The Bristol Rovers History Group. |
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No 394. Joseph Edward Gadston. 1968-69.
Born, 13.9.1945, Hanwell. 5’ 9”; 11 st 5 lbs. Début: 17.8.68 v Walsall. Career: Middlesex Schools; April 1961 West Ham United (amateur); August 1964 Brentford; 1966 Corby Town; 17.11.66 Cheltenham Town; May 1968 Bristol Rovers (£1,500) [10+1,5]; 5.11.69 Exeter City [85,31]; July 1972 Aldershot [2+2,0]; 2.2.73 Hartlepool United (loan) [1,0]; 1973 Wimbledon; 1975 Hillingdon Borough; 1976 Walton and Hersham; 1977 Slough Town; 1978 Hayes; 1979 Ruislip Manor (player-manager); 1980 Hanwell; 1993 Brentford (Football in the Community Officer); 1999 Exeter City (director); Swanage Town and Herston (general manager). Scoring twice against Bournemouth in his third Rovers game, but injured against Crewe in his fourth, Joe Gadston had an impressive goals-to-games ratio at Eastville. An apprentice toolmaker and Ron Greenwood’s (1921-2006) first signing at West Ham, he scored regularly in the reserves at Griffin Park and represented a London Youth XI but, unable to break into Brentford’s League side, made his Cheltenham début in a 2-1 victory over Burton Albion and scored for fun at Whaddon Road. Player of the Year and top scorer in 1967-68, his 39 goals in 83 matches in all competitions included 32 in 71 Southern League outings. This tally included a Southern League hat-trick against Bath City in April 1967 as well as three goals past Cambridge City and four past Barnet in the spring of 1968. Thereafter he was in the Exeter side which opposed Rovers in the League Cup in August 1971 and his sole Hartlepool appearance was in the goalless draw at home to Chester in February 1973. The youngest of four children to Thomas Gadston and his wife Rose Osborne, who had married in 1931, he was a games coach in a sports centre in Southall between 1966 and 1968, trained as a Football association coach and could lay claim to an impressive career in non-league circles. Basing himself in Dorset, his business plans grew and he was recorded as investing £50,000 into OTR Ltd, a company set up to launch and operate St James’ Park for Exeter City; in January 2001 he introduced his former Brentford colleague Steve Perryman to Exeter, who managed the club to a narrow escape from dropping out of the Football League the following May and that November Gadston tabled a bid to buy out the Grecians. Living in Swanage and married to Maria, with a daughter from a previous marriage, Joe Gadston taught sport at Sunninghill Prep School in Dorchester until July 2014. |
No 874. Rory Nicholas Gaffney. 2015-18.
Born, 23.10.1989, Tuam, County Galway, Republic of Ireland. 6’; 12 st 4 lbs. Début: 28.11.15 v Exeter City. Career: 2009 Mervue United [53+6,13]; 30.7.11 Limerick (free) [76+9,28]; 25.11.14 Cambridge United (free) [3+3,2]; 26.11.15 Bristol Rovers (loan); 14.1.16 Bristol Rovers (undisclosed fee) [66+34,21]; 15.6.18 Salford City (£70,000) [33+12,11]; 31.8.19 Walsall (loan) [11+4,1]; 24.2.20 Shamrock Rovers (free) [42+17,13]. Joining Rovers on a one-month loan in the build-up to Christmas 2015 was tall, ginger-haired goal-scorer Rory Gaffney. He started well, appearing lively and effective alongside Matty Taylor and having three shots on target well-saved by Exeter goalkeeper Bobby Olejnik on his first appearance. As Rovers form improved, the tall striker found his scoring boots, his two goals against both Orient and Luton Town over New Year setting Rovers up for a potential promotion push, before his mother club recalled him. Spurred on to sign the affable Irishman in the dash to promotion to League One, Rovers fought for his signature and Gaffney responded with a critical goal at home to Yeovil Town, as Rovers ended the campaign with promotion dramatically secured on goal difference. Armed with a first-class honours degree in Accountancy from the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and having made his League of Ireland First Division bow with Mervue United in a 1-0 home defeat against Athlone Town in March 2009, he had registered braces against Salthill Devon, Finn Harps and Wexford Youths before a high-profile move to Limerick, whom he helped secure promotion to the Irish Premier League in 2012, a season in which he was First Division Player of the Year. Gaffney’s spell at Limerick included a hat-trick in a 4-1 home victory over Bray Wanderers in August 2014, amongst his nineteen goals in 44(+6) Premier League appearances. He was Limerick’s top scorer in the 2014 season with fourteen goals. A foot injury prefaced his time at Cambridge and his League début came in September 2015 at the Abbey Stadium when, despite only playing the last nine minutes, he set up the only goal of the game against Stevenage. The following month, his first full start enabled him to score two first-half goals as Yeovil Town were defeated 3-2 at Huish Park and he played the final twenty minutes against Rovers the following weekend. Despite a slow goal-scoring start to 2016-17, his work-rate continued to impress and the popular striker was rewarded with a brace of goals as Crawley Town were defeated 4-2 after extra-time in a first round replay in November 2016. In the penultimate game of the season, he scored two late goals at Peterborough to become the fifth Rovers substitute to score a brace after coming on the field in a League fixture. Prior to the start of the 2017-18 campaign, Gaffney scored a hat-trick in Rovers’ 6-1 victory at Melksham Town. His eleven goals in 32(+11) Conference matches took unfashionable Salford City to the play-offs in 2019, where Gaffney appeared as a late substitute at Wembley, as City defeated Andy Bond’s Fylde side 3-0 in May 2019 to gain election to the Football League. However, he soon re-joined his former Rovers manager Darrell Clarke, to play for League Two Walsall, scoring a consolation goal in a defeat at Swindon in November 2019 before returning to Ireland, where he added a goal for Shamrock Rovers at Derry City in April 2021. He was in their side which lost in finals of the 2020 Football Association of Ireland Cup and 2021 Football Association of Ireland President’s Cup, but they secured their nineteenth consecutive league title in October 2021, the Irish Times (article by Gavin Cummiskey, 30 October 2021) crediting Gaffney’s close-range winning goal in a 1-0 victory at Sligo Rovers the previous month as being a pivotal moment in the successful campaign. |
No 671. Kevin Alexander Gall. 2000-03.
Born, 4.2.1982, Merthyr. 5’ 9”; 11 st 1 lb. Début: 31.3.01 v Stoke City. Career: Cardiff City; 1988 Newcastle United (professional, 1.8.00); 22.3.01 Bristol Rovers (free) [28+20,5]; 28.1.03 Yeovil Town (trial); 4.2.03 Yeovil Town (free) [90+44,26]; 1.6.06 Carlisle United (free) [54+12,9]; 28.1.08 Darlington (loan) [16+2,2]; 21.3.08 FC Toronto (loan); 28.7.08 Lincoln City (loan) [6+3,0]; 24.2.09 Port Vale (loan) [7,0]; 22.8.09 Darlington; 5.11.09 York City (loan); 22.1.10 York City (free); 28.6.10 Wrexham (free); 1.8.11 FC Dallas; 9.9.11 Workington; 12.10.11 Guiseley; 28.12.12 Stockport Sports. Amidst Rovers’ relegation to the basement division in the spring of 2001 was a bright ray of hope in the potential of young Welsh striker Kevin Gall. A début goal two minutes from time after coming on as a substitute at Stoke gave the first glimpse of his talent and the young striker continued to impress after Rovers had dropped a division. Impressive club form earned a first Welsh Under-21 cap against Norway in Drammen in September 2001 and he scored from eight yards in a 1-0 win in Azerbaijan in November 2002, the Welsh Under-21 side’s first victory in five-and-a-half years. When they lost 8-1 to Italy in Parma in September 2003, their side included not just Gall, but also future Rovers players in Matt Somner and David Pipe. Kevin Gall, who scored once in his eight caps at that level, had scored twice in 3(+1) games for Newcastle reserves, including a spectacular scissor-kick goal, as a substitute to convert a losing position into a 3-2 victory over local rivals Sunderland and he scored in a 4-1 victory over Blue Star in the Northumberland Senior Cup Final of 2001. He was to contribute a hat-trick in Yeovil’s friendly against Torquay and help the Huish Park side score 100 goals to become Conference champions in 2002-03, seventeen points clear of Morecambe, and secure their Football League status. Prior to the following League campaign, Gall scored after just 28 seconds as Brighton were defeated at Huish Park in a pre-season friendly. Gall scored Yeovil’s first ever League goal, played in the first League meeting with Rovers, as Rovers lost 1-0 to ten-man opposition over Christmas 2003 and was Yeovil’s joint top scorer in their inaugural League campaign. Yeovil secured promotion to League One in 2004-05 before Gall played against Rovers in a Carlisle shirt. There followed spells in North American football, suffering the loss of League status with Darlington and playing alongside Scott Shearer and Gareth Taylor at Wrexham, before a Workington début in the 3-0 home defeat against Hyde and a Guiseley début, alongside Ciarán Toner and Nathan Ellington’s brother Lee, in a 2-0 victory over the same opposition. He played in 0(+4) Conference games for York, scoring once, 3(+2) matches with Wrexham, 1(+3) times at Workington and in 4(+1) fixtures at Guiseley. Engaged to Kirstie Davies, Kevin Gall lives in Manchester, where he runs Academy Soccer, which is backed by every League club in England. He has endured over forty hours of tattooing with religious symbols over both arms, testimony to his Christianity to which he converted after the suicide of three friends in Merthyr. |
No 20. George Gane. 1920-21.
Born,1886, Kingswood. Died, 19.6.1967, Kingswood. 5’ 10”; 10 st 7 lbs. Début: 23.10.20 v Norwich City. Career: Kingswood Rovers; Lodge Hill; Watchet; Bridgend; 1910 Bristol Rovers (trial); 30.5.10 Workington; 10.5.11 Bradford City [35,0]; 3.4.14 Airdrieonians [10,0]; 31.8.14 Bristol City; 23.8.19 Douglas; 12.10.20 Bristol Rovers [1,0]; 1921 Bradford City. Oral history from the early part of the last century suggests that one of George Gane’s transfer fees was £750, a world record at the time, but modern research has been as yet unable to verify this. Certainly, this would appear a steep figure for a moderate wing-half, whose modest appearance tallies do not seem to justify such extravagance. The youngest of seven children to a coal miner George Gane (1852-1937) and Martha Milsom (1850-1924), George was brought up at Fork House, 110 Two Mile Hill Road, married Emma Clarke (1889-1967) in 1914, had a daughter Marjorie, a son Reggie and two grandchildren. He joined Bradford City shortly after they had won the FA Cup in 1911, but opportunities there proved limited. Subsequently, he appeared in Airdrie’s final ten games of the 1913-14 season, his mistake leading to the first of Rangers’ three goals at Broomfield Park on his début on Valentine’s Day 1914. During the war, he was in the Rovers side which drew with Bristol City in April 1916 and defeated ASC Remount the following month. In peacetime, Gane completed a year with Rovers, playing in the friendly against Trowbridge Town in April 1921 and had been living in Hanham reportedly for fifty-three years at the time of his death. A player called Gane, perhaps a relative, scored the opening goal when Bristol St George defeated Mount Hill Enterprises in April 1932 in the Gloucestershire Senior Cup Final. |
No 239. Robert Gardiner. 1937-39.
Born, 2.9.1912, Dundee. Died, April 1993, Dundee. 5’ 4”; 10 st 4 lbs. Début: 28.8.37 v Watford. Career: Elmwood; Dundee East Craigie; 1933 Broughty Ferry Ex-Servicemen; 3.1.34 Dundee United [77,35]; August 1936 Dartford; 14.7.37 Bristol Rovers (£1,500, later reduced to £250) [67,10]; October 1939 Dundee United; August 1940 Hibernian; September 1940 Morton; August 1941 Clyde [52,5]; 1942 Dundee United [82,29]; 1946 Union Sportive Valenciennes (player-coach); July 1947 Arbroath; 11.9.47 Brechin City. For two years, and specifically in the 1935-36 season, “The Mighty Midgets” were greatly feared in Scottish domestic football. Arthur Milne (1914-97), the holder of one wartime cap for Scotland, and Bobby Gardiner both measured five-feet-four-inches, but their left-wing partnership helped Dundee United to great heights. Gardiner was second highest scorer at the club that season, with fifteen of the side’s 108 goals; United scored forty-two goals in the final six games that campaign, apparently a British record. The Scotsman reported that “the greater cohesion in the Dundee forward line could be traced to the constructive ability of Gardiner”, who scored twice for the club against St Bernard’s, Leith Athletic, Dumbarton and Edinburgh City, as well as in an 8-0 victory over Brechin City. On the day in April 1936 Joe Payne (1914-75) rattled in ten goals against Rovers, Gardiner scored once in Dundee United’s 12-1 victory over East Stirlingshire. A baker by trade, he was to give Rovers two seasons’ service, seven of his ten League goals coming away from home. He scored against the future England international goalkeeper Bert Williams (1920-2014) as Rovers lost 5-2 at Walsall in December 1937 but, despite forging a good understanding with Danny Tolland, was unable to prevent Rovers having to apply for re-election the following campaign for the only time in the club’s history. His six goals in 35 wartime games at Dundee United included that elusive hat-trick, as Milne scored four and Gardiner three in a 10-2 Scottish League East victory over Stenhousemuir in April 1940, his Hibernian début came against Queen’s Park at Easter Road that August, he scored twice as Morton defeated Albion Rovers 4-0 in October 1940 and the solitary goal in ten matches for Clyde was their second in a 2-2 draw with Airdrieonians at Shawfield in September 1941. Arguably the greatest game, though, was saved for wartime football, as he played in the Dundee United side which lost the 1940 Wartime Cup Final to a seventy-fifth-minute Rangers goal before a 75,000 crowd at Hampden Park. |
No 70. James Richard Gardner. 1925-26.
Born, 29.7.1899, Peckham. Died, 7.10.1964, Felixstowe. 5’ 6”; 11 st 2 lbs. Début: 29.8.25 v Charlton Athletic. Career: Walton United (Felixstowe); 1919 Ipswich Town; 1921 Norwich City (trial); 31.8.22 Yeovil and Petters United; 5.8.25 Bristol Rovers (£50) [32,4]; June 1926 Orient [31,17]; September 1929 Lovell’s Athletic; 1930 FC Basel; 11.2.33 Newport County [16,12]; 1933 Lovell’s Athletic; 29.8.34 Felixstowe Town; 27.11.34 Parkland’s Welfare (West Hartlepool); 6.12.35 Billingham; 1936 FC Basel (coach). Though born in Peckham, even if the date quoted above is open to some debate, Jimmy Gardner, the second child of an engineer James Gardner and his Bristolian wife Elizabeth Martin, lived at 3 Hilmer Street, Kensington until his early teenage years, then in Felixstowe. A regular at non-league Ipswich Town for three years, he made several appearances for Suffolk and represented the Southern Amateur League on three occasions. “A snap shot and a terrier in attack”, he came to Rovers’ attention when he played for Yeovil against the Eastville side in the FA Cup in November 1924. By that stage, he had been a regular in their side for three campaigns, after making his Southern League début in a 2-2 draw against Southend United reserves in September 1922 and he scored the goal against Bath City in April 1924 which secured the Western League championship. Despite missing eight games through injury in the autumn of 1925, he marked his return to Rovers’ side with two goals against Plymouth Argyle in his first game back. Following Second Division football with Orient, his final game being a 2-0 defeat at Southampton in April 1929, interrupted by a serious car crash near Colchester in August 1927, and a peripatetic stint in Switzerland, Gardner made his Newport County début on the day he signed and added two first-half goals as Rovers were defeated 3-1 in April 1933 at Somerton Park. “A dashing, high-scoring leader”, as The South Wales Argus pictured him, he had also scored four times as Lovell’s Athletic beat his former Yeovil side 7-1 in January 1932 and represented the Welsh League against the Irish Free State. Gardner is remembered fondly at Orient, as his eight goals in eight matches at the tail end of the 1926-27 season, which included the only goal of the game, a penalty, in the final match with Reading, helped retain the London’s side’s precarious Division Two status. He married Hilda Anne Bullock (1901-90) in 1921 and is buried in the Town Municipal Cemetery in Felixstowe. |
No 611. Brian Wilbert Gayle. 1996-98.
Born, 6.3.1965, Kingston-upon-Thames. 6’ 2”; 13 st 12 lbs. Début: 29.3.97 v Peterborough United. Career: Tooting and Mitcham; 1.7.82 Wimbledon [76+7,3]; 2.1.84 Napier City Rovers (loan); 6.7.88 Manchester City (£325,000) [55,3]; 19.1.90 Ipswich Town (£325,000) [58,4]; 17.9.91 Sheffield United (£750,000) [115+2,9]; 14.8.96 Rotherham United (free) [19+1,0]; 10.10.96 Exeter City (loan) [10,0]; 27.3.97 Bristol Rovers (loan); 3.7.97 Bristol Rovers [23,0]; 19.12.97 Shrewsbury Town [66,1]; 21.3.00 Telford United (to 31.5.01). In April 1992, central defender Brian Gayle scored the goal which won the League title for Leeds United. Unfortunately for him, it was an own goal, the scourge of many experienced defenders’ lives, as he was wearing the striped shirt of Sheffield United in this Yorkshire derby. Strong and determined, Gayle had played at the top level for several clubs, earning Manchester City exactly what they paid for him, so his arrival at Rovers injected a wealth of experience and know-how into the back four. His dismissal against Northampton Town in a 1-1 draw in November 1997 makes him the second oldest Rovers recipient of a red card in the Football League. Promotion to the top flight with Wimbledon preceded two FA Cup quarter-final appearances, although a red card against Watford prevented his participation in the 1988 semi-final and final and he also enjoyed promotion to the top division whilst at Maine Road. Club captain at Bramall Lane, he played alongside Phil Kite as United reached the FA Cup semi-finals in 1992-93, losing agonisingly after extra-time to local rivals Wednesday, and suffered relegation the same season. Further relegation followed with Rotherham, where he played against Rovers in his second game for the Millers, whilst Exeter lost six of his few Division Three matches for the club. Own goals followed for Shrewsbury against both Hull City and Orient and his dramatic last-minute own goal at Millwall in February 1997 proved costly for Rotherham. He also scored at the other end regularly enough, opening the scoring when Ipswich defeated Rovers 2-1 at Portman Road in September 1990. Knee injuries in 1994-95 and the following campaign, after being sent off at Oldham after just twenty-six minutes of his first game of the 1995-96 season, restricted his football, but Gayle played under Dave Bassett at Sheffield United and Wimbledon, where he played alongside Ian Holloway, who bought him for Rovers. A team-mate of Devon White at Shrewsbury, he played as the Shrews were knocked out of the FA Cup in November 1998 by non-league Rushden and later made 27 Conference appearances with Telford. He was later reported to have moved into the film industry, playing a minor rôle in “Mean Machine”, alongside Vinny Jones, a film along the lines of “The Great Escape” about footballers pitting their wits against prison guards, and works for Beta Engineering in Rotherham. |
No 721. Alistair Stuart Gibb. 2003-06.
Born, 17.2.1976, Salisbury. 5’ 9”; 11 st 6 lbs. Début: 27.3.04 v York City. Career: 1987 Southampton (schoolboy); 1993 Norwich City (professional, 1.7.94); 22.9.95 Northampton Town (loan); 5.2.96 Northampton Town [112+124,8]; 17.2.00 Stockport County (£50,000) [157+8,1]; 25.3.04 Bristol Rovers (free) [45+19,1]; 31.8.06 Hartlepool United (free) [16+15,0]; 11.1.08 Notts County (loan) [9,0]; 22.6.08 Bath City (free); 10.12.08 Newport County; 27.7.09 Almondsbury Town; 2.2.09 Yate Town; 9.2.09 Newport County (loan); 16.2.09 Almondsbury Town; 10.7.14 Stockport County (assistant physiotherapist); 16.8.15 Shrewsbury Town (Head of Sports Science and Medicine); 9.1.17 Bolton Wanderers (Senior Academy Physiotherapist). “It would be nice to look back after my career has finished and be able to say I kept Bristol Rovers up”, said swift, right-sided midfielder Ali Gibb; he did precisely that. Working under Ian Atkins at both Northampton and Rovers, the young man from Durrington, who later lived in Chepstow, scored Rovers’ third goal on his début, from the edge of the box moments after half-time from Lee Thorpe’s through-ball, and became a crucial cog in Rovers’ machine during his stay in Bristol. His only other goal for the club came in the FA Cup against Port Vale in December 2005; indeed, after November 1997 he scored just twice in the League. With Jamie Cureton at both Southampton and Norwich, Gibb made his League bow in the Cobblers’ 3-0 defeat at Torquay in September 1995 and played alongside Lee Maddison at Northampton. A key part of their side which gained promotion to Division Two through the play-offs in 1996-97, Gibb appeared against Rovers in both fixtures for the next two seasons, as well as in a fixture in the LDV Vans Trophy in January 2000. Alongside Lee Jones, Neil Ross and Aaron Lescott at Stockport, where his only goal came against Blackpool, he was sent off in November 2001 against Norwich City and, amongst various relegation struggles at Edgeley Park, suffered relegation to Division Two in 2001-02. Appearing against Rovers in both fixtures of 2006-07, Hartlepool being promoted along with Rovers that campaign, his late goal-line clearance on the final day almost deprived Rovers of their play-off place. Suffering posterior cruciate ligament damage in 2004-05, Gibb also missed seven months at Bath City with a broken ankle. He later played in one Southern League game with Yate Town in February 2009 before, making use of his degree in Business and Finance, working in financial planning for Barclay’s Bank and Lloyd’s TSB; graduating as a physiotherapist from the University of Salford in 2015, with the highest marks in his year group, he had returned to football with Stockport County, where he worked under Rodger Wylde. |
No 169. William Vivian Talbot Gibbins. 1932-33.
Born, 10.8.1901, Forest Gate. Died, 21.11.1979, Herne Bay. 5’ 10”; 11 st 10 lbs. Début: 27.8.32 v Crystal Palace. Career: Godwin Road School; 1919 Clapton; 12.12.23 West Ham United [129,58]; January 1931 Clapton; 11.2.32 Brentford [8,5]; 8.6.32 Bristol Rovers [37,15]; 24.8.33 Southampton [2,0]; 1934 Leyton; 1934 Catford Wanderers (retired, 1939). Debonair, sophisticated and dashing, Viv Gibbins cut a fine figure at Eastville in the 1930s. “One of the last great amateurs imbued with the Corinthian spirit”, he was a famous centre-forward and headmaster with a fine reputation. This was such that Rovers were known to charter aeroplanes to ensure their leader of the line could attend midweek fixtures. Gibbins, naturally, responded with two hat-tricks in a calendar month for Rovers in October 1932. The winner of twelve England amateur caps, his seven goals including a brace as Wales were defeated 5-0 at Bournemouth in February 1931, he had twice won full international honours, scoring two first-half goals (the first with “a fine shot, following a free-kick”) in a 3-1 victory against France in May 1924 and once more after twenty-five minutes against the same opposition twelve months later, even though he left the field injured after just thirty-five minutes. Gibbins also played in a match in aid of the East Ham branch of the British Legion at the Boleyn Ground in December 1930, a fixture watched by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII (1894-1972). Top scorer at West Ham in 1930-31, and top-flight hat-trick scorer against Newcastle on Christmas Eve 1927, at Everton in April 1929 and against Manchester United in October 1930, his club form at Upton Park was an extension of earlier success, as he and his Hammers team-mate Stan Earle had both helped Clapton to successive Amateur Cup Final victories in 1923-24 and 1924-25, whilst playing simultaneously for West Ham. In 1933-34 he was in the Leyton side which reached the Amateur Cup Final. He played in the celebrated Amateurs of the South against Professionals of the South game in 1924, 1925 and 1927, scoring twice in a 6-3 defeat at The Den in the third of these matches, whilst he and Claude Ashton, whose brother played for Rovers, appeared for England against The Rest at Dulwich in January 1932. The third of five children to a schoolmaster John Gibbins and his wife Amy Lambert of 21 York Road, Forest Gate, Viv Gibbins married Frances Mabel Ashworth in Brighton on 26th May 1928. He was headmaster of Harold Road School in West Ham for many years, retiring in the early 1970s. His legacy is remembered, as the entrance to the Old Spotted Dog Ground at Disraeli Road in Newham is named the Vivian Gibbins Memorial Gate. |
No 64. Arthur Gibbs. 1924-25.
Born, 24.2.1894, Darlaston. Died, 1973, Evesham, Worcestershire. 6’; 12 st 1 lb. Début: 18.10.24 v Plymouth Argyle. Career: Ocker Hill; 1911 Princes End; 1919 Walsall Talbot Stead; March 1922 Brierley Hill Alliance; 8.5.24 Bristol Rovers [19,0]; 11.7.25 Weymouth; August 1927 Hereford United; January 1928 Brierley Hill Alliance. Tall, deliberate full-back Arthur Gibbs served in the Royal Air Force during World War One and represented the Bilston and District League in inter-league matches. A brief spell at Rovers included two FA Cup-ties against Weymouth and he was off to the Dorset coast at the season’s end, finishing up in goal on his Western League début against Taunton United, a 1-0 victory, in August 1925. He played three times for Weymouth against Rovers reserves and scored a penalty as Weymouth sensationally drew 4-4 with Reading in the FA Cup first-round in November 1926; Reading won the replay and progressed to beat Manchester United and reach the semi-finals. Gibbs played for Hereford United in two Birmingham Combination matches early in the 1927-28 season, away to Market Harborough and at home to Atherstone Town. He is believed to be the Arthur Gibbs of Toll End, Tipton, who was one of seven sons to James Gibbs and Ellen Savage; he may have married in 1919 Hannah Smart, who also died in 1973, having two daughters, Winnie and Nancy. |
No 406. Carl Graham Gilbert. 1969-71.
Born, 20.3.1948, Folkestone, Kent. 6’; 12 st 8 lbs. Début: 26.12.69 v Reading. Career: Royal Sussex Regiment; October 1965 Gillingham [28+2,11]; 22.11.69 Bristol Rovers (exchange for Ken Ronaldson) [38+7,15]; 11.3.71 Rotherham United (£17,000) [78+16,37]; July 1974 Margate (£2,500); 1974 Thanet United (trial); July 1976 Folkestone; Canterbury City (coach); Herne Bay (coach); Folkestone (coach). Blond-haired, lively striker Carl Gilbert bought himself out of the Army to join Gillingham and scored in his first three home matches with Rovers. The only son amongst four children to Percival Gilbert (1918-2001) and Hilda Hessing, the daughter of George Hessing (1867-1941) and Annie Thomson (1877-1964), Carl Gilbert followed his father into railway work, becoming a contractor manager but, keen on football, cricket, basketball, swimming and cross-country, he eschewed his Army band career as a clarinettist and trombonist to take up professional sport. It was just as well that he did, for he made a success of his time in football. He scored on his League début for Gillingham, against Mansfield Town in April 1968, added the winning goal against Rovers in September 1969 and played for the reserves against Rovers’ second string just weeks before scoring again on his Rovers début that Boxing Day. In fact, his final appearance in a Gills shirt saw him sent off in a reserve fixture at Ashton Gate. Living in Kingswood, he was a success at Eastville, scoring inside the first minute in one home fixture against Orient. That Rotherham came for him with good money was little surprise and he did not disappoint at Millmoor either. Scoring all the goals in a 4-0 thumping of Swansea in September 1971, adding hat-tricks against Port Vale in Division Three and Frickley Athletic in the FA Cup, he also played on four occasions against Rovers. Perhaps the most bizarre game came in October 1972, when he scored twice before conceding three as an emergency goalkeeper in a 7-2 defeat at Bournemouth, Brian Clark scoring a hat-trick past three different goalkeepers of whom Gilbert was the second. Being tracked by York, Stockport and Doncaster, Gilbert instead returned to his native Kent in 1974, commanding Margate’s club record transfer fee before breaking his leg a few games into his spell at Folkestone. Later studying for his coaching certificate, Carl Gilbert lives in Folkestone, he and his wife Joyce having three children, Graham, Matthew and Katie. |
No 275. Albert James Giles. 1946-47.
Born, 4.5.1922, Swansea. Died, 11.6.1986, Bristol. 5’ 7”; 10 st 5 lbs. Début: 16.11.46 v Notts County. Career: May 1941 Bristol Rovers; service in Royal Air Force; 3.10.45 Bristol Rovers (trial); 18.10.45 Bristol Rovers [1,0]; 12.8.47 Glastonbury. With Rovers reserves early in the war, Welsh Schoolboy international Albert Giles played in a trial game for the reserves against Pucklechurch in October 1945 and opened the scoring in the wartime 3-3 draw with Bournemouth in March 1946. Once League football resumed, he made one League appearance in the 6-0 defeat at Notts County, in which the veteran Arthur Chandler’s (1895-1984) two goals mark him down as one of only two men to score a League goal against Rovers after his fortieth birthday. His final game with Rovers appears to have been as a right-half for the reserves against Swansea Town reserves in June 1947. It is known that he missed the home game with Swindon on 6th April 1946 to attend his brother Edgar’s (1919-2002) marriage to Phyllis McCarthy in Bristol. Club records suggest that his brother, formerly in the 16th Holding Battery, signed professional forms for Rovers in February 1946 and was in the reserves on the day of the Notts County game in November 1946. It is unclear which brother played briefly for Rovers in the spring of 1940, when both brothers were living at 11 Wellington Road, Bristol – it was noted in the Western Daily Press that “when Giles began to swing the ball from the left wing across to [George] Tadman on the other wing, big holes appeared in Newport’s defence”. George Edward Giles (1886-1925, who died by his own hand) and Florence Emily Perrett (1886-1956) had married in Bedminster on 20th February 1905, Edgar and Albert being their eighth and ninth children. The youngest in his family and unmarried, Albert had a daughter out of wedlock, Valerie Mavis Giles (1949-2015) who married in 1973 Malcolm Thomas Wilkes (1942-2002). |
No 811. Matthew James Gill. 2011-14.
