Frank William Holt (11 Nov 1942 - 30 Aug 2023)

In loving memory of Frank William Holt who sadly passed away on the 30th of August 2023.

Thank you to everyone who attended his funeral, sent their best wishes, left kind messages or made donations on his behalf.

If you would still like to make a donation in Frank's memory then you can continue to do so on this page. The chosen charity is Football Beyond Borders. The charity uses the power of football to transform the lives of young people, something that Frank did throughout his life.

Here is his eulogy, delivered by his son Matthew:

Frank William Holt, was born at a nursing home in Aston on Armistice Day 1942.He was taken to his Grandma’s house in Wilderness Lane, less than a mile from where we are today, as his Father was away serving in the Fleet Air Arm.

It must have been a strange time to come into the world, with the war very much still raging, and when he was just a toddler he went to visit his Dad in Canada whilst he was stationed there on leave. The story goes that the ship came under attack during the crossing, although apparently unperturbed by the bombs raining down, Dad was busy playing with oranges in the ship’s hold happy as could be.

Dad was later joined by his two brothers, Roy who sadly passed away and is buried here at St Margarets along with his mum and dad, and youngest brother Mike.

From a very early age Frank was always collecting things, which won’t come as a surprise to anyone that knew him. His hobbies included stamp collecting, and collecting football programmes which he would catalogue – something he continued to do for whole of his life. He and his brothers would often go cycling together sometimes to the Midland Red bus garages where Mike would collect the numbers of the buses.

According to Mike, Frank was a great influence on him and brother Roy when they were young. He was someone you could always depend on, and a wonderful brother.

By this time the family had moved to Scott Road in Great Barr, and keeping busy as always Frank used to help out on the milk round when he was just a young lad. This experience seemed to instil two things into my Dad at a young age, a relentless work ethic and the inability to ever turn down a cup of tea, as according to the milkman’s advice it’s always better to say yes because if you don’t they might not offer again.

At 11 he attended Blue Coat School in Walsall, although it may have been that he was too smart for the teachers, as according to the my Nan, he eventually left when the headteacher told her that there was nothing more that they could teach Frank. He was initially apprenticed at Hills, the steel fabrication company, before going on to have a long career in Insurance ultimately becoming a fellow of the Royal Insurance Institute.
Although this all sounds like the actions of a very sensible young man, there’s no doubt that there was more than a bit of the rocker in the young Frank Holt.

For my sister and I it has always been fascinating to think that at this time our Dad was the owner of a motorbike and used to go on motorcycle holidays, where he’d travel round with his friends not knowing where they were staying that night.

It was in also in his youth that his lifelong obsession with Elvis Presley began. There wasn’t a song that Elvis sang or a film that he was in, that Dad couldn’t tell you about.

Having met mine and Becky’s mum, Judy, at what was then the Commercial Union in Birmingham, we settled down just one street away from his childhood home, at 116 Whitecrest. By this time the bike had been exchanged for a convertible Triumph spitfire sports car, still not the most practical transportation for a young family.

Elvis was still very much in the building, and music more generally was a big part of our childhood, whether it was listening to Buddy Holly on the stereo –or going to see live music. As kids he would take me and Becky to see iconic artists like Bob Dylan, something we obviously didn’t appreciate fully until years later.

Of course, there was one passion though that trumped all others, and that was football. And if football was his passion, then Aston Villa were his obsession.

His Dad was clearly a huge influence here. Frank was always very proud of the fact that his Dad had represented the combined armed forces football team as goalkeeper. And it was also his Dad that would create the Villa fanatic that Frank became from a very early age, regaling him with stories of the great Villa players he used to watch.

Frank went to his first Villa game in 1954, a 2-2 draw with Huddersfield Town – with the two Villa goals scored by Tommy Thompson – thanks Dad. As he would do with several us here, he took his youngest brother Mike to his first match in 1957, although years later Frank did also make a brief unscheduled departure from Mike and Tina’s wedding day to pay a visit to Villa Park.

This shows just how committed he was to the Villa. Frank followed them everywhere, from rainy awaydays when they were down in the old 3rd division, to the glory of European nights in the 1980s, and ultimately the unthinkable triumph of the European Cup win in Rotterdam in 1982 – a trip he took me on with him despite me being only 6 months old.

