The Bristol Rovers History Group. |
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No 422. (Jim) James Eadie. 1972-77.
Born, 4.2.1947, Alexandria. 6’ 2”; 14 st 1 lbs. Début: 17.2.73 v Blackburn Rovers. Career: Rangers (schoolboy); Dumbarton; Forfar Athletic; Kirkintilloch Rob Roy; 1965 Leicester City (trial); September 1966 Cardiff City [43,0]; 11.8.72 Chester (loan) [6,0]; 15.2.73 Bristol Rovers (free) [183,0]; 12.9.77 Bath City (to 1978). Ever-present during the 1973-74 promotion season, keeping 22 clean sheets in 46 League matches that campaign, goalkeeper Jim Eadie was a constant and reliable figure through the mid-1970s. He had also not conceded a goal in his first five League outings with Rovers. Tall, dominant and commanding, he was a fine keeper with a keen eye to reading the game and a huge and powerful goal-kick. The pseudonym “Flying Pig from Kirkintilloch” was a little misleading, not least for the fact that Eadie had immense talent, as well as a firm and solid punch, but also for the fact that he hailed from a small town near Loch Lomond, although he had briefly been on the books of Kirkintilloch. From there, this apprentice plumber who had worked on the construction of the “QE2” represented Cardiff City in the European Cup Winners’ Cup. He and Alan Warboys were in the Bluebirds’ side which, having defeated French side Nantes 7-2 on aggregate to reach the quarter-finals, defeated Real Madrid 1-0 in front of a crowd of 47,500 at Ninian Park in the 1970-71 season, only to lose the second leg 2-0 in the Bernabeu, and opposed Dynamo Berlin the following season. Warboys scored four goals at Brighton in December 1973 as Rovers recorded their largest ever League victory, Eadie playing in this game having earlier gone a club record 687 minutes unbeaten in League football. As Rovers went a club record 32 League matches unbeaten, promotion to Division Two was guaranteed and Eadie continued to perform well in the higher division, before making five appearances under former Rovers player Brian Godfrey at Bath City. In the building trade and later working as a welder, Jim Eadie later survived on a disability pension because of a spinal disc problem and having undergone knee replacement surgery. Living in Kingswood, he and Michele have seven children and a growing number of grandchildren; one son, Mitch, played in Bristol Rugby Club’s final match at the Memorial Stadium, a 21-20 loss to London Welsh in June 2014, and represented Scotland at Under-20 level. |
No 758. Derwain Jamal Easter. 2006-07.
Born, 15.11.1987, Cardiff. 5’ 8”; 11 st. Début: 28.10.06 v Wrexham. Career: Cantonian High School, Cardiff; Cardiff City (professional, 1.8.06); 27.10.06 Bristol Rovers (loan) [1+2,0]; 5.1.07 Torquay United (loan) [8+2,0]; 21.7.07 Torquay United (trial); 30.8.07 Carmarthen Town (free); 12.7.08 Salisbury City (trial); 26.7.08 Newport County; 10.9.0 Carmarthen Town (free); 19.2.09 Clevedon Town (to 30.12.09); August 2010 Taff’s Well; August 2011 Bridgend Town. After 59 minutes of Rovers’ ninth consecutive League defeat at Wrexham, eighteen-year-old loan striker Jamal Easter replaced Sean Rigg to make his début. A Welsh international at Under-17 level with three goals in five games, who had played twice for wales Under-19 and once for Wales Under-21, his time with Rovers was marked by a goal against his brother’s Wycombe side in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, a tournament in which Rovers were to be finalists. He has a brother Joshua, whilst another brother Jermaine, who missed a penalty at The Mem with MK Dons in April 2010, has twelve full Welsh caps to his name and joined Rovers in January 2015 in time for two promotions with the Gas, whilst their maternal cousin Ramon Calliste has represented Wales at Under-21 level. With Kevin Miller and Lee Thorpe at Plainmoor as Torquay suffered relegation to the Conference in 2006-07, his ten games featured just one victory, when Lee Thorpe’s hat-trick helped defeat Grimsby 4-1. Easter scored after two minutes of his Clevedon début against Banbury United, although he missed a penalty in the same match, and the first of his 39 games, featuring eleven goals, for Carmarthen was as a substitute in the 2-1 victory at Neath in August 2007. He scored once in five games at Newport and seven times in 25 matches with Clevedon, before his eight goals in eighteen matches for Taff’s Well included a powerful and precise winning goal after 74 minutes in the dramatic 5-4 victory over Aberaman Athletic in October 2010, and he top-scored at Bridgend in 2011-12 with ten goals in sixteen fixtures. Subsequently, he represented both Cardiff University and Wales at futsal. |
No 861. Jermaine Maurice Easter. 2015-17.
Born, 15.1.1982, Cardiff. 5’ 9½”; 13 st 5 lbs. Début: 8.8.15 v Northampton Town. Career: 1.8.99 Wolverhampton Wanderers; 12.3.01 Hartlepool United (free) [0+29,2]; 6.2.04 Cambridge United (loan); 5.7.04 Cambridge United (free) [25+14,8]; 15.3.05 Boston United (free) [5+4,3]; 25.3.05 Stockport County (free) [18+1,8]; 31.1.06 Wycombe Wanderers (free) [45+16,21]; 26.10.07 Plymouth Argyle (loan); 4.1.08 Plymouth Argyle (£210,000) [22+14,6]; 25.9.08 Millwall (loan); 20.11.08 Colchester United (loan) [5,2]; 14.7.09 MK Dons (free) [43+7,14]; 9.12.10 Swansea City (loan) [2+4,1]; 14.1.11 Crystal Palace (free) [26+29,8]; 15.3.13 Millwall (loan); 1.7.13 Millwall (free) [13+25,5]; 12.1.15 Bristol Rovers (free) [30+33,11]; 24.7.17 Yeovil Town (trial) (retired, 8.8.17). With memories of relegation from the Football League still raw, a frisson of excitement swept through the club with the arrival of Welsh international striker Jermaine Easter; the club sat in second place in the Conference table and, in appointing a former Hartlepool team-mate, manager Darrell Clarke left no one in any doubt that he wanted the side back in League Two. The powerful striker scored against Aldershot in March 2015, his only goal in 4(+1) Conference matches, but injury forced him to miss the season’s finale, as the Pirates secured promotion back to the Football League. Back in League Two, Easter enjoyed a run of goal-scoring in the autumn of 2015, until he was sent off on the stroke of half-time at Field Mill that October, having already scored, Rovers securing a 2-1 victory over Mansfield Town. The red card later rescinded, he contributed an invaluable seven League goals as Rovers completed an unlikely double promotion, beating Dagenham on the final day to go up to League One on goal difference. Once returned to League One, he contributed to Rovers’ reassertion in that division, despite a second-half red card accrued at Sheffield United at the end of September 2016. After Rovers, trial games for Yeovil against Llanelli and Weston-super-Mare preceded his early retirement from the game. Cardiff-based Easter had arrived with a formidable goal-scoring reputation, most notably at Wycombe, where his 24 goals in all competitions in 2006-07 had included at least one in every round up to and including the semi-final with Chelsea. A League Cup semi-finalist with both Wycombe and Palace, he had been named in the League Two Team of the Year for 2006-07. A son of Depwin Easter and Kimberley Calliste, his brother Jamal had played briefly for Rovers during the 2006-07 season and their cousin Ramon Calliste had won Welsh caps at Under-21 level; he also has a younger brother, Joshua. Although Jermaine Easter never started a game at Hartlepool, he was an effective impact substitute, scoring in the home matches against Torquay and Southend after making his League bow in the 1-1 draw with Halifax in March 2001. He helped Pools to a play-off semi-final, played in the 8-1 victory over Grimsby in September 2003 and was sent off just nine minutes after coming on against Blackpool in May 2001. After experiencing promotion at Hartlepool, he scored twice in Cambridge’s 4-3 win at Darlington in March 2004 and Boston’s 4-0 victory over Notts County in March 2005, as well as playing as Stockport, under his former Hartlepool manager Chris Turner, crashed to a 6-0 defeat at Carlisle the following October. It was Easter’s arrival at Wycombe which led to the most prolific spell of his career. On as a substitute, he was sent clear three times and beat Bury goalkeeper Alan Fettis with two drives and a lob to record all the goals in a 3-0 victory in August 2006. Despite being sent off against MK Dons in April 2007, he was the Players’ Player of the Year at Wycombe in 2006-07 after the club’s extraordinary League Cup run. A loan spell at Colchester, which encompassed goals against Yeovil and Colchester, was cut short by medial ligament trouble. However, further success came at MK Dons, where he was named Sports Writers’ Player of the Year for 2009-10, having recorded nineteen goals in all competitions, including seven in a five-game autumnal burst, as Dons reached the Football League Trophy regional final. A solitary Swansea goal in the 1-0 victory over Barnsley in December 2010 preceded productive spells at Palace and Ian Holloway’s Millwall. Sent off for Millwall at Swindon in September 2008, in his first loan spell, he was again dismissed in the 4-1 FA Cup defeat at Southend in January 2014; he also scored with his first touch as a substitute on his return début, as Charlton were defeated 2-0 in March 2013 and added a late consolation goal, again as a substitute, in a 6-1 defeat at Norwich on Boxing Day 2014 on his final appearance in a Millwall shirt. “A big danger man [with] speed and skill in abundance, plus a great understanding with his team-mates” (Robert Mann), Easter had played League matches against Rovers with Hartlepool, Cambridge, Stockport, Wycombe and MK Dons, scoring for Wycombe in the April 2006 fixture and missing a penalty at The Mem in April 2010 with MK Dons, and he won the first of his twelve full caps for Wales in the friendly against Northern Ireland in January 2007. He married Teresa at Ravello on the Italian Amalfi coast in June 2010. |
No 537. Jason Cord Eaton. 1987-88.
Born, 29.1.1969, Bristol. 5’ 10”; 11 st. Début: 15.8.87 v Rotherham United. Career: Olveston United; June 1987 Bristol Rovers [0+3,0]; 1988 Clevedon Town; Trowbridge Town; 23.3.89 Bristol City (£1,000) [6+7,1]; July 1990 Trowbridge Town; November 1990 Gloucester City (£10,000); 19.10.92 Cheltenham Town (£20,000); 13.5.99 Yeovil Town (£15,000); 13.8.00 Newport County (free); 13.8.01 Forest Green Rovers (free); 16.8.01 Merthyr Town (loan); 23.9.01 Basingstoke Town (free); 15.7.02 Bath City (free); 6.7.04 Merthyr Tydfil; 29.10.04 Brislington (trial); 17.11.04 Gloucester City (loan); 8.3.05 Mangotsfield United (free); 24.11.05 Paulton Rovers; 28.12.05 Clevedon Town. Brief spells with both Bristol clubs proved an early career highlight for the much-travelled striker Jason Eaton. The son of Terry Eaton and Lesley Claydon, his solitary League goal came after sixteen minutes, the opening goal of City’s 2-0 victory over Notts County. Whilst with Rovers, he had in fact played for the youth side before an inflated crowd of 10,000 at Luton, the figure being so high as the fixture took place immediately before the Hatters took on Manchester United in Division One. Subsequently, having made his Gloucester début against Dorchester Town in November 1990, he was top scorer in 1991-92, helped the club secure the 1992 North Gloucestershire Senior Professional Cup and scored 22 goals in 42 Southern League appearances. Seven years with Cheltenham enabled Eaton to play a major rôle in the Robins’ sharp ride towards Football League status. He scored a Beazer Homes League hat-trick against Hastings Town in October 1994, was third highest scorer in the division as the Robins were third in that league in 1995-96, counting Wayne Noble, Bob Bloomer and Martin Thomas amongst his team-mates, and was selected to represent the Football Association XI which defeated the Combined Services 1-0 in January 1996 and the Southern League 2-1 in December 1997. Cheltenham were Gloucestershire Senior Cup winners that campaign, defeating Gloucester City on penalties after Eaton’s late shot had struck the post, and they were promoted to the Conference in the spring of 1997 as runners-up behind Gresley Rovers. An example of his goal-scoring prowess was the impressive twelve-minute second-half hat-trick as Cheltenham defeated Halifax Town 4-0 in the Conference in November 1997. In May 1998, Eaton scored at Wembley, his seventeenth strike of a productive season, as Cheltenham defeated Southport 1-0 in the FA Trophy Final and the Robins were Conference champions in 1998-99, Eaton leaving the club after scoring 115 goals in 248(+55) matches in all competitions, although he was sent off against Stevenage in February 1999. Despite his Yeovil début resulting in a 5-0 defeat at Scarborough, he scored twice in 11(+14) Conference games and went on to score thirteen goals in 31(+3) games with Basingstoke, 19 goals in 56(+15) games at Bath, as well as one off a post in a pre-season friendly against Rovers in July 2002, and 43 in 97(+2) appearances with Gloucester, his five goals in 17(+5) fixtures with Newport including an eightieth-minute equaliser as County recovered from 4-0 down to win 6-5 at Cambridge City in November 2000. Thirteen games for Mangotsfield helped the Mangos secure the Southern League (Western Division) title for 2004-05 and Clevedon were Southern League Division One West champions in the spring of 2006 before he retired to run the Cadbury House Hotel Health Club at Congresbury. |
No 837. Thomas James Eaves. 2012-13.
