Luke Evans reunited with grandfather Roy Honeybone after St Patrick's covered his flights from UK

Evans described how Roy Honeybone had been his father figure growing up in England, inspiring him to play cricket and teaching him the values he still holds close today.

But when Evans emigrated to Australia, it looked like his No.1 fan would have to make do with staying up late and watching live streams of matches from Down Under after years of sitting by the boundary with his camera.

However, when the Patties reached the provincial decider, a plan began to form in the background.

Club secretary Gus MacLeod and Evans' fiancee Lucy Chalmers were the chief instigators and Evans was stunned when he opened his front door on the eve of the grand final to see Honeybone smiling back at him from across the threshold.

"I told the boys a few weeks ago about my upbringing and the life I lived at home and what my Grandad means to me so for him to turn up was a massive surprise.

"He deserves it.

"He's spent his whole life giving to people, being the kindest human I've ever met and for him to be able to experience this and come here, it means everything.

"From a young age, he was basically like my Dad.

"He was the reason I played cricket and he's the reason I still play now.

"He got me into the game and ever since then, it was all about making him proud because I knew how much he loved travelling the country to watch me play.

"The way I am, my morals, my beliefs, the way I carry myself every day is solely down to him.

"He's a massive part of my life and I said, in the rooms, I'll be forever in debt to this cricket club.

"I've played at a lot of cricket clubs around the world but this place and the people here, it's such a good culture.

"To do this for me, my family and my Grandad is unbelievable."

There's an Albury-based photographer who sends Honeybone photos of Evans playing these days but nothing compares to taking the pictures himself.

"I miss him but I can accept it," Honeybone said.

"He's got to do what's best for him and this is, without a doubt, the best for him.

"I went to bed last Saturday night when I got a message from Gus.

"We spoke on the phone and he said the boys were getting together, along with some sponsors, to bring me out.

'I said 'if you're sure, I'm not going to say no' so I got my visa and the ticket came through on Tuesday.

"I've met a lot of good people in my life and I've experienced a lot of good deeds but nothing quite compares to this."

St Pat's president Tony Maher said the club would be willing to make a donation and then it was over to the playing group and some of the club's sponsors.

"I took it upon myself to rattle the tin and within two hours, we'd raised almost $3000," MacLeod revealed.

"Luke shared his story about six weeks ago and there wasn't a dry eye in the room.

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"He had to navigate through a lot of troubles as a young fella and Roy was the father figure in his life growing up.

"We feel like Roy's the No.1 ticket holder at St Pat's but he'd never seen a game before.

"He knows every stat about every single A-grade player, he stays up until 1am to watch games.

"Grand finals don't come around all that often and I've got a theory that you can't take money to the grave but you can take memories so we thought this would be a fantastic memory for Roy and Luke.

"We had 29 people chip in financially.

"There's a senior cricketer, a uni student, who's not flash with cash but he wanted to chip in 20 bucks, that's all he could afford.

"For someone like him, living away from home, to give us all he'd got, and for someone else to put in $500, it just shows it's not the financial side of the story that was important, it was everyone making a contribution to make this happen."

Honeybone's already planning to come back next year.

"This is such a good place to play," Evans said.

"We didn't get the results on Saturday but that won't affect us going forward, we'll stay strong.

"The great thing was that my Grandad was able to be here."

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