Aaron Flahavan

Aaron Adam Flahavan (15 December 1975 – 5 August 2001) was an English football goalkeeper who played for Portsmouth.

Aaron Flahavan

Personal information
Full name	Aaron Adam Flahavan
Date of birth	(1975-12-15)15 December 1975
Place of birth	Southampton, England
Date of death	5 August 2001(2001-08-05) (aged 25)
Place of death	Bournemouth, England
Height	6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Position(s)	Goalkeeper
Youth career
1992–1994	Southampton
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1994–2001	Portsmouth	93	(0)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Career

Flahavan played for the Southampton youth team,^[1] before turning professional with Portsmouth at age 18 in 1994. He had to wait until 1996 before making his first-team debut as he was understudy to long-serving Alan Knight. Towards the end of the 1990s, Flahavan gradually began receiving increased playing time, and became the team's first-choice goalkeeper by the time Knight retired in 2000. Overall, he played 105 first-team matches for Portsmouth, 93 of them in Division One, and was part of the team which reached the quarter-finals of the FA Cup in the 1996-97 season and just missed out on the Division One playoffs.

Flahavan twice had blackouts during matches; the first was attributed to a virus, and the second to a drop in his blood pressure.^[2][3]

Personal life and death

Flahavan's younger brother, Darryl, also played as a goalkeeper, and had a spell at Aaron's former club Portsmouth between 2010 and 2011. Darryl has a son named Aaron in memory of his brother, who is also a goalkeeper, playing for Solihull Moors F.C.

Flahavan died in a car accident near Bournemouth in August 2001.^[4] An inquest heard that Flahavan died as a result of a fractured skull, and his blood alcohol level was nearly three times over the legal limit when he lost control of his BMW sports car.^[1]

Following his death, Portsmouth and Southampton retired his number 1 jersey for the 2001–02 season as a mark of respect.^[5]