Chasing the 'Ghost' - a superstar struck down by lightning

Too often, though, nan characteristic lacked depth: arsenic bladed arsenic nan page of nan comic he seemed to outpouring from.

"He was this benignant of Roy of nan Rovers fig and arsenic I sewage older I sewage disappointment and almost embarrassed by group having a amended knowledge of my dada than I did," Rob says.

"Part of nan joyousness of having a begetter is uncovering our ain personality - location is simply a small blueprint location and if we are fortunate we travel nan bully bits and jettison nan bad bits - but I didn't person that.

"There is still a kid successful maine that wants to cognize nan elemental stuff: what he smelt for illustration and sounded like, a spot much astir him, alternatively than this persona. That is nan eternal frustration."

Rob channelled that vexation into a book - The Ghost of White Hart Lane - interviewing family members, erstwhile team-mates, friends and acquaintances, to effort and observe nan man down nan myth.

And gradually he recovered him.

Rob heard astir nan sadness and homesickness that would grip John each wintertime successful London. He heard astir nan clip he drove location dangerously drunk, clipping nan White Hart Lane gates successful his car. Most revealingly, an uncle told Rob astir nan kid that John had fathered successful Scotland and near down earlier he travelled south, played for Spurs and met Sandra.

"Part of maine has ever been trying to unrecorded up to this personification who was perfectly perfect, who was idolised not conscionable by nan family, but by hundreds of thousands of people," says Rob.

"To find retired he had defects and weaknesses, that he struggled pinch confidence, intelligence wellness and seasonal affective disorder, that he had made mistakes - if I had recovered each that retired earlier, it would person made much consciousness to my life.

"If we cognize our parents are fallible, it really makes america understand that we tin make mistakes. We don't person to cognize each nan answers."

John's absence shaped Rob arsenic surely arsenic his beingness would have.

Rob is simply a still-life photographer - "I person ever been looking for those specifications and clues" - and is besides training arsenic a counsellor.

Later this month, he will beryllium successful nan assemblage astatine Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for nan first capacity of a play he has helped nutrient astir his father's life.

"It is thing I talk astir pinch my ain therapist," he says. "Having seen life breathed into nan communicative astatine nan read-throughs, it reinforced nan reasons I wanted to get progressive pinch nan project.

"I deliberation location is thing of trying to bring my dada backmost to life."

After 2 nights successful Tottenham, nan play will past transportation north, taking nan other travel to nan 1 John took successful life, for a stint astatine nan Edinburgh Festival.

There are immoderate things that stay lost. Rob is still searching for a signaling of John's voice. One of his match-worn Tottenham shirts remains elusive.

But complete nan decades, he has recovered overmuch more: an knowing and an empathy for nan begetter he ne'er knew.