When I asked him, my Dad thought he’d probably gone around 7 years without missing a game, home or away. And although football during these years is now often viewed as being a time of hooliganism and violence, my Dad regaled us with great stories of a time when footballers and fans weren’t worlds apart like they are now, such as the time that one my Dad’s friends had his passport stolen at a European away game and on explaining this to the then Villa manager Ron Saunders the manager told him to join their group and sneak through as one of the players, smuggling him back through customs.

Another story that Becky and I always loved hearing about was Dad going to see England play Scotland at Hampden Park, and sitting in the away end. Dad’s friend clearly didn’t appreciate the potential severity of their surroundings as much as Dad did, as Dad described him going to jump up every time England attacked, and Dad having to pin him down. And then the awful moment happened, England scored, and Dad turned to his pal and said ‘if you stand up now it will be the last thing that you do’. England won the game and when disgruntled Scottish fans complained to him after, Frank apparently attempted his best Scottish accent in response, something I’m glad I didn’t witness.

Going to the Villa with my Dad was my childhood, and it really was an all-day experience with Dad. We’d get to the ground hours before kick-off and walking around he’d constantly be stopped by people who’d greet him with ‘hello Frank’, they’d chat for a few minutes and go their separate ways, and almost always afterwards when I’d ask who they were, his response would be ‘I have absolutely no idea’.

He also never left a game early, no matter the outcome, After the game he’d find a way to get us into the corridor outside the dressing rooms so that we could get autographs from the players and managers. I would be offered up as the autograph hunter, although I think it was fairly clear who the real autograph collector was.
Up until Covid he continued to go to all the home fixtures and many away games, enjoying the company of his Villa pals, and always smartly dressed. As Alan who is here with us today recently said, he was the only man he knew who would always go to the Villa matches in a suit.

I know that Mike is also glad that they were able to attend their last Villa match together right before covid closed the stadium.

Throughout all the years Frank kept copious notebooks of match statistics. When other people were queuing for a beer at the bar, Dad was making a note of who the captains were and the direction in which the teams were kicking off. Ultimately his love of Villa facts, led to him being established as the go to expert on Villa statistics for the past 40 years. Nearly 20 years ago he started his regular column in the Villa programme, and he went on to publish two editions of the ‘Complete Record’ books of the club, along with his co-author Rob Bishop, with the latest edition coming out just last year. My Dad’s love and dedication to football statistics was a key feature of the books, complementing Rob’s great journalistic work.

His connections to the Villa even helped me to get my first work experience at 16, which then led onto my first job in the ticket office. Dad was always entertained by the fact that one of my first tasks was to go and renew Doug Ellis’ tax disc.

Frank’s love of football also led to him being involved with Holy Name FC, a club he was a part of for 36 years, first as manager of my team when I was growing up, and then going on to be Club Secretary, a position he continued to hold until his death.

In our youth if Dad wasn’t taking us to see football, he was taking us to play football – and for me that was sometimes every day of the week. One of my earliest memories was Dad taking me to Red House Park. He’d take two balls and put one on the goal line and give me the other one and I’d have to kick the one ball against the other, gradually getting further and further away. Not being particularly fast, tall or strong, it was my Dad’s coaching that taught me how to be a decent footballer.

His coaching was matched with his encouragement and I know he always took huge pleasure in seeing me and Becky play. After games he would ask about certain passes we’d made, or goals we’d scored.
People often talk about wanting to make their dad proud, but my sister already knew she’d done that for life once she’d scored the winning goal in the final moments of a West Midlands girls football tournament aged 9. Apparently it was a really nice goal.

It wasn’t just us that he encouraged though, and in his days as Holy Name manager we would drive around Birmingham loading up the car with lads who had no other way to get to the games. A lot of these lads had tough things going on in their lives, and sometimes that spilled over to how they behaved on the pitch, but Dad would always see the best in everyone. He’d pay their subs, he’d write letters of mitigation for them when they were sent off, he’d make sure they could get to games and home again, and he’d never expect any thanks in return.

Frank always had a sense of civic duty, he was involved with what was then called the British Sports Association for the Disabled , where he was treasurer, he was governor of local schools, and he was an active member of the local Labour Party.

For over 20 years, he sat on the Black County Bench as a magistrate – first at West Bromwich and then at other courts such as Warley. He was also a Chairman in Adult, Young Persons and Family Courts.
Just yesterday I found a letter from the chair of the magistrates court sent on his retirement, which says ‘that in my time as chair I have to say you are a superman’.