Born, 8.11.1980, Cambridge. 5’ 11”; 11 st 8 lbs. Début: 6.8.11 v AFC Wimbledon. Career: Peterborough United; 3.5.04 Notts County (free) [45+12,0]; 16.1.06 Exeter City (free); 9.6.09 Norwich City (free) [5+7,0]; 23.9.10 Peterborough United (loan) [125+30,5]; 21.1.11 Walsall (loan) [8,2]; 6.6.11 Bristol Rovers (free) [41+3,0]; 18.10.13 Exeter City (loan); 7.1.14 Exeter City (free) [169+8,14]; 29.5.14 Tranmere Rovers (player-coach) (free) [8,0] (8.9.14 assistant manager); 3.11.14 Vineyard FC; July 2015 Takeley; January 2016 Stansted; March 2016 Tilehurst YM; 25.7.15 Norwich City (professional Development Phase Coach; 24.2.17 Under-23 manager); 27.10.18 Ipswich Town (youth coach); 7.5.21 MK Dons (youth coach); 2.8.21 Swansea City (technical development coach; 19.5.22 assistant head coach). Captain of the Rovers side which struggled to re-establish itself in the basement division following relegation from League One in the spring of 2011, Matt Gill brought a wealth of experience to the side. Following his Peterborough début in a 3-1 defeat against Torquay United in April 1998, he had enjoyed regular football at various clubs. He scored twice in 51(+3) Conference games at Exeter before adding an impressive tally in the Football League. In May 2007 he became the first player to receive a red card at the newly re-opened Wembley Stadium, after he had supposedly head-butted Morecambe’s Craig Stanley, later a Rovers team-mate, in Exeter’s play-off final, but he recovered from this setback to score four goals in September 2008, thereby being voted League Two Player of the Month, and helping the Grecians to promotion at the end of the 2008-09 campaign. Gill’s Norwich début was the calamitous 7-1 home defeat against neighbours Colchester United in August 2009, but the Canaries recovered to win the return fixture 5-0 and run away with the League One title; he played in their 3-0 victory away to Rovers on the final day of the season. A loan spell with Walsall included a goal as the Saddlers defeated relegation rivals Rovers 6-1 in January 2011. Thereafter, he embarked on a career as a holding midfielder with Rovers, brought to a premature close when a knee injury in December 2012 ruled him out for the rest of that season. Out of favour under manager John Ward at The Mem, Gill was loaned back to the Grecians in the autumn of 2013 before taking Eliot Richards, Dan Woodards and Clayton McDonald with him to Tranmere Rovers, in their final Football League season, which he left in the week prior to their FA Cup meeting with Rovers. He headed his first goal for Stansted in their 2-2 draw at Clapton in April 2016 and scored twice when Tilehurst defeated Barton Rovers 6-0 in December of that year. Married to Bethan, and with children James and Holly, Matt Gill lives in West Kirby. |
No 856. Steven Gillespie. 2013-14.
Born, 4.6.1985, Liverpool. 5’ 9”; 11 st 3 lbs. Début: 8.2.14 v Oxford United. Career: Liverpool Schools; 1.7.03 Liverpool; 27.5.04 Bristol City (free) [4+8,1]; 11.1.05 Cheltenham Town (loan); 31.1.06 Cheltenham Town (free); 7.7.08 Colchester United (£400,000) [46+52,25]; 18.6.12 Fleetwood Town (free) [9+13,4]; 15.8.13 Cheltenham Town (loan) [66+26,29]; 6.2.14 Bristol Rovers (free) [3+9,1]; 19.7.14 Altrincham (free); 4.5.15 Warrington Town (free); July 2016 Liverpool (Under-12 coach); 29.11.16 Wigan Athletic (Under-14 coach); 12.1.17 Skelmersdale United (loan); 21.9.17 Liverpool (International Academy). Once Liverpool Schools’ record goal-scorer, overtaking Robbie Fowler’s record until his own was bettered by Wayne Rooney, Steven Gillespie is an exciting striker whose career has fluctuated between north-western and south-western clubs. A Bristol City bow in a 2-2 draw at Bournemouth in August 2004 and a goal against Nottingham Forest kick-started a career which flourished under John Ward at Cheltenham, Colchester and Rovers. “A real bits-and-pieces player around the penalty area [who] can sniff out what is going to happen next” (John Ward), Gillespie arrived at The Mem on a short-term contract with an impressive goal-scoring pedigree. He scored in his first two Cheltenham games, including a 38th-minute strike at The Mem and helped the Robins to the League Two play-offs in 2005-06 before adding sixteen goals in the 2007-08 campaign. A club record signing at Colchester, he starred under the former Rovers player Aidy Boothroyd but suffered a string of injuries prior to appearing in newly-promoted Fleetwood’s first Football League fixture, a goalless draw with Torquay United in August 2012. Sent off three times with Cheltenham and once at Colchester, he had appeared in Bristol City’s calamitous 7-1 defeat at Swansea in September 2005 as well as Colchester’s 6-1 loss at home to Stevenage on Boxing Day 2011. He had appeared in nine League fixtures against Rovers, four each with Cheltenham and Colchester and one with Fleetwood, scoring twice for the Robins. With Ryan Brunt side-lined for the rest of the season, John Ward signed up the fast striker, despite the fact that he had scored only twice all season, a brace in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy tie between Cheltenham and Plymouth in September 2013. He headed Rovers’ last-gasp equaliser at table-topping Scunthorpe, but it proved to be his only goal for the club and he was released when Rovers surrendered their Football League status, playing for Altrincham against Rovers the following campaign. His last-minute penalty was saved by Alfreton goalkeeper Cameron Dawson as Alty lost 1-0 at home to the Derbyshire outfit in November 2014 and his August 2014 goal at Southport proved his only strike in 8(+14) Conference appearances with Altrincham. In 10(+10) Northern Premier League matches with Warrington, he scored three times and missed a penalty in October 2015 against Harrogate Railway Athletic, although his season was blighted by a long-term shoulder injury; returning to the side in the spring, he helped them secure the divisional title. Later appearing in eleven Northern Premier League matches with Skelmersdale, without scoring, he also coached at Wigan Athletic. |
No 130. William Blyth Gillespie. 1929-30.
Born, 29.10.1903, Buckhaven, Fife. Died, 1978, Buckhaven, Fife. 5’ 8”; 11 st 4 lbs. Début: 25.1.30 v Merthyr Town. Career: Leven Rovers; 1918 Buckhaven Victoria; 21.8.20 East Fife; 30.4.27 Newcastle United (£1,500) [9,0]; 28.6.29 Bristol Rovers (£300) [2,0]; July 1930 St Mirren [4,0]; 11.10.30 East Fife [356,0]; June 1932 Belfast Distillery (player-manager); August 1936 Bangor (to April 1937). Seven seasons at East Fife brought 282 Scottish League matches for Wally Gillespie, an East Fife stalwart. A highlight of this time was an appearance in the 1927 Scottish Cup Final, in which he “kept a cool head throughout”, as The Scotsman reported, although East Fife lost 3-1 to Celtic. Armed with this experience, he appeared in Division One alongside Rovers’ Bobby McKay and the legendary Hughie Gallacher (1903-57) at Newcastle and went on the club’s 1927 tour of Holland. After a reserve début against Lovell’s Athletic in August 1929, Gillespie’s Rovers experience amounted to a 2-2 draw with Merthyr and a 4-3 defeat at Watford, but he also played alongside Rovers players David Bruce and Tom Boyce at East Fife. After four games in Paisley, “the town of thread”, he returned to East Fife to rack up a further 74 Scottish League games, including the game at Armadale in February 1932 when Gillespie “covered for the weaknesses of others” as East Fife, 5-0 down at half-time, lost by five goals to four. “One of the most popular of players north of the border”, he later led Distillery to the Irish Cup Final of 1933 and the Charity Cup final of 1934, even though both matches were lost. |
No 467. Donald George Gillies. 1980-82.
Born, 20.6.1951, Glencoe. 5’ 10”; 11 st 5 lbs. Début: 16.8.80 v Orient. Career: Inverness Clachnacuddin; 1.11.71 Morton [45+2,23]; 8.3.73 Bristol City (£30,000) [183+17,26]; 23.5.80 Bristol Rovers (£50,000) [56+3,0]; 26.10.83 Paulton Rovers; 8.7.85 Trowbridge Town; 15.7.85 Anorthosis, Cyprus; 25.7.86 Trowbridge Town; 14.8.86 Yeovil Town; 1987 Clutton; 2.4.88 Bristol Manor Farm; December 1993 Clevedon Town (commercial manager, to 1.2.94). Sites of celebrated historical battles do not feature to any great extent amongst footballers’ birthdays, but one exception to this rule is right-back Donnie Gillies. One Scottish cap at Under-23 level and fourteen League goals for Morton in the 1972-73 season caught the eye of the management team at Ashton Gate and Gillies was soon one of three former Morton players, Joe Jordan and Gerry Sweeney being the others, to feature in an astonishing period of time for Bristol City. Remarkably top scorer in 1974-75, Gillies helped City gain promotion to Division One in the spring of 1976, returning to a division the Robins had last graced in 1911. He also scored the only goal of the game at Leeds in an FA Cup replay in 1974 from Keith Fear’s through ball. “Everyone remembers the goal I scored at Leeds but, in fact, there was a goal much more important than that – the one that kept us in the top flight”, he recalled of a late equaliser in May 1977 when City, requiring a point to survive and relegate Sunderland, drew their final game of a traumatic campaign 2-2 with Coventry City. Better still, he registered a hat-trick against Mo in May 1975 on City’s tour of Norway. A cricketer with Southville Wayfarers, Gillies became one of the rare breed of footballer to play regularly for both Bristol clubs, although his consistent appearances at full-back were insufficient to prevent Rovers’ relegation along with City to Division Three in the spring of 1981. Thereafter, he enjoyed a year of Cypriot football, his team being managed at that time by a former Bristol City colleague, Peter Cormack, and made his Yeovil bow in a 2-1 victory over Bromley. He also had the unlikely experience of twice signing for Trowbridge, yet never playing a game for the club. “I loved playing football”, Gillies reminisced, “and am glad I had the chance to play at the level I did” (Bristol Independent, 2004). Having lived in Temple Cloud, he lives in Wells with his wife Louise and they have a daughter and two grandchildren; he runs Chew Valley produce, supplying fruit and vegetables to pubs and cafés in and around the Bristol area. |
No 674. David Miles Gilroy. 2001-04.
Born, 23.12.1982, Yeovil. 5’ 11”; 11 st 1 lb. Début: 25.8.01 v Luton Town. Career: Bristol Rovers (professional, 1.8.01) [6+13,0]; 1.3.02 Bath City (loan); 29.7.03 Exeter City (trial); 8.8.03 Forest Green Rovers (loan); 12.9.03 Clevedon Town (loan); 8.12.03 Barnet (trial); 31.12.03 Weston-super-Mare (loan); 7.1.04 Weston-super-Mare (free); 20.10.04 Bath City (free); 12.11.04 Chippenham Town (loan); 15.2.05 Chippenham Town (£1,000); 12.5.07 Bath City; 30.4.09 Newport County (free); 2.10.09 Weston-super-Mare (loan); 15.2.10 Bath City (loan); 2.6.10 Woking (free); 1.7.11 Cirencester Town; 17.9.12 Frome Town (free); 1.9.13 Cribbs (free). Despite not scoring in the League, striker Dave Gilroy contributed seven in six pre-season friendlies in 2001 and scored a last-minute goal in the FA Cup-tie at Runcorn in November 2002. The following month, he contrived to head an own goal and then score twice at the correct end as Rovers’ reserve side beat Oxford United reserves 3-1 at Cossham Street. He had scored a hat-trick for Rovers in an FA Youth Cup-tie in October 2000, as Tonbridge Angels were defeated 4-0 at the Memorial Stadium. A long career in local non-league football included seventeen goals in 42 games during two spells at Weston, 55 in 108 matches at Chippenham, 43 goals in 78 fixtures in two Bath stints, ten games and two goals for Newport and four goals in just three matches at Woking. Gilroy, a team-mate of Mark McKeever, Billy Clark, Jon French, Lewis Hogg and David Mehew at Weston, scored on his début against Merthyr on New Year’s Day 2004 and his hat-trick in a 5-1 victory over Stafford Rangers in April 2004 secured his club’s Nationwide South status; further hat-tricks came for Chippenham against Cirencester Town in February 2005 and for Bath against Bognor and East Thurrock in consecutive weeks in September 2007 as well as against Braintree Town at Twerton Park in April 2009. Dave Gilroy was the Southern League Premier Division top scorer in 2005-06 and scored over twenty goals in consecutive seasons for Chippenham, adding two goals as they won the Wiltshire Senior Shield in April 2005, overcoming a 3-0 deficit to defeat Swindon Town 6-4 after extra time, before spending a season as a team-mate of Neil Arndale at Cirencester. He added three goals for Frome Town in 25(+11) appearances during the 2012-13 campaign and an impressive 51 goals in 81 Western League fixture over three seasons with Cribbs. |
No 934. Joshua Lloyd Ginnelly. 2019-2020.
Born, 24.3.1997, Coventry. 5’ 8”; 10 st 4 lbs. Début: 18.1.20 v Rotherham United. Career: 2006 Aston Villa; 2013 Shrewsbury Town (professional, 9.4.14) [0+3,0]; 15.7.15 Norwich City (trial); 28.7.15 Burnley (trial); 10.8.15 Burnley (free); 8.1.16 Altrincham (loan); 28.7.16 Walsall (loan); 30.1.17 Lincoln City (loan) [8+7,2]; 12.1.18 Tranmere Rovers (loan); 5.6.18 Walsall (free) [22+8,2]; 1.1.19 Preston North End (free) [0+6,0]; 16.1.20 Bristol Rovers (loan) [5+4,1]; 2.9.20 Heart of Midlothian (loan); 17.6.21 Heart of Midlothian (free) [19+18,8]. “Bringing down a long ball with his first touch before showing ambition by taking on two Luton defenders” (Shropshire Star), exciting midfielder Josh Ginnelly certainly attracted attention on his Shrewsbury League bow as a seventeen-year-old in August 2014. He also scored four times the following month, as Chasetown were defeated 13-0 in the quarter-finals of the Midland Youth Cup. Swift and skilful, he managed thirty-one minutes of League action for the Shropshire side and was their Young Player of the Year for 2014-15, before embarking on a string of loan spells from Burnley. In 19(+1) Conference matches with Altrincham, all five of his goals came at Moss Lane, Alty being relegated at the end of the 2015-16 campaign. He was also the victim of racial abuse during the game against Barrow in March 2016, prompting a police investigation. Successive promotions followed, both at Lincoln, where his 7(+6) goalless Conference appearances helped the Imps back to the Football League (Ginnelly promptly scored in their first game back, a 2-2 draw at Wycombe in August 2017) and with Tranmere, for whom he started at Wembley in May 2018, Rovers defeating Boreham Wood 2-1 to return to League Two. He had scored on his Tranmere début, a victory over Maidenhead United, and scored against Tranmere when Walsall defeated them 3-1 in a League Cup-tie. It was at Walsall that Ginnelly forged an effective partnership with Luke Leahy, the pair starring as the Saddlers left The Mem in October 2018 with a last-minute win, and this partnership was rekindled, after a brief spell alongside Billy Bodin at Preston, when Ginnelly signed for the Gas. He struck Rovers’ late winning goal against ten-man Blackpool at The Mem in February 2020 to end an eleven-match run without a League win, but soon returned to Preston with a hip injury. Heading north of the border, Ginnelly scored in the delayed 2020 Scottish Cup Final in December of that year, crashing the ball home from close range nine minutes fron the end of extra time, after a deep cross had been headed back across goal by Man of the Match Stephen Kingsley; Hearts, though, despite drawing 3-3 with Celtic, lost the final on penalties. In so doing he became, after Jackie Chalmers in 1910 and Willie Culley ten years later, the third Rovers player to score in this showpiece match. In December 2021 Ginnelly was sent off in the home League fixture against Rangers. He then appeared as a substitute in the 2022 Scottish Cup Final against Rangers, replacing Scottish international Barrie McKay for the final eight minutes as well as extra-time in a tie which ultimately resulted in a 2-0 defeat, and set up one of Lawrence Shankland’s three goals in an enthralling Scottish Premier League match in October 2022, in which Hearts lost 4-3 at home to Celtic. The former Hearts defender Allan Preston commented: “Josh Ginnelly, when he is on his game, is a real threat; he can put good balls in the box, he's lightening quick and is great with the ball at his feet.” |
No 661. Matthew William Glennon. 2000-01.
Born, 8.10.1978, Stockport. 6’ 2”’ 14 st 9 lbs. Début: 16.9.00 v Wigan Athletic. Career: 1994 Bolton Wanderers (professional, 1.8.97); 10.9.99 Port Vale (loan); 18.1.00 Stockport County (loan); 15.9.00 Bristol Rovers [1,0]; 10.11.00 Carlisle United (loan); 6.6.01 Hull City (£50,000) [35,0]; 18.12.02 Carlisle United (free) [105,0]; 20.7.05 Falkirk (free) [21,0]; 29.1.06 St Johnstone (free) [12,1]; 16.6.06 Huddersfield Town (free) [109,0]; 13.1.10 Bradford City (free) [17,0]; 20.8.10 Stockport County (free) [60,0]; 24.2.12 Chester FC; 17.7.12 FC Halifax (free); 1.1.16 Buxton (free); 8.3.16 Scarborough Athletic (free); 28.1.17 AFC Emley (free). Powerful and tall, dominating his penalty area, Matt Glennon’s extensive career in football began with a solitary performance for Rovers, pleasurably enough for a goalkeeper in a goalless draw where he was awarded the Man of the Match accolade. His career took off at Hull, where a successful 2001-02 campaign was followed by an appearance against Rovers in August 2002, and he and Lee Maddison played together for Carlisle against Rovers before the 2002-03 season was out. Indeed, Glennon became a household name at Carlisle, who reached the LDV Vans Trophy Final of 2003, which was lost 2-0 to Bristol City, surviving relegation to the Conference by a solitary point in 2003, only to drop twelve months later and return to the Football League via the play-offs in May 2005. As a consequence Glennon, sent off at Rochdale in March 2004, appeared in what was temporarily Carlisle’s final League fixture and can add 38 Conference outings to his impressive career tally at Brunton Park. Having conceded an own goal in Falkirk’s 3-1 home defeat against Dundee United in October 2005, Glennon scored at the right end in St Johnstone’s 2-2 draw at Ross County in March 2006 to join the rare breed of goal-scoring goalkeepers; having come forward for a corner two minutes from time, he fired home from ten yards out to earn a late point. Another unusual achievement came at Huddersfield, where he saved three penalties in the home game with Crewe in February 2007, first from Ryan Lowe four minutes before the interval, then from Gary Roberts eleven minutes from time and, having been adjudged to have moved, the re-taken penalty from Julien Baudet. One of two Terriers sent off at Southend in a 4-1 defeat in December 2007, he played three times against Rovers before playing in Stockport’s final League fixture, a 2-0 defeat at Crewe, as they lost their Football League status in 2011. Twelve games for the re-formed Chester side helped them to the Northern Premier League title in 2011-12 and 35 matches with Halifax took his side to the Nationwide North play-offs, where they defeated Brackley Town in the final to reach the Conference. An unused substitute as Halifax secured the West Riding Cup, defeating Guiseley at Valley Parade in May 2013, he was sent off after just 21 minutes at Cambridge in August 2013, conceding the second penalty of nine-man Halifax’s game. Glennon having 111 Conference appearances in all to his name whilst at The Shay, Halifax reached the Conference play-offs in the spring of 2014, losing over two legs to Cambridge United, whilst he was in the opponents’ side for both Halifax’s Conference games with Rovers during the 2014-15 season, as well as a 7-0 crushing at Grimsby in October 2015. Halifax were relegated to the Conference North in the spring of 2016, and Glennon missed the Wembley FA Trophy Final, as Grimsby Town were defeated 1-0. Matt Glennon, who played four times for Buxton and in one match each for Scarborough and Emley, is married to Nicola with daughters Alannah and Imogen and he runs a hairdressing salon in Emley, called G27. |
No 411. Brian Cameron Godfrey. 1971-73.
Born, 1.5.1940, Flint, Died, 11.2.2010, Nicosia, Cyprus. 5’ 9”; 11 st 11 lbs. Début: 14.8.71 v York City. Career: Wrexham (trial); Chester (trial); Tranmere Rovers (trial); August 1955 Flint Alexandra; 1956 Everton (professional, May 1958) [1,0]; June 1960 Scunthorpe United [87,24]; October 1963 Preston North End (£8,000) [121+1,52]; 1.9.67 Aston Villa [139+4,22]; 26.5.71 Bristol Rovers (exchange for Ray Graydon, plus £35,000) [79+2,16]; 9.6.73 Newport County (£10,000) [117+1,14]; 27.4.75 Portland Timbers (loan) [20,3]; July 1976 Bath City (manager); January 1979 Exeter City (manager); July 1983 Bath City (manager); 12.12.83 Weymouth (manager); 5.6.87 Gloucester City (manager to 5.11.91, re-appointed, 1.2.92 to April 1994); 20.1.95 Cinderford Town (coach; assistant manager, 10.5.96; manager, 28.2.97); July 1998 Shortwood United (manager); Newport County (scout); Gloucester City (scout); July 1999 Cinderford Town; July 2000 Gloucester City (assistant manager, to 12.6.03). Experienced Welsh midfielder Brian Godfrey arrived at Eastville toward the end of a successful career, shortly after captaining Villa in the 1971 League Cup Final against Spurs. They had defeated Rovers in a quarter-final replay on their way to Wembley. Tough and effective in the middle of the field, he scored a hat-trick in the opening twenty-five minutes of the home game with Bradford City in September 1971, scoring after one, six and 25 minutes; five goals ahead by that stage, Rovers won 7-1. Rovers were one of three clubs for whom he had registered a League hat-trick, for he also scored three times in Preston’s 5-1 win at Ipswich in August 1964 and three goals in a four-minute burst during a 9-0 home win against Cardiff City in May 1966, as well as in Newport’s 4-0 home victory over Workington in March 1974. Godfrey, who had played once for Everton in a 2-0 defeat at Fulham in January 1960, was reserve for Preston at the 1964 FA Cup Final, in an era when substitutes received no medal, and helped Scunthorpe to their highest ever placing, fourth in Division Two in 1961-62, as well as playing against Stanley Matthews (1915-2000) in the FA Cup. He was Preston’s first goal-scoring substitute, in a 5-1 defeat against Coventry City on New Year’s Day 1966. Twice Villa’s Player of the Year, he had scored once in three League games for Scunthorpe against Rovers and his arrival at Eastville was something of a coup. Godfrey, the holder of a Welsh Under-23 cap from the goalless draw in Northern Ireland in February 1962, had three full caps for Wales to his name and had scored twice for his country, against George Best’s (1946-2005) Northern Ireland in April 1964 and in a 4-1 defeat in May 1965 against Italy in Florence. He was to win the Western Division with Portland Timbers, in addition to playing in the NASL League Cup Final against Tampa Bay Rowdies and he led Bath to the Southern League title in 1977-78 as well as two Anglo-Italian Cup Finals, and Exeter to the FA Cup quarter-finals in 1980-81, where they lost 2-0 to eventual winners, Spurs. Under his care, Gloucester drew in the FA Cup with Cardiff City, were Midland Division champions in 1988-89 and only missed out on promotion to the Conference in 1991 because Farnborough scored at Atherstone three minutes from time on the final day. The elder of two sons to Archibald Cameron Godfrey (1905-58) and his wife Frances Roberts, he married Judy and they had three daughters, Judith, Rebecca and Rachel, and seven grandchildren. Awarded a testimonial in 2003, when Villa visited Gloucester City, Brian Godfrey was a stationery and office equipment delivery driver around Cheltenham before retiring to Cyprus in June 2003; he died in Lefkosa Hospital in Nicosia of leukaemia, aged sixty-nine, and is buried at the British Cemetery in Girne. |
No 211. Leslie Howard Golledge. 1934-37.
Born, 3.8.1911, Chipping Sodbury. Died, 19.7.1989, Fishponds, Bristol. 5’ 10”; 10 st 3 lbs. Début: 9.2.35 v Crystal Palace. Career: Shortwood; Kingswood Rovers; July 1930 Bristol City (professional, June 1931) [25,3]; 1.6.35 Bristol Rovers [9,1]; July 1937 Cheltenham Town (to 1939); January 1948 Bristol St George (trainer; July 1948 vice-chairman; July 1952-February 1960 chairman). Amateur inside-forward Les Golledge was the older son of Frederick Harold Golledge (1880-1956) and Mary Ann Masters (1885-1973), his younger brother Robert being on Rovers’ books between 1932 and 1934; another brother was with Bristol City in 1933-34. Having been in City’s Colts side as early as January 1931, he scored on his Second Division début that August against Nottingham Forest. After appearing against Rovers in the Bristol City side for the 1933 Gloucestershire Cup Final replay, Les Golledge played sporadically for Rovers over three seasons. During this time he helped the reserve side secure the 1936-37 Western League championship and he appeared in the 6-1 defeat at Aldershot in December 1935 when Phil Taylor was suffering from a severe cold. Golledge’s only goal for Rovers arrived in the 6-1 home win against Exeter City in April 1936 and he also played in the Allen Palmer Cup Final against Bournemouth, a 2-1 win, four days later. Of his five goals in two seasons at Cheltenham, two came in the 6-0 victory over Torquay United reserves in November 1937. He married Gwendoline Simmons (1911-86) on 22nd November 1936 and their daughter Gwenda married Malcolm Coles in 1963. A stalwart for many years at St George, Les Golledge resigned as chairman in 1960 as he was moving away from the area; by the time of his death he was resident at 459 Fishponds Road and he is buried in Avon View Cemetery. |
No 560. Colin Kenneth Gordon. 1990-91.
Born, 17.1.1963, Stourbridge. 6’ 1”; 12 st 12 lbs. Début: 26.2.91 v Burnley. Career: Stourbridge; 1981 Worcester City; 1982 Halesowen Harriers (trial); 1982 Oldbury United; 1.11.84 Swindon Town [70+2,34]; 3.7.86 Wimbledon (£80,000) [2+1,0]; 15.2.87 Gillingham (loan) [4,2]; 17.7.87 Reading (£80,000) [23+1,0]; 24.3.88 Bristol City (loan) [8,4]; 7.10.88 Fulham (£100,000) [12+5,2]; 29.6.89 Birmingham City [17+9,3]; 13.9.90 Hereford United (loan) [6,0]; 19.12.90 Walsall (loan) [6,1]; 23.1.91 Bristol Rovers (loan) [1+3,0]; 19.7.91 Leicester City [18+6,5]; January 1993 Kidderminster Harriers (free) (player-coach); 1993 Gloucester City (loan); May 1994 Stourbridge (player-manager); 1996 Walsall (youth team coach); 1998 Wolverhampton Wanderers (youth team coach) (to 1999); 29.4.15 Kidderminster Harriers (board of directors; 24.7.15 Under-21 coach; 22.9.15-9.10.15 caretaker manager; 8.1.16-21.4.16 manager; 2.11.15-22.10.19 chairman). Though still not thirty years of age, free-scoring Colin Gordon had performed in the League for nine separate clubs before joining Rovers. After one substitute appearance at Stourbridge and one goal in six games at Worcester, he made his mark at Swindon, where he had been talent-spotted by the veteran Bert Head, and scored a hat-trick against Hereford United in April 1985. Six goals in a four-match spell for Reading in October 1987 could not prevent the Berkshire club’s relegation to Division Three that campaign. An understudy at Wimbledon to John Fashanu, he played in the Bristol derby in April 1988, which Rovers won through a Gary Penrice goal, and contributed the goal against Doncaster Rovers which took City to the 1987-88 play-offs, having missed a penalty and broken his wrist earlier in the same game. Featuring in both Fulham’s fixtures against Rovers in 1988-89, he then contracted blood poisoning at Birmingham, after being accidentally bitten on the arm by a Swansea player. He was a temporary response to an injury crisis in Rovers’ first campaign back in Division Two, starting for the only time against his former club Swindon and he later scored for Walsall against Wrexham over Christmas 1990. Groin and hip issues suffered whilst at Leicester eventually led to a hip replacement at the age of thirty-seven, although only after Gordon had scored twice in three minutes for Kidderminster against Yeovil Town in March 1993, scoring three goals in sixteen Conference games and he lost the managerial post at Amblecote after Stourbridge had won only once in ten games. The elder child of Ken Gordon and the Italian-born Pia Gobbi, and now married to Karen with two sons and a daughter and living in Stourbridge, Colin Gordon left football in 1999 to focus on a career in sports goods and later set up Key Sports Management, an agency which employs seven people and enjoys over sixty clients. Amongst the figures he represents are Steve McClaren, Theo Walcott and David James, whose transfer to Ashton Gate in 2010 he co-ordinated, and this rôle has allowed him to present well-supported allegations against corruption within football finance. Tempted back into football onto the Kidderminster board, he found himself in temporary charge in the autumn of 2015, as the Aggborough club endured a torrid start to their Conference campaign which was to end in relegation, and became the major shareholder of the club that November. He helped Harriers to the play-offs in Nationwide North in 2016-17. |
No 868. Jake Gosling. 2015-17.
Born, 11.8.1993, Oxford. 5’ 9”; 10 st 7 lbs. Début: 22.8.15 v Barnet. Career: Godolphin Athletic; 2003 Swindon Town; 2004 Plymouth Argyle; 2009 Hartpury College; 1.4.11 Exeter City (professional, 17.4.12) [6+9,1]; 1.9.12 Dorchester Town (loan); 13.3.14 Gloucester City (loan); 24.6.14 Bristol Rovers (free) [8+10,0]; 26.2.16 Newport County (loan) [2+4,0]; 18.8.16 Cambridge United (loan) [3+1,0]; 16.1.17 Forest Green Rovers (loan); 6.6.17 Torquay United (free); 22.11.19 Sporting Khalsa; 6.11.21 Bristol Manor Farm. Forty-eight hours after opposing Robert Lewandowski’s Polish side in international football, winger Jake Gosling appeared as a substitute in Rovers’ 1-0 home victory over Wrexham. Oxford-born but brought up from 2004 in Newquay, he nonetheless enjoyed international football thanks to a family connection with Gibraltar. Once the rock nation was accepted into FIFA’s fold, Gosling scored on his international début, his goal in a 1-1 draw in Estonia in May 2014 being the first competitive away goal scored by his country and won twelve caps in all, conceding a penalty against world champions Germany in June 2015. His consolation goal against Poland in September 2015 marked him out as the rock nation’s all-time leading scorer (with two goals), a fact which Rovers’ manager Darrell Clarke seized upon in a filmed celebratory act similar to that put on by Manchester United after Wayne Rooney had become England’s all-time leading scorer just a few days earlier. He qualified to represent Gibraltar as his father, a Royal Air Force serviceman, had been born there. During the 2014-15 campaign, as Rovers pushed hard for an immediate return to the Football League, Gosling appeared in 15(+8) Conference matches and added three goals as the Gas finished one point behind champions Barnet; it was his right-wing corner which led to Ellis Harrison’s goal in the Wembley play-off final in May 2015 as Rovers dramatically secured promotion back to League football. The following campaign saw him play just a bit-part, and indeed was sent out on loan, but he was involved in the move from which Lee Brown scored Rovers’ very late final-day goal at home to Dagenham, to secure back-to-back promotions in May 2016 and elevate the club into League One. More parochially, he had scored an 83rd-minute goal as Exeter defeated Northampton Town 3-0 in March 2013, appearing alongside Jamie Cureton, Pat Baldwin and Danny Coles at St James’ Park, and opposing Rovers the same month as a half-time substitute for Bristol-born Tommy Doherty at The Mem. His twelve Nationwide South appearances with Dorchester were goalless, although he did score from ten yards out as the non-league side defeated Plymouth Argyle in an FA Cup shock in November 2012, and his twelve games in the same division for Gloucester included goals against Harrogate Town, Brackley Town and Telford. He played in 4(+3) Conference matches with Forest Green Rovers during their promotion season, although he had left The New Lawn before their Wembley play-off victory over Tranmere Rovers and later played up front at Torquay alongside Rory Fallon, where he played in 9(+5) matches without scoring as The Gulls were relegated from the Conference. He later added four goals in twenty games with Manor Farm. |
No 343. Anthony Michael Gough. 1958-59.
