Just like the late football genius of the same name, Alex Best was a popular, popular man.

Liked/ loved/ admired, any of those seem to fit the bill, no-one seems to have a bad word to say about him.

It's hard to believe that Alex is no longer with us, he died aged just 30.

As a rugby player, he never hit the heights. There was no Twickenham or Kingston Park – his stage was Mayfield Park, Grayfields and Brinkburn.

He gave his absolute all, whether he was playing for Hartlepool, Tech or West and surely that's what rugby is all about. He had a damn good career.

Alex joined Hartlepool, or Old Boys as everyone still refers to them as, with his pal Nick Donnelly and played his part in the success the club enjoyed under that doyen of coaches, Dave Stubbs, during the early years of this century.

He played centre and did a fine job. Jeremy Guscott he wasn't, but he loved running at people or, preferably, over them.

But his goal was not scintillating back play – he wanted to play in the forwards and made the long transfer ... to Tech a few hundred yards down the road at Wiltshire Way.

Kelly's Eye caught up with Stubbsy, who spoke about Alex.

"He was a big hard runner, but was perhaps not the best passer of a ball," he said.

"One day, he said: 'Dave, I want to play in the forwards – I want to be more involved'.

"I was desperate for him to stay in the backs and I persuaded him to 'stay there for now'.

"The resources we had in the back row were the likes of Stuart Palmer, Andrew Wilson, Michael Taylor and Dave Baldwin.

"He wanted to be in there – he craved the physicality. He loved carrying the ball and he knew he could tackle.

"He was good at it as he proved at Tech and then later on at West."

His Best days, forgive the pun, probably came at Tech.

Alex led from the front in the club's battle against relegation from Durham Northumberland Division One in 2006. His highlight was probably a hat-trick of tries at Billingham, though sadly this rare forward's feat came in a 29-25 defeat.

But while Tech went down, they came straight back up in the spring of 2007.

While doing a spot of research I found this line in a match preview, written by Tech chairman John Dove during the promotion season which mentioned the back row of 'Anthony Cameron, Carl Brown and the ubiquitous Alex Best'.

John wrote: 'The latter's non-stop style keeps him well to the fore in all phase and if his surging runs are given the right support by the rest of the pack they can provide a strong attacking option'.

That was Best, always taking the game to the opposition.

He continued to do that on his return to home club West.

Indeed, his last game epitomised this.

Playing for West Stags on his comeback after a long lay-off with a knee injury, he came on as a sub at half-time against Middlesbrough. With

West struggling for form, Best got stuck in and scored a good try on 72 minutes.

It was not enough to stop the Stags from going down 24-20 and it was not the end of an eventful return.

Late in the game, West won a free-kick on their own 22, which Best rather rashly ran ... straight into five or six Boro players.

Unfortunately, the tackle left his "nose all over the place" but as club coach Tim Sawyer, a team-mate that day at Brinkburn, noted it did not bother him.

"Alex just shrugged his shoulders, got treatment and carried on," said Tim.

Best had been contemplating a comeback despite advice from medics that he should not play again.

Sadly, that all-action display against Boro was to be his finale.

Alex will be a huge miss to rugby and to his friends but, in particular, to his family, especially wife Anna and daughters Madeleine and Lola.

The thoughts, prayers and love of everyone in the rugby community are with Anna and the family at this time.