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Islington Tribune - by RICHARD OSLEY and PETER GRUNER
Published: 19 October 2007

Pet Shop Boys: Chris Lowe, right, and Neil Tennant

Pet Shop Boy mourns his friend ‘The Bear’

PET Shop Boys’ keyboard player Chris Lowe revealed to the Tribune last night (Thursday), for the first time, about how he was struggling to come to terms with the death of his friend Dainton Connell, the Arsenal fan who died in a car crash two weeks ago.
Mr Lowe and band-mate Neil Tennant have cancelled a gig in Bucharest, Romania, to attend Mr Connell’s funeral this morning (Friday). Thousands of Gunners’ fans are expected to join a procession from the club’s Emirates Stadium in Ashburton Grove to a service at Mary Magdalene Church in Holloway Road. Police agreed to close roads.
Speaking exclusively to the Tribune, he said: “He was a very good friend of mine. He was always someone I turned to. He was much loved by everyone that met him. I can’t imagine Dainton (pictured left) not being around any more. He was greatly loved and respected.”
Mr Connell – known as The Bear – died two weeks ago when a car in which he was a passenger crashed into a tree in Moscow, flipped over railings and ended up in a river.
He worked for the Pet Shop Boys’ Chris Lowe and n from page one
Neil Tennant as a bodyguard for more than 20 years. But he was better known in north London as one of Arsenal’s most dedicated fans. He had a reputation as the leader of the club’s ‘firm’ of travelling supporters in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Mr Lowe, himself an Arsenal fan and a former Highbury resident, said Mr Connell had worked for lots of well-known faces in the entertainment and music industry, and became friends with many of them – including Robbie Williams from his time as a security chief for Take That. He said: “Everyone he met remembered him. You only had to meet him once. Robbie Williams knew him very well. He had this roar, a big roar, and he used to make up words. He’d have his own language. He was just a fantastic person – I’m lucky to have known him.”
The funeral procession starts from the brass cannons – renamed ‘The Bear Cannons’ by his friends – outside the stadium at 10am. A private family service, attended by his wife and three children, will be held later in the day.

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