Sadly Dave died following a heart bypass operation near his home in Portugal. There was a quiet funeral attended by George Hamilton and Phil Loveday representing Novos

When I joined Novos in 1974 I met Dave, he was a keen trainer. When the club decided that only those who trained would be selected he certainly would have been in the team… but there might have been only 5 others, such was the state of the club at that time.
Dave managed the team when not only were mobile phones unheard of, but he did not have a telephone line in his house. He would scrounge as many penny coins as possible and stand in a telephone box in Benwell ringing round his team.
At the start of the following season Dave was captain of the club in a season when we struggled to get sides out, but we survived. The following season Dave took over the second team captain and secured a faithful following, and in part thanks to his work by 1977-78 we were able to run 5 teams regularly. His mini traveller was always in the car park when you arrived, and often there when you left.
Dave also threw his personality into the club’s social life both at the Club Ball and at the Dinner Dance, but was also a star at the supper nights, where two years in a row we managed to run out of rice… (days before Deliveroo) but the Newton Chinese cannot have had many orders for 20 portions of plain boiled rice!
Work took Dave and his family out of the area but he was an occasional visitor to the bar when in the area visiting family.
He and his second wife (Lorraine) retired to the Algarve where he met up with George Hamilton and has thoroughly enjoyed the last 10 years playing a lot of golf at Palmares Golf Club
He was a real Gentleman and many will be saddened at his death