Born, 18.3.1940, Bath. 6’; 12 st 2 lbs. Début: 30.4.59 v Sheffield Wednesday. Career: West Twerton Youth Club; 7.8.56 Bath City; 10.5.57 Bristol Rovers (professional, May 1958) [1,0]; 11.8.60 Trowbridge Town; 8.5.61 Bath City; 1961 Frome Town (loan); 13.7.70 Swindon Town (£500) [24+1,2]; 23.7.71 Hereford United; 14.7.72 Torquay United [2,0]; Bath City (loan); 11.5.73 Bath City; 1974 Welton Rovers; Cinderford Town; Melksham Town. Playing League football in the 1950s and the 1970s, but not in the Sixties, Tony Gough was Hereford’s captain for their memorable FA Cup victory over Newcastle United. The young man from Bath, the elder child of Ernest Gough and Dorothy Swift, had scored when the reserves drew 5-5 with Brighton reserves before a crowd of 3,331 at Eastville in March 1959, and was a teenage débutant when Rovers beat Wednesday 2-1 (“Gough had an intelligent opening half, but later showed he is not ready for this class of football”, as the local press observed) and next appeared in the Football League eleven years 121 days later, scoring against Sunderland on his Swindon début; in the return fixture with the Black Cats, Gough was stretchered off the field and never played for the Robins again. In the meantime Gough, who lived in Oldfield Park, had made a name for himself at Bath City where, with 481 appearances to his name, he remains the club’s record appearance maker. Alongside Brian Carter, he was in the side which drew 1-1 with Bolton Wanderers at Twerton Park in an FA Cup third round tie in January 1964. He was awarded a testimonial game against League champions Manchester City in 1969 and scored twice in a 5-5 draw. As late as August 1970, a headed goal six minutes before half-time against Sunderland was the first of Gough’s League career, his second goal coming the following March, as Blackburn Rovers were defeated 3-0. In 1971 he moved to Hereford, where his nineteen goals in 64 games included a tally of nine in 35 Southern League appearances. It is for the Bulls’ exploits in the FA Cup, though, that this spell is best remembered, for Hereford pulled off an astonishing 2-1 victory over Newcastle in the spring of 1972, oft-replayed television footage showing a sprightly Ronnie Radford (1943-2022), socks around his ankles, celebrating a wonder goal and captain Tony Gough appearing in the aftermath. Signed for both Swindon and Torquay by the former Rovers manager Fred Ford, and working under Malcolm Allison (1927-2010) at Bath, Gough’s career took another dramatic twist when the veteran scored the goal against Andover in April 1974 which secured the Southern League title for the Romans. |
No 830. Conor John Joseph Gough. 2011-12.
Born, 9.8.1993, Fyfield. 6’ 7”; 13 st. Début: 5.5.12 v Dagenham and Redbridge. Career: 2006 Charlton Athletic (professional, 29.3.11); 26.3.11 Lewes (loan); 29.3.11 St Albans City (loan); 4.8.11 Salisbury City (loan); 16.12.11 Eastbourne Borough (loan); 20.3.12 Chelmsford City (loan); 2.5.12 Bristol Rovers (free) [2,0]; 23.7.14 Gray’s Athletic; 25.5.15 Concord Rangers (free); 28.8.15 Canvey Island (free); 23.3.17 Chelmsford City (free); 16.6.17 Canvey Island (free). With a reserve team game under his belt, a 2-1 defeat at Yeovil in which he saved a penalty, strikingly tall goalkeeper Conor Gough became the fourth custodian used in Rovers’ season when making his League bow. Unusually for a Rovers keeper, he was dressed in blue, at Dagenham on the final day of the 2011-12 season, and conceded a hat-trick to Brian Woodall as Rovers crashed 4-1. He then replaced Steve Mildenhall for Rovers’ 4-2 victory on the same ground on Easter Monday 2013. Earlier in his career, loan spells had brought one game for Lewes against Dartford, three defeats with St Albans, fifteen matches for Salisbury, a game for Eastbourne at home to Weston-super-Mare and two matches with Chelmsford City. After Rovers, he appeared in eighteen Isthmian League Premier Division matches with Gray’s Athletic, where he was Young Player of the Year for 2014-15, five Nationwide South matches with Concord Rangers and 63 Ryman League games at Canvey Island, who were relegated from the Ryman League Premier Division in April 2017; he did not make the first-team in his second spell at Chelmsford City. He played on despite losing the top of his little finger on his left hand, when a beam fell on it during his work on a building site in Dagenham in September 2016. Gough left school with twelve GCSEs to his name prior to taking up a career in professional football. |
No 446. Robert Alfred Gould. 1977-79.
Born, 12.6.1946, Coventry. 5’ 10”; 11 st 5 lbs. Début: 15.10.77 v Blackburn Rovers. Career: St James’ Youth Club; June 1964 Coventry City [78+4,40]; 2.2.68 Arsenal (£90,000) [57+8,16]; 2.6.70 Wolverhampton Wanderers (£55,000); 15.9.71 West Bromwich Albion (£66,666) [52,18]; 15.12.72 Bristol City (£70,000) [35,15]; 23.11.73 West Ham United (£80,000) [46+5,15]; 4.12.75 Wolverhampton Wanderers (£30,000) [63+11,31]; 14.10.77 Bristol Rovers (£10,000) [35+1,12]; 13.9.78 Hereford United (£10,000) [42+3,13]; November 1979 Chelsea (player-coach); 1981 Aldershot (player-coach); 22.10.81 Bristol Rovers (manager); 16.5.83 Coventry City (manager); 16.5.85 Bristol Rovers (manager); 26.6.87 Wimbledon (manager); November 1990 Queen’s Park Rangers (coach); 25.2.91 West Bromwich Albion (manager); 24.6.92 Coventry City (manager); 17.8.95 Wales (manager); 3.2.98 Cardiff City (acting trainer; manager, 7.8.00; club manager, 16.10.00); 22.1.03 Cheltenham Town (manager); 18.10.03 Gloucester United (manager); 10.2.04 Peterborough United (coach); 2006 Hawkes Bay United, Australia (assistant manager); 12.4.09 Weymouth (manager, to 15.5.09); October 2012 Wanderers (manager); 16.11.13 Portishead Town (caretaker manager). Hat-trick scoring débutant and twice club manager, Bobby Gould could count Rovers on the extensive list of clubs listed in his impressive career record. Accepted by many as unlucky not to have won an England cap, Gould certainly scored goals freely during his playing career. Top scorer in the division as Coventry were promoted from Division Two in 1966-67, his tally including a hat-trick against Ipswich Town that December, his large transfer fee to Arsenal led to a Fairs Cup goal against Glentoran in September 1969 as well as a goal in the 1969 League Cup Final at Wembley. On a Wembley pitch recently churned up by the Horse of the Year Show, the Gunners were surprisingly defeated by third-tier Swindon Town, even though, with four minutes remaining, “battling Bobby Gould powered through the mud to ram in an equaliser” (Norman Giller). He scored the goal against Hull City in September 1973 which put Bristol City top of Division Two, won the Texaco Cup with Wolves, was an unused substitute as West Ham defeated Fulham in the 1975 FA Cup Final and was Hereford’s leading scorer in 1978-79. He had registered a League Cup hat-trick when the Hammers defeated Tranmere Rovers 6-0 in the autumn of 1974. Gould’s arrival at Eastville sparked a surge in interest in the club, a trend justified when the accomplished striker scored a hat-trick on his début in a 4-1 victory, equalling the record of Jimmy McCambridge and Joe Riley; Gould’s hat-trick was registered before half-time, David Staniforth adding a second-half goal in a 4-1 home victory. The veteran striker’s second appearance in a Rovers shirt, though, was the televised 9-0 defeat at White Hart Lane. A measured lob after 21 minutes at Roker Park enabled Rovers to knock illustrious Sunderland out of the FA Cup 1-0 in January 1978. Bobby Gould turned his hand to football management, although his playing career never quite ended; he made a substitute appearance for Backwell against Bath City in the Western League in February 1985, he scored for Coventry reserves against Bolton in September 1993, aged forty-seven, and played for Hereford reserves the following spring. Gould proved an adept and talented manager, taking an under-rated and under-funded Wimbledon side to an FA Cup Final in 1988 when, to the astonishment of the footballing world, all-conquering Liverpool were defeated 1-0. He was manager of the Welsh side before resigning in the aftermath of a 4-0 World Cup defeat in Italy in June 1999, he managed Cheltenham when they were relegated to Division Three in 2002-03 and brought his side to The Mem in September 2003, all the time working as a football consultant at Hartpury College, and he worked at Peterborough under Barry Fry before resigning at half-time of an LDV Vans Trophy game at Ashton Gate. Bobby Gould turned down a managerial job with Rovers in 1980, but led the side in two spells, masterminding re-establishing the side in third-tier football following relegation and later being in charge for the final Eastville campaign and the traumatic move to Bath, where he started the team-building process which was to lead to the Third Division title in 1989-90. Roy Gould and Helen Morton, who married in Coventry at the end of World War Two, had two footballing sons, Trevor who played for Northampton Town, and Bobby; he and Margery had two sons, Jonathan playing for Coventry City (and winning two caps for Scotland, against Lithuania in 1999 and Norway the following year) and Richard working as Chief Executive first at Somerset CCC, later with Surrey and more recently at Bristol City. Jonathan’s son Matt was in goal for Stourbridge, when they reached the FA Cup third round in 2016-17 and was called up at the age of twenty-eight to the New Zealand squad for the spring 2022 fixtures with Jordan and Uzbekistan. Bobby Gould, who took brief charge at Weymouth after the club had lost eleven consecutive Conference matches and not scored in 716 minutes, now lives in Portishead. |
No 857. Alan Gow. 2013-14.
Born, 9.10.1982, Clydebank. 6’; 11 st. Début: 8.2.14 v Oxford United. Career: Yoker Boys’ Club; 24.11.00 Clydebank [3+4,0]; 30.8.02 Airdrie United (free) [67+17,25]; 1.6.05 Falkirk (free) [64+6,13]; 1.2.07 Rangers (free); 1.9.08 Blackpool (loan) [10+7,5]; 2.2.09 Norwich City (loan) [8+5,0]; 14.8.09 Plymouth Argyle (£200,000) [8+6,2]; 1.2.10 Hibernian (loan) [3+4,0]; 2.9.10 Motherwell (free) [9+6,1]; 14.1.11 Notts County (free) [12+4,1]; 15.8.11 East Bengal (free); 7.2.12 Rah Ahan (trial); 22.3.12 Exeter City (free) [45+13,14]; 7.2.14 Bristol Rovers (loan) [4,0]; 2.8.14 Inverness Caledonian Thistle (trial); 20.2.15 St Mirren (free) [7+9,0]; 8.6.16 Airdrieonians (trial); 4.10.18 Stirling Albion (trial) [1,0]; 12.12.18 Queen’s Park (free) [9+6,0]; 28.8.20 Falkirk (Head of Football Operations, to 2.11.20). Mercurial forward Alan Gow joined Rovers alongside Steven Gillespie as the club attempted to halt a potential freefall into Conference football in the spring of 2014. An experienced forward or attacking midfielder, he had a “habit of bamboozling defences from a roving rôle between the lines”, according to the Exeter City website, and was the Grecians’ top scorer at the time of his transfer. Following a Scottish League bow, as a substitute for goal-scorer Johnny Walker, in Clydebank’s 1-1 draw at Queen’s Park in November 2000, Gow helped Airdrie secure the Division Two title in 2004, scoring twice in the opening twenty minutes as Berwick Rangers, five goals down inside 24 minutes, were defeated 6-0 that April. Two Premier League campaigns at Falkirk included a 26-minute hat-trick in the 5-1 New Year’s Day 2007 victory against Dundee United, whose centre-backs were David McCracken and Garry Kenneth, but a move to Rangers brought just two cup-tie appearances, at East Fife in the League Cup and East Stirling in the Scottish Cup. Club form earned an appearance for Scotland B against Finland B at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock, coming off the bench to score in a 2-2 draw. South of the border, Gow’s first goal came for Blackpool against Cardiff City in October 2008 and, following a Norwich début in a 3-3 draw at Wolves, he scored against Cardiff City and Sheffield Wednesday in his first two Argyle appearances. Returning north, he scored for Motherwell at Inverness in November 2010, as well as Scottish Cup goals both at Hibs, against Montrose, and for Motherwell against Dundee United. Gow was in the Notts County side which faced Rovers in the spring of 2011, as well as helping County draw with a strong Manchester City side in the FA Cup; his solitary goal proved the winner at Hillsborough, although he also “scored” in the abandoned game with Tranmere Rovers. After five games and two goals working under Trevor Morgan in India, plus an Iranian trial, he enjoyed success with Exeter, appearing three times against Rovers after his first two goals, in an eight-minute spell, had eased the Grecians to a 4-2 victory over Walsall. St Mirren were relegated after completing the 2014-15 campaign at the foot of the Scottish Premier League, Gow scoring in a League Cup-tie at Annan Athletic the following August. After two years out, he played in Stirling’s 1-0 defeat at Cowdenbeath before resurrecting his career with Queen’s Park; he was sent off in March 2019 in a 2-0 defeat at Edinburgh City for two bookings in three minutes, the second for a late foul on Liam Henderson. Alan Gow had his driving licence revoked in February 2014 and was then caught by police, driving his Land Rover with personalised number plates through Drumchapel in August 2019, whilst his license remained revoked. |
No 941.Josh Grant. 2020-
Born, 11.10.1998, Brixton. 6’; 13 st 3 lbs. Début: 12.9.20 v Sunderland. Career: 2007 Chelsea (professional, 1.7.19); 11.1.19 Yeovil Town (loan) [8,0]; 8.8.19 Plymouth Argyle (loan) [17+5,0]; 18.7.20 Bristol Rovers (free) [51+4,4]. Yeovil Town were in their final Football League season when a young defensive midfielder featured alongside Alfie Santos in a 1-0 victory against Mansfield Town at Field Mill in January 2019; it was Josh Grant’s first League appearance. During the following campaign, the Londoner helped Plymouth gain promotion from League Two, playing alongside Dom Telford and Byron Moore in a team captained by Gary Sawyer. Plymouth in fact played Rovers three times that campaign, Grant appearing in all three, a Football League Trophy tie and two FA Cup clashes ultimately decided by Alex Rodman’s winner at Home Park in a game in which Argyle fielded three unrelated players with the surname Grant. A prodigy at Chelsea, Grant had played in 24 youth games in 2014-15 before captaining the side the following season to the South-West Section title and success in the FA Youth Cup; he was named Chelsea Scholar of the Year. Armed with six caps for England at Under-18 level, he won four Under-20 caps at the 2017 Toulon Tournament, helping England defeat the Ivory Coast in the final and followed this up with thirty games in 2017-18 for Chelsea’s Under-19 side. His last-minute goal against Porto in the semi-final secured a UEFA Youth League Final against Barcelona, which was lost, and Grant also played in 6(+3) League Trophy games for Chelsea Under-21, scoring seven minutes from the end of a 3-1 victory at Exeter City in November 2017, a game in which he played alongside England winger Callum Hudson-Odoi as well as Kylian Hazard. Josh Grant slotted into Rovers’ League side at the start of the 2020-21 campaign and registered the final League goal of Ben Garner’s stint as Rovers manager, a consolation goal in the demoralising 4-1 home defeat to Fleetwood in November 2020, but missed the end of the season through injury. He was to score again twelve months later, the winning goal at home to Northampton Town and was on the field as Rovers secured a dramatic final-day promotion to League One, in defeating already-relegated Scunthorpe United 7-0 at The Mem. However, the following campaign he managed just one substitute appearance, in a 1-0 home victory over Oxford United in the August sunshine, before being ruled out for the rest of the season with a knee operation. |
No 380. Raymond Jack Graydon. 1965-71.
Born, 21.7.1947, Frenchay, Bristol. 5’ 7”; 11 st 5 lbs. Début: 25.9.65 v Swansea City. Career: Greenbank School; Begbrook and Beechcroft; Hambrook; June 1963 Bristol Rovers (professional, 22.9.65) [131+2,33]; 26.5.71 Aston Villa (£25,000, plus Brian Godfrey) [188+4,68]; 2.7.77 Coventry City [17+3,5]; March 1978 Washington Diplomats [26,4]; November 1978 Oxford United (£32,000) [36+6,10] (youth team manager, December 1980; coach, 8.5.81; assistant manager, July 1986); 28.3.88 Watford (youth coach); 1989 Southampton (reserve team manager); 6.7.96 Queen’s Park Rangers (technical co-ordinator of youth football); 6.4.98 Port Vale (coach); 14.5.98 Walsall (manager); 26.4.02 Bristol Rovers (manager); 8.3.04 Shanghai Shenhua, China (coach); 20.2.06 Leicester City (coach, to May 2006). “Powerful runs and scorching shots” (Don Veale) were the trademark of searing runner and talented winger Ray Graydon, who used his career with Rovers as a springboard to further success before returning to manage his home-town club. An apprentice electrician and store-man living in Stapleton and an England cap at Youth and Under-18 level, he became a regular in Rovers’ side in the late 1960s after making the breakthrough as a teenager. Second highest scorer in both 1969-70 and 1970-71 behind Robin Stubbs, registering thirteen League goals both seasons, the fair-haired, raiding winger scored twice in games at Reading, after three and 43 minutes, and Shrewsbury as well as at home to Bury and Bournemouth. Ray Graydon’s two brothers, Mark and Alan, both also played for Hambrook; they were the sons of local footballer William Graydon and his wife Violet Guest, who had married in Bristol in 1941; in his turn, William was the son of the former Bath City player Bill Graydon and his wife Lilly Bridle, whilst Violet’s parents were Harold Guest and Maria Western. Success at Eastville led to further glory whilst at Villa Park. Villa were Division Three champions in 1971-72 and Graydon top scored as promotion to first-tier football was achieved in 1974-75, scoring on Boxing Day 1974 in one of four appearances for Villa against his former club. He also added a hat-trick in the 3-0 victory over Millwall in September 1974 and contributed twelve goals in the top flight in 1975-76. Known for his speed and ability to cross the ball on the run, he scored the only goal of the 1975 League Cup Final, knocking home the rebound after Norwich City’s Kevin Keelan had saved his penalty and won this tournament in both 1975 and 1977 with Villa and in 1986 at Oxford. He also scored in European football, claiming the consolation goal as Antwerp were successful 5-1 on aggregate in a UEFA Cup-tie in September 1975 and his time at Villa Park led to his induction in Birmingham’s Broad Street Walk of Stars, alongside Frank Skinner and Ozzy Osbourne. During a stint in the States, Graydon scored a début goal in a 3-0 victory at Philadelphia Fury and marked the former Rovers central defender Graham Day as Diplomats played Portland Timbers in the semi-final of the Championship play-offs. As a coach, Graydon was in charge of the Watford side, including David James and Jason Drysdale, which secured the 1989 FA Youth Cup, led Walsall to two promotions and a 4-3 win at The Mem in October 1998 and worked under Howard Wilkinson in China. He will also be remembered by Rovers’ supporters for his two years at the helm after the Pirates had dropped into the basement division, during which time he was unable to deliver the hope of a swift return to League One. Now a Premier League referees’ supervisor, Ray Graydon lives in Southampton; he and his wife Sue, married for over forty years, have a son, a daughter and two grandchildren. |
No 690. Giuliano Stefano Luigi Grazioli. 2002-03.
Born, 23.3.1975, Marylebone. 5’ 11”; 12 st 11 lbs. Début: 10.8.02 v Torquay United. Career: Finchley Catholic High School; 1992 Wembley (professional, 1.8.95); 19.10.95 Peterborough United (free) [23+17,16]; 1.11.95 Yeovil Town (loan); February 1996 Enfield (loan); 14.10.96 Woking (loan); 23.12.97 Stevenage Borough (loan); 17.6.99 Swindon Town (free) [45+33,18]; 1.7.02 Bristol Rovers (free) [28+6,11]; 1.7.03 Barnet (exchange deal with Junior Agogo) [27+2,7]; 7.9.07 AFC Wimbledon (loan); 31.7.08 Crawley Town (trial); 10.8.08 Braintree Town; 1.11.08 Dover Athletic; 4.6.09 Bristol Rovers (scout; Community Development Officer, 7.4.10); 24.3.11 Barnet (8.4.11 caretaker manager; 13.5.11 assistant manager, to 16.4.12); 9.9.12 Gillingham (scout); 2016 Leicester City (fitness coach). In September 1998, Peterborough United travelled to Barnet for a Third Division game and won 9-1, this unusual score-line being largely down to five goals from their young striker Giuliano Grazioli. Incredibly, Grazioli then became a hero at the victims of his goal-scoring spree, Barnet, scoring 53 goals in 74 Conference games to earn their return to League football in 2005 as champions, twelve points clear of Hereford United, then being the caretaker manager as they engineered a remarkable final-day escape from relegation in the spring of 2011. He had also played against Rovers in August 2005 in Barnet’s first game back in the Football League, hit the woodwork twice at The Mem in the return fixture and played against Manchester United in the League Cup. Born in London to a father from Parma and a mother from Turin, “Graz” scored in his first two games for Rovers and was top-scorer for the club in 2002-03 before leaving the professional game to pursue further education. Signed by John Still at Peterborough, Grazioli scored as a substitute débutant on his twenty-first birthday before missing fourteen months with a foot injury. He scored seven times in six Conference games on loan at Stevenage, six in five matches at Woking and, impressively, nineteen in thirteen with Yeovil. He also, as a team-mate of Simon Stapleton, scored for the Stevenage side which drew 1-1 with Newcastle United in the FA Cup in January 1998, before losing the replay 2-1. Despite his excellent overhead kick goal against QPR in March 2000, he suffered relegation to Division Two that campaign at Swindon, where he played alongside Wayne Carlisle. At Barnet, hat-tricks against Halifax and Leigh RMI in the 2003-04 season, when he was playing alongside Chris Plummer and Lewis Hogg and was named in the Non-League XI squad, preceded Grazioli’s nomination as Player of the Season in the Conference in 2004-05, during which time he scored a first-half hat-trick as Farnborough Town were defeated 7-1. At Wembley in 2007 to watch Rovers get promoted, he then played against the Pirates in the FA Cup in January 2008, scored in his sole appearance on trial with Crawley and subsequently scored twice in twenty games for Dover, during which time his wife Laura gave birth to twins. |
No 412. Michael Clive Green. 1971-74.
Born, 8.9.1946, Carlisle. 6’ 1”; 12 st 4 lbs. Début: 14.8.71 v York City. Career: Cumbria Schoolboys; Carlisle United (professional, September 1964) [2,0]; July 1968 Gillingham [131+1,24]; 5.7.71 Bristol Rovers (free) [74+3,2]; 22.7.74 Plymouth Argyle (£19,000) [108,8]; 8.3.77 Torquay United (£5,000) (player-manager) [88,7]; August 1981 Newton Abbot; August 1984 Hele Rovers (to 1987). Having captained Rovers to promotion from Division Three in 1973-74, Mike Green did exactly the same with Argyle the following campaign. It was an extraordinary achievement for the young defender and showed the strength of his mental approach to the game as well as his undeniable leadership qualities. During his first extended run in the Rovers side, the team had recorded five straight League victories. Following a 5-0 victory over Bristol City on his Carlisle début in September 1965, he had played against Rovers on five occasions in Gillingham’s colours before arriving at Eastville. A Watney Cup winner in 1972, he was appointed club captain, playing in the historic 8-2 victory at Brighton in December 1973 and even replacing the injured Jim Eadie in goal against Port Vale in February 1974 as Rovers, unbeaten in 32 games at one stage, regained their second-flight status. He also scored that season, with a header from Colin Dobson’s left-wing free-kick nine minutes from the close of a 1-1 draw at Oldham in November 1973. An accomplished defender, he scored in Rovers’ 2-0 home victory over Wrexham in September 1972 and in the 1-1 draw at Oldham in November 1973. He returned to Eastville with the Plymouth side that drew 1-1 in a Second Division fixture in October 1976. Green married June, who worked at Marks and Spencer in Broadmead and they lived at this stage in Nailsea with their pet Labrador, Adam. Captain at Home Park, Green again helped his side to promotion, his subsequent three games against Rovers preceding a stint as player-manager at Plainmoor. Having briefly run a fish-and-chip shop in Cornwall, he ran Sherwell Road Post Office in Torquay from 1982, whilst living in St Catherine’s Road. |
No 791. Michael John Green. 2006-11.
Born, 23.7.1989, Bristol. 6’ 1”; 13 st. Début: 4.9.10 v Oldham Athletic. Career: Filton College; Frampton Rangers; July 2006 Bristol Rovers [2,0]; 22.9.06 Mangotsfield United (loan); 31.3.09 Clevedon Town (loan); 29.7.09 Gloucester City (loan); 7.7.11 Oxford United (trial); 2.8.11 Eastleigh (free); 19.8.11 Gloucester City (free); 29.8.11 Cirencester Town (free); 28.9.11 Gloucester City (free) (to 18.9.14); 18.2.16 Mangotsfield United (free); 3.8.18 Gloucester City (goalkeeping coach; 2.10.18-9.10.18 joint caretaker manager). Regularly Rovers’ unused substitute for five years, goalkeeper Mike Green sat on the bench at the Millennium Stadium, Wembley and throughout Rovers’ 2006-07 promotion campaign. A Rovers supporter, he made his belated club début in a 6-1 League Cup thrashing at Oxford in August 2010 and was booked on his League début three weeks later, when Mikkel Andersen was away on international duty. Recovering from a broken finger suffered in February 2009, Green was voted Gloucester’s joint Player of the Season as they avoided relegation from Conference North. In addition to appearing alongside Lewis Hogg and Matt Groves in a pre-season friendly against Rovers in July 2014, he played 154 times for Gloucester, three times for Clevedon Town and in one match at both Eastleigh and Cirencester Town. He is the father of twins, born in the autumn of 2015. |
No 180. Ronald Clarence George Green. 1931-32.
Born 12.3.1912, Frampton Cotterell. Died, 16.10.1979, Coalpit Heath. 5’ 8”; 11 st. Début: 26.12.32 v Aldershot. Career: Coalpit Heath; October 1929 Bath City; 3.6.32 Bristol Rovers [22,2]; July 1933 Arsenal; February 1935 Notts County [36,7]; July 1936 Charlton Athletic [3,1]; May 1937 Swansea Town [8,4]; 1938 Coalpit Heath (committee, June 1946). Boxing Day 1932 proved the turning-point of Ron Green’s season, as he made his début in place of Billy Jackson and held on to the outside-left position for the remainder of the campaign. A regular in the Bath City reserve side which scored 104 goals in 1931-32, he returned to haunt his old side by scoring for Rovers reserves against them in October 1932 and League goals followed against Orient, with “a dashing header” from George McNestry’s cross, and Swindon Town. A cricketer with Frenchay and Coalpit Heath, Green was unable to make Arsenal’s side, but scored 33 times in 63 London Combination matches for their reserve side as well as three goals in five London FA Challenge Cup-ties, two of these in the 1934 final, as Spurs were defeated 4-0. Arsenal reserves were Football Combination champions in 1933-34 and 1934-35, Green top scoring in the former with twenty-two goals. Armed with a “good turn of speed”, he played for County against Rovers twice in the 1935-36 season, scoring twice in the 6-0 win at Christmas 1935. Alongside George Tadman at Charlton, he scored a first-half goal in the Latics’ 3-1 defeat at Hillsborough in March 1937 and added goals for Swansea against Sheffield Wednesday, Fulham, Chesterfield and Nottingham Forest. The eldest of five children to Alfred Green and Alice Smart, he married Violet Blake in Chipping Sodbury in 1937 and ran a newsagent’s in Coalpit Heath for many years. |
No 498. Ronald Rex Green. 1984-86.
