After reading Dave Seager's fantastic (and moving) Rocky Rocastle tribute blog at 1nildown2oneup, I was inspired to create a tribute of my own:

I've never had the good fortune to see the Arsenal play live. I've always lived a brazillion miles away, in Muppetville. (So please don't complain about £62 tickets. It'd cost me the price of a season ticket just to catch a single game at the Emirates…)

That's not what I was getting at, though… The other disadvantage of adopting a club on the other side of the planet is that you rely on local TV programmers to open a window on that world. You're a slave to the vagaries of sponsorship and licensing. Things have improved vastly since the days when the only thing you could see on foreign TV was the FA Cup and World Cup finals. But at the time that Rocky was tearing up Highbury, it was nigh impossible for a Muppet to see him in action unless they were there in person.

Which means that I can only rely on the recollections and anecdotes of those who witnessed David Rocastle's genius first-hand. The oral and written history shared by Gunners who have watched the Arsenal play for the last five, even six decades is so vital to give younger or more recent fans a sense of perspective – I salute those of you who share your experiences with us Muppets! Dave shared an equally brilliant post by Tim Stillman, which you can read here.

By the sounds of things, Rocky was an amazing footballer. He was ranked 16th in the official list of Arsenal's Greatest 50 Players. Thanks to Dave and Tim for helping bring him to life – so to speak – for this Gooner.

I mentioned in a previous blog that it was vital for us Arsenal fans to focus on what unites us, instead of what divides us… Dave suggested that Arsenal's Twitter users could perhaps use images of Rocky as their avatars up until the 12th anniversary of his death on March 31st. I think it's a brilliant idea, and I made the image above square for exactly that reason – so please feel free to use it as you wish…

Much in the same way that Tim Payton's infamous muppet tweet spawned a veritable plague of muppet avatars – I think we could use landmark events such as this to show that we are united in our love and support of the club, its past, and players.

If you have interesting Rocky anecdotes to share – please share them in the comments below. I'd appreciate it!

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New post: “Rocky Rocastle – Never Forgotten”invinciblog.com/?p=788A visual tribute. Please enjoy and share.

— invinciblog (@AFC_Invincibles) March 16, 2013

Photo Credit: I manipulated an image sourced from www.arsenal.com. Photographer unknown.

David "Rocky" Rocastle Legend Never Forgotten