From Bill and Sue Owen

I met Sam through the annual match between Bristol solicitors and the bar. We got on and I asked him to play for the wandering cricket team that I've run since 1973. He played for us from that summer 2004 onwards. Everyone in the team and their wives and girlfriends came to like him enormously and recognised that there was something very special about him. He was a great team man and totally without any ego.

Sam played in some forty matches. He not only opened the bowling and scored runs; he was a terrific and fearless fielder. With often four or five regulars over 60 that was a huge bonus! But that wasn't what really stood out; he was the man who would wash up after tea in an afternoon game or drive to pick up another player who was without transport. Last summer when we got to a ground we hire at Chew Stoke CC the playing area was saturated. It was your brother who got into the groundsman's shed, and without saying anything ,found a very old fork, rolled up his trousers and set about draining the pitch.

One of the team ( a non-lawyer ) said " he's so down-to earth and nice, I can't believe he's a barrister ". Not true that there aren't others but I knew what he meant. And in all our games he never mentioned that fact that his father was a High Court judge; only I and another solicitor in the side knew that.

We also got to know Michala. The first time we met she confided she wanted to work for Osborne Clarke. I remember how excited she was at a later meeting when she said that she'd accepted an offer from them. She was someone else who was utterly unspoilt . She came to some of our games and joined with other wives and girlfriends in the barracking ( of my team ! ) and champagne drinking. How many other wives-to-be would tell her fiance that she would postpone the honeymoon so that he could join the English lawyers team in the Indian World Cup ? How many others with such bad rugby injuries would get themselves fit to go ?

What I'm saying of course is what so many others said last Friday. These were two talented and exceptional people. They have touched the lives of everyone that they came across. We, who knew them quite a short time, will miss them immensely and are so proud that they were our friends. As Matt, the rugby player, said, we feel we have been robbed.

From Bill and Sue Owen and the Bill Owen Cricket XI