Supporter Liaison Officer Paul Bastard introduces us to tomorrow’s TUFC Community Champion, Andrew Fiderkiewicz
The word ‘fixture’ is most often employed to denote a scheduled sports match but, when referring to people, it is also used to signify a permanent presence at a particular place and time. Thus, for the past 60 (teleprinter: SIXTY) years a fixture at Plainmoor as a gateman has been a tall, willowy, now healthily weathered, Torquinian who hails from an era when Clement Attlee was our Prime Minister, George VI was still on the throne and the wartime Pope, Pius XII, was in the middle of his Vatican reign. This last is symbolic because another unbreakable thread throughout Andrew’s life has been his devotion to Roman Catholicism.
Son of a Polish war hero, who came to work at Centrax after the conflict, and a local, half-Irish girl, Andrew’s links with the club go back to his maternal grandfather, George McBrearty, who actually played on the wing for Torquay United before the Great War! And it was grandfather George who first took young Andrew to Plainmoor in 1956 just before United went heartbreakingly close to playing in the second tier of the EFL.
Ten years later an old school chum, Jim Hart, suggested that he might like to join him on the gate at Plainmoor. The reward was a modest stipend and, at first, involved clipping tickets at the top of the entry steps in the old, wooden, ex-Buckfastleigh racecourse grandstand. Evolution in the rôle involved a posting to Bert Hogger’s sentry boxes at either end of the old standing Enclosure where Andrew would allow entry from the rest of the terraces for a charge of one shilling. Through the years Andrew ended up on the rebuilt Popside where, today, he presides over the turnstile to Gate 5 and QR code zappers and digital tickets have taken over from cash.
Andrew’s time as a gateman started with Tony Boyce as chairman and Frank O’Farrell as manager (United’s 15th). Considering that, since then, he has seen another 36 or so managers come and go plus caretakers in-the-teens, it is fair to say that Andrew has lived through a great part of United’s history. That living alongside, and carrying on, the history of the club through the decades plus the badinage with his regulars are the best parts of the gateman role for Andrew with the only down-side being those early minutes after kick-off which he invariably misses. For instance, he ruefully recounts how he only partially glimpsed Pat Kruse’s (in)famous own goal past Terry Lee v. Cambridge Utd on a freezing early January day in 1977 – still considered the fastest (about 6 seconds) own goal in professional football history. Of course away from home Andrew is able to view the entire match, with an early highlight being the famous 0-0 draw at Darlington in the final match of the 1965/66 season (“Stubbs and Barnes both had goals unjustly disallowed”) which virtually ensured promotion through to the third tier.
When he couldn’t travel away, and without the social media and mobile ‘phones of today’s instant news updates, Andrew would go to the nearest telephone box, dial ‘O’ and enquire of the always omniscient local operator the result of United’s match! Andrew’s away sorties are fewer these days but he still travels away when time allows. When time allows, because Andrew has always been a busy man since leaving Torquay Boys’ Grammar School in 1968 and thence obtaining a degree in mathematics from the University of Sheffield. A long career in accountancy ensued, initially with Torbay Council, then Devon County Council at County Hall in Exeter, via British Gas, where he was general manager in various locations around the south-west and west of England, to Plymouth College of Further Education post-2000 and into “retirement”.
“Retirement” is in name only, of course, as Andrew continues to work within the local community as accountant to his church and as independent financial adviser to Torquay United Supporters’ Trust as well as his volunteering rôle at Plainmoor. Which brings us to the name by which many older, former schoolboy chums of Andrew’s really know him: “Fiddles” – an obvious corruption, yes, of not the easiest of surnames to spell but also jocularly clairvoyant of his future métier. Apposite? Of course not, given its owner’s absolute integrity and loyalty throughout his career – but hence the joke, which Fiddles appreciates with a twinkle in his eye!
Away from work Andrew was a schoolboy trainspotter on Newton Abbot station, is a keen swimmer, and possesses a fine singing voice. His strong family life extends to seven grandchildren while his current motor car bears the Devonian registration mark transferred over the years from a 1956 split-windscreen Morris Minor.
So the next time, in the minutes after kick-off, you see this loyal man of tradition and servant of the club (he even helped out as a ballboy during Covid) after his duties on Gate 5 proceeding along the Popside walkway with the earnest tread of a cloister-walking cardinal on his way to Mass, be cognisant that you are witnessing a kind of glorious déjà vu from six decades hence – and without one single account being fiddled!
