Don't worry, he was told, as he stood amidst the chaos of the Crown Inn on Meadowhall Road, Brightside, which looked as if something had hit it.

It had. The Great Flood of June 25 last year.

"Don't worry, it will all be finished by May," his builder told him.

So the ex-Owls striker, who scored 58 goals in 81 games in the early Sixties, booked a much-needed Caribbean holiday this month with his wife Pat, confident that the Crown would have reopened by then.

Just before they flew off last week David is standing in what will be the lounge, builders hard at work all around him. Quite clearly it hasn't reopened.

"It's nowhere near finished," sighs the man who should be celebrating 20 years at the pub cum B&B.

The Crown, which stands just across the road from the Don, is one of the last city pubs to re-open.

It will, touch wood, fingers crossed, be handed over on Monday and will re-open on Wednesday. Over in the Dominican Republic, David and Pat will be leaving it to their manager, Will Henderson.

David, 68, wasn't there when the river burst its banks but Pat was.

"I'd gone to the bank. I had made my way home when the police stopped me. . . I had left Pat to run the bar. She said it was my fault!" he laughs.

In the bar were a party of anglers who didn't let the flood stop their enjoyment.

"They were stood on the seats, knee deep in water, drinking bottles of beer, watching cars floating by outside," says David, who, the Diary has been warned, detests his nickname Bronco. It is unclear why.

Pat was marooned and eventually retreated upstairs, refusing offers of a helicopter rescue. Things weren't too bad until the electricity went off at 10pm.

The water came six feet up the walls, flooded the cellars and ruined the beer. When the waters receded David, who had stayed overnight with one of his daughters, returned found the floors six inches deep in silt.

How did he feel? "There was no use crying over spilt milk. What was done was done," he says.

Even so, it was seven months before he got the first cheque from the insurers and he'd hoping the visible signs of life at the pub over the last few months will bring the customers back.

It's just that he and Pat won't be there to greet them.

READ MORE
Your letters.
Today's features.
Latest sport.
Main news index.