Born, 14.1.1992, Liverpool. 6’ 5”; 13 st 7 lbs. Début: 29.9.12 v Exeter City. Career: Crewe Alexandra; 1.7.07 Oldham Athletic (professional, 1.7.09) [0+15,0]; 12.8.10 Bolton Wanderers [0+4,0]; 27.9.12 Bristol Rovers (loan) [16,7]; 21.2.13 Shrewsbury Town (loan); 21.9.13 Rotherham United (loan) [1+7,0]; 28.11.13 Shrewsbury Town (loan) [30+5,8]; 27.11.14 Yeovil Town (loan); 13.3.15 Bury (loan) [7+2,1]; 1.7.16 Yeovil Town (free) [30+10,4]; 22.6.17 Gillingham (free) [70+15,40]; 10.7.19 Hull City (free) [40+57,14]; 24.6.22 Rotherham United (free). Seven minutes after half-time at home to Northampton Town in October 2012, from Eliot Richards’ cross, Tom Eaves set Rovers on their way to their first home win of the 2012-13 season. In the very next home fixture, his two goals helped Rovers defeat ten-man Torquay United 3-2 in a pulsating match, before creating two and scoring the third in a 3-2 victory at home to Chesterfield. A loan signing with “a determined approach to the game”, his goal-scoring and strong front play provided hope and were particularly impressive, as were his 26 shots on target in the quartered shirt, given Rovers’ poor form as the club plummeted to the foot of League Two by Christmas 2012 when, although Rovers were keen to retain him, he was recalled by his mother club. Once the 2012-13 season was completed he remained, nonetheless, the Pirates’ top scorer of the campaign. A childhood season-ticket holder in the Kop End at Anfield, Eaves had made his Oldham début as an 84th-minute substitute for Keigan Parker in the 1-0 defeat against Millwall in January 2010 and played against Rovers that April, arriving as a substitute for Joe Colbeck. A hat-trick against Bolton had persuaded the Trotters to sign him, but an injury picked up on their 2011 tour of the United States had forced the tall, strong front man to miss the 2011-12 season. Eaves was an inspired addition to the Shrews’ line-up, his formidable goal tally including a second-half hat-trick as Crawley were defeated 3-0 on Easter Monday 2013, before he finally forced his way into Bolton’s side in April 2013 as they missed out on a play-off berth on goal difference. His loan spell at Rotherham included a Johnstone’s Paint Trophy goal at Hartlepool in November 2013 and he scored League goals against Stevenage and Brentford in a second loan spell in Shropshire, the Shrews being relegated to Division Two in the spring of 2014. A loan stint at Yeovil included a substitute appearance as the Glovers lost an FA Cup third-round tie 2-0 at home to Manchester United in January 2015, before he scored for Bury against Morecambe on Easter Monday 2015, the Shakers securing promotion from League Two. He played in no League fixtures during 2015-16, as the Trotters were relegated to League One. Eaves was one of two Yeovil players to miss penalties in the shoot-out as the Glovers crashed out of the FA Cup in a shock replay result at Solihull Moors in November 2016. However, he made a dramatic start at Gillingham, scoring a second-half hat-trick on his first home appearance, in the 3-3 draw with Southend United in August 2017, and then being sent off in the 3-0 defeat at Rochdale, and he later secured a hat-trick against Plymouth Argyle too. He was a member of the Gills’ side which caused an FA Cup shock by defeating Premier League Cardiff City 1-0 at Priestfield in January 2019 and finished the season as the Gills’ top scorer. This led to a transfer to Championship side Hull City and Eaves responded with a fine hat-trick in their 3-2 FA Cup victory at Rotherham United in January 2020 before an ankle injury suffered against Preston North End concluded his season prematurely. The following campaign, he scored at The Mem against Rovers, Hull racing to the League One title, before being sent off against Huddersfield Town in April 2022. He was in the Roptherham, side which lost at home to lower-league Morecambe in the League Cup in August 2022. |
No 344. Anthony Edge. 1959-61.
Born, 14.3.1937, Hoylake, The Wirral. Died, 27.2.2022, Clyst St Mary, Devon. 5’ 9”; 10 st 2 lbs. Début: 31.10.59 v Cardiff City. Career: 1956 Devizes Town; August 1959 Bristol Rovers [13,4]; 28.11.60 Bath City; 17.8.63 Devizes Town (player-manager, 29.5.67-3.5.69; retired, 1.5.72). Standing in for the former England centre-forward Geoff Bradford, Tony Edge had just five Football Combination games to his name before his League bow. Nonetheless, Edge produced a decent goal-scoring tally in the quartered shirts before making his Bath début in a Somerset professional Cup-tie against Yeovil Town in December 1960. His club form at Devizes, a club he joined whilst stationed in Wiltshire on National Service with the Royal Army Pay Corps, had not only attracted Rovers, but also earned him an Olympic trial at Bisham Abbey ahead of the Rome Games of 1960 but Edge eschewed the opportunity of Olympic football in favour of a contract with Rovers. He scored 92 goals in his first season back at Devizes, 1963-64, remarkably contributed over 500 goals in over 500 matches for the side. A formidable header of the ball, he scored five goals in a game on several occasion, one of these being a Wiltshire Cup game against Purton in 1958, when his tally in a 7-3 victory included a five-minute hat-trick. Edge later served as manager at Nursteed Road in the club’s first two Western League seasons and later worked as a quantity surveyor for WE Chivers before retiring to Devon. A keen golfer with the Exeter Golf and Country Club, who won a number of local trophies for his endeavours, he was the son of Harold Edge (1913-90) and Elsie Jones (1913-87), who had married in 1934; he married Lesley Edwards (1945-2016) in 1957 and they had three children, Janet (who married Andrew Dunkerley), Colin and Russell as well as three grandchildren, Darren, James and Jessica. He died at his home in Frog Lane, Clyst St Mary, at the age of eighty-four. |
No 710. Christian Nicholas Edwards. 2003-06.
Born, 23.11.1975, Caerphilly. 6’ 2”; 12 st 8 lbs. Début: 9.8.03 v Scunthorpe United. Career: 1989 Swansea City (professional, 20.7.94); 26.3.98 Nottingham Forest (£275,000) [44+10,3]; 11.12.98 Bristol City (loan) [3,0]; 24.2.00 Oxford United (loan); 16.11.01 Crystal Palace (loan) [9,0]; 17.9.02 Tranmere Rovers (loan) [12,0]; 17.1.03 Oxford United (loan) [10+1,1]; 3.7.03 Bristol Rovers [91+8,3]; 19.8.05 Swansea City (loan) [113+3,4]; 25.7.06 Forest Green Rovers (free); 6.1.07 Aberystwyth Town (free) (player-coach) (retired, February 2011); 2011 Cardiff Met (coach). Tall central defender “Swanny” Edwards had represented Wales at Under-16 level at rugby and he scored the sole try when Rovers lost a charity rugby game 17-7 against Bristol Shoguns in May 2005. He excelled, though, at football too and won a full Welsh cap in April 1996 against Switzerland in Lugano, coming on as a substitute for Chris Coleman who had conceded an own goal in the 2-0 defeat. A Swansea fan, he made his League bow at Stockport in February 1995, had played alongside Carl Heggs and Julian Alsop, scoring against Rovers in January 1996 and being in the Swans’ side which was relegated to Division Three in 1995-96 and reached the play-off final twelve months later, only to lose to Northampton Town. He had been sent off in a League Cup-tie with Reading in August 1997 and appeared in the extraordinary 7-4 defeat at Hull the same calendar month. Edwards made three appearances for Rovers’ rivals across the city under Benny Lennartsson over Christmas 1998 and scored for Oxford in a 4-1 defeat against Wrexham. Having won seven caps for Wales at Under-21 level, played twice for Wales “B” and won a solitary full cap, Edwards brought a degree of experience to Rovers’ defensive line. Man of the Match twice against his boyhood club, Swansea, he was sent off for handball nine minutes from time in the Christmas 2003 game against Southend, scored in home games against Notts County, Northampton and Chester and was stretchered off in his final game with a suspected broken leg. He later played nine times for Forest Green and scored four goals in 89 matches at Aberystwyth. Married to Fran, a Newport-based teacher, and with three children, Christian Edwards gained a First in 2009 from his three-year Sports management course at Cardiff Metropolitan University and enrolled for a PhD in Philosophy and Sociology in Sport from 2011, the year he competed in the Three Peaks Challenge. He coached the Cardiff Met side to within ninety minutes of an unlikely place in the Europa League, a run ended by a 1-0 defeat to Bangor City in May 2017. In November 2019 he suffered a suspected heart attack and was hospitalised. |
No 303. Leslie Raymond Edwards. 1950-57.
Born,, 12.4.1924, Guildford, Surrey. Died, 15.8.2014, Somerset. 5’ 9”; 10 st 2 lbs. Début: 17.2.51 v Walsall. Career: Guildford Town; Stoke Recreational; 1946 Bristol City (trial); 21.7.47 Yeovil Town (trial, amateur); 6.5.48 Bristol Rovers (professional, 22.7.48) [47,0]; 5.8.58 Trowbridge Town; 25.7.61 Nailsea United. An erstwhile Surrey Youth captain, who served in Bomber Command in the Far East during World War Two and reached the semi-finals of the Royal Air Force boxing tournament, Les Edwards was a pugnacious, tough left-back. The middle of three sons to Arthur Edwards (1899-1969) and Olive Winifred Smith (1901-80), who had married in Guildford in 1921, he married Lilian Chadwick in 1944, whom he named as his next of kin when signing up as a private, number N291409, and they had two sons. His younger brother Bobby scored 65 goals in 173 League matches for Swindon Town. Discharged in September 1945, Les Edwards joined Rovers on £5 per week and, having stood in for Jackie Pitt in three matches during the 1950-51 season, went over three years before making his fourth appearance in a Rovers shirt. Thereafter, though, Edwards replaced Frank Allcock in Rovers’ side and became the regular left-back in his early thirties as Rovers began to establish themselves in Division Two. Later in his life, Les Edwards worked as a carpenter and was still with Nailsea United in 1967, living for many years in Causeway View, Nailsea. Latterly, for just over eighteen months following the death in December 2012 of Phil Taylor, Edwards was the oldest former Rovers player still alive. |
No 60. Samuel Edwards. 1924-25.
Born, 24.4.1898, Dudley Port, Staffordshire. Died, 1959, Wednesbury. 5’ 7”; 11 st. Début: 30.8.24 v Merthyr Town. Career: Old Hill Unity; 1918 West Bromwich Albion (professional, 17.5.19); 1922 Kidderminster Harriers; 7.8.24 Bristol Rovers (£60) [33,5]; 1925 Stourbridge. Easily bundled off the ball, according to contemporary reports, Sam Edwards did not make the grade at West Brom and joined Harriers in 1922 with his brother. For Rovers, he made his début on the day the new South Stand was inaugurated and also played as champions-elect Swansea found themselves three goals down inside fifteen minutes at Eastville and in the FA Cup-tie against Bristol City in January 1925 which drew a crowd of 31,500, the largest at Eastville between the wars. Losing his place to George Charlesworth, Edwards headed back to the Midlands where, in 1939, he is listed as a widower, living at 68 Holly Road, Dudley and working as a general labourer. The 1901 census return lists one Samuel Edwards at 18 Cole Street, Dudley, the youngest of a large family born to Samuel Edwards senior (1862-1924), a labourer at the ironworks, and his wife Clara Jones (1859-1928) and ten years later he was resident at 11 Double Row, Darby End; he died aged sixty. |
No 940. Maximilian Andreas Ehmer. 2020-21.
Born, 3.2.1992, Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany. 6’ 2”; 11 st. Début: 12.9.2020 v Sunderland. Career: ACS Egham School; 2000 Ascot United; 2003 Warfield Predators; 2003 Queen’s Park Rangers (professional, 11.6.09) [0+1,0]; 31.12.10 Yeovil Town (loan); 21.7.11 Yeovil Town (loan) [50+1,0]; 16.3.12 Preston North End (loan) [7+2,0]; 28.3.13 Stevenage (loan) [5+1,1]; 4.11.13 Carlisle United (loan) [12,1]; 26.11.14 Gillingham (loan); 2.7.15 Gillingham (free); 21.7.20 Bristol Rovers (free) [27+1,1]; 15.6.21 Gillingham (free) [262+2,12]. Composed, calm and hugely experienced, Max Ehmer joined Rovers in 2020 and was promptly named club captain. The departure of Tony Craig had left a dearth of experience at the back, but Ehmer was seen as the logical replacement, bringing with him a wealth of knowledge of the game. He was well-known to Rovers’ supporters too, for he had played alongside Adam Virgo and Andy Williams in the Yeovil side which played Rovers at Huish Park in April 2011 and opposed Rovers in no fewer than seven League fixtures in Gillingham’s colours, latterly as captain. Moving to Britain as a youngster, Ehmer made his League bow as a substitute for Clint Hill in Queen’s Park Rangers’ game with Middlesbrough in September 2013 but those twelve minutes were to be his sole contribution for his first professional club. Loan spells ensued, Ehmer scoring for Yeovil at Dean Court in an October 2011 Football league Trophy match against Bournemouth and stabbing home a rebound, after Filipe Morais’ shot had been blocked, for the only goal in Stevenage’s 1-0 victory over Hartlepool in April 2013. In January 2014 he contrived to score for both sides as Carlisle lost 4-2 at home to Colchester united. A League One stalwart for over five years at Gillingham, he gained huge experience as a trusted captain, featured in the astonishing 7-5 victory over Reading in the Football League Trophy in November 2017 and was sent off the same month in a 1-0 victory at Walsall. On his home début in September 2020 Ehmer conceded an own goal ten minutes from time to set visitors Ipswich Town on their way to a 2-0 victory. He scored in January 2021 in the FA Cup defeat against Premier League Sheffield United and in a League defeat at Crewe, but fell out of favour under new manager Joey Barton and returned to Gillingham, alongside Mustapha Carayol, Aaron Chapman and David Tutonda. He conceded an own goal when Gillingham lost at home to MK Dons in September 2021 and the Gills were relegated from League One that season; he played when the side was held to a 1-1 draw at Fylde in the FA Cup in November 2022. |
No 634. Nathan Levi Fontaine Ellington. 1998-2002.
