name and often position wrong. It was the gesture which was a measure of the man.

A founder of our Youth team in the late 1960s (having current Chairman Gerry Blake as one of his first Youth Captains) he was involved with the Public School Wanderers Youth, Crawshays Youth and if there was a Wanderers game being played somewhere here and abroad he would make an effort to attend.

In his latter years he would attend games with a printout of the Wanderers match-day squad and be heard asking any changes to the team? Who is this chap? Who do I look out for today?

Equally at home in the courtrooms of the land or leading the singing in a seedy Singapore nightclub on our tour there in 2000, small of stature but huge in character a man we will all miss very much.

Our condolences go out to his wife Ann and all the extended Webber family at this sad time.