I’ve got to admit, I was really shocked when I heard Humphrey Ker had left the club. He felt like a part of the furniture in the most positive possible connotation of that phrase.
Humphrey personified the values of the takeover: the fact that he facilitated it is coincidental to an extent.
Yes, he brokered the deal; yes, he was Rob‘s representative on Earth; but apart from his role as the Bishop of Mac, he also set the tone instantly for what would be a wonderful adventure.
His support of the local community, his compassion, his approachable manner instantly endeared him to everybody he came across.
A bit of old school charm goes along the way, particularly when it’s totally sincere.
His support of the Miners Rescue is the most revealing reflection of his personality. This is a man who arrived with a mission to tell the story of Wrexham Football Club. However, he understood something much more profound than that: a football club is only the product of its environment.
Wrexham Football Club was built on honest toil and graft. Our connection with the mines is profound, from Arfon Griffiths working in the office at Gresford Colliery to the terrible events of the 22nd September 1934.
Humphrey gets this. Working at a football club is much more than clocking in and out and getting through the day. You’re working to facilitate the hopes and ambitions of thousands, getting into the very soul of a community and understanding what makes it tick. Humphrey Ker gave something back in the grand manner.
He is a profoundly important person in the club’s history. On a prosaic level, he made the takeover possible. When the search was on for a club to take over, he did the groundwork for Rob and Ryan.
Ultimately, if he’d told them that Hartlepool were a better option we’d still be languishing in the National League, jealously watching them relentlessly climb the pyramid.
However, he chose us. The rest is glorious history.
While his impact as a person is his greatest legacy, I should point out something relatively trivial, but awfully important. He was rather good at his job.
His honesty was a great asset, grasping, in an era where corporate PR tends to prioritise gate-keeping and hiding away from problems, that honesty is actually the best policy.
Sensible people will accept the truth when they want an explanation, and then the shouting of the trouble-makers and professional malcontents dwindles away. They’re not the people we’re trying to appeal to anyway.
To this end, Ker would use his column in the Leader to good effect. Take, for example, the delay in availability of replica shirts at the start of our National League-winning season.
Ker defused the issue by explaining that it was the red tape of Brexit that stopped the shirt from making the short hop over the English Channel. Problem over.
The first batch of the limited edition Aviation Gin was similarly held up. In the same column, Ker explained that there was a pallet shortage which meant container ships weren’t able to load up their cargo.
With the problem explained, the issue was dead and the people who were whipping up dissatisfaction moved on to some new social media storm.
That folksy, common sense approach to dealing with problems is invaluable and sadly rare these days.
It’s a shame that in future there wouldn’t be an opportunity to learn such lessons from him. Just having him around the stadium, where a lot of young people are making their way in the working environment for the first time, was of real benefit to the club and the town.
Learning from his example, constantly seeing his commitment and overwhelming sense of decency and fairness, only helped young people to develop strong habits, standards and values.
Also, having watched a staff match at The Racecourse, I can confirm he is also a rather tasty target man. Ollie Palmer was lucky that Humphrey didn’t bring his boots with him on match days!
So farewell, Humphrey Ker. You are one of the good guys; one of the very best, in fact.
It’s very difficult to find the words which do justice to my gratitude and the gratitude of all those other committed Wrexham fans, regardless of how long they’ve supported the club.
The deeds were great, and the person is greater. He was motivated by his morals, his overwhelming sense of decency and a notion of service that few people grasp and even fewer are able to put into action.
A good man who came together with other good people and helped us do something astonishing.
He deserves to be recognised as a founding father of what Wrexham has become, a towering figure in the grand context of our entire, lengthy history.
Don’t let anyone forget what he has done for us.
History only tells his story we are here to hear his glory.
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