Born, 2.7.1981, Bradford, West Yorkshire. 5’ 10”; 12 st 7 lbs. Début: 23.2.99 v Gillingham. Career: Christ School, Richmond; 1994 Starlight Miners; 1995 Cavendish Gestetner; 1996 Crystal Palace (trial); August 1997 Tooting and Mitcham; January 1998 Waltham and Hersham; July 1998 Tooting and Mitcham (trial); December 1998 Fulham (trial); 18.2.99 Bristol Rovers (£150,000) [76+40,35]; 28.3.02 Wigan Athletic (£1,200,000) [130+4,59]; 15.8.05 West Bromwich Albion (£3,000,000) [34+34,15]; 29.8.07 Watford (£3,250,000) [20+31,5]; 30.5.08 Derby County (loan) [13+14,3]; 21.12.09 Skoda Xanthi [16,7]; 13.1.11 Preston North End (loan) [7+11,2]; 21.6.11 Ipswich Town (free) [1+16,0]; 16.11.12 Scunthorpe United (loan); 9.2.13 Crewe Alexandra (trial); 8.3.13 Crewe Alexandra (free) [2+6,0]; 17.10.13 Southport (free); 18.2.14 Persija Jakarta (trial); October 2017 Egerton FC (free). Fabrizio Ravanelli was the star name for Premier League side Derby County but, when fourth-tier Bristol Rovers waltzed into town for an FA Cup-tie in January 2002, it was Nathan Ellington, nicknamed “The Duke” in deference to the jazz musician of the same name, who stole the show with a breath-taking hat-trick as Rovers pulled off a shock 3-1 victory. It was only the second time that a Fourth Division side had won an FA Cup-tie away to a top division team and it was also the first occasion that anyone had scored a hat-trick away from home for Rovers in the FA Cup. More than this, though, it was one of three hat-tricks the young Yorkshireman scored in the space of a month, as he hit a rich vein of form. “He’s a jigsaw puzzle”, Gary Penrice explained, “all the pieces are there, it’s just a matter of putting them together”. And put them together he did. Having scored 35 goals from midfield for Cavendish, Ellington was converted into a striker and added eight goals for Waltham, as well as 35 for their reserves. He added one game for Tooting against Fisher Athletic and three matches for Palace’s Under-16 side, before Rovers beat a host of clubs searching for his signature – Arsenal, Villa, Forest, Bristol City, QPR, Brentford, Spurs and West Ham were all noted at the time in the press. Almost scoring on his début with a header, he became Rovers’ third youngest League goal-scorer with a spectacular 25-yard volley against York City in March 1999. An athlete by nature, Ellington was Surrey County high jump champion in 1998, competed in 100m and 200m events, running a personal best of 11.09 seconds in the former, and his Under-15 height of 1m 87cm still stands as a Surrey high jump record for that age-group. Combined to this, though, was a predator’s knack for finding the goal, a talent which, as he emerged from the shadows of Jamie Cureton and Jason Roberts, earned him a place in the PFA Division Three XI for 2001-02, despite Rovers finishing the campaign second from bottom of the table. A vast transfer fee took him to Wigan, where he teamed up again with Roberts, the two strikers easing the Latics to the Division Two title in 2002-03 with 100 points and promotion to the Premier League in 2004-05. Although he managed just five League goals in 2005-06, this nonetheless left him as West Brom’s top scorer as the Baggies were relegated from top-flight football and Ellington, sent off in the FA Cup against Middlesbrough, scored a 56th-minute goal at The Mem as West Brom drew 3-3 in a pre-season friendly with Rovers in July 2007. Despite only three League goals in 2008-09, he also managed a hat-trick in the League Cup that season against Leicester City, also scoring the injury-time penalty which took Derby to their first-ever League Cup semi-final, and was sent off for Derby against Reading before trying his luck in Greek football. More recently, Ellington was relegated from the Championship with Preston before making his Ipswich début as an 88th-minute substitute at Ashton Gate as Bristol City were defeated 3-0. His Southport bow came in a 2-2 Conference draw at Macclesfield Town, the first of three Conference matches. He also became a co-director of Odesys Solutions of Newcastle, supplying the latest technology in CCTV cameras and surveillance systems. Nathan Ellington married a Bosnian woman, Alma from Tuzla, in 2004 and converted to Islam – they have three children; his elder brother Lee, who played for Hull City and Exeter City, has enjoyed a long career in senior non-league circles with Farsley Celtic, Droylsden, Harrogate Town, Guiseley and Matlock Town. |
No 726. Stephen William Elliott. 2004-10.
Born, 29.10.1978, Swadlincote, Derbyshire. 6’ 1”; 14 st. Début: 7.8.04 v Mansfield Town. Career: Derby County (professional, 26.3.97) [58+14,1]; 14.11.03 Blackpool (loan); 17.2.04 Blackpool (free) [28,0]; 23.6.04 Bristol Rovers (free) [217+1,16]; 17.7.10 Cheltenham Town (free; player-coach, 12.5.14) [172+2,9]; 11.2.15 Bath City (free); 13.2.15 Cheltenham Town (assistant manager); 11.11.15 Mangotsfield United (joint manager, to 15.6.16). A goal-scoring, solid defensive player, Steve Elliott’s personable nature and reliable defending earned him huge popularity at the Memorial Stadium. There are some amongst Rovers supporters who maintain the club’s relegation in 2011 was, in part, attributable to the fact that Elliott had not been adequately replaced. Be that as it may, the young Derby defender had won two England Under-21 caps in 1998, playing in the 1-1 draw with France in which Emile Heskey and Louis Saha scored, and a 2-0 defeat against Argentina. A Derby supporter as a boy, his career began in dream fashion, his first thirteen Premier League games seeing County unbeaten, this run including a 2-1 win at Anfield. His solitary goal was a headed equaliser against Wimbledon at Pride Park in November 2002. A spell at Blackpool was notable for a stint as emergency goalkeeper against Chesterfield after Phil Barnes had been dismissed, Elliott saving a penalty. Having missed the run-up to the 2004-05 season with tonsillitis, Elliott made his Rovers début as a 69th-minute substitute for Stuart Campbell and swiftly became seen as a heroic talisman in a Rovers side growing in confidence. Despite red cards accrued at Premier League Norwich, for two yellow cards in the final three minutes of a League Cup-tie in September 2004, only Rovers’ second red card in that tournament, and as one of two sent off against both Yeovil and Swindon, Elliott captained the side at home to Cambridge in his first season and began scoring thunderbolt goals, notably one against Macclesfield in February 2005 and another against Gillingham in the spring of 2008. His two goals at top-of-the-table Walsall over Christmas 2006, many feeling his late header also crossed the line for what would have been a hat-trick, earned a precious point which began to pave the way towards Rovers’ promotion the following spring. Elliott, a member of the Blackpool side defeated in the 2004 LDV Vans Trophy Final, appeared in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Final at the Millennium Stadium in March 2007, which Rovers, although losing, used as the springboard for a remarkable late-season rise into the play-offs. He played at Wembley that May as Shrewsbury Town were defeated 3-1 and Rovers returned to third-flight English football. A late, spectacular goal-line clearance against Crystal Palace in August 2007 paved the way for Rovers to beat their illustrious opponents in a League Cup penalty shoot-out and Elliott was named President’s Club Player of the Year for 2007-08. A drummer with the band The Serg, so called after the initial letters of the four members’ names, who played on occasion, to crowds of 5,000, Steve Elliott left Rovers for Cheltenham, for whom he played in victories at The Mem in October 2011 and October 2012, alongside Darryl Duffy, Chris Zebroski and Josh Low. He had a header cleared off the line at Wembley, as the Robins lost their 2012 play-off final to Crewe Alexandra and captained Cheltenham in 2012-13, when they again fell at the play-off stage, still living at this time in Downend. The 2013-14 campaign saw the Robins knocked out of the FA Cup by non-league Tamworth, Elliott playing as a second-half substitute, and he scored against Wycombe Wanderers in November 2014 in his final Football League appearance, Cheltenham losing their Football League status at the end of that season. Without a game in twelve months, he took over at Mangotsfield United in November 2015 alongside David Mehew, guiding them to fourteenth place in the Southern League Division One South. Living in Stanbridge Road, Downend with his wife Katie, he now has business interests in that part of the country and their second child was due in July 2020. |
No 659. Clinton Ellis. 2000-01.
Born, 7.7.1977, Brent. 5’ 6”; 12 st 6 lbs. Début: 20.8.00 v Peterborough United. Career: 1.8.98 Chelsea (trainee); 1.6.00 Bristol Rovers [2+13,1]; 14.7.01 Tourcoing (to 2002). Following two years at the National Football School in Lilleshall, Clinton Ellis made his Rovers début as a substitute for Mickey Evans and was generally used as an impact player from the bench. His solitary goal for Rovers came with a firm, low shot three minutes from time at Colchester in October 2000, a consolation goal in a 2-1 defeat. He later scored once in fifteen games in lower-league French football. |
No 197. John Ellis. 1934-35.
Born, 25.1.1908, Tyldesley, Lancashire. Died, 20.1.1994, Tyldesley, Lancashire. 5’ 11½” Début: 25.8.34 v Brighton. Career: Tyldesley United; Tyldesley Juniors; Atherton; Winsford United; May 1930 West Bromwich Albion (trial); February 1931 Wolverhampton Wanderers [26,0]; 30.4.34 Bristol Rovers [86,0]; 27.5.38 Hull City [32,0]; July 1939 Orient; Winsford United (manager); Leeds United (scout). Tall, confident and able, Jack Ellis had the misfortune to be in Rovers’ goal on Easter Monday 1936, when the side crashed 12-0 at Luton Town, Joe Payne (1914-75) scoring a League record ten times. It is a shame if he were to be remembered exclusively for this match, for Ellis gave loyal service to several clubs, winning the Third Division (South) Cup with Rovers in April 1935, when Watford were defeated 3-2 in the final. Luck did not accompany his matches against Luton, for they were the opposition when he broke his collar-bone in January 1935, an injury which ruled him out of the prestigious FA Cup-tie that month against Manchester United. Another injury, at Crystal Palace in February 1936, led to full-back Bill Pickering taking over between the sticks. He was in the Hull side which defeated Carlisle United 11-1 in January 1938, but conceded six against Bradford City in his sole outing in the Third Division (North) Cup. Having played in Orient’s three matches in the aborted 1939-40 season, Ellis represented Rochdale (two October 1939 games, against Barrow and Southport) and Stockport County in wartime football before conceding forty goals in just nine games with Wrexham in 1941-42; he also played twice that campaign for Orient. A policeman in wartime, he lived for many years at 80 Crawford Avenue, Tyldesley and died on the same day as Sir Matt Busby, just five days short of his eighty-sixth birthday. |
No 454. John Gareth Emmanuel. 1978-81.
Born, 1.12.1954, Swansea. 5’ 9”; 10 st 8 lbs. Début: 26.12.78 v Crystal Palace. Career: Swansea Boys; July 1971 Birmingham City [61+10,6]; 22.12.78 Bristol Rovers (loan); 29.1.79 Bristol Rovers (£50,000) [59+6,2]; 22.7.81 Swindon Town (exchange with Brian Williams) [109+6,2]; 30.7.84 Newport County (free) [12,0]; 1.8.85 Bristol City (free) [2,0]; May 1985 Forest Green Rovers; 26.8.85 Swansea City (free) [104+7,5]; July 1988 Merthyr Tydfil; December 1988 Ton Pentre; 1990 Llanelli (player-manager); 1991 Haverfordwest County (manager, September 1993-November 1993). Following a Welsh Under-23 cap against Scotland in 1975, constructive midfielder Gary Emmanuel enjoyed a lengthy career with several clubs. A team-mate at Birmingham of Gary Pendrey and Stewart Barrowclough, his strike against Leicester City at Filbert Street in 1976-77 was in the “Goal of the Month” competition run by BBC’s “Match of the Day”. Initially standing in for Frankie Prince, he scored for Rovers in defeats at Luton in October 1979 and at his future club Swansea on Boxing Day 1980, adding guile and expertise to a Rovers side which was heading towards relegation from Division Two. Selected as a Swindon player in the PFA Division Four XI for 1982-83, he was sent off at Ashton Gate on New Year’s Day 1983 and had earlier played in Swindon’s 4-1 win at Eastville in October 1981. In Bristol City’s side for a 3-2 defeat against Walsall and a 5-0 drubbing at Bournemouth, he later played for his home-town club when the Swans drew 0-0 with Rovers in March 1986. Breaking his leg away to Aberystwyth in 1993, he played just nine more games after being appointed manager at The Bridge Meadow, before taking up a job with the Post Office at the tail end of 1993 and combining this with scouting for Preston North End. Gary Emmanuel hails from a talented footballing family. His father, David Leonard Emmanuel (1917-2010), who married Adeline Evans in 1940, was the only player to appear for Swansea both sides of World War Two and indeed Len scored three penalties against Rovers during the 1947-48 season alone; Len’s elder brother Tom (1915-97) also played League football for Swansea. |
No 457. Michael England. 1978-79 and 1985-86.
Born, 4.1.1961, Kingswood, Bristol. 6’; 10 st 10 lbs. Début: 10.5.79 v Wrexham. Career: Parkway Juniors; Frampton Rangers; 11.7.77 Bristol Rovers (professional, January 1979); July 1979 Bath City; Forest Green Rovers; September 1985 Bristol Rovers [18,0]; 11.8.86 Bath City; August 1987 Mangotsfield United. Central defender Mike England waited over six years for his second League appearance in a Rovers shirt. Having made his début as part of the youngest League side Rovers have ever fielded, he played in 18(+1) games for the reserves, enjoyed a first spell at Bath and helped Forest Green secure the 1984-85 Gloucestershire Senior Professional Cup, before re-appearing for Rovers against Swansea City in September 1985. A spell at left-back included an appearance against Chesterfield in the final game ever played at Eastville. He also played cricket for Winterbourne alongside Phil Purnell. A British Telecom worker, who scored five goals in 100(+5) appearances during his two spells at Twerton Park, Mike England should not be confused with his namesake, who played for Spurs in a similar era and won 44 full caps for Wales. The Rovers man is the youngest of three children to Basil England, the son of Charles England and Viola May Ettle of Keynsham, and his wife Margaret Budd, the youngest of eleven children to Walter Budd and Harriet Bird. |
No 836. Neil Leanard Dula Etheridge. 2012-13.