If I’d have found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time then I definitely would have hoped to have appeared before Frank Holt in court. Whenever I asked him about cases, he’d always talk about how he had advocated for the fairest and often the minimum penalty, and would always talk about the fact that the people who ended up in front of him were not bad people, but people facing their own issues and challenges.
Although if I had have appeared in front of him, he would have had to excuse himself for knowing the defendant, something he did have to do on more than one occasion when faced with one of the local lads from the area.

His commitment to seeing the best in people even stretched to referees, and one of my strongest memories is of sitting in the car after Holy Name games writing the match report with Dad, and no matter how bad the ref had been or how much we felt like we’d been robbed, he’d always give them a fair score and understood that without them there wasn’t a game.

I truly hope that I made him proud, but one of the proudest moments of my life was getting to be his best man when he married Nadine in 2019.

He and Nadine met in 1997 and she has been his partner for 22 years. During these years he became step-Grandad to Josh, Jay and Ben, children of Nadine’s daughters Shelley and Cassy.

He adored Nadine, and thanks to her he enjoyed a long, happy and fulfilling retirement, with great trips around the country, holidays abroad and even a pilgrimage to the King’s home at Graceland. Nadine, I can’t tell you just how grateful I am for the love, care and patience that you showed to Dad, you made him so happy and it’s such a huge comfort to know that you were with him right up until the very end.

He wasn’t always an easy person to look after as he pretty much refused to talk about anything to do with health, to the point where I remember when we were growing up, he wouldn’t even have Casualty on in the house. Latterly when his walking became unsteady, Nadine tried to persuade him to buy a mobility scooter, his reply ‘No they’re for old people’.

Although not in his best health since lockdown, Frank was able to celebrate his 80th birthday in November, at his favourite ‘Tie Club’ pub in Birmingham, The Old Joint Stock. Tie Club was a group of friends from his time at work who until recent years would still meet up at the pub on a regular basis for lunch, all wearing a tie of course. On this occasion, Dad was thrilled to be surprised by his longstanding tie club pal Paul and his wife Judy – also with us today.

Another 80th birthday surprise was mine and Dad’s trip to the Villa for his first game since COVID, and what was sadly to be his last. I wanted to treat him and so I got us tickets in the Gaslamp Hospitality Suite and a view of the pitch that I don’t think he could quite believe for Unai Emery’s first game in charge, a historic 3-1 victory over Manchester United. Unassuming as ever, he couldn’t get over the fact that we got to watch the game from the lounge, and said that the last time he’d been in that position behind the goal he’d been standing on top of what was then called North Bank for another historic win, when Villa beat Charlton Athletic 11-1 in 1959.

Becky and I always took huge pleasure in doing these little things for Dad, because we always appreciated just how much he had done for us. If we were ever doing anything, no matter how small, Dad would be there.
When Becky was acting, Dad would love to go to her shows. Although there was the time when he took his seat dead centre in the middle of the audience, only to realise 10 or so minutes in that he was in the wrong theatre. Not wanting to be rude, Dad feigned illness and put on his best performance as he stumbled out of the hall.

There are so many more things I could say about my Dad.

He was highly intelligent, but also had a real sense of fun and could be incredibly silly.

He especially loved to have running jokes where he’d intentionally call someone by the wrong name, but he wouldn’t ever explain it - recent favourites being - Keith Starmer, and Tim Wetherspoon, rather than Tim Sherwood.

He could also be a bit of a prankster – such as pretending to be the butler when cold callers would telephone - saying that he’d go and get the master of the house and then leaving them to wait on the line.

Maybe it was because he was born on Armistice Day in the middle of a war, but he really had no time for misplaced patriotism, war or violence. If there was one thing that could draw anger and frustration out of him, it was people who incited hate or suffering.

He gave so much of his life and his time for others, he was loyal, loving and when he did something he committed to it fully.

Ultimately, he was a man who treasured his family – his wife Nadine, me and Becky, our partners Charlie and Adam, his grandchildren Marlowe and Ivy, Mike, his wife Tina and their family, Nadine’s daughter’s Shelly and Cassy, son in laws Nigel and David, and children, now young people Josh, Jay and Ben.

He’d do anything for us, and we always knew it.
Frank had a truly full and fascinating life.
He was a unique and special man and we loved him dearly.