Legendary Addicks Manager Lennie Lawrence and the club’s Vice-Chairman, Paul Elliott CBE MBE, have led the tributes to the club’s former Press Officer and much-loved journalist Peter ‘Scoop’ Burrowes, who sadly passed away on Wednesday following a short battle with cancer.
Lawrence, who worked closely with ‘Scoop’ during his successful nine-year spell as Addicks boss between 1982 and 1991 said: “It’s a sad time. I was pleased to have him as a guest at my dinner a few weeks ago and he was looking his best.
“He simply loved Charlton. He told me once that, apart from during a trip to America, he hadn’t missed a game home or away for about 20 years.
“He was an absolutely integral part of the club while I was there. Especially considering all the problems the club was going through, he was steadfast in his loyalty and his support to Charlton and always was.
“If you wanted to know what was going on, all the ins and outs, from the boardroom and politically, he was the man. He would know before anybody else, and that’s how he got the name ‘Scoop’!
“Even in recent years, we would speak a few times a year and he would give me the updates with all that was going on at the club.
“Because of all the things the club went through in the 80s, it became a cause rather than a club and he was an absolutely fundamental part of it.
“I’m so pleased he passed away surrounded by Charlton people. His loyalty to Charlton was like a beacon. It never wavered in all his years and I couldn’t have had a better or more faithful servant.”
Meanwhile, Elliott, who maintained a close relationship with ’Scoop’ from the moment he made his debut for the club as a youngster, added: “I’ve known Scoop for 45 years. I was a young whippersnapper coming through the colts and that was when I first came across him. I’ve still got a programme with the first piece he wrote about me and he was just so positive - it was the start of a wonderful friendship that has continued for many, many decades.
“All the way through my journey, even when I left the club, Scoop has always been there. We had so many conversations, meeting in Bromley, having a coffee and a catch-up. We would talk at least four times a week and the longest calls were on a Sunday, looking back at the game the day before.
“He had so much love and passion for the club, it was his whole world and we were his family and that’s what made our relationship so special.
“Scoop was so sharp mentally. He was an encyclopaedia of knowledge. If there was one thing that I would want to steal from him, it would take that at the age of 87, he still had his mindset, his font and depth of knowledge and his love of the game was unparalleled.
“One of the best times I had seen him was during the recent Lennie Lawrence event. He loved being in the Charlton environment, surrounded by Charlton people. He was getting so much stick for his suit because people were telling him he looked like an ice cream man! But he had a huge smile on his face talking about it because he was so self deprecating and he was a proud man on that night. He felt great and was on the front foot, engaging with everyone with his chest out, feeling wonderful about himself and that’s the Scoop I really loved.
“I’m so pleased I was able to go and see him on Tuesday, not long before the end. Even then he was asking me ‘who are we signing? Who’s in, who’s out?’ I said ‘Scoop I can’t give you that’. He said “That’s why they call me Scoop!”
"Until the end, he was Scoop. He had that glint and mischievousness in his eye.
“I’m so proud and honoured to have had such an authentic, historical friend.”