Born, 7.2.1990, Enfield. 6’ 3”; 13 st 4 lbs. Début: 22.9.12 v Fleetwood Town. Career: Court Moor School, Fleet; Hampshire Schools; 2003 Chelsea Academy; 2006 Fulham (professional, 1.8.10); 18.9.08 Leatherhead (loan); 7.3.11 Charlton Athletic (loan); 20.9.12 Bristol Rovers (loan) [12,0]; 22.11.13 Crewe Alexandra (loan); 25.2.14 Crewe Alexandra (loan) [4,0]; 30.10.14 Oldham Athletic (free); 27.11.14 Charlton Athletic (free) [4,0]; 2.7.15 Walsall (free) [81,0]; 30.5.17 Cardiff City (free) [99,0]; 11.9.20 Birmingham City (£2,000,000) [64,0]. Unquestionably, only one player has been sent off playing against Turkmenistan in Kathmandu and has also played League football for Rovers. Neil Etheridge, the son of Martin Etheridge and Merlinda Dula, originally from Tarlac in the Philippines, qualified to play for his mother’s native country and joined Rovers on loan with 34 full international caps to his name. A tall, agile goalkeeper with an enormous following on the social network Twitter, Etheridge had won an England Under-16 cap against Wales in the 2005 Victory Shield before making his Filipino international début in a 1-0 win against Brunei in May 2008, a victory secured through Emilio Assada Caligdong’s 28th-minute goal, at the Iloilo Sports Complex in India, as part of the 2008 Challenge Cup. Keeping a clean sheet in his first four internationals, he helped his country reach the semi-finals of both the 2010 Suzuki Cup and the 2012 Challenge Cup, although he received a red card in the final moments of the latter, as Turkmenistan held out for a 2-1 victory. Recovering from surgery on both knees in the autumn of 2009, he played in Fulham’s Europa League game with Odense in December 2011 before succumbing to a wrist injury. He had earlier made his Leatherhead début in September 2008 in a 2-1 defeat against Metropolitan Police. Etheridge’s Rovers début was his first taste of League action and he responded by keeping a clean sheet, Rovers’ first of the 2012-13 season, in the club’s first ever meeting with League newcomers Fleetwood Town. Etheridge joined Crewe on loan to take over from out-of-form Steve Phillips, another former Rovers custodian. A regular with Walsall, he helped his side reach the League One play-offs in 2016, where they lost 6-1 on aggregate to Barnsley. Remaining in League One meant that he appeared at The Mem in September 2016 when Walsall took on Rovers, but he was also in goal two months later as Walsall were humbled 1-0 at home to non-league Macclesfield Town in the FA Cup. Cardiff City were promoted to the Premier League in the spring of 2018 and Etheridge played regularly in top-flight football as the Bluebirds were immediately relegated. He celebrated his thirty-eighth full cap by saving a late penalty as Hong Kong were defeated 1-0 in June 2013 and now has 66 full caps with the Philippines. |
No 971. Antony Evans. 2021-
Born, 23.9.1998, Kirkby, Liverpool. 6’ 1”; 11 st 4 lbs. Début: 4.9.21 v Crawley Town. Career: Liverpool; 2010 Everton (professional, 9.10.15); 19.1.17 Morecambe (loan) [7+7,2]; 31.1.19 Blackpool (loan) [9+3,0]; 29.1.20 SC Paderborn [2+5,0]; 23.1.21 Crewe Alexandra (loan) [6+8,0]; 31.8.21 Bristol Rovers (free) [34+1,10]. Quick, a strong dribbler and a nimble player with an eye for the ball, Antony Evans arrived at Rovers on Transfer Deadline Day, one of several players recruited as the recently-relegated side struggled to make any meaningful impact in League Two. “He’s desperate to get on the ball all the time”, his former coach at Everton Under-23s, David Unsworth had said. Sure enough, he did, setting up dellow débutant Leon Clarke for the winning goal in his first match. With Everton, Evans had scored three goals in seventeen games as the Under-21 side won their league title in 2015-16, added four games and a goal the following campaign as they were Premier League 2 champions and captained Everton Under-23s in 2017-18, with five goals in nineteen matches. All the while, right-footed Evans was enjoying loan spells in lower-league football; he replaced Aaron Wildig for his League bow eighteen minutes from the end of a 1-1 draw at Doncaster in February 2017 and scored against Blackpool and Yeovil Town. This form earned a call-up to the Everton side for six Football League Trophy ties, scoring against Burton Albion in October 2019 but being sent off at Bradford City in September 2018; it also earned two caps for England at Under-19 level in 2016, playing against the Netherlands and Belgium. Sporting director at Paderborn Martin Przondziono was impressed by his “tireless running, good set-pieces and desire to go forward”. After a year in Germany, which included playing in a 1-1 draw at Red Bull Leipzig in June 2020, Antony Evans was in the Crewe side which secured a 1-0 victory at The Mem in May 2021 against already-relegated Rovers. In October 2021, he became the tenth Rovers goalscorer in the League that season, in registering the club’s tenth League goal of the campaign, his left-foot strike just before half-time setting up a 3-0 home victory over Carlisle United and the following week he set up both Rovers’ goals in a morale-boosting draw away to Bradford City. Important and breath-taking goals followed, his strike against Barrow being voted as the club’s Goal of the Season and his two final-day goals – a Modrić-style half-volley with the outside of the boot and a trademark free-kick - being amongst the five second-half goals which earned Rovers a 7-0 victory over Scunthorpe United and a hugely unlikely promotion to League One, his right-wing cross four minutes from time being headed powerfully home by Elliot Anderson to secure this extraordinary success. |
No 431. Andrew David Stanley Evans. 1975-78.
Born, 3.10.1957, Swansea. 5’ 10”; 10 st 6 lbs. Début: 16.8.75 v Oldham Athletic. Career: Treorchy Comprehensive School; Bristol Rovers (professional, September 1975) [34+8,2] (retired, December 1977). For a period of time, exciting teenage winger Andrew Evans appeared to have the footballing world at his talented feet. Swift and with great ball control, Evans was a crowd-pleaser, beating his man with ease, crossing efficiently and creating goal-scoring opportunities for his team-mates. He also scored at home to Notts County and away to Hull City during the 1976-77 season. As Rovers established themselves in second-flight English football, he progressed from Wales Schoolboys to win ten Welsh Youth caps and a Wales Under-21 cap against England in 1977. The young man, who had moved to Rhondda at the age of nine with his parents Stanley Evans and Edna Hopkins as well as his elder sister Judith, had initially replied to an advertisement from Rovers and now became the star-in-the-making at Eastville. In October 1977, seven days after appearing in the side thumped 9-0 at Spurs in a televised game, Evans suffered a badly broken leg against Southampton and his playing career was abruptly over. He was awarded a testimonial game in October 1979, when Southampton graciously returned to Eastville and he remained with Rovers whilst training in physiotherapy alongside a Football Association coaching course but gave up after two years and returned to South Wales to work as a painter and decorator. |
No 88. (Jack) John Hugh Evans. 1926-28.
Born, 31.1.1889, Bala. Died, 24.9.1971, Cardiff. 5’ 11”; 12 st. Début: 28.8.26 v Luton Town. Career: Bala Wanderers; 1907 Welshpool; March 1908 Wrexham; Cwm Parc; Treorchy; July 1910 Cardiff City (6 shillings) [183,6]; 3.6.26 Bristol Rovers [63,7] (retired, May 1928). Well-built, strong and agile, Jack Evans was a remarkable player. A Welsh-speaker, he won eight full caps for Wales, played in Welsh Cup Finals and an FA Cup Final, was Cardiff City’s first professional and scored their first ever goal at Ninian Park, in a friendly against Aston Villa in 1910. Rovers’ fourth oldest débutant, he is also the oldest player to play in the Football League for the club as well as the oldest goal-scorer. The fourth son of David Evans of Bala and Sarah Williams (1845-1927) of Llanuwchllyn, he was the youngest of six children, born in a now demolished house on Tryncewyn Road in Bala and brought up in Mount Street, in a house which now bears a blue plaque with his name. Evan, Dick and Dai, his three elder brothers, all played for Bala Press and, although Dai was considered the most talented, it was Jack who enjoyed the success. Early in his Cardiff career, he scored their fifth goal as Rovers were trounced 7-0 in a Southern League fixture in November 1914. Having represented the Southern League against the Irish League in Dublin in October 1913, and Stockport County in wartime football, he won Welsh Cup Finals with Cardiff in 1920, 1922 and 1923. The Bluebirds were developing into one of the finest sides in the League, with Evans excelling on the left wing; in the final game of 1923-24, Cardiff needed a win to become League champions but, missing a penalty and drawing 0-0 with Birmingham, Evans’ side missed out. Similarly, before the Duke and Duchess of York and Leader of the Opposition Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937) as well as a 91,763 crowd, Evans’ Cardiff side lost the 1925 FA Cup Final to a thirtieth-minute goal from Sheffield United’s Fred Tunstall (1897-1971). Club form had earned Evans eight Welsh caps either side of the First World War. He had “nothing to learn in the art of getting to goal by the quickest route”. On his international début, a 3-2 defeat against Ireland at Ninian Park in April 1912, he almost put his country two goals ahead shortly after half-time, but “Evans just missed with a low, rasping shot from the left”. His solitary goal for Wales came on the occasion of Billy Meredith’s (1874-1958) fiftieth cap before a Ninian Park crowd of 16,000 in February 1920; after just five minutes, Ivor Jones (1899-1974) set up Evans who, “though awkwardly placed, tried a shot, a hard drive striking the off-post and rebounding into the net”; Wales held the lead for a further seventy-five minutes before having to settle for a 1-1 draw with Scotland. He was noted for the ferocity of his shooting; on one occasion, it was reported, Evans had shot so hard that he had knocked Manchester City’s goalkeeper unconscious. Given a benefit game against Bristol City, Evans moved to Rovers to replace Jimmy Lofthouse, where he met up with Joe Clennell, his erstwhile striking partner at Ninian Park. “The Bala Bang” scored the second of Rovers’ three first-half equalisers in a 4-3 defeat at Bournemouth in December 1927, which makes him the club’s oldest goal-scorer in the Football League; he is the only man to appear in the League for Rovers after his thirty-ninth birthday. In 1968 he returned to his old school in Bala to present his caps and shirt from the 1913 representative fixture. Jack Evans worked for a Cardiff printing firm for thirty-five years, living at 38 Northumberland Street, Cardiff, and died of a cerebral haemorrhage at St David’s Hospital; his grandson still lives in Bristol. |
No 660. Michael James Evans. 2000-01.
Born, 23.9.1998, Kirkby, Liverpool. 6’ 1”; 11 st 4 lbs. Début: 4.9.21 v Crawley Town. Career: Liverpool; 2010 Everton (professional, 9.10.15); 19.1.17 Morecambe (loan) [7+7,2]; 31.1.19 Blackpool (loan) [9+3,0]; 29.1.20 SC Paderborn [2+5,0]; 23.1.21 Crewe Alexandra (loan) [6+8,0]; 31.8.21 Bristol Rovers (free) [34+1,10]. Quick, a strong dribbler and a nimble player with an eye for the ball, Antony Evans arrived at Rovers on Transfer Deadline Day, one of several players recruited as the recently-relegated side struggled to make any meaningful impact in League Two. “He’s desperate to get on the ball all the time”, his former coach at Everton Under-23s, David Unsworth had said. Sure enough, he did, setting up dellow débutant Leon Clarke for the winning goal in his first match. With Everton, Evans had scored three goals in seventeen games as the Under-21 side won their league title in 2015-16, added four games and a goal the following campaign as they were Premier League 2 champions and captained Everton Under-23s in 2017-18, with five goals in nineteen matches. All the while, right-footed Evans was enjoying loan spells in lower-league football; he replaced Aaron Wildig for his League bow eighteen minutes from the end of a 1-1 draw at Doncaster in February 2017 and scored against Blackpool and Yeovil Town. This form earned a call-up to the Everton side for six Football League Trophy ties, scoring against Burton Albion in October 2019 but being sent off at Bradford City in September 2018; it also earned two caps for England at Under-19 level in 2016, playing against the Netherlands and Belgium. Sporting director at Paderborn Martin Przondziono was impressed by his “tireless running, good set-pieces and desire to go forward”. After a year in Germany, which included playing in a 1-1 draw at Red Bull Leipzig in June 2020, Antony Evans was in the Crewe side which secured a 1-0 victory at The Mem in May 2021 against already-relegated Rovers. In October 2021, he became the tenth Rovers goalscorer in the League that season, in registering the club’s tenth League goal of the campaign, his left-foot strike just before half-time setting up a 3-0 home victory over Carlisle United and the following week he set up both Rovers’ goals in a morale-boosting draw away to Bradford City. Important and breath-taking goals followed, his strike against Barrow being voted as the club’s Goal of the Season and his two final-day goals – a Modrić-style half-volley with the outside of the boot and a trademark free-kick - being amongst the five second-half goals which earned Rovers a 7-0 victory over Scunthorpe United and a hugely unlikely promotion to League One, his right-wing cross four minutes from time being headed powerfully home by Elliot Anderson to secure this extraordinary success. |
No 562. Richard William Evans. 1991-94.
Born, 12.4.1968, Ebbw Vale. 5’ 11”; 11 st 7 lbs. Début: 17.8.91 v Ipswich Town. Career: 1985 Cardiff City; 1986 Larnaca, Cyprus; 1987 Newport County; 1989 Stroud; 1989 Newport AFC; 1989 Haverfordwest County; 1990 Stroud; 1990 Weymouth; 8.8.91 Bristol Rovers (£30,000) [9+6,1]; 17.1.92 Gloucester City (loan); 2.10.92 Exeter City (loan) [5,2]; 6.8.94 Yeovil Town; 31.7.95 Trowbridge Town; September 1996 Loughborough College; July 1999 Swansea City (physiotherapist); 15.6.09 Wigan Athletic (Head of Sports Science)’ 5.6.13 Everton (Head of Development); 26.8.16 Belgium (fitness coach). Winger Richard Evans had an excellent game for Rovers against Portsmouth on Boxing Day 1992. Having helped Haverfordwest secure the 1989-90 Abacus League title, he was Weymouth’s top scorer as they finished in last place in the Beazer Homes League Premier Division in 1990-91. Evans made his début for Gloucester against Trowbridge Town in January 1992 and was Rovers reserves’ top scorer in 1992-93, his seventeen goals in twenty appearances including five as Minehead were defeated 8-0 in December 1992. He also scored at home to Grimsby in the autumn of 1991 in his second full game for the club, firing home from close range after 61 minutes of a 3-2 defeat. Having scored against Bournemouth on his Exeter début, he was part of the Yeovil side which finished bottom of the Conference in 1994-95 and suffered relegation. However, having been sent off on his début, his three goals that season in 21(+9) Conference games included an 86th-minute equaliser in the 4-4 draw with Northwich Victoria and a last-minute goal to round off a ninety-second 32-pass move in a 3-0 victory at Farnborough Town, and he later added six goals with Trowbridge Town. He has degrees in both Physiotherapy and Sports Science. The son of Brian Evans (1942-2003), a Welsh international who played for both Swansea and Hereford against Rovers, scoring for the Swans in August 1971, Richard Evans has since enjoyed a long career as a sports physiotherapist, working under Roberto Martinez at Swansea, Everton and Wigan and helping the last-named reach the 2013 FA Cup Final, where they shocked favourites Manchester City, securing the trophy through a last-minute header from substitute Ben Watson. The Latics, though, became the first side to win the trophy and endure relegation in the same season. He later followed Martinez when the Spaniard took the reins of the Belgian national side. |
No 648. Rhys Karl Evans. 1999-00 and 2009-10.