Born, 3.10.1956, Birmingham. 6’ 2”; 12 st 10 lbs. Début: 2.3.85 v Hull City. Career: Alvechurch Town; June 1977 Walsall (£2,000); 31.8.79 Scunthorpe United (loan); 15.3.84 West Bromwich Albion (loan); 2.6.84 Shrewsbury Town (£12,500); 1.3.85 Bristol Rovers (loan); 22.6.85 Bristol Rovers (£15,000) [56,0]; 21.8.86 Scunthorpe United (£12,000) [78,0]; August 1988 Wimbledon [4,0]; 30.9.88 Shrewsbury Town (loan) [36,0]; December 1988 Manchester City (loan); 23.3.89 Walsall (free) [230,0]; May 1991 Alvechurch Town; August 1991 Kidderminster Harriers; November 1992 Colchester United [4,0]; December 1992 football in Hong Kong; January 1993 Bromsgrove Rovers; July 1994 Cambridge United (trial); July 1994 Shrewsbury Town (trial); July 1994 Walsall (trial); August 1994 Hereford United (trial); August 1994 Redditch United; 1995 Moor Green; 1996 Oldbury United; Coventry City (Community Officer). Five consecutive clean sheets through March 1985 endeared goalkeeper Ron Green to Rovers’ supporters and helped stave off the increasingly remote threat of relegation. Tall and agile, Green had been in the Walsall side which conceded four goals at Eastville in February 1984 amongst three games for the Saddlers against Rovers, and his three appearances for Rovers against Walsall included the 6-0 thrashing in March 1986. Often in a side leaking goals, Green also had the misfortune to be between the sticks when Rovers crashed 6-1 at Bournemouth in October 1985 and an injury at Lincoln in April 1986 caused him to be replaced between the sticks by striker Trevor Morgan. He lived in Clevedon for his year on Rovers’ books. Green’s two spells at Walsall included promotion in 1979-80, a season as an ever-present in 1981-82 and a League Cup semi-final against Liverpool in February 1984, before he played in Scunthorpe’s narrow 3-2 defeat at White Hart Lane in the FA Cup in January 1987. Scunthorpe missed out on promotion to Division Three by one point in the spring of 1988, before losing to Torquay in the play-offs, after which Green played in 40 Conference games for Kidderminster and in 32 Beazer Homes League fixtures with Moor Green. Latterly, he played alongside Peter Cawley in the Colchester side which drew 4-4 with Rochdale in November 1992. He had been selected to represent a Non-League XI against the British Students XI in November 1991. The eldest of three children to Rex Green and Dorothy Terry, Ron Green is married to Maureen with two sons and a daughter, and now works for the Royal Mail. |
No 751. Ryan Michael Green. 2006-09.
Born, 20.10.1980, Cardiff. 5’ 7”; 10 st 10 lbs. Début: 5.8.06 v Peterborough United. Career: Cantonian High School, Cardiff; Wolverhampton Wanderers (professional, 1.10.97) [6+2,0]; 2.3.01 Torquay United (loan) [10,0]; 19.10.01 Millwall (free) [12+1,0]; 12.11.02 Cardiff City (loan); 27.11.02 Sheffield Wednesday (free) [4,0]; 31.7.03 Hereford United (free); 31.5.06 Bristol Rovers (free) [64+7,0]; 6.6.09 Hereford United (free); 4.8.12 Port Talbot Town (free); 19.6.14 Merthyr Town (free); 14.9.15 Hereford FC (free; 13.9.18 player-manager; 18.12.18-11.6.19 scout); 19.7.19 Westfields (free). Skipping down the right wing at Wembley in May 2007, right-back Ryan Green whipped in a low ball which Richard Walker steered into the net and Rovers were on course for promotion to League One. Green, the youngest Welsh cap and the man whose goal took Hereford back into League football, was a popular figure with Rovers, who recovered from a foot injury to star at Wembley and then suffered a broken jaw in November 2007. In fact, the son of a Merthyr striker, Phil Green, he had won full international honours before appearing in the League, his first of two Welsh caps being awarded in the summer of 1998 against Malta when he was still seventeen, breaking Ryan Giggs’ national record, although Green’s has also since been surpassed; he also won sixteen caps for Wales Under-21. A Wolves début alongside Keith Curle against his future club Sheffield Wednesday in November 1998 preceded a red card at West Brom in October 2000, he suffered relegation to Division Two with Wednesday and, unable to make Cardiff’s League side, Green played alongside Martyn Margetson in their 3-0 Football League Trophy victory at Exeter in November 2002. A team-mate at Edgar Street of Alex Jeannin and Guy Ipoua, he played in 185(+10) games in the Conference and Football League for Hereford in two spells, including a 7-1 win at Forest Green Rovers in December 2003 and a 9-0 victory at Dagenham in February 2004, but being sent off in his first spell on two occasions, both against Tamworth. Having lost out in play-offs two seasons in succession, Hereford were promoted back to the Football League in May 2006 by beating Halifax Town after extra-time at the Walker’s Stadium, Green firing home the winning goal after 108 minutes. Once back at Edgar Street, he played for the Bulls at the Memorial Stadium in August 2011, but was unable to prevent his side losing their hard-fought League status in 2012. During his second spell at Edgar Street, Green had scored at Macclesfield and at Cheltenham, but had been sent off at Rochdale, Shrewsbury and Lincoln. In two seasons with Port Talbot Town, he appeared in 52(+2) Welsh League fixtures, scoring a last-minute goal in the 6-1 drubbing of Afan Lido in December 2012. His 39 appearances, as Merthyr secured the Southern League First Division title, included goals against Clevedon Town and Taunton Town, and he appeared in their first three games of the following campaign before being sent off during Hereford’s FA Vase match at Hartley Witney in February 2016. Hereford, managed by the former Rovers striker Peter Beadle, were Midland League champions in 2015-16, Green playing in 44 matches in that division, and reached the FA Vase Final, where they were defeated 4-1 at Wembley by Morpeth Town. The following campaign, he was sent off in both Southern League fixture with Didcot Town, the away game in March 2017 being abandoned when there was a pitch invasion two minutes from time, He was also sent off against Evesham United, but played in 38 Southern League First Division matches as Hereford ran away with the title, accumulating 107 points and 108 goals in the process. In 365 matches with Hereford, he scored nine goals, was sent off nine times and was named as the club’s Player of the Year in 2017-18 when, under his captaincy, the Bulls won their third successive promotion. He was awarded a testimonial match in July 2019, when Hereford took on a Wolves Under-23 side. Ryan Green lives near Cardiff with his girlfriend Hannah. Green suffered an Achilles injury whilst playing for Westfields at Long Eaton in an FA VBase tie in April 2021, his game against Hereford Pegasus in August 2022 marking a return to the side after an sixteen-month absence. |
No 309. Stanley Green. 1951-52.
Born, 6.9.1928, West Bromwich. Died, 23.2.2006, Sandwell. 6’ 2”; 12 st. Début: 19.4.52 v Torquay United. Career: Accles and Pollock; West Bromwich Albion (trial); April 1952 Bristol Rovers (professional, 31.7.52) [1,0]; football in West Midlands. Rovers required a special registration to field centre-half Stan Green in the 4-2 defeat against Torquay, as he had been signed after the 1st March deadline. With both Ray Warren and Ken Powell missing through injury, the tall defender was used for this one game. After a son Joseph junior, Joseph Green and Lily Taylor, who had married in 1925, had twins, Elizabeth and Stan. In 1954 Stan married Lilian Moore and their son, Ian Stanley Green, was born five years later. |
No 465. Ashley Russell Griffiths. 1979-81.
Born, 5.1.1961, Barry. 5’ 9”; 10 st 6 lbs. Début: 3.5.80 v West Ham United. Career: St Cadoc’s School, Barry; Barry Schools; July 1977 Bristol Rovers (professional, January 1979) [6+1,0]; 28.6.81 Torquay United; 28.7.81 Yeovil Town; 20.3.82 Gloucester City (free); July 1982 Enfield Town (trial); July 1982 Leytonstone and Ilford (trial); March 1983 Barry Town; 15.12.90 Newport County; 1991 Barry Town; 1992 Inter Cardiff; 1993 Barry Town (assistant manager, 24.11.04); 21.8.05 Barry FC. Captaining Rovers reserves at the age of sixteen, Ashley Griffiths won Welsh Schoolboy and Youth caps and hit the post on his début as West Ham warmed up for the 1980 FA Cup Final, where they defeated Arsenal at Wembley through Trevor Brooking’s early close-range header. He added 36 games and six goals for Rovers’ reserve side the following campaign, whilst making sporadic first-team appearances and later added one goal in 33 games at Gloucester. Sent off on his Yeovil début, a 2-0 home defeat against Gravesend in August 1981, he also scored an own goal against Dagenham the following month. Between his début in a 4-0 victory over Caerleon in February 1983 and 1989, he scored 21 goals in 177(+4) appearances as Barry won the Welsh League in six out of seven seasons, scored in the Welsh League Cup Final of 1983 and captained Barry in the Southern League in 1989-90, scoring once in 38 matches. He later added 41 games and a goal with Newport and six goals in 36 matches with Inter Cardiff before returning to Barry to play in the 1996 Welsh Cup Final, which was lost on penalties to Llansantffraid and secure the Welsh League title again in 1995-96. He also represented Wales against England in a semi-professional international played at Newtown during the 1983-84 campaign. When the Barry club split in 2005, the veteran Griffiths, now living in Cliffwood View, Barry, scored the new side’s first ever goal with a seventeenth-minute penalty against Ragged School. A keen tennis player in his youth, who won a major Under-15 tournament in Swansea, Ashley Griffiths was named after the Australian tennis player, Ashley Cooper (1936-2020), by his sports-mad parents, Michael Griffiths, a former Villa and Newport reserve player, and Dulcie Stacey, the seventh of nine children to William Stacey and Violet Perrett. Currently a social worker in Bridgend, he is married to Gaynor Matthews and has two children, two step-children and several grandchildren. |
No 84. Lewis Henry Griffiths. 1925-26.
Born 7.9.1903, Tonypandy. Died, July 1985, Barry. 5’ 8”; 11 st 4 lbs. Début: 6.2.26 v Luton Town. Career: 1921 Pandy All Blacks, Tonypandy; August 1923 Mid-Rhondda United; 4.2.26 Bristol Rovers (£60) [1,0]; 17.9.26 Torquay United [12,8]; May 1928 Crystal Palace [36,21]; May 1930 Fulham [2,0]; September 1931 Cardiff City; February 1932 Gateshead; September 1932 Ton Pentre; September 1933 Porth; February 1934 Llanelli; December 1934 Porth United; October 1936 Porth Town (to November 1937); October 1938 Demolition and Construction Stars (to October 1939). Full-back Lew Griffiths stood in for one game for Rovers, before being replaced by his future Torquay team-mate Frank Wragge. It was at Plainmoor that he was converted into a marauding and goal-scoring centre-forward, achieving an enviable strike rate there and at Palace. Making his Torquay début for the reserves against St Austell in September 1926, he was to score fifteen times, including an April 1927 strike against Rovers’ reserve side, as the Gulls were Southern League champions, and he played in their inaugural Football League campaign of 1927-28; he also scored ten Western League goals, including another against Rovers reserves. Formerly a team-mate at Mid-Rhondda of Tom Williams, Harry Rose and Billy Richards, all Rovers players in their careers, Griffiths scored as Palace played Rovers on Christmas Day 1928 and added a hat-trick against Brentford in March 1929. The only child of a colliery hewer, Jenkin Griffiths (1884-1944), and his wife Mary Jane Knight of 136 Brithweunydd Road, Trealaw, Rhondda, Lew Griffiths married Mary Williams in 1924 and they lived in Barry. |
No 765. Matthew Thomas Groves. 2007-09.
Born, 11.12.1988, Bristol. 5’ 8”; 11 st 10 lbs. Début: 15.12.07 v Huddersfield Town. Career: Bristol Rovers (professional, 16.5.07) [0+1,0]; 27.3.08 Chippenham Town (loan); 12.8.08 Tiverton Town (loan); 12.12.08 Mangotsfield United (loan); 1.4.09 Weston-super-Mare; 1.8.09 Weymouth; 8.3.10 Yate Town; 18.6.10 Mangotsfield United; 10.10.11 Yate Town (free); 4.6.13 Gloucester City (free); 7.1.15 Mangotsfield United (free); 13.6.17 Larkhall Athletic (free); 8.10.17 Bristol Manor Farm (free); 3.1.18 Paulton Rovers (free); 28.1.19 Bitton (free). “Lightning quick” Matt Groves replaced Andy Williams in the FA Cup against Rushden and made a brief appearance as a 76th-minute replacement for Lewis Haldane at the Galpharm Stadium. In November 2005 he had scored for Rovers in an FA Youth Cup-tie against Bristol City, which was lost 5-3. Sent off on his Yate Town début against Hampton and Richmond Borough for the use of his elbow, he also played for Mangotsfield against Rovers in a pre-season friendly in July 2011. Groves played three times each for Chippenham and Weston, scored once in seven games for Tiverton and added two goals in 24 matches for Weymouth and thirteen in 54 appearances for Mangotsfield, before top-scoring at Yate in the 2012-13 season with fourteen goals. He contributed nine goals in 54(+11) Nationwide North matches for Gloucester City and appeared alongside Lewis Hogg and Mike Green in a pre-season friendly in July 2014. In October 2014 his fortieth-minute shot gave Gloucester City a brief lead at The Mem in a Gloucestershire FA Challenge Cup-tie and he later added seventeen goals in 73(+14) Southern League First Division appearances with Mangotsfield United. He was an usher at Tom Parrinello’s wedding in September 2015 and played alongside him and Lewis Hogg as Mangotsfield faced Rovers in a pre-season friendly in July 2016. Groves scored three goals in eight matches with Larkhall Athletic and played three times for Manor Farm. |
No 585. Andrew Robert Gurney. 1993-97.
Born, 25.1.1974, Bristol. 5’ 9”; 10 st 7 lbs. Début: 2.4.94 v Reading. Career: Marlwood School; Northavon Schools; Yate Town; Kingsmead; St Valier; Bristol Rovers (professional, 10.7.92) [100+8,9]; 15.1.93 Weymouth (loan); 7.7.97 Torquay United (trial); 7.10.97 Torquay United (free) [44,9]; 13.1.99 Reading (£100,000) [5+3,0]; 21.6.01 Swindon Town (free); 31.8.04 Swansea City (free) [25+3,1]; 26.8.05 Swindon Town (loan); 18.1.06 Swindon Town (free) [158+4,23]; 28.12.06 Clevedon Town; 22.2.07 Weston-super-Mare; 25.5.07 Havant and Waterlooville; 22.12.07 Weston-super-Mare; 12.2.08 Newport County; 30.5.08 Weston-super-Mare (manager, 2.2.09); 1.8.10 Mangotsfield United; 13.12.10 Bridgwater Town; 2012 Flowerpot Wanderers; 24.10.14 Roman Glass St George (player-manager). Strong, dependable full-back and central defender Andy Gurney made his League bow in David Pritchard’s absence in a 2-0 defeat against his future club, Reading. A keen snooker player brought up in Pilning and later in Stoke Gifford, Gurney was captain of Rovers’ youth side and scored in home fixtures with Peterborough in consecutive seasons as well as the opening goal, after eight minutes, before conceding a penalty as Bradford City were defeated 3-2 in October 1995. The Supporters’ Club Young Player of the Year for 1994-95, he was also sent off against Stockport in March 1995, after 59 minutes at York that September and in conceding a 64th-minute penalty from which the experienced Bobby Davison scored at Hull in January 1996. A Wembley appearance in May 1995, although Rovers lost 2-1 to Huddersfield in a play-off final, with Gurney hitting his own crossbar at one stage with an attempted clearance, was counter-balanced by the demoralising 2-1 FA Cup defeat that autumn at Hitchin Town. He was also sent off in Rovers’ colours on four occasions in an eighteen-month spell. A goal after just nine minutes of his Torquay début, the first goal Macclesfield ever conceded in the Football League, kick-started a season in which the Gulls lost to Colchester United in a Wembley play-off final, Gurney’s second successive such experience. Top scorer at Plainmoor in his first season, he was then sent off in the autumn of 1998 against Cambridge United and at Barnet and soon left for Reading. Whilst Gurney’s Rovers début had been against the Royals, so too was his Reading début against Rovers, Jamie Cureton and Jason Roberts spoiling his day as Rovers ran up six goals after half-time to win 6-0 at the Madejski Stadium. He scored League goals for the Royals against Oldham Athletic, Brentford and Cambridge United. Sent off for Swindon at Bournemouth and Plymouth, his missed penalty handed a play-off tie to Brighton and with Swansea he was dismissed in a 5-1 win at Kidderminster and booked against Rovers in November 2004. Alongside Ijah Anderson, Lee Thorpe and Kevin Austin with the Swans, where his only goal came in a 2-2 draw with Rochdale in March 2005, Gurney enjoyed promotion to League One with Swansea in 2004-05, only to suffer relegation with Swindon the following campaign, where he played alongside Jerel Ifil, Sammy Igoe and Rory Fallon. A member of the Havant side which won 1-0 away to Notts County in an FA Cup shock in December 2007, he scored five times in 21 games for Weston and suffered relegation from the Conference South in the spring of 2008. He also added two goals in eight matches at Clevedon and nine in 28 with Newport County. The veteran Gurney showed he had not lost his touch, though, by scoring an excellent trademark free-kick as Bridgwater won 2-1 at Wimborne Town in January 2011 and added a hat-trick as Flowerpot defeated Lebeq Tavern in March 2014. St George, under his management, finished third from bottom of the Toolstation Western League Division One in 2014-15 and he even appeared as an emergency goalkeeper in a 2-0 defeat at Calne Town in the Toolstation League in April 2016. He works alongside his father in a car delivery service. |
No 437. Raymond Melvin Guscott. 1976-77.
Born, 18.11.1957, Newport. 5’ 9”; 11 st 2 lbs. Début: 29.12.76 v Southampton. Career: St Julian’s High school; Torco Boys’ Club; Spencer Boys; 1971 Clifton Athletic; 1973 Bristol Rovers (professional, November 1975) [1,0]; July 1977 Northampton Town (trial); September 1977 Minehead; September 1977 Torquay United (trial); 21.10.77 Newport County (trial); 14.11.77 Newport County (free) [12+5,1]; 1978 Minehead (loan); September 1978 Minehead (free); December 1981 Barry Town; May 1982 Forest Green Rovers; 1982 Caerleon; 1984 Cinderford Town; Ellwood. Welsh Schoolboy cap Ray Guscott made just one appearance for Rovers, replacing the injured Jimmy Hamilton for a 2-1 defeat at The Dell before a crowd of 19,790; “début boy Ray Guscott’s speed made him threatening on the break” but Rovers, for a long time a goal ahead, lost to two Mike Channon goals in the final seven minutes. Playing under John Petts, a former Rovers player, at Northampton, he managed two reserve appearances to add to one reserve game with Torquay. A débutant as substitute for Newport at Watford on the day Rovers crashed 9-0 at Spurs, Guscott scored from Eddie Woods’ left-wing cross after just five minutes of his home début in a 2-0 victory over Halifax Town. He made his début for Minehead away to Bath City in September 1977 and accumulated 148(+8) games and 24 goals in all competitions in two spells over four years, before scoring three goals in fourteen Southern League games with Barry. As late as 2010, Guscott played in a veterans’ tournament which was preparing to select a Welsh side for matches against England. Ray Guscott is the youngest of three children, and the only son, of Melvin Guscott and Marjorie Evans; his father was the third-born of seven children to Alfred Guscott (1901-1950), the son of Agnes Griffin (1867-1942) and George Augustus Frederick Guscott (1864-1935), whose parents were George Guscott and Mary James of Crickhowell. |
No 153. Christopher Edward Hackett. 1930-31.
Born, 9.2.1903, Mansfield. Died, 1983, Leicester. 5’ 7½”; 11 st 11 lbs. Début: 28.3.31 v Walsall. Career: Langwith Colliery; 1921 Mansfield Town (amateur); November 1922 Welbeck Colliery; 1923 Newark Town; 1924 Grantham Town; 6.12.24 Leicester City (£35); July 1928 Caernarfon Town; 8.11.28 Bury; July 1929 Scunthorpe United; 15.3.30 Bristol Rovers (£10) [1,0]; August 1931 Loughborough Corinthians; 11.6.32 Accrington Stanley [7,0]; June 1933 Market Harborough Town; August 1934 Leicester City Tramways; August 1935 Cheltenham Town (to 1936). The younger of two sons to a gas-fitter Henry Hackett and Beatrice Alice Emerton (1868-1916) of 48 Mitchell Street, Radford, Chris Hackett represented just Rovers and Stanley in the Football League, although he also managed two appearances at outside-right in the Midland League with Mansfield Town. Hackett and Tom Boyce both made their Rovers début on the same day, Ronnie Dix dropping out through illness shortly before kick-off to create a gap in the forward line, and he scored twice for the reserves as they defeated Ebbw Vale 10-1 in January 1931, as well as scoring against Newport County reserves and Metropolitan Police. He also scored in Rovers’ 4-2 friendly victory over Watchet in April 1931, but missed a penalty, as did Johnny Richardson, when the reserves played Bristol University the previous month. A Stanley début against Halifax Town enabled him to appear in the first six Third Division (North) fixtures of 1932-33 and, dropped after a 5-0 defeat at Barrow, he later managed one final game, a 1-0 defeat at Walsall that Christmas. Having helped Caernarfon Town to secure the runners-up position in the Welsh National League in 1928-29, Hackett also scored five Southern League goals and five cup goals for Cheltenham Town, two coming in the 6-1 victory over Newport County reserves in February 1936. He married Elsie Irene Hill (1906-84) in Leicester in the autumn of 1930 and their son Tom married Sylvia Bird. |
No 292. (Harry) Harold Llewellyn Haddon. 1948-49.
Born, 8.4.1923, Cardiff. Died, 10.8.2013, Bradford-upon-Avon. 5’ 6”; 11 st 5 lbs. Début: 12.3.49 v Orient. Career: 1944 Cardiff City (professional, April 1946); 1946 Bangor City; 28.1.47 Newport County [10,1]; 6.1.49 Bristol Rovers [2,0]; 4.8.49 Trowbridge Town (player-manager, 3.11.51; retired, 9.5.58). Diminutive, constructive inside-forward Harry Haddon, who had played for Cardiff City reserves whilst serving in the Royal Navy, enjoyed a brief spell at Eastville. During his second stint, his two goals for the reserves led to a couple of League appearances and he was in the Newport side defeated 3-1 at Eastville in September 1948. Manager of the Trowbridge side which won the Western League as well as the Western League Cup and Wiltshire Professional Shield in 1955-56, he scored 161 goals for the club, this tally including seventy penalties, and he also became the first Welshman to gain a full Football Association coaching award. He contributed four goals in a 9-2 victory against Wells City in September 1950 and added five further hat-tricks, one of these coming three years later in the FA Cup against Devizes Town. Harry Haddon was the eldest of five children to Christopher Haddon and Catherine Grady, and he married Yvonne Thomas in Neath in the autumn of 1947 and had two daughters. He and Yvonne were living at Northleigh in Bradford-upon-Avon in September 1958, when he began a teacher training course and he taught for many years in that town. By the time of his death at the age of ninety, he was Rovers’ oldest former Football League player. |
No 714. Lewis Oliver Haldane. 2003-08.
Born, 13.3.1985, Trowbridge. 6’; 11 st 3 lbs. Début: 27.9.03 v Cheltenham Town. Career: Southampton (schoolboy); Trowbridge Town; 1.7.02 Bristol Rovers [90+57,15]; 2.4.03 Weston-super-Mare (trial); July 2003 Clevedon Town (trial); 30.3.05 Forest Green Rovers (loan); 12.8.05 Forest Green Rovers (loan); 8.7.08 Oxford United (loan); 1.9.09 Port Vale (loan); 27.1.10 Port Vale (free) [43+20,3]; 2.8.13 Yate Town (free); 7.11.14 Frome Town (free); 3.1.16 Yate Town (free; retired, 12.9.16). A Wiltshire winger at Under-12, Under-13 and Under-14 level, Lewis Haldane won a Welsh Under-21 cap in the goalless draw with Turkey in September 2006. Fast and incisive, he had the crowd on its collective feet, although he also had a tendency to try to beat his man repeatedly. A hat-trick against Oxford United reserves prompted a League call-up seven days later and, on as substitute for the final five minutes of his début, he was fouled by Shane Higgs to earn a penalty. Haldane scored in three consecutive games in October 2003, the first after 61 minutes at Doncaster, and added Rovers’ goal of the month that November, with a twenty-five-yard strike in front of the South Stand to give the side a short-lived lead at home to Bury, whilst his final-minute goal sealed victory in the LDV Vans Trophy semi-final against Orient in 2004-05. Out of favour under Ian Atkins, he appeared 9(+4) times for a Forest Green side only spared relegation when others stumbled financially, and his long-range strike at home to Notts County in March 2006 was his first League goal in over two years. Haldane’s revival encompassed games at the Millennium Stadium, as Rovers lost the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Final 3-2 to Doncaster Rovers in April 2007, and at Wembley the following month, Rovers sealing promotion to League One by defeating Shrewsbury Town 3-1. He also played in the FA Cup quarter-final against West Brom in March 2008, although his only goal of the 2007-08 season was a last-minute header against Millwall, the first headed goal of his career. With Chris Carruthers at Oxford, he scored the Conference Goal of the Month for September 2008, accumulating 34(+9) Conference games and three goals before re-booting his career at Vale Park. Haldane “gets the crowd off their seats”, boasted the Stoke Sentinel and, appearing alongside Sean Rigg and Justin Richards, he played in Vale’s 5-0 win at Chesterfield in March 2010 and was sent off against Hereford United. "Lewis is a confidence player, the type who needs people to have belief in him ... quick, but he's not the finished article. His final ball lets him down at times but when he is in full flow he can be quite exciting", said Vale’s manager Micky Adams. Hospitalised for ten days in July 2010 after an insect bite at pre-season training, Haldane lost three stone in weight and, on his return, a double fracture of the leg against Tranmere Rovers necessitated his retirement from professional football. A testimonial game at The Mem in May 2013 saw Rovers’ Under-18 side beat Rovers Legends 3-0, an 800 crowd raising £3,000. He subsequently scored the winning goal against Wimborne Town in Yate’s first home game of the 2013-14 campaign and was top scorer at the club with thirty goals in 38 Southern League appearances during 2013-14. Ten goals followed in 39(+5) Southern League Premier Division matches with Frome Town, prior to a return to Yate Town, before a broken leg prompted his retirement. Lewis Haldane lives since January 2013 in Chippenham with his girlfriend Michelle, a beautician, and their young daughter Indianna and works in Bristol for a lorry components company. |
No 316. Denzil Paddy Hale. 1953-59.
Born, 9.4.1928, Clevedon. Died, 15.7.2004, Weston-super-Mare. 6’ 1”; 13 st. Début: 28.11.53 v Leicester City. Career: Yatton United; Clevedon Town; 16.4.51 Bristol Rovers (professional, 19.2.52) [120,12]; 29.7.59 Bath City. Local inside-forward Paddy Hale made his début for Rovers reserves against Crystal Palace reserves in April 1951, and had to be content to watch as Rovers secured the Third Division (South) title in 1952-53. Thereafter, a début goal, the second in a 3-0 victory, was the first of twelve in a few months as this exciting forward made a mark on Rovers’ progress in Division Two. Tall and dominant, he was successfully converted into a dependable centre-half, to replace the veteran Ray Warren, and never scored in the League again. During the 1955-56 campaign, Rovers defeated Manchester United 4-0 in the FA Cup and, after losing the final two games of the season, missed promotion to the top flight by just two points. Hale’s only subsequent goal was against Burnley in the FA Cup in January 1958, as Rovers stunned their top-flight opponents by drawing at Eastville and securing a famous 3-2 replay victory at Turf Moor. Living in Clevedon later in life and married to Maureen Pullen, Paddy Hale died in Weston Hospital and was cremated eight days later at Canford Crematorium. |
No 355. Arthur Brian Hall. 1960-62.
Born, 24.3.1937, Eynsham, Oxfordshire. 6’ 1”; 12 st 6 lbs. Début: 19.4.61 v Portsmouth. Career: Witney Town; Oxford City; 23.5.58 Bristol Rovers (professional, July 1958) [2,0]; 8.2.62 King’s Lynn (retired, May 1963). Tall, striking outside-left Arthur Hall played for Rovers against Pompey and, in August 1961, in the fixture with Bury. A bricklayer, he had earlier impressed on trial from Oxford City, where he had not made the first-team, and made his reserve début at home to Luton Town reserves in August 1958. The previous April he had played for the Probables against the Possibles in the Olympic trial game at Villa Park, but he had not been able to make the short-list for the 1960 Rome Olympics side. After a season with King’s Lynn, starting with a début in the 1-1 draw with Chelmsford City, Arthur Hall became a building tycoon, forming Almondsbury Estate Builders Ltd in Stoke Gifford and living in Thornbury, where his wife Doreen Hilda Pegden, whom he married in 1967, ran a ladies’ fashion shop. They retired to Over Lane, Easter Compton. |
No 361. Bernard Raymond Hall. 1961-67.
Born, 8.7.1942, Bath. 5’ 9”; 11 st 2 lbs. Début: 20.4.62 v Charlton Athletic. Career: West Twerton Youth Club; 1958 Bristol Rovers (professional, 2.9.59) [163,0]; 6.4.59 Salisbury City (loan) (retired, 1967). Fifty-four minutes into Rovers’ game with Middlesbrough on New Year’s Eve 1966, talented goalkeeper Bernard Hall collided accidentally with Boro’s John O’Rourke and was carried from the Eastville pitch. For sixteen days he lay unconscious in Frenchay Hospital, before recovering, although his footballing career was ended on medical grounds. Courageous and strong, Hall had previously appeared in 115 consecutive League fixtures for Rovers, being an ever-present in both 1963-64 and 1965-66, and his reputation was such that a testimonial against West Ham drew a 9,000 crowd in October 1967. Harry Redknapp and Geoff Hurst both scoring as the Hammers defeated a Combined Bristol XI 4-3. The second of five sons to Kenneth Hall and Violet Hancock, Bernard Hall had captained Somerset Schools at cricket, as an accomplished wicketkeeper and opening batsman, and he had a Sunday average of 77.25 in 1964 with St George as well as scoring a century for Optimists against Clevedon. Yet it was at football that “this brave, fearless goalkeeper” excelled, signing for Rovers at a transport café in Pensford and playing fourteen times for Rovers’ Colts. In addition, he appeared for Salisbury City when they lost a Wiltshire Cup semi-final 2-0 to Swindon Town in April 1959, after Salisbury’s regular keeper Alan Kingston had been called up for jury service. It was reported that he made “three or four gallant dives at forwards’ feet [and] played a grand and plucky game” (Salisbury Journal). He himself picked out playing in the FA Cup against Manchester United at Old Trafford as a highlight, although a spectacular penalty save from Bournemouth’s Stan Bolton in a Cup-tie at Dean Court in 1963 also stands out. Bernard and Wendy had a daughter, who gave them two grandchildren, Sophie and Dan, also a goalkeeper and Bernard, having worked for Bristol Corporation, spent seven years as groundsman at Imperial and 26 years as a store-keeper for Rolls Royce, before retiring to Whitchurch. |
No 18. Joseph Edward Hall. 1920-22.
