Tribute To Steve Platt

Steve Platt (or ‘How I learned to keep the noise down’)

While working away last week it was sad to hear about the passing of Steve Platt. I hadn’t seen him for a while now since he had moved to Spain but it was still a sad moment when Kevin rang me to let me know. I think the last time we had a beer together could have been the 3 man at Yarmouth two years ago.

He was a genuinely good guy who fought cancer for a long time and somehow managed to survive numerous “you only have ….. to live” statements from doctors and experts. He took everything with amazing courage and dignity and you couldn't help but be impressed with Steve’s attitude to it all. He served with myself and JY on the Thames Valley Pool Committee for a few years and also played in a number of teams with myself, Kevin, James Harness, Brad and Lee. This included the Berkshire county side and teams in the Slough and Windsor leagues.

In the late 80's and early 90's Steve, Kevin, Scott Yardley, James and Stuart Harness, Neil Dodds, Bobby Nicholas, myself (and a few others that I’m sure I’ve missed out on) [Phil Reeves & Jason Brown spring to mind – KS) were playing together in Windsor. We all played for Robert Uzzell’s Willow Wanderers team, and as a rule each night we were first into every venue and always the last to leave - home or away. We were a loud and raucous side but in a fun way. We spent the evenings drinking, laughing at stupid jokes and ‘bundling’ people on the sofa at the Willows Caravan Park. “Splatty” (so called because of the unfortunate way the pool cards were written out at the time – S. Platt) was always the straight man of the operation and the quietest.

At Willows they ran bingo for the pensioners in the main room next to the pool area. Whenever we got a bit too loud and were being told off by Gordon the owner, someone would always turn to Steve and shout “Splatty keep the noise down!!” so he would get the blame. Steve would just sit there with a ‘not impressed’ look on his face while we carried on. It was the running joke of the seasons that we would blame him for the chaos going on.

I’m not properly qualified to talk about the long and painful fight Steve had with cancer, or how happy he was to get married and move out to Spain so I will put up a couple of stories that I’m always reminded off when I think of him. I hope anyone reading this who knew him will appreciate it. If I had to describe him, he was a Sid Little look-a-like with a love of the horses, a few beers and a game of pool.

Once when he was in hospital I heard that to keep himself busy and his mind active, he ran a book on who in the ward would be next ‘to go’. He had himself at 8-1 until one day the doctors told him that they had found another tumour. I think it was Stuart Harness I spoke to when I said “How’s Steve doing?” and Stuart replied, “not great, he has just chopped himself down to even money favourite!”

One night in the Willows after the match had finished, Steve played Kevin and the rule was that you had to double the black in. The black ended up right over a corner pocket and so the rule changed so that you had to bounce the white off at least two cushions before potting it. While Kevin’s efforts were reasonably close, Steve’s were terrible. He would spend a minute or so lining something up, hit the cue ball and watch it do laps of the table not getting anywhere near the 8-ball. Kevin and I were laughing at every attempt, mostly because we knew Steve was no good at this so you could always beat him. Finally he lined up a four cushion special declaring ‘watch this’ and thundered the white off one cushion and straight into the pocket furthest from the black. Kevin fell on the floor laughing and Steve was furious at us for laughing and stormed out. He came back in sometime later and all was forgiven. From then on we always referred to an attempted escape to pot a ball that goes horribly wrong as a Stevie Platt. We still do it even now.

The third memory was being in Roberts car going to a county game. Steve was doing the crossword and had finished it. Robert picked the newspaper up and said “Steve you've missed one. 36 across -‘Tired Postman.’”

‘Tired postman?’ says Steve and begins to think…… after about two minutes he says:

‘How many letters?’

‘THOUSANDS’ says Rob ‘THAT'S WHY HE’S SO TIRED!!!’

Everyone cracked up. Everyone except Steve, who just looked at us all in despair before managing a big grin just wide enough to show the few teeth that remained in his mouth. I laughed so much at the whole situation I was in tears.

That was Steve, the straight and steady, well respected member of the group that helped make it all fit together. He was a truly great guy and I cant begin to imagine the courage it must have took him to fight that illness through all those years of treatment and hospitals.

If there is a heaven then he is definitely there, but one piece of advice Steve – ‘keep the noise down’


Keith Walls