Born, 27.1.1982, Swindon. 6’ 1”; 12 st 2 lbs. Début: 26.2.00 v Oldham Athletic. Career: 1.8.98 Chelsea (professional, 8.2.99); 25.2.00 Bristol Rovers (loan); 7.11.01 Queen’s Park Rangers (loan) [11,0]; 25.7.02 Bournemouth (trial); 9.8.02 Orient (loan) [7,0]; 16.7.03 Swindon Town (free) [120,0]; 7.6.06 Blackpool (free) [32,0]; 5.10.07 Bradford City (loan); 22.1.08 Millwall (free) [21,0]; 1.8.08 Bradford City (free) [49,0]; 11.8.09 Bristol Rovers (free) [7,0]; 22.7.10 Southend United (free) [13,0]; 1.7.11 Staines Town; 18.6.12 Exeter City (free) [4+1,0]; 1.8.13 Hereford United (free); 21.5.15 Hereford (free); 25.10.17 Wimborne Town (free); 23.3.18 Hereford (free, to 25.10.18); 28.2.19 Royal Wootton Bassett (free); 9.4.19 Salisbury (trial); 9.6.19 Swindon Supermarine (goalkeeping coach); 1.10.20 Barnet (goalkeeping coach). Unsurprisingly, the gap of over nine years between appearances for Rovers marks Rhys Evans down in the club’s League records. Having played for Rovers a month after his eighteenth birthday, as Rovers raced to a 3-0 lead inside eleven minutes, the Wiltshire-born custodian returned to Rovers for the game at Wycombe in August 2009 and also played twice for the reserves. An England cap at Under-16, he represented his country again at Under-17, Under-18 and Under-20 before winning two caps at Under-21 level. A regular for three years at the County Ground, Evans helped Swindon to promotion via the Division Two play-offs in 2003-04 and, despite suffering relegation, was the Robins’ Player of the Season in 2005-06. A team-mate of Marcus Bignot at Millwall, he was beaten by a last-minute Craig Disley header when Rovers won 1-0 at the New Den in March 2008 and he later suffered a knee problem at Southend before appearing eleven times at Staines. He was an unused substitute when the Grecians lost 2-0 to Rovers at The Mem in March 2013, in Exeter’s squad alongside Danny Coles and Jamie Cureton, and appeared in twenty Conference games with Hereford United. Later he played in Salisbury’s Hospital Cup semi-final victory against Amesbury Town in April 2019. Rhys Evans married Rachel and they lived in Swindon and later in Tewkesbury, their son Louis being goalkeeper for the Swindon Town Academy side; after the relationship broke up, he served community service for a physical attack on his former wife. |
No 168. John Eyres. 1932-34.
Born, 20.3.1899, Lostock Graham, Northwich, Cheshire. Died, 2.10.1975, Gainsborough. 5’ 8½”; 11 st. Début: 27.8.32 v Crystal Palace. Career: Nantwich Town; Witton Albion; June 1922 Stoke (£250) [66,23]; May 1929 Walsall [80,34]; May 1931 Brighton [11,3]; 23.5.32 Bristol Rovers [63, 12]; July 1934 York City [37,13]; June 1935 Gainsborough Trinity (player-coach). For a decade, Jack Eyres was a recognised name on the third-tier circuit of English football. Having played for Stoke in Divisions One, Two and Three (North), he made his home in the Southern Section later in his career. The youngest child to Simeon Eyres (1860-1929) and Sarah Gallimore (1864-1908) of 7 Station Road, Lostock Graham, Jack lost his mother when he was just nine. A keen angler and skilful bowls player, Eyres contributed twelve goals as Stoke secured the Third Division (North) championship in 1926-27 and, a team-mate of Jack Cooper, he was Walsall’s top scorer in 1930-31. That season, in one of four career games against Rovers in a Walsall shirt, he scored at Fellows Park as Rovers lost 4-2. During his time with Walsall, he completed three League hat-tricks, against Torquay United in April 1930, Thames in January 1931 and Brighton three months later. He and Arthur Attwood, a former Rovers forward, both scored at Eastville in February 1932, one of Eyres’ rare goals for Brighton helping his new side to a 4-0 victory. Perhaps his best game for Rovers came on Easter Monday 1933, as he struck two goals to help defeat QPR 4-1; he also scored against East Holland, as Rovers lost 3-2 in Amsterdam in February of that year. He “persevered to such an extent that he never lost contact” on the field. York City’s captain in 1934-35, the veteran forward finished as the club’s second highest scorer, behind another former Rovers player, Maurice Dando. He married Mabel Kirby (1902-79) in 1925 and they had a daughter, Cynthia Eyres, who married Cyril Rowbottam. |
No 108. Fleming Falconer. 1927-29.
Born, 24.5.1899, Hutchesontown, Glasgow. Died, 26.4.1991, Glasgow. 5’ 7”; 11 st 4 lbs. Début: 6.4.28 v Crystal Palace. Career: Ashfield; 15.8.23 Nottingham Forest [2,0]; June 1925 Bo’ness (free); March 1926 Providence Club; September 1926 Bo’ness; May 1927 J and P Coats; June 1927 New Bedford Whalers; August 1927 Bo’ness [90,3]; 9.3.28 Bristol Rovers [20,0]; August 1929 King’s Park; August 1931 Linlithgow Rose; December 1931 Armadale (to 1932). Alex James (1901-53) and Neil Gibson (1899-1974), both Scottish international players, began their careers at Ashfield, as did this wing-half, “tenacious in the tackle”. Fleming Falconer played two First Division games in England, away to Manchester City and Bolton Wanderers and then spent two spells in North American football, first on Rhode Island with Providence Club and then playing twice and eight times respectively with Coats and Whalers; he may also have been briefly with Fall River. He was a member of the Bo’ness side which defeated Bathgate 3-1 at Volunteer Park in the Rosebery Cup Final of April 1926. A regular in the second tier of Scottish football, Falconer captained Bo’ness to the Division Two title in 1926-27, his side finishing the campaign seven points clear of Raith Rovers and unbeaten at home. They hit the top of the table that November, when their 7-0 victory over Bathgate at Newton Park coincided with nearest rivals Armadale losing at home, and never relinquished the top spot. That campaign, Celtic came to Newtown Park for a fourth round Scottish Cup-tie and, five goals ahead inside eighty minutes, the Celts won 5-2. Success was not to follow, though, and Bo’ness were relegated, his final appearance being the goalless draw with Clyde in March 1928, paradoxically “one of the most thrilling games”. At Eastville, either side of the summer break, Falconer played in sixteen consecutive League matches for Rovers but, dropped after a 6-1 defeat at Fulham, struggled to regain his place and helped the reserves secure the 1928-29 Western League championship. Armadale defeated Montrose 3-1 in the Scottish Cup in January 1932, courtesy of two second-half penalties in miserable weather, before losing 5-2 at Hamilton in the next round, and only goal difference prevented them from having to apply for re-election to the Scottish League. |
No 877. Rory Michael Fallon. 2015-16.
Born, 20.3.1982, Gisborne, New Zealand. 6’ 3”; 11 st 6 lbs. Début: 30.1.16 v Accrington Stanley. Career: Mount Albert Grammar School; North Shore United; 1.8.00 Barnsley (free) [33+19,11]; 14.12.01 Shrewsbury Town (loan) [8+3,0]; 11.11.03 Swindon Town [43+34,22]; 21.2.05 Yeovil Town (loan); 25.1.06 Swansea City (£300,000) [37+7,13]; 19.1.07 Plymouth Argyle (£300,000) [94+55,22]; 25.11.10 Ipswich Town (loan) [4+2,1]; 2.8.11 Yeovil Town (free) [2+9,1]; 14.9.11 Aberdeen (free) [26+11,3]; 12.7.13 St Johnstone (free) [1+7,1]; 17.2.14 Crawley Town (free) [3+5,0]; 26.9.14 Scunthorpe United (free) [4,3]; 4.1.16 Bristol Rovers (trial); 28.1.16 Bristol Rovers (free) [0+3,0]; 8.6.16 Truro City (player-assistant manager, to 19.12.16); 25.7.17 Torquay United (free); 17.10.17 Dorchester Town (free) (retired, 20.11.17); 5.6.19 Plymouth Argyle (Under-14 coach); 21.10.19 New Zealand (assistant coach). As Rovers’ unexpected push towards double promotion gained momentum into the spring of 2016, manager Darrell Clarke signed the powerful, experienced veteran striker Rory Fallon. He was, his manager claimed, “an old-fashioned striker [who] will give different options during games”; on the other hand, over a year out of the game with a cruciate injury indicated that Fallon’s arrival as a fourth striker was in part a calculated gamble. As it was, his presence around the club helped inspire the side to League One on goal difference after a dramatic final-day game at home to Dagenham. By then, though, he was already on a plane back to New Zealand, pushing for an international recall for the imminent Nations Cup tournament in Papua New Guinea; incredibly, he started the All Whites’ opening fixture against Fiji and scored before half-time. Three days later he was wearing the captain’s armband when he scored the fourth goal of a 5-0 victory over Vanuatu; he then captained the side to victory in the final against the host nation, converting the first penalty in a 4-2 shoot-out win after a goalless draw. Fallon had already played against Rovers in the League, both for the Shrewsbury Town side defeated by Sergio Ommel’s goal at Gay Meadow in January 2002 and in the Plymouth Argyle team which defeated Rovers 3-1 at Home Park in November 2010. The tall striker came from footballing stock. His father, Kevin Fallon, the Yorkshire-born middle child of Peter Fallon and Alice Hughes, had emigrated to New Zealand after his brief playing career with Southend United had drawn to a close and was assistant manager as the All Whites unexpectedly reached the 1982 World Cup Finals in Spain; he was national manager from 1985 to 1989 and manager of the Cook Islands from September 2018. Rory’s mother, Mere, is of Ngāti Porou descent; his brother Sean was on Liverpool’s books before running a business in Perth and his sister Bianca is a make-up artist on New Zealand television. Having represented New Zealand at the unofficial Under-16 World Cup Finals in France in 1998, Rory Fallon played for England at all levels from Under-16 to Under-20, as his professional career got underway at Barnsley. His League bow was in the Tykes’ 4-0 defeat against Preston North End in April 2001 and his first six League appearances came at Oakwell. Having suffered a stress fracture of the foot on loan at Shrewsbury, he enjoyed a fruitful spell with Swindon Town alongside Rovers names such as Andy Gurney, Jerel Ifil and Sammy Igoe, scoring a spectacular overhead kick against Bristol City on Easter Saturday 2004 and helping his side to the League Two title in 2004-05. In January 2005 he featured in a unique set of incidents in the 2-1 victory at Bradford City; Matt Hewlett left the field injured after eleven minutes, to be replaced by Steve Robinson, who was himself substituted by Fallon on 26 minutes, who was in turn replace by a third substitute Alan Reeves twelve minutes from time. That said, he also received three red cards whilst with the Wiltshire side, at Rushden on Boxing Day 2003, for kicking Huddersfield Town’s David Mirfin in April 2005 and against His future club, Scunthorpe United that October; he also scored against Scunthorpe, whilst making his Yeovil début alongside Kevin Gall in February 2005. Commanding Swansea’s then second highest fee, he registered nineteen League and Cup goals in 2005-06 at his two clubs and concluded that season with a goal at the Millennium Stadium as the Swans lost their play-off final to his former club, Barnsley. Signed by Ian Holloway for Argyle’s then record transfer fee, he gave sterling service to the Janners alongside Barry Hayles, but the side suffered a double relegation in 2009-10 and 2010-11. Successful club football led to a call-up to the New Zealand national side and he scored in a 2-1 victory over Jordan in Amman in September 2009 on his international début. He was to score six times in 24 full caps, gaining national celebrity status for scoring the goal which took his country to the 2010 South Africa World Cup Finals, a header from a Leo Bertos corner on the stroke of half-time against Bahrain in November 2009; in South Africa, he played in all three of New Zealand’s matches, including the 1-1 draw with Italy. After a solitary Ipswich goal in the 1-1 draw at Coventry on New Year’s Day 2011, Fallon headed north of the border. He scored twice in March 2012 in Aberdeen’s Scottish Cup quarter-final against St Mirren and his 59th-minute equaliser in the semi-final against Hibernian the following month, “a fantastic looping volley”, as the BBC described it, won the PFA Goal of the Season. However, he was also sent off against Rangers in October 2011 and in his final Dons game, at Dundee in May 2013. Similarly, he received a red card against his former club, Aberdeen, in December 2013 (for an elbow on Michael Hector, having only been on the field for thirty-five seconds as a substitute), whilst with St Johnstone, for whom he had scored in an exciting 4-3 loss at St Mirren two months earlier. After goals against Oldham Athletic, Doncaster Rovers and Colchester United had illuminated a brief, four-game stint at Scunthorpe, Fallon had been out of the game for a year prior to arriving at Rovers, during which time he and his wife had set up The Cowlick Creamery, a Barnsley-based ice-cream business, Rory delivering on his bicycle. Later he played in 9(+3) matches with Truro City, without scoring before playing up front at Torquay alongside Jake Gosling. At Dorchester he received an unlikely call-up back to the New Zealand squad but did not get on the field as the All Whites lost their November 2017 play-off to Peru, missing out on a place at the 2018 World Cup Finals. He had married in November 2010 Carly Marie Llewellyn, the daughter of Pearl House of Neath and a law graduate from Cardiff University, and the pair were baptised together at Mutley Baptist Church on 20th January 2008. A committed Christian, he was determined to give back to the community, coaching at Devonport and working to boost children’s reading skills whilst at Plymouth, and acting as Patron of the Plymouth branch of Faith and Football, a Christian outreach organisation established by the former Portsmouth defender, Linvoy Primus. |
No 410. Gordon Fearnley. 1970-77.