Born, 16.12.1887, Boldon, Co Durham. Died, 1957, Barnsley. 5’ 8”; 11 st 8 lbs. Début: 2.10.20 v Brighton. Career: Boldon Villa; 22.8.06 Boldon Star; 27.1.08 Jarrow; 1908 Hull City (trial); July 1909 Bristol City; 21.10.09 South Shields Adelaide; January 1911 Jarrow Croft; 1.9.11 Barnsley [9,0]; 15.5.13 Manchester City [1,0]; 20.8.19 Darlington; 7.8.20 Bristol Rovers [28,0]; 1921 Bristol Aeroplane Company (player-secretary). Centre-forward against Bradford Park Avenue in April 1915 in his sole appearance for Manchester City, full-back Jack Hall gave Rovers able service in the first two Football League campaigns. A clean kicker of the ball, he defended reliably and even spent twenty-five minutes in goal after Jesse Whatley was injured against Charlton Athletic in September 1921. He scored a twice-taken penalty for the reserves against Bristol City reserves the following month, but missed one against Mid-Rhondda United that Christmas. Having appeared in just one cup-tie, the 9-0 win against Worksop Town in December 1920, Hall played Suburban League football for BAC, whom he also represented as a wicketkeeper. A “relative” also named Hall, a centre-forward, was equally on Rovers’ books in 1921. Census returns show Joseph and seven younger siblings at home with their parents Robert Hall and Alice Stephenson at 1 Talbot Road in Boldon Colliery, near Sunderland; Robert, an undertaker by profession, was dead by the time of his son’s wedding, by which time Jack’s address was 19 Aston Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester. Jack Hall’s bride on 27th October 1913 at St Peter’s, Barnsley was Dorothea Ruddock (1894-1920), a daughter of local publican, Thomas Henry Ruddock (1863-1934), but she sadly died, aged just twenty-six, giving birth to their fifth child. By 1939 he was working as a colliery pipe fitter and living with three daughters and his mother-in-law Betsy Ruddock (1867-1941) at 4 Raley Street, Barnsley. |
No 497. Jonathon Geoffrey Hallworth. 1984-85.
Born, 26.10.1965, Stockport. 6’ 1”; 14 st 3 lbs. Début: 26.1.85 v Reading. Career: 1.6.83 Ipswich Town [45,0]; 26.11.84 Swindon Town (loan); 12.1.85 Bristol Rovers (loan) [2,0]; 28.3.85 Fulham (loan); 27.2.89 Oldham Athletic (£75,000) [171+3,0]; 6.8.97 Cardiff City [123,0]; 10.10.01 Oldham Athletic (goalkeeping coach); 22.3.02 Newport County; 2002 Bangor City. Tall and powerfully built, Jon Hallworth played against Swansea in the Freight Rover Trophy and in two League fixtures on loan at Eastville, against Reading and Bolton Wanderers, Rovers losing all three games. Having broken into Ipswich’s side in November 1985, his début coming in a 4-3 defeat at Oxford United, he was unable to make the side at Fulham or Swindon. Playing against Rovers in November 1990 and March 1991, Hallworth made 87 consecutive League appearances for Oldham between August 1990 and May 1992 before an injury against Manchester United in a Premier League game in November 1992 ruled him out of the rest of that campaign. Relegated with Oldham in the spring of 1994 and to Division Two with Cardiff in the spring of 1997, he played for the Bluebirds alongside Steve White, featured in the 7-1 victory over Doncaster Rovers in March 1998 and enjoyed promotion back to Division Two in 1998-99. Married to Diane Marie Yewdale, Jon Hallworth now runs his own business in Stockport. |
No 336. Ian Hamilton. 1958-68.
Born, 12.9.1940, Bristol. Died, 25.4.2021, Bristol. 5’ 9”; 11 st. Début: 6.12.58 v Charlton Athletic. Career: Thornbury; 1956 Bristol Rovers (professional, January 1958) [149,60]; 14.9.67 Exeter City (loan) [4,1]; 30.7.68 Newport County [13+2,2]; 1970 Weston-super-Mare; 1972 Welton Rovers; 1974 Weston-super-Mare (assistant manager). Only one man has scored a League hat-trick for Rovers and ended up on the losing side; inside-forward Ian Hamilton’s goals proved in vain at Southend in October 1964, as Rovers lost 6-3; after giving the Pirates a fourth-minute lead, his goals after 48 and 82 minutes were mere consolation strikes. “Chico” Hamilton, a qualified tool-maker by trade, scored freely for Rovers, his 21 goals in 33 League games in 1964-65 being a particularly impressive return and he hit four goals in the League Cup-tie with Shrewsbury Town in September 1963. Known as “Sir Laurence” for his propensity for winning penalty decisions, Hamilton scored two headers at Halifax in May 1963, as Rovers won 3-2 to preserve their Third Division status and hit a seven-minute hat-trick for Rovers’ reserve side against Swansea in January 1968. His solitary goal for Exeter came in a 3-1 defeat at Doncaster in October 1967, and he later helped Welton Rovers secure the Western League title for 1973-74. The son of John Hamilton, a Rovers wing-half in the 1929-30 season, and Hilda Clutterbuck, who had married in July 1931, Ian Hamilton was on Rovers’ books along with his brother David, a former Filton Methodists and Thornbury Town forward who died tragically young in a bungalow fire at Olveston in November 1961. Ian Hamilton, who suffered a heart attack in 2006, worked as an airframe fitter at Rolls Royce in Bristol until his retirement in 1994 and followed the English cricket side around the globe, watching them play in Australia, Barbados and South Africa. He and his wife Betty, who had a son Steve, a daughter Sarah (who lives in Norwich) and grandchildren, lived from 1976 at Ridgeway, near Almondsbury; latterly suffering from dementia, he died at Deerhurst Nursing Home. |
No 436. James Hamilton. 1976-77.
Born, 14.6.1955, Uddingston. 5’ 11”; 11 st 4 lbs. Début: 18.12.76 v Sheffield United. Career: Coatbridge Juniors; West Bromwich Albion (apprentice); June 1971 Sunderland (professional, June 1972) [8+8,2]; 12.12.75 Plymouth Argyle (loan); 12.1.76 Plymouth Argyle (£12,000) [6+2,0]; 16.12.76 Bristol Rovers (exchange for Bruce Bannister) [16+4,1]; 9.9.77 Carlisle United (exchange for Mike Barry) [150+4,12]; September 1981 football in Australia; May 1982 Gretna; 2.11.82 Hartlepool United [2+1,0]; August 1984 Gretna; November 1984 Queen of the South [20,2]; 1985 Gretna (to 1986). Tall, powerful midfielder Jimmy Hamilton had the tough rôle of stepping into the shoes vacated by the departing Bruce Bannister. This would be to do a disservice to a talented ball-winning, creative player, whose playing style proved somewhat different to the ever-popular striker. Creative and enterprising, his pin-point cross created Alan Warboys’ goal as Rovers took a seventeenth-minute lead over Southampton at The Dell in December 1976. Hamilton gave Rovers confident and able service, scoring as a substitute against Carlisle in May 1977 before joining the Cumbrian side, again in an exchange deal. Sunderland’s youngest ever outfield player, he was sixteen years 103 days when he took the field as a substitute in September 1971, heading a last-minute winning goal in a 4-3 victory over Preston in a dream start. All his games for Carlisle, where he was a team-mate of Rovers’ Paul Bannon as well as household names such as Bryan “Pop” Robson and Peter Beardsley, were in Division Three, so he never opposed Rovers, and his three Hartlepool matches all came in the calendar month of November 1982. Having scored for Queen of the South in home fixtures with Montrose and Queen’s Park, his final game was a 3-0 defeat at Arbroath in January 1985, after which a broken leg at Gretna ended his playing career. Married to Suzy, a health care worker, and with a son Greg and a daughter Chloë, Hamilton left engineering to run a restaurant for Whitbread, then the “Old Bank” restaurant in his own name from 1991 to 2006 and now works as superintendent at the Roucan Loch Crematorium; he and Suzy have lived in Dumfries since 1985. |
No 128. John Peden Hamilton. 1929-31.
Born, 25.4.1909, Armadale. Died, 3.6.1983, Bristol. 5’ 9”; 12 st 7 lbs. Début: 7.9.29 v Swindon Town. Career: Armadale Public School; Avonbridge Juveniles; Penicuik Juniors; 3.6.29 Bristol Rovers [63,2]; June 1931 East Fife; August 1932 Armadale; February 1934 Thornbury Town; September 1935 Thornbury Sports; October 1935 Trowbridge Town. Five Rovers players have scored for both sides in a League match, the first being “Jock” Hamilton. Rovers lost 3-2 at home to Newport County in February 1930 and he marked his first Rovers goal by also scoring for County. The following campaign he scored for Rovers in a big League win at Exeter City and in the FA Cup against Merthyr Town, “playing a plucky game and [being] a fearless tackler”, as the local press noted. Having made his Rovers début for the reserves against Lovell’s Athletic in August 1929, on the same day as Wally Gillespie, Hamilton later scouted for Rovers for fifteen years. He also enjoyed a brief return to Scotland, being named Man of the Match in East Fife’s 6-0 Scottish Division Two victory over Edinburgh City in January 1932 and featuring in the East Fife side which recovered from 5-0 down at half-time to lose only 5-4 at Armadale the following month. His final game north of the border came in January 1934, Armadale’s final ever Scottish League fixture ending in a 2-0 defeat before a crowd of 1,000 at Volunteer Park, Dundee United registering two second-half goals. On leaving Rovers, he married Hilda Clutterbuck in Thornbury on 4th July 1931; one son, David (1936-1956) died in a fire on the verge of a promising League career, whilst another, Ian “Chico” Hamilton, played for Rovers for a decade through the 1960s. |
No 677. Elvis Zark Hammond. 2001-02.
Born, 6.10.1980, Accra, Ghana. 5’ 10”; 10 st 9 lbs. Début: 1.9.01 v Shrewsbury Town. Career: Fulham (professional, 1.8.00) [3+8,0]; 31.8.01 Bristol Rovers (loan) [3+4,0]; 13.8.03 Norwich City (loan) [0+4,0]; 31.1.05 RBC Roosendaal (loan); 5.8.05 Leicester City (loan); 31.8.05 Leicester City (£225,000) [15+18,3]; 28.10.08 Cheltenham Town (trial); 12.11.08 Cheltenham Town (free) [31+15,9]; 26.8.10 Southend United (trial); 2.10.10 Sutton United (free); 29.10.10 Woking; 9.11.12 Farnborough; 25.2.13 Hastings United (loan); 24.1.14 Eastbourne Borough (free); 4.7.14 Kingstonian (trial); 8.7.14 Kingstonian (free). At Orient in September 2001, music enthusiasts noted that Rovers started with The Duke and Elvis up front, Hammond hitting the bar from six yards out from Martin Cameron’s cross twenty minutes from time. The young Ghanaian, brought up in London, had represented Fulham in the League Cup against Chesterfield in September 2000 and later played for the club in the Premier League. Under Ian Holloway at Leicester, he scored in the 3-2 win against Spurs in the FA Cup in January 2006, but suffered relegation from the Championship in 2007-08. By this stage, Hammond had won what was to be his only international cap, playing in the Ghana side defeated 1-0 by Mexico at the evocatively-named Pizza Hut Stadium in Dallas in March 2006. In the Cheltenham team which drew a pre-season friendly 2-2 with Rovers at Whaddon Road in July 2009, he scored twice in fourteen games on loan in Holland, once in three games at Sutton and 22 times in 60 appearances for Woking, Conference South champions in 2011-12. In May 2012, he played as a substitute against his former club as Woking defeated Sutton United 3-1 in the Surrey County Cup Final. Elvis Hammond, of Erskine Road, Sutton, pleaded guilty at Oxford Crown Court in May 2012 to money laundering, he and Victor Williams of Edgware having allegedly made four unauthorised international transfers to Ghana worth £1,270,000 of stolen money, and was sentenced in July 2012 to twelve months in jail; released five months later, he resumed his career at Farnborough, scoring five times in 37 games and adding four appearances on loan at Hastings, plus a goal in the Sussex Senior Cup against Crawley Town and he scored against Bath City on his Eastbourne début, the first of six in fifteen Nationwide South fixtures. With Farnborough re-branded for the start of the following campaign, Hammond had been given the pseudonym “Pelé” to go alongside team-mates such as Beckenbauer and Cruyff. Later, he scored six times in 33(+8) Ryman Premier League fixtures with Kingstonian. |
No 525. Nicholas David Hammond. 1986-87.
Born, 7.9.1967, Hornchurch. 5’ 8”; 11 st 8 lbs. Début: 27.9.86 v Blackpool. Career: Ford United; Swindon Town (trial); 1984 Arsenal (professional, 12.7.85); 23.8.86 Bristol Rovers (loan) [3,0]; 20.12.86 Peterborough United (loan); January 1987 Aberdeen (loan); 1.7.87 Swindon Town [65+2,0]; 31.7.95 Plymouth Argyle (£40,000) [4,0]; 13.12.95 Reading (loan); 8.1.96 Reading (£40,000) [25,0] (Youth Academy Director, October 2000; Director of Football, 20.9.03); 29.4.16 West Bromwich Albion (Director of Football); 20.6.19 Celtic (Director of Football; 16.10.19 Head of Football Operations, to 2.3.21); 21.12.21 Newcastle United (recruitment officer). Loan signing Nicky Hammond was coached at Eastville by the former Scotland international goalkeeper Bob Wilson and later enjoyed many years with Reading. He replaced Tim Carter between the sticks for a draw with Blackpool, victory over Chesterfield and defeat against Notts County. Without a game at Arsenal, Peterborough or Aberdeen, he was in the Swindon side which defeated Rovers 1-0 in September 1991 and suffered two relegations with the Robins from top-flight to third-tier football as well as breaking his leg twice. After conceding an own goal in a 2-0 defeat against Preston in only his second Plymouth game, he featured in Reading’s FA Cup-tie against Manchester United at Elm Park in January 1996 despite suffering from chicken pox at the time. Relegation with Reading to third-tier football as a player, following his December 1995 début against Sunderland, was compensated by twice being part of the set-up that saw the Royals promoted to the Premier League, the second occasion in 2011-12 being as champions. |
No 30. Walter Reginald Hammond. 1921-24.
Born, 19.6.1903, Buckland, Dover. Died, 2.7.1965, Kloof, Durban, South Africa. 5’ 8”; 11 st 4 lbs. Début: 27.12.21 v Brighton. Career: 1916 Portsmouth Grammar School; 1918 Cirencester Grammar School; Union Jack; 1921 Southampton (trial); 13.6.21 Bristol Rovers [19,2]; 1924 Ryde Sports (Isle of Wight); 2.8.29 Yorkshire Amateurs. Only one England cricket international has played League football for Rovers, but what a player! Wally Hammond held the world record for a quarter of a century for the highest number of runs in Test cricket and was quite simply the largest name in English cricket in his generation. Wisden described him as “one of the four best batsmen in the history of cricket”. Gloucestershire captain for many years, he also captained his country in twenty tests from 1938. At county level, Hammond appeared in 634 first-class matches between 1920 and 1951, scoring 10,551 runs and taking 732 wickets, and heading the English batting averages in seven separate seasons. A brilliant slip fielder, he scored two centuries and took sixteen wickets and eleven catches in one glorious four-day burst in August 1928. For his county, he shared in century partnerships for all ten wickets and also scored a century himself in a partnership for each wicket. His 85 Test matches for England brought 7,249 runs at an average of 58.45 and 83 wickets, top scoring with 336 not out against New Zealand in Auckland in 1932, then a world record. In all, he scored 36 double centuries in first-class cricket and captained the MCC on tours to South Africa in 1939 and to New Zealand and Australia in 1946-47. He hit 167 career centuries, reaching 300 on four occasions, and his tally of seven matches in which he hit a century in both innings included the Ashes Test in Adelaide in 1929. At Lord’s in 1938 against Australia, he won the toss and came to the crease with England 31-3, hitting 240 runs in six hours, this tally including 32 fours. As a bowler he took 15-128 for Gloucestershire against Worcestershire at Cheltenham in 1928. Raw statistics, though, do not do justice to his grace and elegance on the sports field. “The instant he walked out of a pavilion”, reported Wisden in 1965, “white-spotted blue handkerchief showing from his right pocket, bat tucked underarm, cap at a hint of an angle, he was identified as a thoroughbred”. “Wally was indeed cricket in excelsis” (Neville Cardus). It is, in fact, faintly surreal to picture the young Hammond as a teenage professional at Eastville, Rovers’ trainer Bert Williams describing him as the fastest runner in his fifty years at the club. Brought up in the Cotswolds, amidst spells in India, Malta and China, Hammond was the son of William Hammond, who was killed in action at Amiens in 1918, and Marion Crisp, and emerged from Downs League football to break into the Rovers side as a teenager, becoming the first player born in the twentieth century to appear for the side in the Football League. The 1-0 win at Brentford in December 1922, when his future England cricket colleague Patsy Hendren (1889-1962) was in the opposition, proved to be the only occasion Hammond was on the winning side for Rovers in the League. His goals for Rovers came in the home draws with Reading in September 1922 and Exeter City that Christmas Day. Later a cricket coach at Clifton College and an author of various cricket-related books, Hammond worked in the car industry until a serious car accident in February 1960 almost ended his life. Married on 24th April 1929 to Dorothy Lister (with England batsman Herbert Sutcliffe (1894-1978) as his best man), he later married Sybil Ness-Harvey, with whom he had a son and two daughters late in life. Upon his death, “cricketers everywhere mourned a loss and adornment to the game”, as Neville Cardus (1888-1975) reported, and Hammond’s mother attended a memorial service at Bristol Cathedral, officiated by the Bishop of Malmesbury and at which the Duke of Beaufort read the lesson. |
No 942. Brandon Hanlon. 2020-21.
Born, 31.5.1997, Chelsea. 6’; 11 st 7 lbs. Début: 12.9.2020 v Sunderland. Career: November 2012 Charlton Athletic (professional, 28.4.16) [0+9,0]; 19.1.17 Bromley (loan); 31.8.17 Colchester United (loan) [10+8,2]; 1.2.18 Bromley (loan); 2.6.18 Gillingham (free) [66+8,13]; 10.9.20 Bristol Rovers (free) [40+5,7]; 26.8.21 Wycombe Wanderers (£150,000) [25+11,6]. Armed with “the work ethic and energy we want” (Ben Garner), tall striker Brandon Hanlan joined Rovers during the coronavirus pandemic, on the eve of the delayed 2020-21 season. A teenage débutant at Charlton, where he replaced Kevin Foley for his League bow six minutes from the end of a defeat at the hands of Bury at Gigg Lane in August 2016, Hanlan had played the final sixteen minutes, replacing goal-scorer Josh Magennis, when the Addicks won 5-1 at the mem in November of that year. For Colchester, where he played alongside the former Rovers keeper Sam Walker, it took just eleven minutes for Hanlan to score, coming on as substitute to head home against Chesterfield, when Ryan Jackson’s long throw was headed on by Drey Wright, and he also scored against Wycombe Wanderers. Two goals on his first appearance for Bromley, a January 2017 3-1 victory over Southport, in which he was playing alongside Dave Martin, led Hanlan to 19(+4) Conference games and seven goals. In addition, his semi-final goal against Gateshead helped Bromley reach the FA Trophy Final, played in front of a crowd of 31,430 at Wembley in the spring of 2018, and he converted his spot-kick in the shoot-out, only for his side to lose 5-4 on penalties to Brackley Town after a 1-1 draw. Hanlan was highly respected at Gillingham, scoring in the first-half against Accrington Stanley on his first appearance and winning the club’s Young Player of the Year award for 2018-19. He featured up front alongside Tom Eaves when Rovers won 1-0 at Priestfield in March 2019 and he also played in the draw at The Mem six months later. Gillingham supporters remembered him for an extra-time FA Cup winner against Sunderland in November 2019 which led to a third-round tie against West Ham, in which Hanlan and Alex Jakubiak played up front, with Jack Bonham in goal and his future Rovers captain Max Ehmer at the heart of defence. After a positive start, Hanlan found the going tough at Rovers, with goals at a premium and the club relegated to League Two in the spring of 2021. An early-season move to Wycombe enabled him to give the Chairboys a short-lived lead at the Etihad against a rampant Manchester City side in the League Cup in September 2021. He was to score once in Wanderers’ extraordinary 5-5 draw with Cheltenham Town in February 2022, Wycombe reaching the League One play-offs that season, where Hanlan played as a substitute in the defeat against Sunderland at Wembley. |
No 928. Joshua Darren Hare. 2019-2021.
Born, 12.8.1994, Canterbury. 6’; 12 st 4 lbs. Début: 10.8.19 v Wycombe Wanderers. Career: Eastbourne Borough; 2012 Gillingham (May 2014 professional) [2,0]; 21.2.13 Eastbourne Borough (loan); 16.11.14 Eastbourne Borough (loan); 20.3.16 Leatherhead (loan); 8.7.16 Eastbourne Borough (free); 30.6.17 Maidstone United (free); 30.6.18 Eastleigh (free); 12.6.19 Bristol Rovers (free) [21+8,0]; 29.6.21 Eastleigh (free); 18.2.22 Dagenham and Redbridge (free). Exciting defender Josh Hare arrived at the Mem in the summer of 2019 after being voted into the theoretical Conference Team of the Season for 2018-19. His Eastleigh side, where he was a team-mate of Chris Zebroski and Sam Matthews, had reached the play-off semi-finals that campaign and he had scored five times in 43 appearances, including a strike against eventual champions Leyton Orient. Prior to this, Hare had risen slowly through the divisions, after making two League One appearances with Gillingham, against Yeovil Town in August 215 and Crewe Alexandra in January 2015. Spells at other clubs had brought four goals in 46 matches with Eastbourne and three, against Aldershot, Torquay and Chester, in 26(+2) Conference fixtures for Maidstone United. He had also been in the Eastbourne side defeated 7-0 at Braintree in the FA Cup in November 2016. An unexpectedly early substitution, replacing the injured Mark Little after just eight minutes, enabled Hare to make his first appearance for Rovers. Josh Hare is the oldest of three children to Darren Hare, a veteran of the Kent non-league football scene, and his wife Alison; he is also the nephew of Andy Hessenthaler, who played for Gillingham against Rovers and for Barnet against Rovers in November 2006 aged forty-one, and his wife Nikki, and thus the cousin of Jake Hessenthaler, who played for the Gills in three League encounters against the Gas. However, in the home draw with Gillingham in September 2019, Hare suffered a knee injury which ruled him out for several months. Returning to form in 2020-21, he scored his first goal for the club with a powerful downward header in stoppage time to secure a dramatic 4-3 victory at home to the Chelsea Under-23 side in the Football League Trophy in November 2020 and scored again later that month, both Rovers’ full-backs scoring in a 6-0 FA Cup demolition of Darlington. Sporadic appearances marked the 2020-21 campaign, in which Rovers were relegated from League One. He, Tom Broadbent and Michael Kelly all joined Eastleigh in the summer of 2021, Hare’s 24 National League appearances including adding the fourth goal as Dover Athletic were defeated 4-1 in September 2021; he also scored in a 5-0 victory over Enfield Town in the FA Trophy three months later. In all, he scored six times in 67 games for Eastleigh and added 8(+2) National League appearances with Dagenham. |
No 829. Mitch Peter Harding. 2011-14.
Born, 27.1.1994, Weston-super-Mare. 5’ 10½”; 12 st 10 lbs. Début: 5.5.12 v Dagenham and Redbridge. Career: Bristol Rovers (professional, 4.5.12) [5+11,0]; 1.10.12 Gloucester City (loan) (released by Bristol Rovers, 6.5.14). Within hours of signing professional forms for Rovers, Mitch Harding replaced Eliot Richards seventeen minutes from time in a 4-1 defeat. A former North Somerset development player, he had scored thirteen goals in 17(+2) Under-18 games for the club prior to his début and, as Under-18 Player of the Year for 2011-12, his thirteen goals that campaign had included hat-tricks against both Exeter City and Yeovil Town. Farmed out to Gloucester, Harding scored in the second minute of his début against Bishop’s Stortford in the Nationwide North and he also appeared against Orient in the FA Cup. With John Ward re-installed as Rovers’ manager, Harding again appeared as a first-team substitute for Rovers on New Year’s Day 2013, as Rovers defeated Plymouth Argyle 2-1 at home. The teenager missed an eighty-fifth-minute penalty when Rovers defeated Yate Town 4-0 in the Gloucestershire FA Challenge Cup in March 2013 but, having scored twice in a pre-season victory over Clevedon Town, started the new campaign up front in the absence of the injured Matt Harold and Ryan Brunt. He contributed a brace of goals as Rovers’ reserve side defeated Mangotsfield United 3-1 away from home in September 2013. Mitch Harding graduated from the European Institute of Fitness with REPS level 4 and holds a UEFA “B” license in football coaching; he currently operates as a health and fitness practitioner in Hampstead and Knightsbridge. |
No 447. Stephen John Harding. 1977-80.
Born, 23.7.1956, Bristol. 6’ 2”; 12 st 13 lbs. Début: 2.1.78 v Cardiff City. Career: Whitehall School; Bristol Boys; 1972 Bristol City (professional, July 1974) [2,0]; 28.1.76 Southend United (loan) [2,0]; 10.9.76 Grimsby Town (loan) [8,0]; 30.5.77 Bristol Rovers (free) [37+1,1]; 17.1.80 Brentford (loan) [3+1,0]; 22.7.81 Trowbridge Town; December 1982 Gloucester City; Paulton Rovers; Mangotsfield United; 2.8.85 Trowbridge Town (free, to 1987). Tall, dominant central defender Steve Harding appeared alongside the apparently omnipresent Stuart Taylor in Rovers’ defence and scored his sole League goal when Rovers drew 1-1 with Luton Town in February 1978. A member of the Bristol City side which lost the FA Youth Cup Final of 1972-73 over two legs to Ipswich Town, Harding was in the England Youth squad as he worked his way up through the ranks at Ashton Gate to play in the Robins’ victories over Oxford United and Fulham during the 1975-76 promotion campaign. A team-mate at Grimsby of his former City colleague Mike Brolly, Harding appeared 29 times for Rovers’ reserve side during the 1980-81 season and scored eleven goals with Trowbridge Town, before working in school maintenance, in a courier business and, from 2005, on the morning delivery shift for Mobile Windscreens. The son of Paul Harding and Patricia Miller and married to Michelle since 1976, Steve Harding has a son and a daughter and lives in North Yate. |
No 573. Paul George Thomas Hardyman. 1992-95.
Born, 11.5.1964, Portsmouth. 5’ 8”; 11 st 4 lbs. Début: 15.8.92 v Oxford United. Career: Fareham; 1982 Waterlooville; July 1983 Portsmouth (professional, 15.5.84) [113+4,3]; 25.7.89 Sunderland (£130,000) [101+5,9]; 14.7.92 Bristol Rovers (£160,000) [54+13,5]; 4.8.95 Wycombe Wanderers [12+3,0]; July 1996 Barnet; 28.2.97 Slough Town (player-coach, 14.8.98); 1999 Basingstoke Town; Portsmouth (head coach at Centre of Excellence); 20.1.10 New Milton Town (manager); July 2010 Portsmouth (Assistant Academy Coach; 20.5.14 Academy Coach, to 18.5.15); March 2021 California Orange County FC (Glasgow Rangers scout; 12.7.21 assistant manager). July 1992 saw Rovers sign left-back Paul Hardyman, just weeks after he had appeared at Wembley against Liverpool in the FA Cup Final. A tough defensive-minded player, Hardyman had turned down Aston Villa and Brighton to join Pompey, playing an astonishing 84 matches in the 1983-84 season whilst appearing for Portsmouth reserves in midweek and Waterlooville on Saturdays. A carpentry apprentice, who was to set up his own business in 1999, he played under manager Alan Ball at Fratton Park and made his League bow in the 1-0 home defeat against Crystal Palace in March 1984, when he came on as a substitute for Steve Aizlewood. Hardyman won two caps for England Under-21s, appearing in the 3-2 victory over the Republic of Ireland at Portsmouth in March 1985 and a 1-0 defeat to the Danes in Copenhagen in March 1986, helped Pompey secure promotion to Division One in 1986-87 and played against Luton Town in the 1988 FA Cup quarter-finals. A large transfer fee took him to Roker Park, Sunderland attaining top-flight status through the play-offs in the spring of 1990 and he was sent off in the local derby against Newcastle United in May 1990 before replacing David Rush as a substitute in the 1992 FA Cup Final. Rovers’ record signing at the time, he moved to Saltford, was sent off against Brentford in August 1992, returned to Fratton Park in the Rovers side defeated 4-1 on Boxing Day that year and scored against his former club, Sunderland, in January 1993. Missing most of the 1994-95 campaign through injury, Hardyman made his Wycombe début in a 1-1 draw at home to Crewe and first played for Barnet in their 1-0 defeat at Cambridge in August 1996. At Slough alongside Lee Archer and Justin Channing, he numbered 37 Ryman League games and two goals amongst his 75 games and four goals in all competitions, being sent off at home to Welling United in September 1997 and appearing from the bench as Slough drew 2-2 with Division Two Macclesfield Town in the FA Cup in November 1998. The son of George Hardyman, who is the fourth of nine children to Francis Hardyman (1892-1970) and Edith Huxford (1892-1949) and Eileen Atkins (1924-92), the elder child of Thomas Atkins (1899-1975) and Elsie Ward (1901-72) and now living near Bournemouth with his wife Hazel Parry from the Isle of Wight and sons Robert and Mark, he was Robert’s manager at New Milton, but was sent off after coming on as a forty-five-year-old substitute for his New Milton début, in a 2-1 defeat at Brading Town in March 2010. Orange County were United Soccer League champions in California in 2021. |
No 930. Cameron Hargreaves. 2019-
Born, 1.12.1998, Plymouth. 5’ 9”; 11 st 3 lbs. Début: 12.10.19 v MK Dons. Career: Exeter City; 22.3.17 Bristol Rovers (free) [7+13,0]; 29.11.18 Hungerford Town (loan); 30.8.19 Hungerford Town (loan); 12.11.21 Chippenham Town (loan); 6.2.22 King’s Lynn Town (loan); 30.6.22 King’s Lynn Town (free). Short in stature and comfortable on the ball, Cameron Hargreaves made his League bow in October 2019, replacing Ed Upson in midfield with fifteen minutes remaining of the victory over MK Dons. As a teenager, he had played the final eight minutes of the 5-1 Football League Trophy victory at Wycombe Wanderers in August 2017, as a substitute for Liam Sercombe, the last twenty-four minutes of the home fixture against the West Ham United Under-21 side two months later and the last thirty-eight minutes of the match at Exeter in November 2018. He started the FA Cup replay against Plymouth Argyle at Home Park in December 2019 for managerless Rovers, Graham Coughlan having left hours earlier to become manager at Mansfield Town. The son of Rovers’ Academy Manager and former Torquay United manager Chris Hargreaves, he was sent off shortly before half-time in Hungerford’s game at Chippenham Town in February 2019, playing 20(+1) times in the Nationwide South. He played sporadically as Rovers were relegated to League Two in the 2020-21 campaign, before starting alongside Theo Widdrington and Josh Barrett on his King’s Lynn début against Weymouth; he did not score in 17(+2) matches and King’s Lynn were relegated from the National League. However, in November 2022 he appeared as a substitute as his side defeated Doncaster Rovers 1-0 away from home in a shock FA Cup result. |
No 937. Cian William Thomas Harries. 2019-
Born, 1.4.1997, Birmingham. 6’ 1”; 11 st 13 lbs. Début: 22.2.20 v Sunderland. Career: Coventry City (professional, 1.7.15) [7+2,0]; 7.1.16 Cheltenham Town (loan); 4.1.17 Liverpool Under-23 (trial); 27.7.17 Swansea City (free) [2,0]; 27.8.19 Fortuna Sittard (loan) [4+4,1]; 31.1.20 Bristol Rovers (free) [43+4,1]; 28.6.22 Swindon Town (free). Tall and dominant at the heart of defence, Cian Harries signed for Rovers on Transfer Deadline Day. He had just spent half a season on loan at Sittard, for whom he had scored a first-half goal against Feyenoord in October 2019, although his side had struggled in the Eredivisie, losing 5-0 at Ajax and 6-0 at Utrecht on Swansea’s books, Harries had played in League fixtures against Aston Villa and Wigan Athletic after making his club début in a League Cup-tie against Crystal Palace in August 2018. He made FA Cup appearances in 2018-19 against Aston Villa, Brentford and Manchester City and was in the Swans’ Under-21 side which lost 2-1 to Rovers in the Football League Trophy in December 2018. Prior to that, a brief career with Coventry had included a first league appearance in a 2-0 victory over Oldham Athletic in May 2016 and a loan spell at Cheltenham comprised nine minutes as a substitute in the Conference against Boreham Wood in January 2016 and an FA Trophy tie against Oxford City. An unused substitute at Wembley when Coventry secured the Football League Trophy in 2017, Harries had caught the eye of national selectors, representing Wales at Under-17 level (five games and a goal) before winning one Under-19 cap, playing twice for the Under-20 side in matches against France and Bahrain at the 2017 Toulon Tournament and securing seven Under-21 caps. When the delayed 2020-21 season started up, Rovers lost a Football League Trophy tie at home to Darrell Clarke’s Walsall, Harries missing a spot-kick in the penalty shoot-out. Three of his first four League matches in a Rovers shirt came against Sunderland, but Rovers struggled into the 2020-21 campaign and were relegated to League Two. Retained for the following campaign, Harries featured strongly early on, scoring an outstanding long-range goal at Mansfield Town in August 2021. However, he was twice one of two Rovers players sent off in a League fixture, being dismissed for two yellow cards at Colchester United that October and for a last-man foul at home to Port Vale in December. A further red card came shortly after he signed for Swindon, against Crystal Palace Under-21 in the Football League Trophy in August 2022 and he was in the Robins’ siode which crashed 4-0 away to lower-ranked Stockport County in an FA Cup shock three months later. |
No 607. Jason Andre Sebastian Harris. 1996-97.
