Page 10 - 370167 LP253351 A Love Supreme Magazine - A5 48pp (Issue 260) v2

PAUL DAVISON: A LIFE SUPREME
Paul Davison, a Sunderland fanatic all his life, husband to Elaine and father to Alex, big brother
to Keith and Colin, died aged 65 on October 25, 2022 after being hospitalised with a serious lung infection that he could not survive. He had fought adversity with fantastic courage for over a decade after succumbing to a very bad fall down stairs at his Newbottle home in July 2012, but his body could not beat this final setback and a really canny and genuine lad left behind many devastated family members and friends who loved him dearly. He had to be looked after 24/7 in various special- ist care facilities after his accident, but he never gave up, even attending home games with a carer from Kibblesworth Care Home, his last game being the Blackpool fixture this season.
Paul was a prodigious contributor to ALS back in
the day, writing under the pseudonym of Dava Mc- Camm, and probably even more well known to many as a member of Simply Red and White, the group
of Sunderland supporters who found brief fame in 1996 when they released the now iconic terrace ditty Cheer Up Peter Reid, a situation that came about mainly because of Paul’s friendship with local record producer Andy Forsyth who asked him to gather a few mates together to record a revamped version
of The Monkees hit Daydream Believer. It reached number 41 in the national charts and would have been a top 20 hit if there had not been an agreement in place for it to be sold only in the SAFC Club shop for its first two weeks of release, thereby negating it from counting in the national chart count conducted
through UK record retailers. If it had charted in the top 20 the group would have been invited onto Top of the Pops, something Paul was gut- ted about, although being number 1 in the Indie Charts ahead of Oasis and Madonna nearly compensated for it.
Paul was a decent standard local league crick- eter, a stubborn opening batsman for Vaux and Washington and indeed his efforts ensured that the Washy club survived after being threatened with closure in the late 70s, something he was very proud of. One fantastic legacy of their survival is that England’s recent fast bowling sensation Matthew Potts cut his teeth at that cricket club in more recent years.
10 | ALOVESUPREME | ISSUE260