Born, 25.1.1950, Bradford, Yorkshire. Died, 25.6.2015, Boca Raton, Florida, USA. 5’ 10”; 11 st 12 lbs. Début: 16.3.71 v Barnsley. Career: Bradford Schools; 25.1.68 Sheffield Wednesday; 3.7.70 Bristol Rovers (professional, 5.10.70) [94+26,21]; April 1975 Toronto Metros-Croatia; 4.5.76 Miami Toros [20,3]; 18.4.77 Fort Lauderdale Strikers; 2.4.78 Fort Lauderdale Strikers [19+3,2]; May 1978 Birmingham Bandits (head coach); July 1978 Cleveland Force (player-coach) [4,1]; 1979 Sacramento (player-coach); 1981 Chicago Horizon [14,10] (to 1982). When Rovers demolished Brian Clough’s (1935-2004) Brighton side 8-2 at the Goldstone Ground in December 1973 to set a club record victory score, winger Gordon Fearnley headed the second goal. “Supersub” Fearnley, whose 55 appearances from the bench constitute a club record in the “one-sub” era, was evolving into an essential ingredient in Rovers’ inexorable rise to Division Two, proving a useful utility player as promotion was attained in the spring of 1974 and playing regularly in the second tier of English football. A member of a sporting family, he was the younger of two sons to Albert Fearnley and Edna Hilton, who married in 1945. Albert had been on the losing side in two Rugby League Cup Finals at Wembley with Halifax and was later the coach at Bradford Northern, whilst Gordon’s older brother Stan, who won an England cap at Rugby League in 1975, was on the losing side at Wembley with Bradford Northern in 1973, but enjoyed success there with Leeds in 1977. His father Albert was a younger brother of Sidney Fearnley who married Diana Carruthers in 1934; their elder son Michael (1936-79) was a county cricketer with Yorkshire, whilst the younger son, Duncan, a Worcestershire batsman, has become one of the leading producers of cricket bats in the United Kingdom. Duncan Fearnley is also the great-uncle of Nile Wilson, the former artictic gymnast who won a silver medal for Britain in the men’s horizontal bar at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. A good quality footballer in his own right, Gordon Fearnley was unable to make the first-team at Wednesday, whom he had joined on his eighteenth birthday, and followed his captain Don Megson to Eastville, living in Stapleton, after playing for England Schools at Under-19 level and impressing on a Football Association tour of the Far East in 1969. He did not let Rovers down, serving admirably for a number of seasons and scoring in a 1-1 draw on his return to Hillsborough in August 1974, before the lure of North American football became too great. Fearnley scored in his solitary game at Toronto, a friendly, and added goals against Chicago Sting, San Diego Sockers and Boston Minutemen for Miami and against Seattle Sounders and Minnesota Kicks with Strikers. He once played for Strikers against New York Cosmos before a crowd of 76,000. An intelligent and well-qualified man with three university degrees, Fearnley graduated as an American attorney and practised law before completing qualifications as a physiotherapist in 1985 and state-registered nurse in 1991, returning to Bristol briefly in May 1990 to play in Vaughan Jones’ testimonial game. Gordon Fearnley, who married first to Alaina Jones and later to Kathy, lived from 1977 in the States and worked in the nursing service in Florida, caring for patients who had recently undergone knee- or hip-replacement surgery; he also practised as a litigation lawyer in Fort Lauderdale for two years. |
No 131. Alexander Findlay. 1929-32.
Born, 26.12.1902, Wishaw. Died, October 1985, Bristol. 5’ 9”; 12 st. Début: 22.2.30 v Norwich City. Career: Musselburgh Bruntonians; 1926 Musselburgh Rose; 1929 Musselburgh Bruntonians; 12.2.30 Bristol Rovers (£35) [37,9]; 23.7.32 Wrexham [22,4]; August 1935 Cheltenham Town; August 1937 Evesham United. Slightly more experienced than other Scottish players who migrated south as was the fashion, Alec Findlay was a reliable wing-half, whose impressive goal tally included one from left-back against Luton Town in March 1932. In addition, he scored twice against Thames on Boxing Day 1931 but, as Rovers conceded five first-half goals to lose 6-0 at Northampton Town two days later, Findlay’s Rovers career drew to a close. He had also scored a hat-trick for the reserves, when they defeated Ebbw Vale 10-1 in January 1931. Having secured a Birmingham and District League championship medal with Wrexham reserves in 1932-33, he scored in the Welsh side’s 11-1 victory over New Brighton in the Division Three (North) Cup in January 1934 and was in their side at Eastville the following month, as Rovers won a Welsh Cup-tie 2-0. Three goals in two seasons at Cheltenham came in the home fixtures against Dartford and Yeovil in 1935-36 and in a 4-3 win at Tunbridge Wells Rangers in his final appearance in May 1937; Alec Findlay lived for many years in Gloucester. Earlier in his career, he had been in the Bruntonians side which defeated Arniston Rangers 3-0 at Tynecastle in the Scottish Junior Cup Final in May 1923. It is possible that he was a brother of Wishaw-born Bill Findlay (1900-1949), the Liverpool player who appeared for a Scottish Junior XI at Villa Park in April 1923. |
No 967. Sam Finley. 2021-
Born, 4.8.1992, Liverpool. 6’ 1”; 10 st 9 lbs. Début: 14.8.21 v Stevenage. Career: Everton; 2008 Southport (free); 2009 Warrington Town (loan); 2010 Warrington Town (free); 10.8.11 The New Saints (free); 3.2.15 Wrexham (loan); 7.8.15 AFC Fylde (free); 29.6.18 Accrington Stanley (free) [61+7,3]; 1.9.20 Fleetwood Town (free) [19+10,3]; 26.5.21 Bristol Rovers (free) [33+3,5]. Accomplished in the heart of midfield, Sam Finley re-joined his former manager Joey Barton and former team-mate Paul Coutts when he became part of a quadruple signing at The Mem ahead of the 2021-22 campaign. Having worked his way through non-league circles, including 11(+3) games without a goal in the Conference with Wrexham, he had also experienced European football at the New Saints. Alongside 64 games and eighteen goals in the Welsh Premier League, he had played against Legia Warsaw and Anderlecht in European competition. Indeed, TNS were Welsh champions in all four of his seasons with them, and he also played as they won the Welsh Cup in 2012 and 2014, defeating Cefn Druids and Aberystwyth Town 2-0 and 3-2 respectively, and the Welsh League Cup in 2015. Made club captain at the Coasters, he helped Fylde to promotion to the National League, his 17 goals in 95 matches including braces in a 6-0 victory over Macclesfield in January 2018 and a 7-1 thumping of Aldershot Town two months later. Finley’s Football League bow came on his twenty-sixth birthday for Stanley against Gillingham and his second appearance saw him come on as a substitute for Offrande Zanazala after 58 minutes of the game at The Mem in August 2018. He also played against Rovers twice in 2018-19 and appeared again in September 2019, scoring Stanley’s second goal, just nineteen minutes into a thrilling 3-3 draw. Managed by Barton at Fleetwood, he scored against Plymouth Argyle, MK Dons and Burton Albion and was in their side (alongside future Rovers midfielders Sam Finley and Jordan Rossiter) which won 4-1 at The Mem in November 2020, a game which spelled the end of Ben Garner’s brief stint as Rovers’ manager. Finley did arrive at The Mem, though, with a history of indiscipline, having been sent off seven times during his spell at Fylde, whilst he had received an eight-match ban and a fine of £850 following racist comments made to Paul McShane, Rochdale’s former Irish international, during a New Year’s Day 2020 fixture. A further red card came his way at The Mem, one of two Rovers players dismissed as Rovers lost at home to returning former manager Darrell Clarke’s Port Vale side in December 2021, but not before Finley had become an integral part of Rovers’ midfield that campaign, scoring stunning goals at both Exeter City in League Two and Oxford United in the FA Cup. He almost scored again on the final day, a sharp half-volley skimming past the post, as Rovers secured an astonishing 7-0 victory over Scunthorpe United to seal promotion on goals scored on a dramatic afternoon of football. Finley’s control in the middle of the field, armed with a tenacity which brought fourteen League and Cup yellow cards in addition to his red, meant that he had a pivotal role in the enormous success story of that campaign. |
No 655. Mark James Foran. 2000-02.
Born, 30.10.1973, Aldershot. 6’ 4”; 14 st 3 lbs. Début: 12.8.00 v Bournemouth. Career: Millwall (professional, 3.11.90); February 1992 Slough Town (loan); 28.8.93 Sheffield United (£25,000) [10+1,1]; 26.8.94 Rotherham United (loan) [3,0]; 11.8.95 Wycombe Wanderers (loan) [5,0]; 8.2.96 Peterborough United (£40,000) [22+3,1]; 22.1.97 Lincoln City (loan) [1+1,0]; 3.3.97 Oldham Athletic (loan) [0+1,0]; 12.12.97 Crewe Alexandra (£25,000) [25+6,1]; 11.8.00 Bristol Rovers (£75,000) [39+4,2]; 15.7.02 Swansea City (trial); 9.8.02 Telford United (free); 14.7.03 Northwich Victoria (free); 6.9.05 Ashton United. Towards the end of his career, powerful central defender Mark Foran joined Rovers on the recommendation of his former Crewe team-mate Marcus Bignot. On his début, his header from captain Andy Thomson’s cross thudded against the Bournemouth bar and away to safety, but he was to score for Rovers at home to Southend and Hull, after Rovers’ relegation to the basement division, and he was sent off at Macclesfield in February 2002. When Rovers shocked Premier Division Derby County by beating them 3-1 on their own pitch, Foran was given the task of marking Italian international Fabrizio Ravanelli, an experience the tall Hampshire-born defender described as “a fantastic day”. Surprisingly released by Rovers in April 2002, Foran drifted into non-league football, scoring six times in 47(+2) games for Northwich and five times in 37 matches with Telford. One of his goals for Telford came as they clawed back a 4-0 half-time deficit to draw a Conference match at home to Doncaster Rovers 4-4 in August 2002. A Northwich team-mate of Neil Ross, he conceded an own goal at Exeter in March 2004, but was voted Player of the Year that campaign. He played against the former Rovers player Sonny Parker when Ashton United lost 3-2 at Gateshead in October 2005. Despite broken legs in 1992 with Slough and in 2000 with Crewe reserves, the latter in a challenge with Liverpool’s Karl-Heinz Riedle, Foran was a tough, stalwart defender; his first League goal had come in the second-half of Sheffield United’s 3-3 draw with Wolves in April 1995. Married to Mandy and with a son James born in 2010, Mark Foran was previously a driving instructor in Altrincham before working as a police officer for the Greater Manchester Police. |
No 129. (Fred) James Frederick Forbes. 1929-31.
Born, 5.8.1894, Edinburgh. Died, 24.4.1979, Edinburgh. 5’ 8”; 11 st. Début: 16.11.29 v Exeter City. Career: Leith Benburb; 22.1.20 Heart of Midlothian [60,34]; 9.6.22 Everton [14,4]; March 1925 Plymouth Argyle [158,52]; 14.11.29 Bristol Rovers (£300, plus £100, 29.9.30, plus £100, 29.11.30) [63,10]; 6.7.31 Leith Athletic [9,1]; 29.6.32 Northampton Town [35,3]; 1933 Airdrieonians. The second child of Frederick Forbes, a soldier, and his wife Charlotte Johnstone of 69 Albert Street, Edinburgh, Fred Forbes was an attacking, direct inside-right, with a “good shot in either foot”. Following his Hearts début against Hibernian, scoring in a 1-1 draw in the East of Scotland Shield game of May 1920, he helped the Jam Tarts secure third place in the First Division in 1920-21. That campaign his 23 Scottish League goals included four hat-tricks, against Kilmarnock in November, completed with a penalty five minutes from time, in the 6-2 Christmas Day victory over Dumbarton and in Easter fixtures against Queen’s Park and Ayr United, the latter a second-half hat-trick in another 6-2 win. Scoring freely at Home Park, he scored twice when Plymouth played Rovers in March 1927 and once more in May 1929, adding four goals against Merthyr Town on the opening day of the 1927-28 season. Forbes’ signing proved popular at Eastville, not just for the goal on his début in a 5-2 defeat, but also because the goal he registered against Accrington Stanley in the FA Cup in December 1929 was generally viewed as one of the best ever scored at Eastville. He trained with Hearts in 1930 and may have appeared once for East Fife the following campaign, before playing in the Leith side that was relegated from Division One in 1931-32. He and the future Rovers goalkeeper Tom Boyce both made their débuts in a 3-0 defeat to Celtic in August 1931, before a ground record 20,000 crowd at Marine Gardens; Forbes’ goal for Leith came after just three minutes in a 3-1 home defeat to Partick Thistle in January 1932 “with a shot which hit an opponent and glanced past the goalkeeper”. Northampton’s oldest ever débutant, at 38 years 22 days, he scored against Rovers in March 1933 but, unable to get a game at Airdrie, retired to Edinburgh where he set up his own business. Best man at Rovers team-mate George Barton’s wedding, Forbes had earlier married in 1926 Ellen Nora Knight and they had two daughters. |
No 89. James Forbes. 1926-28.
Born, 14.3.1896, Walker-on-Tyne. Died, 29.3.1939, Billy Mill, North Shields. 6’ 1”; 12 st. Début: 28.8.26 v Luton Town. Career: Royal Navy; Walker Celtic; 13.9.20 Carlisle United; 23.8.21 Lincoln City [15,0]; February 1923 Leadgate Park; June 1923 Scunthorpe United; 6.10.23 Blackpool (£650 with Jack Meredith, 1899-1970) [19,0]; 26.6.24 Southport (£100) [15,2]; 21.1.25 Bolton Wanderers [3,0]; 1.7.26 Bristol Rovers (£350) [59,5]; July 1928 Workington (player-coach); August 1929 North Shields; August 1930 Wallsend Town. Pseudonyms can be cruel or inappropriate on occasion, or perhaps simply overladen with wry humour, and “Tiny” Forbes, over six feet tall and a combative central defender with good physique and a flat nose, courtesy of wartime heavyweight boxing tournaments, bears testimony to this. Yet, there was another side to his character and Jimmy Forbes was well-regarded for his fine singing voice and as a comedian and changing-room entertainer, often performing to demand his favourite song, “The Cobbler’s Song”, written by Frederic Norton (1869-1946) and taken from the 1916 operetta “Chu Chin Chow”. After serving in Ethiopia and Somalia, Forbes represented five different clubs in the Football League and made six Midland League appearances with Scunthorpe United; after leaving Rovers he moved to Northern League Workington as player-coach. His time at Rovers saw him win a Gloucestershire Cup medal, as Arthur Ormston’s goal defeated Bristol City 1-0 at Eastville in April 1928, but he was also captain of the side in 1926-27, including the team that crashed 7-0 at Brighton in January 1927. In addition, he scored goals for Southport at home to Rotherham and away to Hartlepool United in Division Three (North). Forbes was the eldest of eight children to James Archibald Forbes (1874-1944) and Ellen Rutherford Robertson (1874-1951), who had married in 1895 and he married Alice Reed Morgan (1901-68) and fathered six children, Alice (1921-86), James (1923-52), George (1927-2003), Cyril (1930-2012), Audrey (1931-33) and Alan (1934-2001). Licensee of the European Hotel, opposite North Shields railway station, he died of pulmonary tuberculosis at Moor Park Hospital, aged just forty-three, and was buried at Preston Cemetery in North Shields, leaving both his parents, his widow, four young sons and his daughter Alice, who married twice and had four daughters of her own. |
No 405. Anthony Michael Ford. 1969-71.
