Damien Doran
By Dave Woodhall.
I don’t suppose more than a few of us who watched a match at the weekend knew Damien Doran, who died on Sunday at a disgracefully early age. Despite living in Birmingham Damien was an Oldham supporter, and for some reason he also had season tickets at Albion and Celtic, as well as attending games just about anywhere and everywhere else he could. He was involved in the Football Supporters Association back in the late eighties and thought up their petition against the Thatcher government’s legislation which proposed making everyone who attended a league game in Britain carry an identity card.
Thanks to some highly effective campaigning the battle was won and the idea that would have killed our game was quietly forgotten. Some of us who were involved in the campaign went on to carve out a living as writers and in the sociology of football, but Damien already had a family and career, so he carried on with that. He was, if you like, our equivalent of the drummer who waves the rest of the band off on their first tour because he can’t afford to go full time.
It’s hard to explain the difference between football then and now to anyone who wasn’t around at that time, but without people like Damien putting in such an amount of time and effort we might still be in the days when 20,000 was a good gate in the first division (I can’t imagine the Premier League ever getting off the ground in such circumstances) and football supporters deserved everything they got because we were all hooligans. There were a lot of similar fans around the country, they were almost without exception brave and honourable people and they’ve never got the credit they deserve.
Damien was also an avid gig-goer and a contributor to the Stirrer. These pieces reflect some of his interests and opinions.
http://www.thestirrer.co.uk/dd2008071.html
http://www.thestirrer.co.uk/florence-and-the-machine-2109091.html
http://www.thestirrer.co.uk/dd0109071.html
He leaves a son and daughter.
RIP Damien, who did his bit to improve all our lives even if we didn’t realise it.
Visit Damien’s memorial site here