The affection Tottenham Hotspur players have for kitman Steve Dukes was clear as they travelled across the world to play for him in a special match on Sunday afternoon.
The popular 55-year-old has been at Spurs for 36 years and you would be hard pressed to find anyone within the club who has not shared a laugh with him or been helped by him at some point. So when the man known as 'Dukesy' called in favours from those who have pulled on the Tottenham shirts he's given them over the decades they arrived in their droves to play in a charity match at Bishop's Stortford FC's R&D Stadium in Hertfordshire.
Jermain Defoe, Robbie Keane, Ledley King, Aaron Lennon, Danny Rose, Michael Dawson were joined by international former Spurs stars such as Edgar Davids, Sandro, Heurelho Gomes, Pascal Chimbonda, Wilson Palacios, Younes Kaboul, Sebastien Bassong and Michel Vorm who jetted in for their old friend and an important cause.
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Three years ago, Dukes' father Charlie, a keen cyclist, popped out on a quick ride. He told the family he was just riding up to the local farm to get some bits and that he would be back in half an hour. The 73-year-old never returned. He was found by the side of the road with three fractures in his skull and despite being treated and airlifted by the Essex & Herts Air Ambulance to the Royal London Hospital's trauma unit he continued to deteriorate and his life support was switched off five days later.
In the weeks ahead Steve found that putting his energy into raising money in his father's name for those operating the air ambulance that tried to give him a fighting chance helped him deal with the grief. In 2021, he organised an auction of signed shirts from all 92 of the clubs in the Premier League and Football League and along with a JustGiving page, £47,000 was raised that year.
The following year, the kit man put together a huge 16-day charity auction of signed memorabilia with items from Harry Kane, Son Heung-min, Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo just to name a few.
Then came the idea to create a fundraising match in his father's name and on Sunday his old friends turned out in force for him.
Harry Redknapp even stepped back into the dugout to manage many of his old players. Tickets for the 3,500 capacity stadium sold out within 24 hours months ago and Spurs fans arrived in their droves more than three hours before kick-off to see one of the most talented Tottenham teams ever put out in a charity game.
Not only that but these players were fit, many of them having only just retired in the past 12 months and having kept in top shape. It was almost cruel to unleash them on an opposition side, managed by Hollywood star Ray Winstone, that contained a mix of celebrities like Mark Wright and Billy Wingrove, reality stars, Youtube stars, DJs, singers and ex-pros such as Yaya Toure, now an academy coach at Spurs, Wayne Routledge and Carlton Cole.
The Tottenham players had turned up to put on a show and their competitive edge shone through, players like Danny Rose and Sandro in particular crunching into tackles, the former looking for his next club. Many of these players had played together countless times in the Premier League and they clicked back into gear alongside each other as muscle memory took over.
It was too much for an opposition side that grew more and more frustrated, with a couple of visible tantrums on display from those who wanted to take it seriously but didn't have the athletic ability to do so and briefly forgot on occasion the charitable aspect of the encounter.
The crowd though were there for the Spurs players and their heroes ran riot in a game refereed by Mark Clattenburg.
The opening goal brought the Keane cartwheel. The celebrity side gave the ball away, it was collected by Defoe and his shot was parried and the Irishman, now on Sam Allardyce's coaching team at Leeds, dinked it back over the goalkeeper and into the net.
Three minutes later it was 2-0 with a goal from the top drawer. Davids and Defoe combined through the centre with some beautiful touches and control before the latter picked out Keane in the middle and he sent the keeper the wrong way with a body swerve before chipping it over the prostrate stopper on the floor.
Soon after came the third goal, from the feet of the energetic Sandro. The Brazilian midfielder and his compatriot Gomes are larger than life characters and they brought a huge dollop of fun to proceedings. When Keane played in Defoe, he turned and teed up Sandro to tap home from close range, sparking a mad sprint to the dugout before launching into the Cristiano Ronaldo siuu celebration.
The opposition found a goal back through Routledge, the former Spurs and Crystal Palace winger, who ran through the middle and tucked a tidy shot in off the left-hand post.
On 31 minutes, Ledley King came off, to be replaced by Younes Kaboul. The Tottenham captain with one knee was taking to the pitch for the first time in around a decade and surprised even himself with the amount of time he played. Even at 42-years-old and with the aforementioned single knee he still made defending look effortless. What Spurs would do now to have King in his prime even for 31 minutes to prevent those repeated early goals.
