I met Sara Pelopida and Kate Nurden in the Ashbridge for a coffee and chat about their late father. I left with a special story that I didn’t expect to hear when I walked through the doors of the pub.
Tributes like this are hard to write and I hope I’ve given it the sensitive approach it needs.
A friend had told me about Steve Dolan, 69, over Christmas. He said Steve passed away in November and had been to almost every Manchester United game over the last 30-odd years. I thought that was a special story for Cwmbran Life.
It was such a loyal stint for a man who lived 181 miles from Old Trafford in his house on Maendy Way in Pontnewydd that his passing was mentioned in the programme for United’s game against Bodø/Glimt on 28 November 2024.
The write-up said: “On Sunday 3 November, after the Chelsea game, Steve Dolan, chairman of the Chepstow and District supporters’ club for 30 years, sadly passed away. His favourite subject was the 1999 Champions League final, and he was always coming out with stories from the trip. He will be sadly missed by his family and will leave a big hole for us to fill. Rest in peace, Steve.”
I found Sara on Facebook and through another mutual friend, I was given her phone number and we arranged to meet.
The two sisters gave me a warm welcome and kindly bought me a coffee. They chatted for around 40 minutes about their dad.
Their parents divorced when they were children.
Sara, 43, said the love of Manchester United runs in the family with Steve’s grandparents once living in the city.
She said her dad spotted an advert for the Chepstow Branch of the Manchester United supporters club] and joined. But he didn’t join just to enjoy trips away on his own. Steve signed up both his daughters and for around ten years the trio enjoyed hundreds of trips together.
The Charity Shield final 1993
Kate said: “The first game I went with him to was the Charity Shield. I think it was just me and him at the old Wembley. I would’ve been about ten. It was about 1993.
“Then it was the following year that we started going to every game.”
Sara said: “His weekends with us were spent travelling to Manchester. That was literally every game, midweek games. We used to sneak out of school with a ‘dentist’ or ‘doctor’s appointment.”
I asked them to tell me about a typical match day with their dad.
Sara said: “He’d pick us up at 7.30am. We’d park down at town and the bus would pick us up from the town centre. I’d be asleep by the time we got to Malpas.
Kate said: “Nan would always make us a packed lunch and Sara would always eat it before the Coldra.”
Sara said: “They were the days when players used to drive into the ground. We used to get up there early enough to see like Beckham, Schmeichel, Giggs, all of them
“As we were getting older we found the pubs. When we found our feet and got a bit older we didn’t sit by him because he didn’t want us to hear his swearing.”
Kate said: “We were quite relieved because then we could swear.”
Sara said: “It was part of that love for your football club but also that for spending time with your dad doing something that we all enjoyed.”
Working for Lucas Girling
Steve spent his career working for Lucas Girling (later became Merritor) and it was football that helped get him the job.
Sara told a story about his job interview: “He said one of the first questions they asked was ‘we hear you’re a pretty good footballer. If we give you the job would you play for the club if we took you on?”
He accepted and spent 45 or 46 years there before retiring in 2018. As a player he pulled on the shirts for Lucas Girling, Pilcs, the Yew Tree pub and Cwmbran Catholics.
Steve and his daughters were lucky enough to attend some of United’s biggest matches including the Champions League final in 1999 against Bayern Munich in Camp Nou, Barcelona. United won the match after scoring twice in injury time.
Kate said: “We’d go to the European games midweek and there was a fantastic atmosphere. We went to Barcelona for the final. We were about 17/18. It was 20 hours on a coach. It was brilliant but I’d never do it on a bus again.
“That was crazy. It was a nightmare to get into the ground.”
‘Goose pimples’
Sara said: “It was an amazing stadium. We went in on the wrong side. By the time we got in Bayern Munich had just scored [in the sixth minute] and we were with all the Germans and trying to run around the other side. It was nail-biting. I can just remember celebrating. It was disbelief.
“We were in line with the goals and could see everything. My throat was sore for a whole week.
“They didn’t have the seats that [fold] come back up and from jumping so much I had bruises from the back of my calves to my knees and down to my ankles from hitting my legs. They were just black. It was fantastic, being in that atmosphere and the joy.”
Kate said: “It still gives me goose pimples. It was just so surreal.”
Steve held a season ticket for over 30 years and it’s still in the family.
Kate said: “He was a season ticket holder for over 30 years. I’ve got it now so I’ve got his seat. I haven’t been up yet because I can’t [face sitting in his seat] but I will start going again now.
“After so many years of being a season ticket holder they put a plaque on your seat so dad had his own seat with his name on there.”
Sara said: “They [Manchester United FC] have sent us the plaque back so we’ve got that at home.”
She recalled him missing one game and how he never let her forget it.
Sara said: “There was one game he didn’t go to because I was poorly in hospital and it was a big Liverpool v Man United game. He wouldn’t let me forget that.”
During the interview, Sara said something that took me by surprise and I wasn’t sure what to say.
She said: “It’s quite ironic. He goes off to one of the football games and doesn’t come back.”
At this point, I hadn’t seen the kind words in the matchday programme.
Steve made his usual trip on the supporters’ bus to watch the Chelsea match on Sunday 3 November. The match ended 1-1 and he headed back to the bus with his friends.
He told them that he felt a bit “funny” and put the hood on his jacket over his face to keep warm and fall asleep.
‘Lifelong friends’
He had a heart attack in his sleep surrounded by the “lifelong friends” he had made through a shared love of Manchester United.
Kate said: “If there was any way to go, that was the better way to go because he was doing something he loved, we weren’t there, we didn’t find him.
“They said nobody could’ve done anything. They tried working on him for a while but they said even if there was a doctor next to him, there was nothing they could’ve done.”
The sisters said they had so many messages from well-wishers with kind words about their dad.
Sara said: “All the people that messaged us were the same, ‘he was a gentleman, one of the last true gents’.
“My dad was quiet, he was softly spoken, a gentleman. That’s been our life, football with him, memories. It was our life really.”
Three grandsons
Steve was also a granddad with three grandsons (two from Sara and one from Kate).
Sara said: “I think having grandsons as well. He enjoyed that and was proud of their achievements.”
Kate said her dad had taken her son, who’s nearly 25, to Old Trafford.
Sara’s husband is a Liverpool fan and the sisters both laughed as they told how their dad would buy his son-in-law a Liverpool calendar for Christmas every year “even though he hated it”.
Steve’s funeral was held at Gwent Crematorium followed by a wake at his former club, Pilcs in Pontypool