Unforgettable Escorted Exploration Of Famous Roots

“Either you can come up to see me up near Blackpool or I will combine a family visit down there and meet you in Shropshire.”

Steve Kindon was helpfulness personified as we set about the enjoyable task of arranging a long interview about his life and football career.

In the end, we compromised and decided that heading back to his roots was a good idea. “That would be great….Warrington is half-way between us and I can show you where I grew up and went to junior school,” he said.

The enthusiastic, accommodating tone in our set-up chat was just the tip of it. Being treated to more than three hours in his company was something else; bigger, better, louder, funnier.

John Richards has spent more days and nights with Kindo than he cares to remember, starting, it is believed, with a chance meeting in the queue for their local Odeon in Warrington when they were ten.

This new rendezvous was an opportunity for the other half of Wolves Heroes’ ownership team to become a bit more familiar with a man for whom the phrase ‘larger than life’ barely scratches the surface.

The surprises started before we even met just off the M56. “You’re not going to be pleased with me, love,” he said. “I’m running late.” His dad had called him ‘love’, so I came to be flattered by the address when it was repeated once or twice over the afternoon.

A phone call from his hospital on the house phone was the justifiable reason for Kindo’s uncharacteristic tardiness but he still took some convincing about not feeling guilty. “I’d rather be an hour early than a minute late,” he added.

I smiled as I met him out of his car because ELO were playing on the radio. He was such big mates in his Wolves days with Bev Bevan that, after a game of tennis one summer, he ended up with one of the drummer’s gold discs and handed over his garish 1974 ’emu’ League Cup final tracksuit in return.

Inside the watering hole of his choice, looking out into bright sunlight, our chat bounded along merrily – or should I say ‘skipped’ along? This was the first time to my knowledge that I’d heard of the nickname his late-1960s Burnley team-mates, influenced by the colourful words of a local newspaper reporter, gave him in honour of a famous bush kangaroo starring on our TV screens at the time.

Our get-together was arranged so I could do justice to his deeds – on the pitch and off it – in a lengthy interview for Backpass magazine. 

And he proceded to give me the full insight by driving me around and pointing out where he was born and raised, where he matured in the bigger house round the corner where family life granted him an ‘idyllic’ childhood, where he caught the train from Padgate Station to grammar school in nearby Widnes and where he belatedly took up football.

There was also also a wonderful story about Simon and Garfunkel before I discovered that the Kindons, Richardses, Hibbitts, (Dave) Thomases and Carrs had planned a joint 70th birthday celebration until covid intervened.

Most of all, our three hours together were about questioning, listening and laughing….while he sank a pint and I settled for something softer. “Good to see he is keeping to his diet,” Richards said when clapping eyes on the above photo on his mobile during the latest family visit to Australia.

A four-page feature on Kindon will appear in the May/June issue of Backpass. Any readers interested in buying a copy or becoming a subscriber to this outstanding publication are welcome to contact us if they are struggling to do so.