Born, 24.11.1976, Sutton. 6’ 1”; 11 st 10 lbs. Début: 23.11.96 v Luton Town. Career: Croydon; 1993 Crystal Palace (professional, 14.6.95) [0+7,0]; 1.3.96 Dover Athletic (loan); 22.11.96 Bristol Rovers (loan) [5+1,2]; 11.8.97 Lincoln City (loan) [0+1,0]; 25.9.97 Orient (£25,000) [22+15,7]; 28.8.98 Preston North End (loan); 23.9.98 Preston North End (£25,000) [9+25,6]; 12.7.99 Hull City (£40,000) [18+11,4]; 16.3.01 Shrewsbury Town (loan) [1+3,0]; 7.7.01 Southend United (free) [2+3,0]; 3.12.01 Harrogate Town; 15.2.02 Nuneaton Borough (free); 5.10.02 Harrogate Town; 7.10.02 Goole Town; 30.6.03 Bridlington Town; 20.2.04 Ossett Town; 24.8.04 Selby Town (to October 2005). On as a substitute for Jamie Cureton, Jason Harris scored a début goal for Rovers ten minutes from time in a 2-1 defeat at Kenilworth Road. The following month, he contributed a consolation goal as Rovers lost 2-1 to Brentford in the Auto Windscreens Shield and before Christmas he scored again as Rovers lost 4-3 at home to Wycombe Wanderers. The son of an English father, who had been on West Ham’s books, and a Nigerian mother, he played twice as Palace were promoted to the Premier Division in 1996-97 before featuring alongside Rovers names in Paul Raynor and Justin Channing at Orient the following campaign, appearing as a substitute in a club record-equalling 8-0 victory over Doncaster Rovers that Christmas. His sole contribution to Lincoln’s cause was a brief substitute appearance in a home defeat against Mansfield Town. Helping Preston recover a 3-1 deficit to defeat his former club Lincoln 4-3 on his début, Harris also scored in the 2-2 draw with Rovers at The Mem the following month, with a header into the roof of the net four minutes after half-time. Alongside Jason Perry, Nick Culkin and Steve Morgan at Hull, Harris also played in the same side as Gavin Kelly at Bridlington. After five goals in 13(+1) games at Dover, he played in 0(+4) games at Harrogate, scoring in the 3-0 win against Ashton United in December 2002 and in 23 games, scoring six goals, as Nuneaton were relegated from the Conference in 2002-03, before helping Goole Town to third place in the Northern Counties Eastern League. A regular for fifteen months at Selby Town, he gave them a second-half lead away to Sheffield FC in October 2005 in his final game for that club before setting up the Ace Professional Valeting Service in Pontefract. Jason Harris’ younger brother Richard played for Crystal Palace in top-flight football. |
No 892. Robert Harris. 2016-17.
Born, 28.8.1987, Glasgow. 5’ 8”; 10 st 1 lb. Début: 18.2.17 v Port Vale. Career: July 2004 Clyde [34+7,0]; 1.7.07 Queen of the South (free) [109+1,10]; 6.7.11 Blackpool (trial); 21.7.11 Blackpool (free) [9+4,0]; 28.9.12 Rotherham United (loan) [5,1]; 24.1.14 Sheffield United (loan); 31.1.14 Sheffield United (free) [49+7,3]; 18.2.16 Fleetwood Town (loan) [1,0]; 2.2.17 Bristol Rovers (free) [4+1,0]; 25.7.17 Lincoln City (trial); 3.11.17 AFC Telford United (free, to 16.5.18); 9.2.19 FC United of Manchester (free, to 6.5.19). Just after the January 2017 transfer window closed, Rovers signed the experienced left-back Bob Harris, ostensibly as cover for the dependable Lee Brown. Arguably, Harris’ greatest moment had been an appearance in the 2008 Scottish Cup Final in the colours of Queen of the South, when his free-kick had been headed home for the equaliser by thirty-six-year-old club captain Jim Thomson, in a game eventually lost 3-2 to Rangers. Tough-tackling and determined, the Glaswegian had started his career with Clyde, making his Scottish League début in a 1-1 draw with Ross County in Dingwall in May 2005 and winning a penalty in a League Cup-tie with Rangers in September 2005, which ended in a 5-2 defeat after extra time. The Bully Wee, with Harris at left-back, conceded just nine goals in their final thirteen matches of 2006-07. His career at Queens included a goal against his former club in April 2009, the fifth in a 7-1 drubbing, and an unlikely run of three goals in four games over Christmas 2009. He had been sent off on his first appearance for the Doonhamers, a 1-0 defeat at East Fife in August 2007, and he also picked up red cards against Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Falkirk, both in 2010. Queens had defeated Aberdeen 4-3 in an epic Scottish Cup semi-final in 2008 and their final defeat nonetheless qualified the club for its as yet solitary season of European football; Harris’ second-minute goal from a free-kick against Nordsjaelland in Copenhagen in the autumn of 2008 leaves him as the only Queen of the South player to score an away goal for the club in European competitions. “We got off to a dreadful start with the early goal for Queens”, bemoaned the Danish side’s coach, Morten Wieghorst. A brief career with Blackpool included an FA Cup-tie at Goodison Park, he scored after 56 minutes of Rotherham United’s 3-0 League Two victory at Aldershot in October 2012 and goals for Sheffield United followed against Bradford City, his future club Fleetwood Town and Orient. Defeated semi-final appearances littered Harris’ time with the Blades, the FA Cup game in 2014 being lost 5-3 to Hull City at the KC Stadium, Spurs running out winners in the League Cup in 2015 and Swindon Town drawing the second leg 5-5 to secure a 7-6 aggregate win in the League One play-off in the same year. After a solitary game with Fleetwood, in a 1-0 loss at Rochdale, Harris had been hampered by injury and had not played in a year prior to his arrival at The Mem. Seven minutes after half-time on his first appearance for Rovers’ reserve side, Harris surged down the left wing before calmly slotting home Rovers’ third goal in a 4-0 victory over Peterborough United reserves. However, his League bow was not as propitious, the Scottish full-back hooking Kiko’s low left-wing cross, under no pressure, past goalkeeper Joe Lumley for an own goal after 54 minutes of the 1-1 draw at Vale Park, joining Johnny Hills and Sonny Parker in having conceded an own goal on their League début for the club. He later resurfaced at FC United, playing four times as his side was relegated from Nationwide North in 2018-19. |
No 212. Thomas Frank Farnley Harris. 1934-38.
Born, 26.6.1913, Plymouth. Died, December 1987, Plymouth. 5’ 11”; 11 st 8 lbs. Début: 23.4.35 v Watford. Career: Prawle United; Devon Corinthians; 26.5.33 Tottenham Hotspur (amateur); 1934 Plymouth Kitto (amateur); 23.4.35 Bristol Rovers [28,16]; 6.12.37 Southampton; June 1938 Barrow [41,24]. Just two minutes into Tom Harris’ second game, having contributed two début goals, he scored against Brighton and by the close he had completed a hat-trick. This set the tone for his career with Rovers, for a return of sixteen goals in 28 League fixtures is good by anyone’s standards. Having netted 33 times in 22 Plymouth and District League games for Plymouth Kitto, he scored seven of Rovers Colts’ nine goals against Weston-super-Mare and added three in five minutes as part of his five against Barry Town, as the reserves claimed the 1935-36 Western League championship. However, his time at Rovers was not all goals, as he was part of the side that crashed 12-0 to Luton Town at Kenilworth Road on Easter Monday 1936 and he failed to find the net at all in 1937-38. No part of Southampton’s plans, following a transfer deal which involved Tosh Withers arriving at Eastville, Harris was successful at Barrow, where he scored freely. Having scored four times in a League game against Carlisle United and hat-tricks against Burnley, Blackburn Rovers and Oldham Athletic, he added 21 goals in 25 wartime games before making one wartime appearance for Bristol City, as a member of the Robins’ side defeated 5-1 by Southampton at the Dell in March 1942. The second child of Walter Harris and Mary Moore, Tom Harris married in Plympton in 1936 Jessie Kathleen Elizabeth Heale (1913-91), the eldest child of Charles Heale (1880-1937) and Mabel Rosina Rundle (1884-1959), and they had a son, Roger. |
No 804. Ellis Wade Harrison. 2010-18.
Born, 29.1.1994, Newport. 5’ 11”; 12 st 1 lb. Début: 16.4.11 v Southampton. Career: 2010 Bristol Rovers (professional, 4.5.12) [95+53,31]; 18.1.16 Hartlepool United (loan) [2,0]; 23.7.18 Ipswich Town (£750,000) [9+7,1]; 21.6.19 Portsmouth (£500,000) [29+35,9]; 8.1.22 Fleetwood Town (free) [16+2,6]; 11.8.22 Port Vale. On the back of a fine performance four days earlier in the reserve game against Cheltenham Town, Welsh striker Ellis Harrison was given a brief run-out at Southampton at the age of seventeen years 77 days, the ninth youngest Rovers League débutant. Even though the club ultimately lost its relegation struggle that spring, Harrison’s form as a substitute for Jo Kuffour fifteen minutes from time gave cause for optimism. A Cardiff City supporter driven to training by his mother, Ruth, he played in 12(+14) Under-18 matches between 2010 and 2012 for Rovers, his nine goals including a brace on his début as a sixtieth-minute substitute for Lewis Parker at Exeter in September 2010 and he added a goal in the reserves’ 2-1 defeat at Yeovil Town in May 2012. Back in Rovers’ first-team in January 2013, under newly-reappointed manager John Ward, Harrison scored his first League goal after 52 minutes at a snowy Rotherham, just two minutes after coming on as a substitute, with a mazy solo run from the half-way line and a fierce right-footed shot. His brace then defeated Rochdale 2-1 at The Mem in March 2013 as he ended the campaign as Rovers’ joint second highest scorer and was twice called up to the Wales Under-21 squad before making his international bow in a 2-0 victory over Lithuania in October 2013 and scoring with a low drive two minutes before half-time, as San Marino were defeated 4-0 at Bangor five days later. After Rovers’ exit from the Football League, Harrison enjoyed a hugely impressive 2014-15 campaign. After an initially slow start, he scored a second-half hat-trick as Dorchester Town were put to the sword in an FA Cup-tie in October 2014, Rovers winning 7-1. Thereafter, his position as super-sub evolved into that of a pivotal figure-head and, with thirteen goals in 7(+28) matches of the regular Conference season to his name, was declared Young Player of the Year as Rovers amassed 91 points and, missing promotion by one point, headed into the Conference play-offs. However, he was sent off away to Forest Green Rovers, after accumulating two yellow cards in the first-leg of the play-offs. Nevertheless, Harrison was recalled for the Wembley play-off final in May 2015, scoring with a left-foot drive from Jake Gosling’s corner after 29 minutes as Rovers dramatically secured promotion back to League football. On-field success brought Welsh caps at Under-21 level in the autumn of 2015, appearing alongside Tom Lockyer in the goalless draw with Denmark and scoring from the penalty-spot against Armenia in Bangor, but he fell below a number of strikers in Rovers’ pecking order and was sent out on loan to Hartlepool, where injury restricted his impact. Returning to The Mem, Harrison played a critical rôle as Rovers secured a last-gasp promotion in 2015-16, his probing runs helping to set up the finale in which Lee Brown’s injury-time goal against Dagenham secured the club’s second successive promotion. The following campaign saw Harrison only playing a sporadic rôle for the club, but he did score at Stamford Bridge in the League Cup in August 2016 and hit four goals in a League match at home to Northampton Town in January 2017, striking home a seven-minute first-half hat-trick and scoring again nine minutes into the second-half. The following campaign he strove to consolidate his position as the top striker at the club, scoring a memorable winning goal as Rovers defeated second-tier Fulham 1-0 at Craven Cottage in August 2017 in the League Cup, but missing a penalty in the defeat at Wigan Athletic. He was Rovers’ top scorer as the Gas again consolidated their mid-table position in League One. However, his move to Portman Road was largely unsuccessful, Ipswich suffering relegation from the Championship and losing 1-0 at unfashionable Accrington Stanley in the FA Cup in January 2019, Harrison’s sole strike coming against promoted Sheffield United in December 2018. He was sent off playing for Portsmouth at Wycombe in September 2019 and scored a hat-trick in September 2021 as Pompey lost 5-3 at Wimbledon in the Football League Trophy. Ellis Harrison marked his Fleetwood début with the only goal of the game in a relegation six-pointer against Doncaster Rovers, before rejoining Darrell Clarke at Vale Park. |
No 812. Matthew James Harrold. 2011-14.
Born, 25.7.1984, Leyton. 6’ 1”; 11 st 8 lbs. Début: 6.8.11 v AFC Wimbledon. Career: Trinity Catholic High School, Woodford Green; Southend United (youth); 1.8.01 Gray’s Athletic; 3.8.02 Wingate and Finchley; 1.10.02 Harlow Town; 23.7.03 Brentford (free) [11+21,2]; 17.12.04 Dagenham and Redbridge (loan); 4.3.05 Grimsby Town (loan) [6,2]; 30.6.05 Yeovil Town (free) [30+17,9]; 31.8.06 Southend United (free) [25+27,3]; 1.9.08 Wycombe Wanderers (free) [57+16,17]; 2.7.10 Örgryte IS, Sweden (trial); 14.7.10 Shrewsbury Town (free) [28+13,8]; 16.6.11 Bristol Rovers (free) [62+14,24]; 27.6.14 Crawley Town (free) [38+30,9]; 23.2.15 Cambridge United (loan) [6+1,1]; 31.8.17 Orient (free; first-team coach, 6.8.20; caretaker manager, 23.2.22-9.3.22) [9+15,2]. Tall, strong, ginger-haired front man Matt Harrold was precisely the signing Rovers supporters craved in the summer of 2011. Recently relegated back to the basement division, the side required a striker who could hold up the ball, create havoc in opposition defences and use his undoubted strength to good effect. Harrold finished his first season in the blue-and-white-quartered shirts of Rovers as the club’s top scorer, his tally including a strike after twenty minutes on his début and a goal in November 2011 against his former club, Southend, just moments after entering the field as a substitute. A target man with an enviable work rate, he had scored just once in the autumn of 2012 when, chasing a loose ball, he suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury which ruled him out for the many months. It was a serious blow for the player and also for the relegation-haunted club. The club, however, pulled its season around and Harrold was afforded a brief cameo appearance from the bench at Torquay on the final day of the campaign, responding with typical panache, as he rose to head home Michael Smith’s cross three minutes into injury-time to force a 3-3 draw, thus scoring Rovers’ first and last League goals of the campaign but none between. The following campaign, though, was less successful, Harrold’s goals proving few and far between as Rovers meekly surrendered their Football League status after ninety-four years. After two games for Gray’s, he had hit a hat-trick against Wingate, who promptly signed him and where, after a début in a friendly against Orient, he added nine goals in twenty matches. His League début came as a substitute for Ben May ten minutes from the end of Brentford’s 1-1 draw at Colchester United in September 2003 and he also hit a hat-trick for the Bees when they defeated Gainsborough Trinity 7-1 in an FA Cup-tie that November. Following 2(+2) Conference games for Dagenham, and a goal in a 3-0 win at Accrington on his début, Harrold scored League Two goals for Grimsby away to both Oxford and Boston. He scored a hat-trick for Wycombe against AFC Wimbledon in the FA Cup in November 2008, although they lost ignominiously to Eastwood Town in the next round but, following the Chairboys’ relegation to League Two in 2010, he helped Shrewsbury reach the play-offs, where they lost to Torquay. Sent off once each when playing for Shrewsbury and Yeovil, Matt Harrold had also played against Rovers for both Southend and Wycombe and scored when Wanderers won 3-2 at The Mem in January 2010, prior to signing for the Pirates; in September 2013 he missed a penalty away to his former club, Dagenham and Redbridge, Chris Lewington making a great save. In January 2015 he played fifty minutes in goal, in the 2-2 draw with MK Dons, after Crawley’s thirty-nine-year-old goalkeeper Brian Jensen had been forced to leave the field injured; he scored for Crawley at Notts County and for Cambridge at Hartlepool. He returned to The Mem in April 2016 in the Crawley side defeated 3-0 by promotion-chasing Rovers, a regular in the Red Devils’ side, and also opposed Rovers in the FA Cup in the autumn of 2016, scoring their second equaliser at The Mem as Rovers progressed in a replay, but weeks later was ruled out for three months with an Achilles injury; the goal at The Mem was to be his only one of the 2016-17 campaign. Returning to Orient, he scored against Guiseley in the Conference in his first game back, the first of seven goals in 12(+39) Conference matches, but was sent off in an FA Trophy semi-final at AFC Telford in March 2019. Orient achieved promotion back to the Football League on the final day of the 2018-19 campaign and Harrold appeared as a substitute, as his side was defeated 1-0 by Fylde in the FA Trophy Final at Wembley. However, Orient struggled back in League Two and Harrold played as the Os were unceremoniously knocked out of the FA Cup at home to Maldon and Tiptree in November 2019. The following month he came on as a substitute at The Mem and scored his penalty in the shoot-out, as Rovers knocked Orient out of the Football League Trophy 4-2 on penalties after a 1-1 draw, but he retired in 2020. |
No 225. William John Hartill. 1935-38.
Born, 18.7.1905, Wolverhampton. Died, 12.8.1980, Walsall. 5’ 9½”; 11 st 3 lbs. Début: 14.3.36 v Queen’s Park Rangers. Career: Willenhall Road Council Schools; Heath Town United; 1923-24 Wolverhampton Schoolboys; Exhall Colliery; Royal Horse Artillery; August 1928 Wolverhampton Wanderers (professional, May 1929) [221,162]; June 1935 Everton [5,1]; 9.1.36 Liverpool (£3,000) [5,0]; 13.3.36 Bristol Rovers [36,19]; 1938 Street. Steve Bull, the England striker, finally broke the goal-scoring record at Wolves in March 1991, which had been previously held by the precociously talented Bill Hartill. Nicknamed on account of his background, “Hartillery” had scored seventy goals in two seasons of Army football, representing the English Army against France and against Belgium, and his 162 League strikes for Wolves included five against Notts County in October 1929, five more against Aston Villa in September 1934 and four in the February 1933 match with Huddersfield Town. Having helped Wolves secure the Second Division championship in 1931-32, he enjoyed top-flight football with three clubs, joining Everton at the end of June 1935 as Dixie Dean’s (1907-80) replacement. The Liverpool press took to his open style of play: “he is fast, can shoot with either foot, is good with his head and takes up excellent position”. A “sharp-shooter who specialises in unexpected hook-shots”, Hartill joined Rovers in an exchange deal involving Phil Taylor and scored a hat-trick against Torquay United in February 1937. However, his time at Eastville also encompassed the 12-0 defeat at Luton Town and an 8-1 drubbing at home to QPR in the FA Cup. A keen tennis and boating enthusiast, who had played for an FA XI against West Brom in 1934-35, Hartill later worked from 1938 as a licensee in Wolverhampton. He married Clara Whitehall (1907-72) in 1926 and they had a son and two daughters. |
No 880. Peter Hartley. 2016-17.
Born, 3.4.1988, Hartlepool. 6’ ½”; 12 st 9 lbs. Début: 6.8.16 v Scunthorpe United. Career: 2000 Sunderland (professional, 30.6.06) [0+1,0]; 21.2.08 Chesterfield (loan) [12,0]; 28.5.09 Hartlepool United [164+2,10]; 7.8.13 Stevenage [29+2,2]; 19.6.14 Plymouth Argyle [75+1,5]; 16.6.16 Bristol Rovers (free) [17+1,5]; 16.6.17 Blackpool (free); 31.8.17 Motherwell (loan); 24.1.18 Motherwell (free) [51+2,4]; 20.8.20 Jamshedpur (free) [38+1,5]. “I see myself as a good organiser” announced central defender Peter Hartley on joining Rovers, having previously captained Hartlepool, Stevenage and Plymouth in the Football League. Following a Sunderland appearance as a New Year’s Day 2007 substitute against Leicester City, seven of his twelve games with Chesterfield were at Saltergate, prior to a return to the north-east. Reliable and consistent at the Victoria Ground, Hartley added goals during his spell at his home-town club, the first coming against Tranmere Rovers in October 2009 and the best, a volley, helping defeat Oldham Athletic on New Year’s Day 2011. “A top, top centre-half”, according to his manager Mick Wadsworth, Hartley was Players’ Player of the Year in 2011-12 and League One Player of the Month for February 2013, when his place alongside James Poole amused commentators at Hartlepool matches (both scored that month against Notts County). He was sent off after 83 minutes against Oldham Athletic in October 2010 for an alleged head-butt on Sean Gregan and, playing alongside Andy Monkhouse, five minutes from the end of the game against Sheffield United in March 2012. Relegated from League One with Hartlepool and Stevenage in successive seasons, despite goals against Port Vale and Crawley Town for the latter, he enjoyed two fruitful campaigns at Home Park. Vocal and with “a determined attitude and committed displays”, as he was described at Plymouth, his last-gasp far-post header defeated Portsmouth in the League Two play-off semi-final of May 2016 and Hartley’s final contribution in an Argyle shirt was to appear in the 2-0 defeat at Wembley which saw Wimbledon promoted. Before his arrival in Horfield, he had played five times in the League against Rovers, three times with Hartlepool and in both the 2015-16 fixtures with Argyle. A headed goal at Southend United endeared Hartley to the Rovers faithful, a positive start enhanced by the header which he scored at Stamford Bridge in August 2016 as Rovers lost 3-2 to a strong Chelsea side in the League Cup. However, after proving himself to be a pivotal figure in Rovers’ defence, not least for his vocal nature and his supply of close-range goals, he suffered a tendon injury to his foot and was side-lined for three months in the spring of 2017. After two cup-ties with Blackpool, he headed north of the border, where he was sent off against Hamilton Academical in December 2017 and conceded an own goal in a dramatic February 2020 Scottish Cup-tie with St Mirren. That year he moved to India to play as captain under manager Owen Coyle at Jamshedpur, scoring in matches against East Bengal and North East United and helping his side set a club record of nine clean sheets in a season as they secured the 2021-22 Indian Super League title. In June 2022 the former Rovers player Aidy Boothroyd took over as Hartley’s manager at Jamshedpur. |
No 257. Sydney Hartley. 1938-39
Born, 22.1.1914, Gomersal, Yorkshire. Died, May 1987, Huddersfield. 5’ 9”; 11 st 6 lbs. Début: 17.12.38 v Northampton Town. Career: Brighton Street Boys’ Club (Heckmondwike); Huddersfield Town (trial); Grimsby Town (trial); June 1935 Burnley; January 1936 Orient; June 1936 Gillingham [77,2]; 27.5.38 Bristol Rovers [4,1] (to 1939). Youngest child in a large family to Herbert Hartley and Mary Barnes of Dewsbury, Syd Hartley enjoyed two productive seasons at Gillingham, playing on Christmas Day 1936 against Rovers and being debited with an own goal against Southend United in April 1938. He partnered the Rovers player George Tweed at full-back and played alongside Albert Taylor and Archie Young. When the Gills lost their League status, he moved to Eastville, partnering Wilf Smith for the reserves and scoring a rare goal when Rovers reserves drew 2-2 with Worcester City in December 1938. Later that month, he scored on his Rovers début at Northampton Town but, unable to retain his place in the side, found his career ended by the untimely arrival of wartime hostilities. “Outstanding, quick tackling and with unerring heading” (Western Daily Press), he should not be confused with the player of the same name who played for Bath City and, from August 1939, Trowbridge Town. Syd Hartley married Florence Parfitt in 1934, the daughter of Arthur Parfitt and Alice Wormald of Huddersfield, and their daughter Joyce was born in 1936. |
No 27. Edward Lee Harvey. 1921-22.
Born, 5.7.1892, Birmingham. Died, May 1965, Sheffield. 5’ 10”; 11 st. Début: 14.9.21 v Brentford Career: Hallam; Heeley; Army football; 25.8.19 Sheffield Wednesday [12,0]; 12.9.21 Bristol Rovers (£75) [5,0]; 28.9.22 Retford Town (retired, 1924). “The Rovers lost a point, but they found an outside-left in Harvey”, reported the Western Daily Press after the draw with Brentford, Sadly, for Edward Harvey, the journalistic prediction of success proved unfounded, although Brentford’s opposite number George Pither was to play for Rovers. Prior to Eastville, Harvey had made his League début at Old Trafford in September 1919, where Wednesday drew 0-0. Retford finished sixth in the Central Alliance in his first season with the club, but he soon was forced to retire due to a serious knee injury. Edward Harvey was baptised at All Saints, Birmingham on 20th July 1892, the second in a family of ten to a brass cabler, Edward Lee Harvey senior (1868-1915), and his wife Alice Knight and was brought up at 141 Upper Valley Road, Norton, Derbyshire. He worked as a blacksmith’s striker for a portable forge-maker and married a Sheffield girl, Marion Bellamy, in 1925 with their daughter Patricia being born three years later. |
No 170. James Douglas Harvey. 1932-33.
Born, 7.8.1911, Huddersfield. Died, July 1984, Huddersfield. 5’ 10”; 10 st 12 lbs. Début: 27.8.32 v Crystal Palace. Career: Wath National Church of England School; Wombwell Town; February 1931 Sheffield Wednesday; August 1931 Wombwell Town; Frickley Colliery; Rotherham United; Frickley Colliery; 2.8.32 Bristol Rovers [1,0]; 1933 Frickley Colliery; August 1934 Gillingham [13,0]; July 1935 Frickley Colliery; 1936 Belfast Distillery; August 1937 Winsford United; August 1938 Denaby United; June 1939 Ashton National. After playing in Rovers’ opening game of the 1932-33 season, goalkeeper James Harvey found himself understudy to Jack Beby and Foster Windsor, although he later returned to Eastville in the Gillingham side in December 1934, only to concede four goals. A regular in Rovers’ reserves, he appeared in the 10-1 win against Llanelli in November 1932 and his final game was the reserve fixture at home to Taunton Town in January 1933. The son of John Walter Harvey and Emily Rawcliffe, he had served in the 1st Battalion Scots Guards, where he won the Household Brigade Junior Cup and, as a boxer, apparently won seventeen knock-outs and picked up 23 separate prizes. A medical orderly in Barnsley, he found himself in trouble in April 1934, charged in court with obtaining £60 by false pretences from two girls he employed at his “University Novelty Pool” in Barnsley. He married Mary Murphy (1910-93) in 1936 and they had a son James. |
No 198. Irvine Harwood. 1934-36.
