Aaron Flahavan

Aaron Flahavan
Personal information
Full name Aaron Adam Flahavan
Date of birth (1975-12-15)15 December 1975
Place of birth Southampton, England
Date of death 5 August 2001(2001-08-05) (aged 25)
Place of death Bournemouth, England
Height 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Position(s) Goalkeeper
Youth career
1992–1994 Southampton
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1994–2001 Portsmouth 93 (0)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Aaron Adam Flahavan (15 December 1975 – 5 August 2001) was an English football goalkeeper who played for Portsmouth.

Career

Flahavan played for the Southampton youth team,[1] before turning professional with Portsmouth at age 18 in 1994. He had to wait until 1996 before making his first-team debut as he was understudy to long-serving Alan Knight. Towards the end of the 1990s, Flahavan gradually began receiving increased playing time, and became the team's first-choice goalkeeper by the time Knight retired in 2000. Overall, he played 105 first-team matches for Portsmouth, 93 of them in Division One, and was part of the team which reached the quarter-finals of the FA Cup in the 1996-97 season and just missed out on the Division One playoffs.

Flahavan twice had blackouts during matches; the first was attributed to a virus, and the second to a drop in his blood pressure.[2][3]

Personal life and death

Flahavan's younger brother, Darryl, also played as a goalkeeper, and had a spell at Aaron's former club Portsmouth between 2010 and 2011. Darryl has a son named Aaron in memory of his brother.

Flahavan died in a car accident near Bournemouth in August 2001.[4] An inquest heard that Flahavan died as a result of a fractured skull, and his blood alcohol level was nearly three times over the legal limit when he lost control of his BMW sports car.[1]

Following his death, Portsmouth and Southampton retired his number 1 jersey for the 2001–02 season as a mark of respect.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b "Goalkeeper over drink-drive limit". BBC News. 21 November 2001. Retrieved 1 September 2007.
  2. ^ Warwick, Graham (13 September 1998). "High fives as Pompey strikers click". Sunday Mirror. Retrieved 1 September 2007.
  3. ^ Anderson, David (18 September 1999). "Burley and Francis show mutual respect". The Independent. London. Retrieved 1 September 2007.
  4. ^ "Pompey keeper dies in crash". BBC Sport. 5 August 2001. Retrieved 1 September 2007.
  5. ^ "Hundreds pay tribute to Flahavan". BBC Sport. 13 August 2001. Retrieved 1 September 2007.