Nick Pope's England shirt was going to a new home, but the goalkeeper knew it would be in safe hands as he scrawled a message on the front.
"To Colly, I would still be running under throw-ins at Morecambe if it wasn't for you!" he wrote on the match issued jersey before packaging it up. "Thank you for everything!"
Those words tell you all you need to know about Newcastle United's new signing. Pope may be an established Premier League footballer and senior international, but the 30-year-old has never forgotten those afternoons playing at stadiums like the Globe Arena or how Andy 'Colly' Collett helped him along the way.
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Collett was Pope's goalkeeping coach at York City when the on-loan shot-stopper learned a valuable lesson in the first half of that aforementioned game against Morecambe back in 2013. Pope, anticipating that the Shrimps were going to take a long throw, rushed off his line too early and the ball ended up sailing over his 6ft 6in frame before bouncing narrowly wide. A relieved Collett took the loanee aside at half-time and quipped: "Wait until it has left his hands next time!"
Pope has certainly come a long way since that afternoon, but the new arrival is still the same 'grounded' figure Collett worked with. The pair remain in contact today and Collett, who is a Newcastle fan, certainly won't need a second invitation to see Pope play at St James' Park next season.
"When I saw he might be coming, I did message him on Tuesday morning," Collett told ChronicleLive. "I said, 'I hope you're coming to God's country, son.' He replied, 'We'll see!' To get a goalkeeper of his ability and age - a great age - for 10 million quid is nothing."
Newcastle have been opportunistic - signing a player who would have potentially cost four times as much when Burnley were a Premier League outfit a year ago - but Eddie Howe was keen to bring in a goalkeeper who would fight it out with Martin Dubravka without disrupting the dressing room. That may seem a contradiction, but intense competition is nothing new to Dubravka and Pope.
Although Dubravka has previously encountered shot-stoppers who would make him collect stray balls, himself, or refuse to serve him in the warm-up, Pope won't be like that. Yes, Pope, like Dubravka, will be desperate to be Newcastle's number one next season, but there is already a mutual respect between these internationals and this is a situation they have been in before.
Just as Dubravka and Karl Darlow have had a healthy rivalry for a number of years, Pope and Tom Heaton fought it out at Burnley between 2016 and 2019. Heaton was Burnley's first-choice goalkeeper when Pope joined the Clarets from Charlton, but the number two took his chance when his team-mate unfortunately suffered a dislocated shoulder.
When Pope freakishly sustained the same injury, in 2018, the goalkeeper reclaimed the jersey from Heaton a year later to become the first name on Burnley's team sheet. Although Burnley ultimately went down last season, you do wonder where the low-scoring Clarets would have been at times without the man who kept 52 clean sheets in all competitions during his time at the club. Stephen Ward, who played alongside Pope at Burnley, said the shot-stopper simply 'earns you points'.
"Popey saves the unsaveable," the former Ireland defender told ChronicleLive. "I remember his second Premier League game when he made this save at Liverpool in the last minute to secure a point for us. I don't know how he saved it, but he did and he's just done that game after game for Burnley.
"If you ask any of the lads that played in the back four in front of him, having that kind of goalie behind you gave you that calmness knowing that if you did lose a chance, there's a good chance he will get you out of trouble.
"He's a very calm fella. He leads with his performances. He's a good talker to his back four, but you wouldn't say he's a screamer and shouter. He gets on with his job and leads that way."
Eddie Howe and his backroom team know, first-hand, all about those qualities Ward mentioned after coming up against Pope on a number of occasions and they know exactly what they are getting from the £10m signing.
Pope has, tellingly, been handed a four-year deal rather than the two-and-a-half year contracts Newcastle's new owners previously issued to signings in their thirties and there is a genuine belief behind the scenes that the shot-stopper is coming into his prime years and is still coachable.
Being open to new ideas is going to be important, of course, because Newcastle's style will evolve in the coming years and the Magpies certainly won't be squeezing the pitch and going long to Chris Wood as much as they did in the second half of last season. That evolution will start at the back where there will be times when Pope or Dubravka will go short.
Pope was mainly tasked with launching the ball at Burnley, but the shot-stopper has worked on his much-scrutinised distribution over the years. That desire to improve was clear even during Pope's younger days at Charlton as Lee Turner, the Addicks' former goalkeeping coach, revealed.
"Pope's a real student of the game," Turner told ChronicleLive. "After games, he would come in and we would sit down and go through them.
"We would sit and go through training. He would be out most afternoons doing extras to improve on bits and pieces. His work ethic was excellent."
That is exactly the sort of character Howe wanted to bring in. Although Howe is open to signing more players from the continent this summer, the Newcastle boss has prioritised Premier League experience for particular positions, such as goalkeeper and left-back, so that these players can, theoretically, hit the ground running because they know what to expect.
Playing for Newcastle brings with it a different sort of pressure and Howe has been keen to sign players who understand what it means to represent the club, who can handle it. There are no doubts about Pope, an England international, in that regard.
Goalkeepers, naturally, have to be mentally strong and former manager David Flitcroft, who worked with Pope during his final loan spell, at Bury, in 2015, described the goalkeeper as an 'absolute monster' in the nicest possible way.
"Popey was just a massive character in and around it," Flitcroft told ChronicleLive. "The lads loved him and he probably made the biggest impression any player has made on me in such a short space of time.
"Coming on loan, you've got to hit the ground running, you've got to make a statement, because I've had some loan signings who are wallflowers, who have wilted into the background, but Popey has got the strength of character. His mental strength and resilience is what Newcastle are buying."
Pope has certainly been tested, mentally, over the years and bounced back from a number of setbacks, whether it was that shoulder injury in 2018; missing out on Euro 2020 with a knee issue when he was in contention to be a starter; or, most notably, being released by boyhood club Ipswich Town at 16. That steeliness and ability to adapt has been a constant theme throughout Pope's career.
Not many future Premier League footballers have gone out on loan to six clubs across the country in a three-and-a-half year period, after all, whether it was with Harrow Borough in the Isthmian League Premier Division or Bury in League Two. However, those stints proved crucial to Pope's development. They also put Pope's rise into perspective as former Harrow boss Dave Anderson explained.
"He had a real determination to progress and, as much as you think he was a quiet lad, he wasn't scared to come out on loan," Anderson told ChronicleLive. "He wasn't scared to move up to Burnley. Things like that never scared him and his work ethic, well, anyone at that level their work ethic has to be right and his certainly was from those early days.
"The biggest thing in non-league is dealing with pressure in the box - crosses and people just attacking the box old-school. He just dealt with that like a goalkeeper older than his years at that time.
"But did I think he would go on and play in the Premier League? I knew he would make a living out of football, but I wasn't sure at what level. Did I think he would play for England? I never even considered that."
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