This Spurs team were not holding back in the sunshine and they scored their fourth just before the break, Defoe and Keane playing a one-two before the former England striker finished clinically in the bottom left corner.
The second half brought a change with Wilson Palacios replacing Sandro but disaster struck within minutes as the 38-year-old Honduran suffered an injury that resulted in him being stretchered off, having made the trip all the way from the USA for the game. Sandro duly jogged back on to the pitch to take his place.
Tottenham did not let up and Huddlestone showcased his renowned passing range with a glorious ball over the top to Defoe who chipped the stranded goalkeeper. The striker, who only retired a year ago, completed his hat-trick with a close range effort after being teed up by Chimbonda.
Huddlestone hit the crossbar with the most delicate of chips before both sides made the decision to go to 13 players each on the pitch. Spurs brought on Dukes' and Keane's sons as well as Redknapp's grandson.
It was Keane Jr who brought late entertainment for the fans alongside goalkeeper Gomes who had been replaced by Vorm at half-time but came back on the pitch as an outfield player in the final moments and showed off a neat array of tricks and flicks.
The players were desperately trying to get a goal for the younger Keane. He was denied by the keeper once and then when Defoe went down for a dubious penalty so Keane Jr sent the spot kick on to the crossbar. Clattenburg ordered a retake but the keeper was not playing along and saved the youngster's follow-up, to the boos of the crowd behind his goal.
He was not to be denied though and Keane the younger wrapped up the 7-1 victory with the final kick of the game.
It was the perfect end to a perfect day for Dukes after all of his hard work in his spare time over the past year and as the thousands of fans swarmed around the players for selfies and autographs it was clear that the popular kit man's hopes that this will become an ever-growing annual event were well-founded.
Next year a bigger stadium will be needed and Dukes has spoken of potentially taking on legends teams from other clubs to only further push up the interest and the potential for fundraising. He has received plenty of interest from current Spurs players about taking part as soon as they hang up their boots. It's an event that he hopes will one day be played annually at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
On Sunday, funds were raised for the air ambulance as well as other charities through the ticket sales, a shirt auction with the players who played, sponsorship in the programmes and the proceeds of selling the programmes themselves with Dukes hoping to take his running total to £150,000 and beyond.
As the players gathered with their families to catch up properly after the match inside the stadium, their delight in reuniting, some after many years apart, was clear to see.
All of them grabbed and hugged Dukes throughout, the Brazilian duo particularly energetic and bouncing around, Gomes at one point launching himself at the kit man and speaking to him in a near perfect Irish accent. There was no particularly reason for it - Dukes does not have an Irish accent - but it was entertaining nonetheless.
"It was good to see the lads again," an actual Irishman in Keane told football.london. "We're a good group and while we've stayed in touch with each other I haven't seen a lot of them in ages. After football you go your different ways and you often go back home [to your home country].
"I see Daws and Ledley quite a bit at Tottenham games but Gomes and Wilson, hopefully he's okay after that unfortunate injury, I haven't seen in a while and it's great to see them."
He added: "I'm very close personally to Dukesy so to help him with this and be part of it was great. It was brilliant and to be for charity as well, it's a great cause. Something good came from bad circumstances with what he's done. It's been a good day and I think everyone enjoyed it.
"I think it shows his popularity that so many people showed up. The players have travelled from afar just to be here. I had a game yesterday with Leeds and I drove down last night. To have my boy on the pitch at the end, Dukesy's son and Harry's grandson was lovely. It was a perfect day."
The stars turned out for Dukes on Sunday and they provided the Tottenham fans with more entertainment in 90 minutes than the current side have given them across an entire season. Many of them looked like they could still do a job for Ryan Mason's team.
This was just the beginning though. They travelled from across the globe for their kit man and the expectation among all of them is that this is going to become a major, ever-growing event on their calendars with each new wave of retiring Spurs stars in the years to join in. For Steve Dukes, charity will continue to be the winner and all in the name of his father.
To donate to the fundraising in memory of Charlie Dukes you can head to the JustGiving page right here and you can look out for the latest news on the match auction on Steve's Instagram page right here. For those wishing to put their cause forward to be considered to receive money from the funds raised, they should email cdcharityfootball@yahoo.com