Born, 5.12.1905, Bradford. Died, 26.7.73, Walsall. 5’ 9”; 10 st 12 lbs. Début: 25.8.34 v Brighton. Career: Drummond Street School; Bierley St John’s; Thornton United; Manningham Mills; May 1929 Bradford Park Avenue (professional, 7.3.31) [49,27]; May 1932 Bradford City [5,0]; June 1933 Wolverhampton Wanderers [6,0]; 30.4.34 Bristol Rovers [51,14]; May 1936 Walsall [28,6]; June 1937 Burton Town; July 1938 Kidderminster Harriers (to 1940). After enjoying enormous success at Park Avenue, Vince Harwood had not scored for almost two years when he arrived at Eastville. All that rapidly changed, as he scored the winning goal in the Third Division (South) Cup Final to bring Rovers their first trophy for thirty years. Leading comfortably against Watford, Rovers had been pegged back until his goal, eight minutes from time, effectively sealed victory. A fortnight later he added two more goals as Rovers defeated Southampton 5-2 in the Allen Palmer Cup Final. A cricketer in the Bradford League and a former Wolves team-mate of Rovers’ Billy Hartill, Harwood had become a crowd favourite at Park Avenue, where he scored a Second Division hat-trick against Nottingham Forest in September 1931. He returned to Eastville in November 1936, but his Walsall side was beaten 3-0. Six League goals with Walsall included both the strikes which brought a 2-1 victory away to Newport County in Division Three (South) in April 1937. The youngest of three children of Fred Harwood (1872-1953) and Emma Gregory (1877-1951) of 120 Leicester Road, Bradford, Harwood followed his father into work in the iron foundry. In 1934 he married Elsie May Brooke (1915-78), the fourth of five children of Willie Brooke (1879-1933) and Mary Benn (1882-1931), and they had a son, Martin, and two grandchildren. |
No 193. John Havelock. 1933-35.
Born, 11.5.1904, Hartlepool. Died, July 1981, Scunthorpe. 5’ 9½”; 12 st 10 lbs, Début: 16.12.33 v Newport County. Career: 1927 Folkestone Town; October 1929 Crystal Palace; Northcliffe; June 1930 Folkestone Town; 2.12.33 Bristol Rovers (£330) [20,11]; 1.8.35 Aylesford Paper Mills. Despite a ratio of more than a goal every other game, Jack Havelock’s career never really got going. Having served in the Army at Shorncliffe, near Folkestone, in 1928-29, he scored for Folkestone in their FA Cup replay against Rovers in November 1933 and joined the Eastville club straight afterwards. 68 goals in the Southern League in 1931-32 and 83 the following campaign had included a hat-trick as Folkestone lost the 1933 Southern League Cup Final 6-3 on aggregate to Plymouth Argyle reserves, but the transition to Football League player proved too mountainous. Havelock scored four times in his first three games for Rovers and freely in the reserve side, before marrying Violet Gould (1910-83) in 1934, having a son John and a daughter Marjorie and moving to Humberside before the outbreak of war. His father, Henry Havelock (1879-1923), of Hartlepool and West Hartlepool RFC, won three caps for England at rugby union in the spring of 1908, one of these coming in a the 28-18 defeat against Wales at Ashton Gate that January; he married Eliza Jane Cambridge Willers (1877-1957) in Hartlepool in 1900 and they brought up their two sons and their daughter Marjorie (who married Leslie Singleton, 1907-86) at 8 Oak Villas, Hull. Jack’s elder brother Harry (1901-1973) was a professional with Hull City, Lincoln City, Portsmouth and Crystal Palace and the brothers were both in the Folkestone side which defeated Norwich City 1-0 in an FA Cup shock in November 1932. |
No 377. Joseph Haverty. 1964-65.
Born, 17.2.1936, Dublin. Died, 7.2.2009, London. 5’ 3½”; 9 st 6 lbs. Début: 19.12.64 v Luton Town. Career: Home Farm; 1953 St Patrick’s Athletic; Drumcondra: 19.7.54 Arsenal (£1,000) [114,25]; 31.7.61 Blackburn Rovers (£17,500) [27,1]; September 1962 Millwall (£12,000) [68,8]; 27.9.64 Celtic (trial) [1,0]; 4.12.64 Bristol Rovers [13,1]; July 1965 Shelbourne; 1967 Chicago Spurs [38,1]; 1968 Kansas City Spurs; 1969 Shamrock Rovers. “Soccer leprechaun” and “box o’ tricks” Joe Haverty was a tricky, exciting winger who won the crowd over with his intricate ball skills and ability to beat his man. Small in stature but overflowing in confidence, he graced several top clubs and won 32 full caps for the Republic of Ireland. It is to Rovers’ great credit that the club was able to sign him at all and his time at Eastville was marked by a goal against Port Vale in January 1965, whilst he also won an Irish cap, for the 1-0 victory over Spain, whilst on Rovers’ books. He went on to score Kansas City Spurs’ goal in a 2-1 defeat away to Washington Diplomats in May 1968. Joe Haverty overcame back trouble to become an Arsenal regular from the 1956-57 season onwards. By this time, he had already scored for the London XI in their Fairs Cup semi-final of 1955-56 against Lausanne Sports; in the early years of European competition, club sides eschewed the idea of participating and representative sides took their place, Haverty missing London’s final against the mighty Barcelona. He did, however, pick up a winner’s medal for the London FA Challenge Cup in both 1954-55 and 1957-58. Having appeared for St Patrick’s in an FAI Cup Final at the age of eighteen, he later played in Celtic’s 4-1 win against St Mirren, and made sixteen appearances for Chicago as well as scoring once in 22 matches with Kansas before appearing in Shamrock Rovers’ European Cup Winners’ Cup campaign of 1969-70. An immensely popular figure on the international scene, Joe Haverty’s 32 caps, starting with a début against the Netherlands in May 1955, included three goals and, inducted into the FA of Ireland’s Hall of Fame in 2000, he was given a minute’s applause, following his death at the age of seventy-two, prior to Ireland’s game with Georgia in February 2009. |
No 31. James Gilbert Haydon. 1921-22.
Born, 4.5.1901, Bristol. Died, 21.9.1969, Bristol. 5’ 9”; 11 st 4 lbs. Début: 31.12.21 v Aberdare Athletic. Career: 1913 St Gabriel’s; Fishponds Juniors; St Lawrence; Newton Old Boys; 21.9.21 Bristol Rovers (professional, 11.11.21) [290,3]; 11.12.31 Kingswood. Strong-kicking left-back Jimmy Haydon was signed by Alf Homer and formed part of useful full-back partnerships at Eastville with first Harry Armitage and later Fred Bennett. Having first appeared in the reserves’ 3-0 win against Bristol City reserves in October 1921, Haydon became a fixture in Rovers’ starting line-up for the best part of a decade, helping to establish the club in the Football League. He is occasionally credited with the late consolation goal in the Easter 1922 8-1 thrashing at Swansea, but certainly found his scoring boots late in his career, contributing two penalties and a direct free-kick in the 1929-30 season. He also missed a penalty against Bournemouth in April 1930. A plucky defender, he became known for playing what the local press described as “those splendid games that have delighted Eastville spectators of late”. Awarded a benefit game against Bristol City in October 1927, a 3-3 draw, he and Joe Walter joined Rovers together in 1931. Brought up at 27 Bolton Road, Easton, Jimmy Haydon was the eighth of ten children to John Haydon (1865-1956), the eldest child of John Haydon and Sarah Jane White, and Emma Amelia Watts (1869-1957), who had married in 1886, his father working in the local iron foundry. He married Gladys Mabel Bond (1902-1943) in Bristol in 1925, but was widowed young, their son Trevor, born in 1927, an inside-right, joining Bath City from Gloucester City in July 1951. |
No 592. Matthew Anthony Hayfield. 1995-98.
Born, 8.8.1975, Bristol. 5’ 11”; 12 st 2 lbs. Début: 2.9.95 v Wrexham. Career: Hanham High School; Avon Athletic; Whitchurch Sports; 1991 Chelsea (schoolboy); 1991 Bristol City (schoolboy); July 1992 Bristol Rovers (professional, 13.7.94) [24+17,0]; 18.9.97 Yeovil Town (loan); 7.9.98 Shrewsbury Town [1+1,0]; 25.9.98 Yeovil Town (loan); 10.10.98 Yeovil Town; 23.3.00 Woking; 31.5.01 Basingstoke Town (to 2002). Dynamic midfielder Matt Hayfield played in three successive seasons for Rovers, despite a year-long absence with a knee injury, but never commanded a regular place in the side. Following a Rovers Youth début in an 8-0 defeat at Luton in August 1992, he had played 29(+1) games for that side in 1992-93, scoring in a 3-3 draw with Brighton, and appeared in 3(+1) reserve fixtures. A Northavon representative as a schoolboy, he had captained the South West Counties XI in 1993-94 and, after a brief appearance in Phil Purnell’s testimonial in 1994, scored the reserves’ first goal of 1994-95 in a 1-0 victory over Portsmouth. During the 1993-94 season, his four goals in the FA Youth Trophy campaign had included a brace in a 6-1 victory at Gloucester City. A half-time substitute for Justin Skinner on his League début, Hayfield saw Rovers concede two goals in the final three minutes to lose 2-1. He subsequently played in the side that lost ignominiously 2-1 at Hitchin Town in the FA Cup in November 1995, but recovered to score four times when the reserves beat Cardiff City 6-0 in January 1997. Hayfield was to score ten times in 39(+5) Conference games for Yeovil and four goals in 45 matches in the same division for Woking, before adding two goals in 22 games at Basingstoke. He later trained to be a physiotherapist and, having trained at the Anglo-European College of Chiropractic, currently works as a chiropractor at Gjøvik in Norway, specialising in the treatment of sports injuries. |
No 615. (Barry) Barrington Edward Hayles. 1997-99.
Born, 17.4.1972, London. 5’ 9”; 13 st. Début: 9.8.97 v Plymouth Argyle. Career: CLP; 1989 Hayes; 1990 Willesden Hawkeye; February 1994 Stevenage Borough; 20.5.97 Bristol Rovers (£200,000) [62,32]; 17.11.98 Fulham (£2,100,000) [116+58,44]; 24.1.04 Sheffield United (free) [4,0]; 31.8.04 Millwall (£25,000) [49+6,16]; 20.7.06 Plymouth Argyle (£100,000) [58+4,15]; 1.1.08 Leicester City [10+18,2]; 12.8.08 Cheltenham Town (loan); 13.7.09 Cheltenham Town (free) [34+17,11]; 18.9.10 Truro City (loan); Truro City; 14.8.12 St Albans City [16,6]; 14.12.12 Truro City (free); 23.7.13 Arlesey Town (free); 19.6.14 Truro City (free); 26.6.15 Chesham United (free) (player-coach); 18.7.17 Windsor FC (free); 4.7.19 Merstham (assistant manager); 15.7.22 Windsor (free). Few strikers can command the respect of their fellow professionals in the same way as Barry Hayles, the burly, goal-scoring phenomenon, whose sale remains Rovers’ largest transfer in monetary terms. Rovers had apparently made an attempt to sign Hayles in October 1996, but it was as a twenty-five-year-old that he finally broke into League football on the back of 97(+6) Conference games for Stevenage, as well as the shock FA Cup win at Orient in December 1996, his 58 goals leaving him as the club’s leading scorer for three consecutive seasons. Overall, he scored 73 goals in 154 appearances at Borough. He had also scored thirteen goals in 25 games at Willesden, who had converted him from full-back, and he represented Middlesex against Hertfordshire, as well as being named Conference Player of the Year in 1995-96. A relative latecomer to the game, who always played with a smile on his face, Hayles scored a pre-season 1997 hat-trick against Bideford and a début goal; Rovers were not to rue the decision to sign him up, his 23 League goals in 1997-98 making him a popular leading scorer at the club. Endowed with remarkable upper-body strength, he scored Rovers’ equaliser on the stroke of half-time at Oldham in September 1997, the sixth goal in a 4-4 draw, and added braces against Brentford, Luton, Bournemouth, Oldham and Wigan before the season was out. This feat was repeated the following campaign against Wigan again, Lincoln and Walsall, whilst larger clubs came ever closer to signing the powerful front-man. Bizarrely, his 25th goal of the season in 1997-98, when he was voted the club’s Player of the Year, not only earned Rovers a play-off place, but also cost the club £50,000, as that was the clause built into his transfer from Stevenage if he totalled that number of goals in his first campaign. Representative honours continued to come his way, as he scored for the FA XI against the Highland League in 1997 and scored in both his England semi-professional matches, against the Republic of Ireland and Holland. Having transferred to Fulham, he scored against Rovers in the League in March 1999, when he was voted Man of the Match, and scored again on the two subsequent occasions he opposed his former club, once after 55 minutes for Millwall in the League Cup in August 2005 and twice for Cheltenham in September 2008. Despite a penalty miss against Notts County in February 1999, Hayles helped Fulham to two promotions as well as the 2002 UEFA Intertoto Cup, and won the first of his ten full caps for Jamaica, against Cuba in June 2001, whilst at Craven Cottage, before reuniting with Ian Holloway at Plymouth. Known as "The Ox in the Box" (Ian Holloway), he scored on his début against Wolves before enduring relegation and then enjoying promotion at Leicester. A regular rather than a free-scoring striker, Hayles’ sole League hat-trick came in Millwall’s 3-0 win at Derby over Christmas 2004, whilst he was sent off twice each for Cheltenham and Fulham and once in the colours of Plymouth and Millwall. A Truro début against Bideford was the first of 62(+5) matches in which he scored 29 times (including a hat-trick against Salisbury in February 2011) as City won the 2010-11 Southern League Premier Division title, incredibly scoring their seventh goal before half-time in the victory over Farnborough in October 2011 and, past his fortieth birthday, he was sent off at Welling in January 2013. He then scored seven goals in 24 Southern League encounters with Arlesey Town. Barry Hayles was called up by the Cayman Islands for the unofficial game against DC United in 2000 before pledging his international allegiance to Jamaica. Having scored 34 goals in 89 matches in his first spell at Truro, he returned to the Cornish side in the summer of 2014 and added a further four goals in 17(+14) Southern League Premier Division fixtures, City defeating St Neots Town 1-0 in the play-off final to secure promotion. Incredibly, he returned to The Mem in November 2015, at the age of 43 years 205 days, to become Rovers’ oldest-ever FA Cup opponent and, even more remarkably, to enable seventh-tier Chesham United to defeat Rovers, 75 places above them, Hayles setting up the winning goal for Ryan Blake. He was to score thirteen goals in 34(+27) matches for Chesham over two campaigns and was a goal-scorer and Man of the Match as Windsor defeated Devizes 2-1 in the FA Vase in September 2017; he added thirteen goals in 38(+4) Hellenic League matches with Windsor and one goal in nineteen games with Merstham. In June 2016 he was a member of the England Seniors side which won the World Cup for their age group in a tournament in Chiang Mai, Thailand, playing alongside Steve Phillips and both men plus Jamie Cureton were in the side which defeated Iran 2-0 in Thailand to retain the title twelve months later. In June 2019 he scored a fifty-minute hat-trick as England opened that year’s tournament with a 4-2 victory over Taiwan and three goals in less than half-an-hour against New Zealand but, despite Hayles’ seven goals in the tournament, England lost the final 1-0 to Iran in Hong Kong. Barry Hayles lives in Beckenham, Kent with his wife Maxine Simister and three young children, Paige, Tate and Delaney. |
No 273. Douglas Stanworth Hayward. 1946-47.
Born, 23.8.1920, St George’s, Wellington. Died, 31.8.2008, Weston-super-Mare. 5’ 9”; 12 st. Début: 2.11.46 v Cardiff City. Career: Donnington Wood; 1936 Huddersfield Town (professional, May 1939); 27.9.46 Bristol Rovers [1,0]; 20.11.46 Newport County [259,11]; July 1956 Bath City; June 1958 Frome Town (player-manager); June 1956 Weston-super-Mare (manager). Sir Gordon Richards (1904-1986), the only jockey to have been knighted, was born in the same village as Doug Hayward, who made his Rovers reserves’ début at Portsmouth in August 1946 and replaced Jackie Pitt for a 4-0 defeat at Ninian Park. The younger of two children to Alfred Hayward and Alice Stanworth, who had married in 1901, Hayward had served in the Royal Air Force during World War Two as well as representing Barry Town, Bristol City and Bury in wartime football; he scored two of Bristol City’s goals when they won 3-0 at Eastville in August 1945 and totalled five goals in fifteen unofficial matches for the Robins. He continued to live at Weston-super-Mare after joining Newport, meaning that transport delays in the Severn Tunnel once led to him missing a match. A penalty-taking expert, his four goals on his Welsh League début for Newport’s reserves heralded a long career at Somerton Park, which included ten League fixtures against Rovers, after which he enjoyed playing cricket for Weston. Doug Hayward married Vera Crook (1924-2005), the second of four children to Harry Walter Crook (1887-1957) and Bessie Fear (1893-1939), in Weston-super-Mare in 1945, had a daughter Pam and died in the town at the age of eighty-eight. |
No 549. Ian Hazel. 1989-90.
Born, 1.12.1967, Merton, London. 5’ 10”; 10 st 4 lbs. Début: 1.3.89 v Reading. Career: Morden Farm Middle School; Wimbledon (professional, 3.12.85) [4+3,0]; 27.2.89 Bristol Rovers (loan); 10.7.89 Bristol Rovers (free) [7+10,0]; 17.1.92 Gloucester City (loan); 30.3.92 Maidstone United (free) [6+2,0]; 17.8.92 Slough Town; August 1994 Carshalton Athletic; July 1995 Aylesbury United; July 1997 Chesham United; October 1998 Tooting and Mitcham United (manager); 10.2.03 Molesey (manager); 15.11.03 Banstead Athletic; 15.12.03 Walton and Hersham (manager); September 2004 Fulham (coach at Academy); 16.3.06 Sutton United (manager); 23.10.07 Leatherhead (manager); June 2009 Carshalton Athletic (Football Development Officer; caretaker manager, 1.9.09-10.9.09, 17.2.10-1.5.10 and September 2012 to October 2012; assistant manager, August 2010; manager, 7.10.13-1.11.13); April 2014 Crystal Palace (scout); July 2014 Millwall (scout); January 2019 Northampton Town (first team regional scout); May 2021 AFC Wimbledon (first team scout). Having made his League début in the top division, replacing Terry Gibson as a substitute against Liverpool at Plough Lane in November 1987, Ian Hazel represented Rovers during the 1989-90 Third Division championship campaign. He also scored an 85th-minute winning goal in the pre-season friendly at Weston-super-Mare in July 1989. Formerly a Wimbledon team-mate of Peter Cawley, Andy Clement, Keith Curle and John Scales, there were sufficient links between the Dons and Rovers to enable a smooth transfer. Maidstone were enjoying their brief fling in the Football League when Hazel joined them, his début being a 1-1 draw at Walsall, but United did not win in any of his eight games for them. One goal in two Southern League games for Gloucester was followed by nine goals in 74 Conference matches at Slough, his strike against Wycombe Wanderers being voted the club’s Goal of the Season for 1992-93, and he later played once for Banstead, at the age of thirty-five, to help out a friend. Amidst over a decade of management, Hazel led Walton and Hersham on an unbeaten run for their final seventeen matches of the 2003-04 season but, despite a 2-1 final day victory at Enfield Town in April 2013, Carshalton suffered relegation from the Ryman Premier League. Having passed his UEFA “A” coaching certificate in 2002 Hazel, who ran HZ Soccer solutions from August 2011 to January 2020, is a director at Schoolhire Solutions and works since January 2020 for SHS recriutment. |
No 784. Paul Heffernan. 2009-10.
Born, 29.12.1981, Newtownmountkennedy, County Wicklow. 5’ 10”; 11 st. Début: 9.2.10 v Walsall. Career: 1.8.98 Newtown; July 1999 Middlesbrough (trial); August 1999 Sunderland (trial); 7.10.99 Notts County (free) [74+26,35]; 29.6.04 Bristol City (£125,000) [10+17,5]; 8.6.05 Doncaster Rovers (£125,000) [85+39,35]; 30.11.09 Oldham Athletic (loan) [4,1]; 8.2.10 Bristol Rovers (loan) [11,4]; 9.6.10 Sheffield Wednesday (free) [3+14,3]; 15.6.11 Kilmarnock (free) [52+8,20]; 28.8.13 Hibernian (free) [17+13,5]; 2.2.15 Dundee (free) [4+3,1]; 9.7.15 Falkirk (trial); 13.8.15 Queen of the South (free) [3+2,1]; 11.3.16 Dumbarton (free) [4+4,0]; January 2019 Cabinteely (Academy assistant manager); 12.1.22 Bray Wanderers (coach). In March 2012, Kilmarnock shocked the Scottish footballing community by defeating Celtic 1-0 in the League Cup Final and striker Paul Heffernan had won his first major honour as a player. The bustling Irishman had previously scored for Rovers at home to Charlton and in the matches at Yeovil, Swindon and Carlisle. A League début in Notts County’s defeat at home to Oldham Athletic in April 2000 kick-started a career that blossomed at Meadow Lane, despite a missed penalty in the goalless draw with Plymouth Argyle in March 2004. Heffernan scored a hat-trick against QPR on Boxing Day 2003 and scored four times, after two, 27, 73 and 85 minutes in a 4-1 victory over Stockport County in February 2004, David Pipe being in his own side and Ali Gibb playing for County that day. Sent off against Peterborough and Rotherham, he played alongside Danny Coles at Ashton Gate, where his opportunities were restricted by the form of Leroy Lita and Steve Brooker, and was then Doncaster Rovers’ record signing. Heffernan played against Rovers on three occasions for Donny, scoring in each game, a penalty in February 2008, the only goal of the game at The Mem the following month and, having scored in both legs of the semi-final, a goal after just four minutes at the Millennium Stadium, which put Doncaster 2-0 up in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Final, which was won 3-2 after extra time. After an Oldham goal against Exeter City, he became the sixth Wednesday player to score as Rovers crashed to defeat at Hillsborough in December 2010, a defeat which hastened the departure of manager Paul Trollope, before embarking on a career north of the border which included a hat-trick of a header and two shots as Killie defeated Queen of the South 5-0 in the League Cup in September 2011, and a Scottish Premier League hat-trick in Killie’s 3-0 victory at Hearts in February 2013, as well as a goal past Celtic’s Fraser Forster in October 2013. A dismal season for Hibernian culminated in relegation from the Premier League in May 2014, the side throwing away a two-goal lead from the first-leg of the play-off final against a resurgent Hamilton Academical team to tumble down a division alongside Edinburgh rivals Hearts. A team-mate of David Clarkson at Dundee, he scored in the derby match against United in April 2015 and added his first goal for Queen of the South seven minutes after half-time against Dumbarton that November, the only goal of the game. The reverse fixture was his second in a Dumbarton shirt, Queens running up a 6-0 victory over Heffernan’s new side, Heffernan living at that time in East Kilbride. Later with Cabinteely in the League of Ireland First Division, he became football coach at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art Design and Technology from November 2021, whilst his brother John Heffernan and his nephew Sean Heffernan both played for Newtown United in County Wicklow. |
No 590. Carl Sidney Heggs. 1994-95.
Born, 11.10.1970, Leicester. 6’; 11 st 8 lbs. Début: 4.2.95 v Huddersfield Town. Career: 1986 Basingstoke Town (trial); 1986 Doncaster Rovers; 1988 Shepshed Charterhouse; 1.8.90 Leicester United; 22.8.91 West Bromwich Albion (free) [13+27,3]; 6.2.95 Stafford Rangers (loan); 27.1.95 Bristol Rovers (loan) [2+3,1]; 31.7.95 Swansea City (£60,000) [33+13,7]; 30.7.97 Northampton Town (£25,000) [25+17,5]; 23.10.98 Rushden and Diamonds (£100,000 including Ray Warburton); 10.3.00 Chester City (loan) [10,2]; 28.7.00 Carlisle United (free) [16+14,5]; 14.8.01 Forest Green Rovers (free); 6.11.02 Ilkeston Town (free) (assistant manager); 27.8.05 Tamworth; 24.2.06 Hucknall Town; 10.7.06 Hinckley United; 5.3.07 Redditch United; 23.5.07 Tamworth; 23.5.07 Redditch United (player-coach); 2.5.09 King’s Lynn (manager); 8.2.10 Hinckley United; 3.4.11 Notts County (caretaker manager); 1.8.11 Oadby Town (manager); 3.6.12 Hinckley United (assistant manager; caretaker manager, 10.10.12; manager, 15.11.12-22.5.13). When Rovers lost 2-1 at Bradford City on a Tuesday night in February 1995, Carl Heggs scored the only goal of his brief Rovers career. Ten minutes after half-time he collected a delicate through-ball from Justin Skinner and threaded a low right-foot shot just inside the post. Having previously been signed for West Brom from Midland League football by the former Rovers player and manager Bobby Gould, Heggs made his League début against Bury in March 1992 and, appearing under Dennis Booth with both Stafford Rangers and Rovers, he played four times for the former in the Conference, scoring after just six minutes away to Slough Town in February 1992 after making his début in a 6-0 defeat at Witton Albion. A Leicester City supporter as a boy, he was heavily influenced by Gary Lineker and Alan Smith and contributed a regular supply of goals at Swansea and Northampton. A début goal against Shrewsbury helped Heggs become the Swans’ second highest scorer in 1995-96 and his two appearances against Rovers included a red card at Twerton Park in a 2-2 draw and being fouled by David Pritchard for Town’s penalty in their 2-0 win. Swans were defeated 7-0 by Fulham in the FA Cup and suffered relegation, despite Heggs’ goal against Chester which earned a Wembley appearance in the play-off final; a 1-0 defeat to Northampton Town’s John Frain’s last-minute goal condemned the Welsh side to the drop and Heggs moved immediately to their Wembley opponents. A winning penalty in a shoot-out against his former club Basingstoke earned an FA Cup third round trip to Filbert Street to play his favourite club and Heggs scored again in the play-offs, his goal preventing Rovers from making it to Wembley in 1998. However, Northampton were relegated the following campaign, his only League goal of a disappointing season coming against Rovers that October. A team-mate of Rovers’ Lee Archer and David Mehew at Rushden, he scored a final-minute goal on his début in a 3-1 Conference victory over Morecambe, one of four goals in 22(+12) appearances, Rushden also enjoying a great FA Cup run, defeating Shrewsbury Town and taking a dramatic 1-0 lead at Elland Road before losing 3-1. After Chester lost their Football League status Heggs, “aggressive and with good experience” (Kevin Wilson), enjoyed many years in non-league football, Ilkeston suffering relegation from the Doctor Martens League Premier Division in 2002-03 and being in the Tamworth side which won 2-1 at Bournemouth in a shock FA Cup score in November 2005. After 32(+7) games and seven goals at Forest Green, 31 games and four goals alongside Julian Alsop and Richard Dryden at Tamworth and 31 fixtures and seven goals with Hinckley, he scored seven times in 20(+12) League and cup matches with Redditch in 2007-08, helping them to secure the Worcestershire Senior Cup, where he scored against Worcester City in the final. Most recently, he scored once in seven matches for Oadby Town before taking on managerial responsibility at Hinckley United. Player shortages, which led to Heggs playing against Bradford Park Avenue in November 2012 at the age of forty-two, were part of the reason Hinckley finished at the foot of Nationwide North in the 2012-13 campaign. A painter and decorator by profession, he is divorced with a son and a daughter; he retired from football in May 2013 to become a Physical Education teacher at Ascot College in Derby. |
No 71. Charles Adolph Heinemann. 1925-26.
Born, 29.2.1904, Stafford. Died, 13.5.1974, Hornchurch, Essex. 5’ 9½”; 10 st 12 lbs. Début: 29.8.25 v Charlton Athletic. Career: EEC Siemens Works; Rickerscote; 1923 Stafford Rangers; 7.5.25 Bristol Rovers [3,0]; August 1926 Port Vale; December 1926 Stafford Rangers; 1927 Port Vale; Oakengates Town; 3.12.34 Wallingford Town. As befits a man brought up at 30 Siemens Road, Stafford, Charles Heinemann followed his father into the electrical trade and started off playing for the works side. Anton Christian Heinemann (1857-1942), British-born of German extraction, had married Adelaide Katherine Sales (1877-1966) in 1896 and they had five sons. The fourth-born son George, a team-mate of Charles’ at Stafford Rangers, played for Crystal Palace, Orient and Coventry City before emigrating to the United States, whilst the youngest, Bill, joined Rovers from Stafford Rangers as an amateur in September 1931. Charles, the middle son, a “small, hard-working player”, was amongst Stafford’s scorers in 1923-24 after turning down a move to Port Vale. The only Rovers player in the Football League era born on 29th February, he appeared in Rovers’ first three League fixtures of 1925-26, setting up the opening goal for Ernie Whatmore as Gillingham were defeated 2-0 at Eastville, before giving ample service to the reserves, scoring 29 goals and contributing a hat-trick in the 10-3 victory over Weymouth in December 1925. Returning to Stafford, he made his second Rangers début against Bilston United in December 1926 and appeared 22 times at left-half as they secured the Birmingham League championship in 1926-27. Charles Heinemann married Hilda Arnold in Stafford in 1929 and they had three sons, Daryll, John and David. |
No 444. Paul Hendrie. 1977-79.
Born, 27.3.1954, Glasgow. 5’ 6”; 10 st 7 lbs. Début: 10.9.77 v Luton Town. Career: Celtic (apprentice); Kirkintilloch Rob Roy (loan); March 1972 Birmingham City [19+3,1]; April 1976 Portland Timbers [38+1,4]; 5.9.77 Bristol Rovers (free) [17+14,1]; 26.7.79 Halifax Town (£5,000) [187,12]; 8.8.84 Stockport County (£5,000) [114+7,6]; August 1987 Burton Albion; August 1989 Nuneaton Borough; August 1990 Bath City; July 1991 Redditch United (manager); 16.2.95 Tamworth (manager; registered as player, 8.9.97) (to December 2001). Slight, diminutive Paul Hendrie was an elusive runner, a ball-winning midfielder and a creative influence in Rovers’ Second Division era. The holder of three Junior Scotland caps and three Scottish Schoolboy caps, he scored his only goal in Rovers’ colours in a 1-1 draw at Preston in December 1978. A long career at Halifax was marked by an FA Cup-tie against Manchester City in January 1980, when the jinking winger scored the only goal fifteen minutes from time to eliminate Malcolm Allison’s (1927-2010) side and create one of the greatest moments in Halifax’s club history. Sent off when Stockport visited Hereford in September 1984, he twice broke his leg, missing the 1988-89 and 1990-91 seasons, before moving into management. Tamworth won twelve of his seventeen games in charge at the tail end of 1994-95 but lost a club record ten in succession in the spring of 1996; holding on to his job, Hendrie led the side to the Doctor Martens League Midland Division title in 1996-97 before re-registering as a player during an injury crisis. A cousin of John Hendrie whose career took in Coventry, Bradford City, Newcastle, Leeds, Middlesbrough and Barnsley (and whose son Luke Hendrie played for York City and Bradford City against Rovers in April 2016 and April 2022 respectively), Paul Hendrie is the father of Lee, who played for Aston Villa and England, and Stuart, who has played for Morecambe, both brothers signing for Corby Town in September 2013. |
No 722. Bo Bjornholt Henriksen. 2003-04.