Born, 26.11.1944, Thornbury. 6’ 2”; 12 st 5 lbs. Début: 13.12.69 v Fulham. Career: Bristol City (professional, November 1962) [170+1,10]; 4.12.69 Bristol Rovers (£4,000) [28,1] (retired, 30.3.71); 1971 Plymouth Argyle (trainer-coach; coach, 1972); 1975 Hereford United (youth coach; assistant manager, October 1977; 24.2.78 caretaker manager); 16.2.80 Heart of Midlothian (assistant manager; manager, 30.6.81); 1982 Iron Acton; 1983 Thornbury Town (manager); 14.11.84 Devizes Town; 1985 Wotton Rovers. England Youth full-back Tony Ford was the first man in seven years to transfer directly between the two Bristol professional clubs. An experienced defender at Ashton Gate, his reliable play had been briefly disrupted by a broken arm suffered in training in November 1967, but he converted twelve penalties in League games and Cup-ties, although he also missed one in the FA Cup at Spurs. Known to Rovers supporters, as he had opposed the club in both fixtures during the 1964-65 campaign as City gained promotion to Division Two, Ford scored his only goal for the club from the penalty-spot against Luton Town in February 1970. A ruptured spleen suffered against Preston in August 1970 necessitated four operations and Ford’s playing career was over, Rovers receiving £4,000 in insurance compensation. Tall and strong, he was coach of the Hereford youth side which defeated Rovers reserves 2-1 in April 1976, the month the Bulls were crowned as Division Three champions. Assistant at Hearts to Bobby Moncur, he succeeded him briefly before making his Devizes début in a 2-2 Western League draw in November 1984 against a Plymouth Argyle reserves side which featured Paul Bannon. He was brought up in Thornbury, the younger of two sons to Ernest Ford and Marjorie Musty. Tony Ford, whose brother Bob was manager at Iron Acton, married Margaret in 1965 and they had twins Darren and Louise, a son Mike who played for Cardiff City and Oxford United, and eight grandchildren. After spending ten years with Marley Tiles of Avonmouth, Ford worked for five years for a construction company specialising in producing bitumen for footpaths and later became a driving instructor based in Thornbury. |
N0 439. (Billy) William Ernest Forman. 1976-78.
Born, 3.2.1958, Havant. 5’ 7”; 10 st 9 lbs. Début: 8.3.77 v Blackburn Rovers. Career: Bournemouth; 19.5.76 Bristol Rovers [0+2,0]; 1978 football in Australia; 31.8.79 Dorchester Town; February 1980 Sligo Rovers; 9.8.80 Dorchester Town; 17.1.81 Bridport (loan); 19.2.82 Bridport (loan); 17.7.82 Bridport (free; released, 19.3.83). Midfielder Billy Foreman played a total of 38 minutes’ League football in a Rovers shirt, 26 against Blackburn on his début and twelve against Oldham Athletic in April 1978. Signing for Rovers along with Brian O’Donnell (1957-2020) in May 1976, he was later, as a student at Weymouth College, selected by the British Colleges XI for a tour of North America in 1981. Two loan spells at Bridport earned Foreman a début as a substitute in the goalless draw at Melksham in January 1981 and a goal from the penalty-spot as well as an assist, as Keynsham were defeated 3-1 the following month. To a tally of 31(+1) Western League games and two goals for the Bees could be added five cup-ties and an appearance in the abandoned game at Saltash United in 1981. His second goal for Bridport was driven home from twenty yards after Neil Mitchell’s pull-back, just nine minutes into a 2-2 draw with Barnstaple Town in November 1982; this was one of 23 Western League games in which he played during 1982-83, having missed the opening game as it clashed with his shift stacking deck-chairs on Weymouth beach. Married to Elaine and living in Ferndown, Billy Foreman’s Christian names both derived from his maternal grandfather; his parents William Foreman and Jean Ward had married in Portsmouth in 1957, his father being the son of Samuel Foreman (1875-1919) and Beatrice Shaw (1876-1962) and his mother the daughter of Ernest William Ward and Ethel Gardiner. |
No 727. Jamie Mark Forrester. 2004-06.
Born, 1.11.1974, Bradford. 5’ 7”; 11 st. Début: 7.8.04 v Mansfield Town. Career: 1.8.91 Auxerre; 20.10.92 Leeds United (£60,000) [7+2,0]; 1.9.94 Southend United (loan) [3+2,0]; 10.3.95 Grimsby Town (loan); 17.10.95 Grimsby Town (free) [34+16,7]; 21.3.97 Scunthorpe United (free) [102+2,37]; 2.6.99 FC Utrecht (free) [0+1,0]; 30.12.99 Walsall (loan) [2+3,0]; 21.3.00 Northampton Town (loan); 27.6.00 Northampton Town (£150,000) [109+12,45]; 22.1.03 Hull City (free) [17+15,7]; 28.6.04 Bristol Rovers (free) [23+29,9]; 23.3.06 Lincoln City (loan); 2.6.06 Lincoln City (free) [87+5,35]; 11.6.08 Notts County (free) [27+3,8]; 6.8.09 Lincoln United; 7.4.10 Lincoln Moorlands Railway (to May 2010). Signed as a sixteen-year-old by the progressive Auxerre manager Guy Roux, homesick teenage striker Jamie Forrester returned to score in both legs of the FA Youth Cup Final in 1993, as a Manchester United side featuring David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Gary Neville and Paul Scholes was defeated 4-1 on aggregate by Leeds. An England Schools and England Youth cap, Forrester scored against Spain in the 1993 UEFA Under-18 tournament, but did not appear in the final, in which England defeated Turkey 1-0. Touted by many as a future England international, he made his League bow as a substitute for the goal-scorer Rod Wallace, alongside Gordon Strachan and Eric Cantona in Leeds’ 1-1 draw at Nottingham Forest in the inaugural Premier League campaign. By the time Forrester reached Rovers he had accumulated just seven yellow cards in his career, enjoying promotion with Hull and Scunthorpe and playing against Rovers with both Hull and Northampton, for whom he scored at The Mem in October 2000. Playing alongside Paul Trollope at Grimsby and Northampton and Andy Rammell at Walsall, he suffered relegation with both Grimsby and Walsall before moving to live in Mangotsfield in 2004. Scoring a penalty and missing one against Bury on his home début for Rovers, Forrester also hit the target in the 4-4 draw with Mansfield towards the end of that campaign, although he never scored more than once in a game, and he also captained the side at Shrewsbury on New Year’s Day 2005. For the reserves, he scored four times in a 5-4 victory at Plymouth in November 2005 and this goal-scoring form was repeated with Lincoln as, having scored with a 25-yard début chip, the second of four first-half goals against Grimsby, he contributed four goals in the 4-2 win at Mansfield in August 2006, including three in the opening 28 minutes, as well as hat-tricks at Barnet and at home to Rochdale two months later. He scored a 76th-minute penalty against Rovers in December 2006 and opposed Rovers in the play-off semi-finals at the close of that campaign, before adding a hat-trick in Notts County’s win against Port Vale in January 2009. He had been sent off whilst playing for Lincoln against County in February 2007. After a Moorlands Railway début against Selby Town, Jamie Forrester retired to run the football academy that bears his name. Married with two sons, he also runs Community Business Solutions, a company which advises companies about fuel and communications costs and works for an independent sports television channel. |
No 776. Fraser Gerard Forster. 2009-10.
Born, 17.3.1988, Hexham. 6’ 7”; 12 st. Début: 8.8.09 v Orient. Career: Royal Grammar School, Newcastle; Stocksfield; Newburn; 2001 Wallsend Boys’ Club; 2005 Newcastle United (professional, 1.7.07); 2.10.08 Stockport County (loan) [6,0]; 1.8.09 Bristol Rovers (loan) [4,0]; 28.8.09 Norwich City (loan) [38,0]; 24.8.10 Celtic (loan); 5.7.12 Celtic (£2,500,000); 9.8.14 Southampton (£10,000,000) [134,0]; 22.8.19 Celtic (loan) [168,0]; 8.6.22 Tottenham Hotspur (free). Called up to the England squad in October 2012, giant goalkeeper Fraser Forster appeared to stand on the threshold of a successful footballing career. Kick-started by an England début in the 2-0 defeat at home to Chile in November 2013, in which “by no stretch could he be blamed” (Paul Hayward, The Daily Telegraph), he was a member of the England twenty-three-man squad for the 2014 World Cup Finals in Brazil and featured in the 3-1 victory over the Scots on his old stamping ground, Celtic Park, in November of that year. Initially the laid-back Geordie’s career was held back as he was considered not tall enough, but a teenage growth spurt led him to move from rugby union and cricket to enjoy professional football. The son of a circuit judge, Brian Clive Forster, who was called to the bar in 1977, and at the time the tallest player ever to appear in League football with Rovers, Forster was at Stockport with Dominic Blizzard, and he kept two clean sheets in his four matches with Rovers before enjoying an immensely successful loan spell at Carrow Road. “Fraser has a great career ahead of him”, stated Paul Trollope. Norwich stormed away with the League One title in 2009-10 and Forster, despite having been sent off conceding Tranmere’s second penalty of the game in April 2010, played in their 3-0 win in Horfield on the final day of the season. He was the Canaries’ Players’ Player of the Year and kept eighteen clean sheets in the League, more that campaign than any other goalkeeper. North of the border, despite a first-half red card in his first Old Firm derby, his career has gone from strength to strength. He appeared in the League Cup Final of 2011, which was lost 2-1 after extra time to Rangers; Celtic finished the 2010-11 campaign second in the Scottish Premier League after Rangers had secured the final-day win they required at Kilmarnock’s Rugby Park. Having won the Scottish Cup Final in May 2011, beating Motherwell 3-0, Celtic then became League champions in 2012, a title secured by a 6-0 victory at Rugby Park on Easter Saturday, as well as being League Cup finalists and Scottish Cup semi-finalists. European football beckoned and Forster played a major rôle in the autumn of 2012 as Celtic recorded a 2-1 home victory over Barcelona, Lionel Messi et al, during the group stages of the tournament, his commanding performance leading him to be dubbed “La Gran Muralla” (The Great Wall) by the Spanish press. The spring of 2013 saw Celtic retain the Premier League title when they defeated Inverness Caledonian Thistle 4-1 in Forster’s 100th League fixture for the club, and defeat Hibernian 3-0 in the Scottish Cup Final at Hampden Park. Bobby Clark’s forty-three-year-old Scottish League record was overtaken, as Forster went 1,256 minutes without conceding a goal, prior to Celtic’s first league defeat of the campaign, a 2-1 loss to Aberdeen at the end of February 2014, the Celts securing a third consecutive Scottish title. A large fee took Forster to Southampton, where he kept thirteen Premier League clean sheets before a knee injury cut his 2014-15 campaign short and enjoyed a Southampton club record run of 708 minutes without conceding a League goal the following campaign. This impressive club form earned him a place in England’s Euro 2016 squad, although he did not appear as his country came through the group stages only to lose to Iceland. However, following a Saints defeat to Spurs over Christmas 2017, Forster did not appear again in the Premier League for almost eighteen months until a 3-0 defeat to West Ham United in May 2019. That sparked a return up north and his penalty save from Alfredo Morelos capped a breath-taking Man of the Match display by Forster, as ten-man Celtic defeated arch-rivals Rangers in the League Cup Final in December 2019; the Celts also regained their League title in the truncated 2019-20 campaign. In April 2021 he played in the Southampton side which lost an FA Cup semi-final 1-0 to Leicester City and was in the Saints’ side eliminated from the same competition at home to Plymouth Argyle, of the tier below, in the third round in January 2022. Club form at the Saints earned a return to the England international fold in the spring of 2022. |
No 86. Jabez Foster. 1925-26.
Born, 15.9.1902, Darlaston, Staffordshire. Died, 1971, Walsall. 5’ 8”; 11 st 2 lbs. Début: 6.3.26 v Watford. Career: Darlaston School; Dorsett Road School; Wednesbury Old Athletic; Rubery Owen; Brownhills Town; 1923 West Bromwich Albion (amateur); July 1924 Kettering Town; 14.5.25 Bristol Rovers [3,1]; 25.8.26 Gillingham [21,4]; June 1927 Wellington Town; 1928 Bilston United; July 1930 Oswestry Town. School-friend of Albert Rotherham, the future Rovers wing-half, at Dorsett Road, Jabez Foster “impressed as a left-winger … he was made favourite by the crowd for all that he did and, when he scored, he received a hearty cheer of recognition”, reported the Western Daily Press. Foster’s goal in a 4-1 home victory over Charlton Athletic in April 1926 was the only one he registered for the club. Having appeared in the annual Blues against Whites trial game in August 1925, a 2-2 draw, he had made his début as Rovers defeated the touring Belfast Distillery side 5-0 in a friendly in February 1926, before a crowd of 15,000. He was later in the Gillingham side which defeated Rovers 2-0 at Priestfield in March 1927. Foster, who had helped Kettering Town finish as Southern League (Eastern Section) runners-up in 1924-25, scoring fourteen times in 34 matches, was the eldest of three children to a motor setter, Jabez Foster senior (1876-1939, who had made one appearance at outside-right for West Brom at Sunderland in October 1898) of 59 Moxley Road, Darlaston, and his wife Sarah Ann Bedworth; prior to his arrival at Eastville, he had married Lilian May Wilde and they had two sons, Stanley and Leslie. |
No 614. Stephen Foster. 1997-2002.
Born, 3.12.1974, Mansfield. 6’ 11 st 13 lbs. Début: 9.8.97 v Plymouth Argyle. Career: 1989 Mansfield Town (professional, 15.7.93) [2+3,0]; 22.1.94 Telford United; 15.10.96 Woking (£9,000); 20.5.97 Bristol Rovers (£150,000) [193+4,7]; 12.8.02 Doncaster Rovers (free) [117+2,3]; 19.1.06 Scunthorpe United (free) [62,0]; 22.5.07 Darlington (free) [93+1,2]; 1.3.10 Blyth Spartans (free); 28.5.10 Mansfield Town (free; 1.7.10 Academy Head); 2.8.11 Spennymoor Town (free); February 2014 Whitley Bay (assistant manager). In signing central defender Steve Foster, the son of Brenda Reast and Colin Foster of Mansfield Town and Peterborough United, the son of Edward Foster and Lily Hough, Rovers picked up a young player of reasonable experience, who had played alongside the former Rovers midfielder Nick Platnauer at Mansfield. He had been in the FA XI which lost 1-0 to an Isthmian League XI in December 1996. To his one goal for Telford in 89(+3) Conference matches and three in 28 for Woking could be added an appearance at Wembley, as Woking defeated Dagenham and Redbridge in the 1997 FA Trophy Final. He had also contributed a third-minute goal as Woking defeated Millwall in an FA Cup shock in November 1996, although that cup run ended when his last-minute own goal presented Coventry City with a third round replay victory. Despite suffering a serious ankle injury, he was a regular at Doncaster and was to play in the match when that club regained their League status in 2003, defeating Dagenham and Redbridge in the play-offs. Working at Doncaster and Darlington under the future Rovers manager Dave Penney, Foster also played in the 5-1 victory over Rovers in October 2003 as Doncaster were crowned Division Three champions. Player of the Year as Scunthorpe were League One champions in 2006-07, despite a red card against Brighton that season, Foster proved an indispensable element in their back four. The following season his consistent club form earned him the honour of being named in the PFA Team of the Season for League Two. Having been sent off after just fourteen minutes in Darlington’s 2-0 win against Lincoln City in November 2008, he subsequently played in 33 Conference games for Mansfield scoring against Fleetwood Town and twice being sent off, and made thirteen appearances for Spartans and sixteen, scoring once, with Spennymoor. It is believed that the Stephen Foster who runs Foster Joinery at 32 Burnside Road, Whitley Bay with his wife Joanne is the former Rovers defender. |
No 286. Geoffrey Roy Fox. 1947-55.
Born, 19.1.1925, Bristol. Died, 31.12.1993, Llandrindod Wells. 5’ 11”; 12 st 2 lbs. Début: 27.9.47 v Bristol City. Career: Motor Constructional Works; Bristol City (schoolboy); 1942 Ipswich Town (amateur); November 1944 Bristol City (amateur); August 1945 Ipswich Town [11,1]; 22.6.47 Bristol Rovers [276,2]; 1.10.55 Swindon Town (free) [48,0]; 5.9.57 Pucklechurch (player-coach); 9.7.58 Bath City (board of directors). Stylish, tough-tackling full-back Geoff Fox was a mainstay of the Rovers side through arguably the most successful period in the club’s history. Striking up an enviable full-back partnership with the practically omnipresent Harry Bamford, Fox was an ever-present in 1949-50, 1951-52 and the promotion campaign of 1952-53, running up 110 consecutive League appearances, before helping establish Rovers a force to be reckoned with in Division Two. Over a six-season period, he missed only a handful of games and pulled out perhaps his greatest performance in a Rovers shirt when the unfashionable third-tier side held all-conquering Newcastle United to a goalless draw in an enthralling FA Cup quarter-final at St James’ Park in February 1951 before a crowd of over 62,000. In the replay before an excitable Eastville crowd, Fox had the misfortune to deflect a Newcastle shot into his own net as Rovers, after taking an early lead through Geoff Bradford, lost 3-1. A decade later he was to spend ten minutes in goal against the same opposition, after Howard Radford had left the field injured in a Division Two encounter. Noted for a long throw-in, Fox scored just twice for Rovers, from a fierce drive eight minutes from time as Rovers defeated Gillingham 4-0 in January 1953 and four minutes after half-time in the 4-4 draw at Fulham in Rovers’ first-ever Second Division fixture. He had earlier scored in Ipswich’s 2-0 victory over Reading in September 1946. He also featured in a Football Association XI, which played a Western League XI at Eastville in March 1954. The son of George Fox and Harriet Dix, Geoff Fox was also a talented cricketer who hit over 3,000 runs in East Anglian cricket in the summer of 1950. He made three appearances for Suffolk in Minor Counties cricket in 1946, played for Downend and Gloucestershire Second XI and was on the ground-staff at Gloucestershire between 1952 and 1954. Elected chairman of Rovers’ Ex-Players’ Club in 1973, he lived for many years in Inkberrow, Worcestershire, where his house was damaged by lightning in 1978 and from where he worked until his retirement in 1990 as a sales director with the paint-brush firm LG Harris and co. A member of Knowle Golf Club for many years, Geoff Fox died at the tenth hole on a Welsh golf course on New Year’s Eve 1993 and was buried eleven days later at St Peter’s Church, Inkberrow. |
No 511. (Gerry) Gerald Charles James Francis. 1985-88.
Born, 6.12.1951, Chiswick. 5’ 10”; 12 st 2 lbs. Début: 14.9.85 v Lincoln City. Career: Queen’s Park Rangers (professional, 1.7.69); 3.7.79 Crystal Palace [59,7]; 25.2.81 Queen’s Park Rangers (£150,000) [306+4,57]; 13.2.82 Coventry City (£150,000) [50,2]; 20.7.83 Exeter City (free) [28,3]; 4.9.84 Cardiff City [7,0]; 17.10.84 Swansea City [3,0]; 28.11.84 Portsmouth (free) [3,0]; August 1985 Wimbledon (coach); 7.9.85 Bristol Rovers (free) [33,0] (manager, 1.7.87-13.5.91); 12.6.91 Queen’s Park Rangers (manager); 15.11.94 Tottenham Hotspur (manager); 16.10.98 Queen’s Park Rangers (manager); 10.7.01 Bristol Rovers (manager) (to 24.12.01); 12.9.08 Stoke City (assistant coach; 4.10.08 first-team coach, to 27.5.13); 23.11.13 Crystal Palace (coach, to 29.8.14); 1.1.15 West Bromwich Albion (coach, to 4.12.17). England captain Gerry Francis was a strong, influential, innovative midfielder whose control, guile and panache were a hallmark of English football through the 1970s. His impressive tally of appearances at Loftus Road included a remarkable quantity of top-flight goals for a midfielder with an eye to attacking. He made his début against Liverpool in March 1969 and was an ever-present as QPR secured the Second Division title in 1972-73. A key component of an incredibly exciting QPR side, he performed in European football with Rangers, scoring two penalties when AEK Athens were defeated 3-0 in a UEFA Cup quarter-final in March 1977. During his spell at Loftus Road, Rangers came as close as ever in their history to a League title, losing out to Liverpool in 1976 by just one point. Club form earned twelve full caps to add to his six games with England Under-23s; mullet-haired Francis was captain in eight of these full internationals, the only QPR player ever to captain the country, and scored three goals, two of these coming after six and sixty-five minutes in a powerful display in May 1975 as Scotland were beaten 5-1 at Wembley, when he was “the central pulse of the side” (The Scotsman). Relegated to Division Four as player-manager at Exeter, for whom he had played against Rovers in September 1983, Francis brought an immense wealth of talent and experience to Rovers in 1985. He scored in November 1985 as Rovers defeated Brentford 3-1 in the FA Cup and controlled the midfield in Round Three as top-flight Leicester City were beaten by the same score at an ecstatic Eastville. A pigeon-fancier who invested heavily in the West End musical “125th Street”, acted as a Los Angeles postman in the 2004 film, “Road to Damascus” and advised for the Hollywood film “Valiant” in 2005, he led “Rag-bag Rovers” through the dark years which followed the enforced move to Bath and masterminded the Third Division championship of 1989-90 as well as the first campaign back in second-flight football. Understandably he was selected as the Barclay’s Third Division Manager of the Season for the extraordinarily successful 1989-90 campaign. Once Rovers were re-instated in the Second Division, Francis was tempted by the lure of his old club, taking with him to Loftus Road Ian Holloway, Dennis Bailey, Gary Penrice and Steve Yates. His management style, like that of his playing days, was fair, yet uncompromising – “what I said to them at half-time would be unprintable on the radio”, he once claimed sardonically. He took Spurs to the FA Cup semi-final of 1995, where they lost 4-1 to Everton and was Manager of the Month in his first month back at Rangers, before returning to Rovers in 2001. With his old club recently relegated to the basement division for the first time in its history, Holloway was unable to halt the slump and, with Rovers struggling and Francis having two close relatives in intensive care, he resigned on Christmas Eve 2001. Football, though, remains in his blood and he was unable to turn down the offer of working under Tony Pulis at both Stoke and West Brom, the Potteries side reaching a Wembley FA Cup Final in 2011, whilst also working as a television pundit. The elder son of a former Brentford reserves player, Roy Francis and his wife Pauline Soley (who both died in January 2018), Gerry Francis lives in Bagshot with his wife Julie Wilson, whom he married in 1997, and they have three children, Adam who was a trainee with Queen’s Park Rangers, Chloë and Jake. |
No 221. David Thomas Frater. 1935-36.
Born, 8.2.1911, Llantwit Fardre. Died, 30.12.1986, Pontypridd. 5’ 11”; 12 st. Début: 5.10.35 v Crystal Palace. Career: Pontypridd; Tonteg; 2.2.34 Swindon Town [1,0]; May 1934 Cardiff City (trial); 9.4.35 Bristol Rovers [1,1]; April 1936 Penrhiwceiber; May 1936 Aberaman Athletic; September 1937 Treharris; October 1937 Troedyrhiw. From Harry Barley’s cross, David Frater headed home for Rovers on his début in a 4-2 defeat against Crystal Palace at Eastville; it was to be his sole League goal and, with no games to his name in two months at Cardiff, one of only two League appearances. The following week he was back in the reserves, playing against Margate. Recovering from a hand injury, he had made his Rovers début in a 3-0 friendly win against Wrington over Easter 1935 and he helped the reserve side secure the Western League championship in 1935-36. He had earlier played in Swindon’s 1-0 defeat at home to Coventry City in February 1934. David Frater appears on the 1911 census at the pub run by his grandparents, Richard and Annie Jenkins, the Holly Bush Inn at Llantwit Fardre, near Pontypridd; Annie Jenkins’ daughter from a previous relationship was Annie Davies, who married Thomas Frater (1879-1925) in 1910 and it is possible that David was their only child. |
No 594. Jonathon Charles French. 1995-97.
Born, 25.9.1976, Keynsham. 5’ 10”; 10 st 10 lbs. Début: 4.11.95 v Peterborough United. Career: Bishop Sutton; 1992 Backwell; 1992 Bristol Rovers (contract, July 1993; professional, 15.7.95) [8+9,1]; 7.3.97 Bath City (loan); 9.1.98 Woking (trial); 26.1.98 Plymouth Argyle (trial); 202.98 Hull City (trial); 28.7.98 Hull City [9+6,0]; 25.3.99 Blackpool (loan); July 1999 Cheltenham Town (loan); August 2000 Barry Town (free); 1.8.03 Weston-super-Mare; 15.9.06 Mangotsfield United (caretaker manager, 9.3.08); 11.8.08 Paulton Rovers. Recovering from a broken leg suffered within ten days of joining Rovers as a trainee, Jon French from Bishop Sutton appeared for Rovers in three consecutive League seasons, contributing a goal against second-placed Crewe Alexandra from Andy Gurney’s pass after 47 minutes of a 2-1 win in March 1996, having also scored eight minutes from time in a 3-0 Auto Windscreens Shield victory over Cambridge United the previous November. A team-mate at Hull of Rovers’ Jason Perry, he also played ten times as Bath City were relegated from the Conference in 1996-97. Barry Town’s captain in 2001-02 and a team-mate of Tom Ramasut, he made his début in the UEFA Cup against Boavista and contributed an eighth-minute goal as Barry beat Bangor City 4-1 in the Welsh Cup Final. He was to score 26 goals in 95 Welsh League games at Barry. A team-mate at Weston-super-Mare of David Mehew, Billy Clark, Mark McKeever, Lewis Hogg and Dave Gilroy, French was part of the side that progressed to the second round of the FA Cup during the 2003-04 campaign. His brother James French scored four goals against Odd Down and three against Gloucester City during Rovers’ 1996-97 FA Youth Cup campaign. Jon French is engaged to Josh Low’s sister. |
No 340. John Frowen. 1958-63.
Born, 11.10.1931, Trelewis. Died, 29.8.2011, Newport. 5’ 11”; 11 st 9 lbs. Début: 14.2.59 v Sunderland. Career: Tredomen; Nelson; August 1951 Cardiff City [35,0]; 11.8.58 Bristol Rovers (exchange for Ron Nicholls) [84,0]; 14.3.63 Newport County [67+10]; 6.1.66 Merthyr Tydfil (player-coach) (to 1968). An ever-present in the side relegated to Division Three in 1961-62, full-back John Frowen was a tough defensive player who had the misfortune to concede an own goal against Huddersfield Town in October 1961. Rovers lost their first seven League games that campaign and never recovered sufficiently. He had joined Rovers initially as a central defender, but switched to full-back to replace Josser Watling, and was appointed captain in time for the game with Bury in August 1961. The younger of two children to John Frowen and Mary Curtis, who had married in 1924 in Pontypridd, Frowen later worked in South Wales as a director of Pipe Line and Metal Coatings Ltd. |
No 374. Roger Gordon Frude. 1963-68.
Born, 19.11.1946, Plymouth. Died, 14.6.1996, Plymouth. 5’ 10”; 10 st 10 lbs. Début: 4.4.64 v Coventry City. Career: Plymouth Schools; July 1963 Bristol Rovers (professional, 19.11.63) [38+3,8]; 29.9.67 Mansfield Town (£7,000) [14+1,0]; July 1969 Brentford [1+1,0]; 3.10.69 Falmouth Town; 28.11.69 Tavistock Town. Seventeen-year-old Rovers débutant Roger Frude was an apprentice at Eastville alongside Ray Graydon, Laurie Taylor, Roger Tovey and Sam Weaver and progressed to score eight League goals for the club. He notched both Rovers’ efforts as Grimsby were defeated 2-1 in front of a crowd of 8,303 at Eastville in January 1966, two fierce low shots in the final four minutes after Rovers had trailed for much of the match, and another two in the 4-1 victory over Colchester United twelve months later. Impressive enough to earn selection for the England Youth side in November 1964, he was not able to fulfil his undoubted potential at Eastville and later played in the Mansfield side which only escaped relegation in the spring of 1968 because of Peterborough’s perilous financial situation. He later appeared in five games for Falmouth Town. Roger Frude died at the tragically early age of forty-nine and his ashes were scattered at Eastville Stadium. |
No 24. Samuel Furniss. 1921-24.
Born, 9.3.1895, Sheffield. Died, 11.3.1977, Sheffield. 5’ 9”; 12 st. Début: 29.8.21 v Southend United. Career: Darnall Old Boys; 30.8.19 Sheffield United [3,0]; 12.5.21 Bristol Rovers (with Jack Ball) [90,2]; 19.6.24 Swindon Town (£50) [36,1]; October 1927 Boston United; July 1929 Scarborough. Rovers’ captain and a dependable, attacking half-back, Sam Furniss was an ever-present at Eastville in 1922-23, a season that included an 8-1 defeat at Swansea. His two League goals for the club came in the 2-0 home victory over Southend United in October 1922 and the 2-1 loss at Brighton the following March. The youngest of seven children to a piston ring maker, William Furniss (1842-1899) and his wife Mary Chetham (1851-1925) of 99 Hodgson Street, Sheffield, Sam married Clara Gillott (1900-86) prior to his move to Bristol and the two eldest of their three sons and three daughters were born whilst he was with Rovers. His League début had come at Middlesbrough in Sheffield United’s 2-2 First Division draw in January 1921 and he subsequently helped Swindon defeat Rovers 3-0 in November 1924 and 4-2 ten months later. His only goal for Swindon came in the second-half of their 1-1 draw at home to Millwall in September 1925. Injury forced him to leave the Football League in the summer of 1927. |