Born, 7.2.1975, Roskilde, Sjælland, Denmark. 5’ 10”; 11 st 9 lbs. Début: 27.3.04 v York City. Career: 1994 Odense OB [33,1]; 1.8.98 Herfolge [51+18,14]; 25.5.01 Boldklubben Frem (loan) [3,3]; 10.11.01 Kidderminster Harriers (loan); 7.2.02 Kidderminster Harriers (free) [74+10,30]; 25.3.04 Bristol Rovers (free) [1+3,0]; May 2004 Bohemian FC; 1.8.04 Køge Boldklub [7,1]; November 2004 B93 [9,3]; 20.5.05 Knattspyrnufélagið Valur Reykjavík [9,5]; 16.7.05 Knattspyrnufélagið Fram Reykjavík; October 2005 Victory SC; 19.12.05 IBV (trial); 23.1.06 IBV (free); March 2006 AFC Telford (trial); 22.12.06 Brønshøj BK (player-coach); 26.5.14 AS Horsens (coach, to 24.8.20); 31.5.21 Midtjylland (head coach, to 28.7.22); 10.10.22 FC Zürich (Head Coach). Pony-tailed midfielder Bo Henriksen was a very distinctive player on the field. Ultimately Kidderminster’s record Football League goal-scorer during their brief sojourn in those ranks, he achieved this feat from midfield before joining Rovers along with Danny Williams on transfer-deadline day. He had played against Rovers on five occasions, scoring a 75th-minute winner at The Mem in September 2003 and recording the only Harriers Football League hat-trick when he put three goals past Kevin Miller, then with Exeter City, in a 5-2 win at St James’ Park in February 2003. Scoring after just four minutes as a late débutant substitute at Orient in November 2001, blond-haired Henriksen acquired cult status at Aggsborough and, in 2002-03, became the only man to register twenty goals in a League campaign for Kidderminster. He appeared for Rovers in three home games and in a 3-0 defeat at Hull before his nomadic career took him to the Republic of Ireland, Denmark, three Icelandic sides and Victory SC of the Maldives. Earlier, having joined after scoring ten goals in five games for Odense’s reserve side, he represented Herfolge against Real Madrid, Rangers and Parma in the European Cup. “Bomber Bo” scored on his début for Køge under trainer Greg Rioch, a 4-4 draw with B93, scored twice when Valur defeated Reynir 7-0 in the cup and played in the 2005 Icelandic Cup Final, in which Fram lost 1-0 to his former club Valur. After developing a reputation as a well-respected coach at Horsens, he led Midtjylland to the runners-up spot in the Danish League in 2021-22. With two sons, Frederic and Alexander, from his first marriage, Bo Henriksen married Christina Nedenskov in Aarhus in 2017 and they have a son, Villads. |
No 852. Alex Charles Henshall. 2013-14.
Born, 15.2.1994, Swindon. 5’ 10”; 10 st 6 lbs. Début: 19.10.13 v Wycombe Wanderers. Career: 2002 Swindon Town (professional, 1.7.09); 10.6.10 Manchester City (£250,000); 22.2.13 Chesterfield (loan) [1+6,0]; 17.10.13 Bristol Rovers (loan) [1+1,1]; 24.3.14 Ipswich Town (loan); 27.6.14 Ipswich Town (free) [0+4,0]; 9.1.15 Blackpool (loan) [0+2,0]; 29.3.16 Kilmarnock (free) [1+1,0]; 23.12.16 Margate (free); 6.1.17 Braintree Town (free); 21.6.17 Nuneaton Town (free); 20.6.18 Darlington (free); 4.6.19 Nuneaton Borough (free); 29.11.19 Swindon Supermarine (loan); 3.1.20 Swindon Supermarine (free); 22.9.20 Stratford Town (free); 29.9.20 Banbury United (free, to 18.5.21); 15.10.21 Wantage Town (free). With just two wins in the opening eleven League fixtures of 2013-14 to the club’s name, Rovers’ manager John Ward signed exciting left-winger Alex Henshall on loan. He replaced Ryan Brunt after 63 minutes of the disappointing home defeat against Wycombe Wanderers and opened the scoring in the fifth minute at Accrington three days later, when his left-wing cross deceived goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli. A pacey, left-footed player, he is “a gifted winger with a great delivery” (FA website) and “looks like a real talent” (Scott Sellars). Having twice been an unused substitute at Swindon, Henshall joined free-spending Manchester City, where his form for youth sides earned three caps for the England Under-16 side, the first coming in a 1-0 victory against Wales in October 2009, and sixteen caps, plus a goal in a 2-2 draw with Portugal in February 2011, at Under-17 level; he also helped England reach the quarter-finals of the 2011 FIFA Under-17 World Cup. His first game for City had come in an 8-0 thrashing of German side Empor Berlin in July 2010 and he was the club’s Player of the Tournament when they visited Oberndorf in 2011. Loan spells duly followed and, after a Chesterfield début in a 1-0 defeat against Gillingham, he arrived at the Memorial Stadium in the autumn of 2013, as well as making brief appearances as Blackpool finished bottom of second-tier English football in 2014-15, Ipswich reaching the play-offs that campaign, where they lost to local rivals Norwich City. Living at Regatta Quay in Ipswich, he was charged in April 2016 with driving his Mercedes in the town at 53mph in a 30 mph zone; by the time of his trial, he had moved north of the border, although he only appeared in the last seven minutes of Kilmarnock’s 2-0 home defeat to Partick Thistle before starting on the final day of the season against already-relegated Dundee United; Kilmarnock retained their Premier League status through the play-offs. He played once for Margate, in a 3-0 Nationwide South home defeat against Welling United on Boxing Day 2016 and played in 1(+6) Conference matches with Braintree Town; both Margate and Braintree were relegated that season. His 8(+3) Southern League matches with Nuneaton Town included a goal in the 4-0 home victory over Leamington in August 2017 and he appeared in 24(+10) matches without scoring for Darlington before making his Borough bow in a 1-0 victory in August 2019 over Needham Market. After an FA Cup substitute appearance for Stratford at Bromsgrove, Henshall signed for Banbury United, scoring once in five Southern League games and adding a goal in ten matches in the same competition with Wantage Town. He and his partner Amy had a baby son in August 2018. |
No 521. Kenneth Hibbitt. 1986-89.
Born, 3.1.1951, Bradford. 5’ 10”; 12 st. Début: 23.8.86 v Walsall. Career: Bowling Back Lane Junior School; 1962 Tyersal School; 1964 Fairfax School; Yorkshire Schoolboys; Moorhill United; 1967 Bradford Park Avenue (professional, November 1968) [13+2,0]; November 1968 Wolverhampton Wanderers (£6,000) [447+19,89]; May 1982 Seattle Sounders (loan) [14,4]; 24.8.84 Coventry City (free) [42+5,4]; 4.8.86 Bristol Rovers (player-coach) [51+2,5]; 15.5.90 Walsall (manager); 21.7.95 Cardiff City (manager; general manager, January 1996; caretaker manager, November 1996); 19.6.97 Everton (coach); 23.1.98 Cardiff City (caretaker manager; director of football, February 1998; youth development officer, September 1998-6.9.99); 12.10.01 Hednesford Town (manager) (to 10.5.02). He may have “looked like a down-on-his-luck country-and-western singer” (Julie Welch, The Observer, 1993), but midfielder Kenny Hibbitt was a supremely talented footballer. A Fourth Division début in Park Avenue’s 2-0 defeat at Chesterfield in March 1968, shortly after his seventeenth birthday and on the back of fifty-three goals in fourteen games for his school, preceded almost sixteen years as a household name at Wolves, in which he played in 574 competitive fixtures and scored three goals in European football. Born in Marsden Road, Bradford, where his paternal grandmother ran the sweet shop on the corner, he had once scored fourteen goals in a school fixture in 1962 and ten goals in a game with Moorhill United and enjoyed Bradford League cricket with Laisterdyke, where he played alongside David Bairstow (1951-98), the Bradford City footballer and future England cricketer. A Yorkshire Schoolboys cricketer, Hibbitt was once offered nets at Headingley, but instead began to focus on football as a career. The holder of an England Under-23 cap gained against Wales at Wrexham during the 1970-71 season, when he came on as substitute for the future Rovers striker Mick Channon, Hibbitt’s extensive career at Molineux included League Cup Final victories in 1974, when he scored against Manchester City, and 1980 against Nottingham Forest. Twice relegated and also promoted in 1976-77, he scored at Eastville over Christmas 1976 as Wolves, en route to the Second Division title, decisively outplayed Rovers 5-1, and he had been his club’s top scorer in 1974-75, scoring all four goals as his brother’s side Newcastle lost 4-2 in August 1974 and a hat-trick the following Easter in a 5-2 home victory over Luton Town. He played in the Texaco Cup Final of 1971, when Wolves beat Hearts 3-2 on aggregate, and in the all-English UEFA Cup Final the following year, which was lost 3-2 on aggregate to Spurs. Although never appearing in an FA Cup Final, he had played in three semi-finals, at Maine Road against Leeds in 1973, at Villa Park against Arsenal in 1979 and scoring against Spurs in 1981 at Hillsborough. Granted a testimonial in 1981-82, Hibbitt then played for Coventry before scoring on his Rovers’ début with a long-range shot after 22 minutes at Walsall. His career effectively ended by a broken leg suffered when Rovers defeated champions-elect Sunderland 4-0 at Twerton Park in February 1988, he received an astonishingly warm welcome when he returned to Molineux as Rovers’ coach over Easter 1989. An August 1992 testimonial game saw Walsall defeat Wolves 1-0. Hibbitt was Hednesford manager whilst Ashley Williams, the future Wales captain, was on their books. Living in Wotton-under-Edge and later at Hillesley, he was rumoured to be joining Wolves in March 1994 as Graham Taylor’s (1944-2017) assistant, but instead served Cardiff in various capacities before becoming an assessor of Premier League referees. A keen pigeon-fancier, he represented Gloucestershire at golf and won the La Manga Golf Footballers Classic in 2015. Kenny Hibbitt and his elder brother Terry (1947-94), a fine player for Newcastle, Leeds and Birmingham, were two of the three children of former Port Vale trainee Gilbert Hibbitt (1927-67), the son of Arthur Hibbitt (1885-1930) and Gertrude Watson Parker (1887-1971) and his wife Mary Cousins, the daughter of Frederick Cousins and Mary Windle. Married on 2nd June 1973 at St Thomas’, Wednesfield to Jane Clarke, whose cousin Pam Clarke married his team-mate John Richards, Kenny Hibbitt’s niece is the actress Emilia Clarke, who plays Daenerys Targaryen in “Game of Thrones”. Kenny and Jane Hibbitt have a son Rod, a daughter Kelly, and four grandchildren, Tom, Ella, Lucy and Jasper. |
No 399. Peter Clive Higgins. 1968-73.
Born, 12.11.1950, Cardiff. 5’ 9”; 10 st 10 lbs. Début: 8.3.69 v Walsall. Career: Clifton Athletic; 1967 Bristol Rovers (professional, February 1969) [36+1,5]; July 1973 Doncaster Rovers [63+5,10]; 9.3.76 Torquay United (loan) [3+1,0]; 29.6.76 Bath City (free); 1980 Cheltenham Town; 1981 Taunton Town; 1982 Forest Green Rovers; 1983 Portway Bristol; 1985 Forest Green Rovers (assistant manager); 1986 Thornbury Town; 1989 Weston-super-Mare (coach); 22.8.90 Trowbridge Town (coach); August 1993 Thornbury Town (manager); 31.7.94 Cheltenham Town (caretaker manager). Captain of Rovers’ first-ever nursery side at Clifton Athletic, winger Peter Higgins played sporadically in the first-team over five seasons. Dropped after the embarrassing 1-0 FA Cup defeat at Hayes in November 1972, he scored in his comeback game against Rotherham. He had earlier scored twice in the FA Youth Cup in January 1968, when Rovers lost 4-3 to Cardiff City at Eastville. Whilst Doncaster and Torquay were in divisions below Rovers at the time, his subsequent lengthy non-league career earned a call-up for the Football Association XI against Oxford University in 1978-79. Higgins helped Bath secure the Non-League Champions’ Trophy in 1979 and appeared at Wembley in 1982 alongside Graham Day in the Forest Green side which won the FA Trophy Final. His career drew to a close after breaking a leg in a five-a-side game in May 1984, although he played for a Rovers XI against a Charity XI at Clevedon in September 1997 and played amateur football up to the age of fifty-one. Football management also included a spell coaching at Cheltenham, whilst also working with Thornbury Town and he was briefly manager at Whaddon Road after Lindsay Parsons left to join Tony Pulis at Gillingham. Peter Higgins worked for a Bristol screen printing company until 2002 and then spent thirteen years as a postman before retiring to Weymouth. The middle of three children to Stanley Higgins and his wife Nancy Thomas, Peter Higgins’ son Matthew was later with Birmingham City in 1991-92 before signing for Almondsbury Picksons. |
No 606. Shane Peter Higgs. 1996-98.
Born, 13.5.1977, Oxford. 6’ 2”; 12 st 12 lbs. Début: 19.11.96 v Burnley. Career: Derby County (trial); 1.8.94 Bristol Rovers (professional, 12.7.95) [10,0]; 5.10.95 York City (loan); 10.7.98 Worcester City (free); 14.6.99 Cheltenham Town (£10,000) [238+2,0]; 28.11.08 Wolverhampton Wanderers; 3.7.09 Leeds United (free) [25,0]; 22.12.11 Northampton Town (free) [3,0] (released, 23.11.12). Brought up in the Oxfordshire village of Worminghall and coached at Rovers by Phil Kite, tall goalkeeper Shane Higgs made his League début for Rovers in strong wind on a sodden pitch. He missed two months of the 1994-95 campaign with a stress fracture of the leg, but returned to play in the 4-4 draw at Oldham in September 1997, conceding three goals in the opening 25 minutes, and in the reserves’ 6-0 defeat to Bristol City two months later, in which Colin Cramb scored all the goals. Despite missing seven games with a thigh injury in the spring of 1999, “Barrymore” was a regular for Worcester, appearing in their FA Cup-tie at Torquay United, and his club form earned a call-up for the Doctor Martens League squad to play an FA XI at Twerton Park that December, keeping a clean sheet in a goalless draw. With Steve Book, himself a Rovers keeper, an ever-present in Cheltenham’s first Football League season, it took a while for Higgs to break into the Robins’ side, but he was to prove himself indispensable, playing in nine League matches against Rovers and easing Cheltenham to two promotions, one through the 2006 play-off victory over Grimsby Town, and twice being the club’s Player of the Season, before playing against Rovers at Elland Road in May 2010 as ten-man Leeds recovered an early deficit to win 2-1 and secure promotion after three campaigns in third-tier football. Signed for Northampton by the former Rovers player Aidy Boothroyd, an Achilles injury picked up in training in January 2012 seriously restricted Higgs’ appearances and he retired from football that autumn. Divorced and with a son, Max, Shane Higgs lives near Oxford, where he has a burgeoning reputation as an artist of some merit. |
No 162. Frank William Hill. 1931-32.
B.orn, 12.11.1905, Handsworth, Sheffield. Died, 1955, Scunthorpe. 5’ 11½”; 11 st. Début: 17.10.31 v Portsmouth. Career: Cheshire League football; 1928 Scunthorpe United; May 1929 Portsmouth; 1.6.31 Bristol Rovers [16,0]; August 1932 Crewe Alexandra; August 1933 Scunthorpe United (to 1934). Tall and slight of build, Frank Hill gave Rovers able service at full-back in the 1931-32 season. He played for Rovers reserves against Lovell’s Athletic in August 1931 and went on to play fifteen times as full-back and once, in emergency, as an inside-left against Fulham. On his Rovers début, Brentford took a first-minute lead and, thanks to a penalty in each half from George Robson, beat Rovers 4-2 at Griffin Park. Dropped after a 6-0 defeat at Northampton Town and again after a 4-0 home loss to Brighton, no League games had come his way at Pompey, although he did appear in the Hospital Cup game against Southampton in May 1930, a 2-0 win. A Scunthorpe début against Frickley Colliery in October 1928 was the first of sixty goalless Midland League games in two spells. Frank Hill married Vera Bones in Portsmouth in 1929, their two children, Francis and Maureen, being born in Scunthorpe, where they lived at 11 Ashdown Avenue; after retiring from football, he worked as a steel chipper. |
No 337. Douglas Alfred Hillard. 1957-68.
Born, 10.8.1935, Bristol. Died, 6.1.1997, Bristol. 5’ 9”; 12 st 6 lbs. Début: 13.12.58 v Sheffield United. Career: Maywood; Bristol Mental Hospital; 30.5.57 Bristol Rovers [313+5,12]; June 1968 Taunton Town (free) (player-manager); 1973 Mangotsfield United (manager, to 1978). Eight goals for Maywood when they defeated Lockleaze Rovers Juniors 15-0 in October 1952 as well as a stint at Mental Hospital, although not as an inmate, preceded Doug Hillard’s arrival at Eastville. In the summer of 1957 he scored the only goal, from inside-forward, as Rovers defeated Bristol City “A” in the Gloucestershire FA Intermediate Cup Final. Immediately converted into a tough, marauding right-back, the reliable Hillard, the elder of two sons to Doug Hillard senior and Doris Bamford, held his place for a decade, being ever-present in the League in both 1963-64 and 1965-66. Player of the Year at the club on two occasions, he broke a leg at Scunthorpe in September 1961 whilst playing as an emergency striker. Goals were rare but included a stunning free-kick after 24 minutes of the 3-0 victory over Swindon Town in September 1966, as Rovers established themselves in Division Three following relegation in the spring of 1962. He was awarded a testimonial game against an International XI in 1968. Having led Taunton to their first Western League title in his first season, he won the local League Cup with Mangotsfield in 1973-74 and nurtured young talent there, such as Steve White and Gary Megson. Hillard, who lived in Westerleigh with his wife Janet Dixon, whom he married in 1960, ran a sports shop from the early 1970s in Stapleton Road and later in Fishponds Road and died in Frenchay Hospital at the age of sixty-one, after a short illness. Doug’s son Gary, who took over running the shop, married Judy and they had two children, Joe and Katie. When the Harry Bamford Cup for Sportsmanship was re-discovered in 2014 and nominal winners for the intervening years were selected, Doug Hillard was the winner for 1974, the trophy being handed to his son, Gary, on the Memorial Stadium pitch at half-time in the game against Wrexham; in 2016 Weston-super-Mare’s home ground was renamed the Doug Hillard Sports Stadium. |
No 635. David Hillier. 1998-02.
Born, 19.12.1969, Blackheath. 5’ 10”; 12 st. Début: 27.2.99 v Lincoln City. Career: Millwall (schoolboy); Charlton Athletic (schoolboy); 1984 Arsenal (professional, 11.2.88) [82+22,2]; 4.11.96 Portsmouth (£250,000) [62+5,4]; 24.2.99 Bristol Rovers (£30,000 with Robbie Pethick) [82+1,1]; 14.8.02 Barnet (free); 7.7.03 Clevedon Town (player-coach); January 2008 Oldland Abbotonians (coach; manager, 30.6.08); 1.7.09 Almondsbury UWE (assistant manager; manager, 4.6.10). “A proper home-grown star”, as The Observer described him, David Hillier rose through Arsenal’s junior ranks, won the FA Youth Cup and secured a League championship medal with the Gunners in his first League season. It was a fairy-tale star for the young central midfielder who had been born on the day Pelé scored his famous 1,000th goal. With an England Under-21 cap gained against Turkey in 1991, Hillier scored against Liverpool at Highbury in April 1992, played in the League Cup semi-final of 1993, as Nottingham Forest were defeated 2-0 and the 1-0 FA Cup semi-final victory over Spurs at Wembley, and then missed the close of the season after receiving ten stitches in an ankle injury sustained in European football. Injury ruled him out of both domestic finals and he also missed the European Cup Winners’ Cup Final of 1994, although he played the following campaign when Nayim’s goal denied Arsenal European glory in the same competition. He left Arsenal in 1996, shortly after he had been found guilty of stealing another passenger’s luggage at Gatwick Airport. Following Andy Thomson, Robbie Pethick and Martin Phillips to Rovers from Alan Ball’s Pompey, for whom he had been sent off against Huddersfield Town in March 1997, Hillier captained Rovers at Bournemouth in the absence of the suspended Trevor Challis and scored a cracking left-footed goal at Wycombe in the League Cup in 2001, before his low shot after 64 minutes against Luton Town, which was to be his only League goal for the club. Rovers’ relegation to the basement division that season, coupled with a knee operation, tendonitis, a broken toe in September 2000 and a neck injury, effectively ended his career, although he played in six of Barnet’s first nine Conference games in 2002-03. Leading Abbotonians to victory in the 2009 Les Phillips Cup Final, where they defeated Calne Town 2-1, David Hillier works as a fireman in the Bristol area; he lives in Emerson’s Green with his wife Zoë and their children Amy and Harry. |
No 357. John Raymond Hills. 1961-62.
Born, 24.2.1934, Northfleet. Died, 28.11.2021, Brussels, Belgium. 5’ 10”; 11 st 7 lbs FB Début: 19.8.61 v Liverpool Career: Gravesend County Grammar School; Dashwood Athletic; Gravesend and Northfleet; March 1950 Tottenham Hotspur (professional, August 1953) [29,0]; 19.7.61 Bristol Rovers [7,0]; July 1962 Margate. Sonny Parker, Bob Harris and Joe Day all equalled the feat shortly after the turn of the millennium, but the first Rovers player to concede an own goal on his début was Johnny Hills. A “classy full-back” at Spurs, where he had appeared in the club record 13-2 FA Cup win against Crewe Alexandra in February 1960, Hills put through his own net after 65 minutes of a 2-0 defeat and, with the side losing the first five of his appearances, Rovers were relegated to Division Three in the spring of 1962. Solid and dependable, he had made his League bow in Spurs’ December 1957 fixture against Blackpool and was in the side which trailed 4-2 at Highbury after 86 minutes in February 1958, only to claim an unlikely 4-4 draw in the derby game with Arsenal. Over 200 reserve appearances at White Hart Lane included a Combination champions’ medal in 1956-57. The son of Herbert Frederick Hills (1901-65) and Kathleen Harsum (whose brother William George Harsum played for Bexleyheath Town in the Kent League), a Kent girl who was the daughter of Charles Maulden Harsum and Rebecca Rowe (1859-1926), Johnny Hills missed the entire 1955-56 season through injury after completing his National Service and was then kept out of the Spurs side by England full-back Alf Ramsey. However, his potential earned him a place on the Football Association tour of Nigeria and Ghana in May 1958, where his five games included a 5-0 victory over the Nigerian national side. Married in the spring of 1959 to Sheila Stewart, he arrived at Eastville with a young son but, having a cartilage operation at Winford Hospital, found appearances sporadic and, having taught Physical Education at the International School in Brussels until 1969, thereafter lived in Paris and Sri Lanka, before retiring to Belgium. He was survived by his three children, Ian, Angela and Lawrence. |
No 728. Craig Hinton. 2004-09.
Born, 26.11.1977, Wolverhampton. 5’ 11”; 11 st. Début: 7.8.04 v Mansfield Town. Career: Bilbrook Middle School; Birmingham City (professional, 1.8.91); 1.8.98 Kidderminster Harriers (free) [210+4,6]; 4.6.04 Bristol Rovers (free) [135+18,3]; 19.5.09 Northampton Town (free) [38+2,0]; 26.11.10 Luton Town (loan); 17.3.11 Bristol Rovers (assistant manager); 20.6.11 Nuneaton Town (trial); 19.8.11 Solihull Moors (player-coach; assistant manager, 7.5.12); 1.10.12 Northampton Town (youth team coach). Dependable and reliable, Craig Hinton suddenly scored an unexpected flurry of goals in the autumn of 2007, prompting the unlikely sobriquet of “Goal Machine”. A well-respected defender, he had played in more League matches than any other Harriers player and could add 41 Conference matches and three goals to his impressive haul after an unfruitful spell at Birmingham. The nephew of Alan Hinton, primarily of Derby County, who had won three England caps in the early 1960s, Alan being the eldest of three sons to Walter Hinton and Harriett Burkitt of Wednesbury, Craig Hinton’s League bow came in Kidderminster’s first League match and, twice their Player of the Year, he appeared in the first six League meetings between his side and Rovers. Re-united at Rovers with his former Birmingham coach Kevan Broadhurst, he forged an excellent defensive partnership with Steve Elliott as Rovers pushed towards promotion to League One. He was sent off at Rochdale in April 2006, on the day Rickie Lambert scored one penalty and missed one against Rovers, and in the final minute of the goalless draw at Shrewsbury in March 2007. The spring of 2007 saw Rovers make a late, determined promotion push and make the play-offs on the dramatic final day of an exciting season. Hinton played at the Millennium Stadium as Rovers lost 3-2 to Doncaster Rovers in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Final and at Wembley in May 2007 as Rovers beat Shrewsbury Town 3-1 to seal promotion to third-tier football. Suddenly, in the following campaign, Hinton scored three FA Cup goals, one in the titanic victory over Premier League Fulham, and a couple of League goals, the first against Carlisle United over Christmas; he had hit the crossbar at Torquay in the autumn of 2006, but this goal rush was unpredicted and welcome. Having played in Rovers’ FA Cup quarter-final against West Brom in March 2008, Hinton was sent off for Northampton at Rotherham in April 2010, later played twice in the Conference for Luton and scored once in fourteen matches with Solihull, working under the former Rovers left-back, Marcus Bignot. He was part of the Northampton set-up, which lost to Bradford City at Wembley in a play-off final in May 2013. Brought up in Pattingham, he now lives in Northampton. |
No 842. Thomas Joseph Hitchcock, 2012-13.
Born, 1.10.1992, Hemel Hempstead. 5’ 10”; 11 st 10 lbs. Début: 1.1.13 v Plymouth Argyle. Career: Kingshott School; Watford; 2007 Blackburn Rovers (professional, 1.6.11); 15.7.11 Plymouth Argyle (loan) [3+5,0]; 4.3.12 Queen’s Park Rangers (free) [0+1,1]; 31.12.12 Bristol Rovers (loan) [7+10,3]; 28.11.13 Crewe Alexandra (loan) [6,3]; 10.1.14 Rotherham United (loan) [4+7,5]; 1.7.14 MK Dons (free, to 9.8.16) [1+11,0]; 31.10.14 Fleetwood Town (loan) [4+2,1]; 7.8.15 Stevenage (loan) [5+5,2]; 24.2.16 Crewe Alexandra (loan) [6+1,0]; 10.1.17 Port Vale (trial); 17.1.17 Boreham Wood (free); 12.9.17 Chelmsford City (free); 31.8.18 Biggleswade Town (free); 25.10.18 Harlow Town (free); 10.8.19 Cheshunt (free); 7.10.19 Bedford Town (free); 7.10.20 Cambridge City (loan) [2,1]; 25.6.21 Cambridge City (free). With Tom Eaves having returned to his mother club, newly reappointed Rovers manager John Ward brought Tom Hitchcock to Rovers on loan and he made his début in the much-needed home victory over relegation rivals Plymouth, his former club. Hitchcock’s previous League experience had been exclusively at Home Park, where his League bow had come in August 2011 against Shrewsbury Town, after scoring the previous month in a trial game against Bristol City. Recalled to the Rovers side after Easter, he came off the bench to score the winning goal with a clinical finish against AFC Wimbledon, eight minutes from time when set up by Oumare Tounkara, to push Rovers towards a potential late play-off berth. “The ball came at me quickly and I just managed to get it under control and get a shot away”, commented the striker, who then scored again off a post five minutes after half-time at Bradford. The son of Kevin Hitchcock (the youngest of three children to Joe Hitchcock and Kathleen Moore), an experienced goalkeeper with Mansfield, Chelsea and Northampton, who worked at both Blackburn and QPR as a goalkeeping coach, Tom Hitchcock had scored his first goal for Blackburn reserves in the spring of 2010 and hit four goals in 8(+7) games for their reserves as well as eight in nineteen Academy appearances, before scoring a hat-trick as Blackburn reserves defeated Kendal 7-1 in a friendly in July 2011. Returning to QPR, a July 2013 hat-trick, after seven, 58 and 69 minutes of a 4-0 pre-season victory at Staines Town preceded a League bow for Rangers the following month, when he replaced Bobby Zamora seven minutes from time and scored the only goal of the game against Ipswich Town. He scored a hat-trick after fifteen, 61 and 78 minutes, as Rangers’ Under-21 side defeated Wimbledon 4-3 in the Premier League Cup on Bonfire Night 2013 and another, after coming on the field on the hour mark, after 69, 86 and ninety minutes in Rotherham’s 4-3 victory at Gillingham in April 2014, thus becoming the twenty-fifth player to score a Football League hat-trick as a substitute. He was with Scott Shearer on Rotherham’s bench as Orient were defeated at the Wembley play-off final to secure a return to second-tier football and scored just three minutes into his Fleetwood début, a 1-0 win against Gillingham in November 2014. Largely kept out of the MK Dons team, Hitchcock could only watch as his free-scoring side secured promotion from League One in 2014-15 before being relegated twelve months later. He was sent off at home to Notts County on his Stevenage début in August 2015, just twenty-eight minutes after coming on as a substitute, scored for them at Dagenham and at Barnet and was part of the Crewe side relegated to League Two in the spring of 2016. Hitchcock appeared in 5(+6) Conference matches with Boreham Wood, where he was a team-mate of Dan Woodards, Ricky Shakes and Ángelo Balanta. He scored on his Chelmsford début, a 7-0 FA Cup victory over Ramsgate, and added a goal against Bath City in his 3(+8) Nationwide South appearances. After just 1(+1) games for Biggleswade, Hitchcock was in the Harlow side which lost 9-1 at Worthing in February 2019, scoring three goals in his 27(+7) matches for that club. Subsequently he scored against his former club Biggleswade on his Bedford début in a Southern League Cup-tie in October 2019, the first of ten goals in thirteen matches. In October 2021 he was one of two Cambridge City players sent off before half-time of an FA Trophy tie with Bedford Town, this proving to be the final appearance in his spell at Cambridge, which had seen three goals (against Halesowen Town, Spalding Town and Yaxley) in eleven Northern Premier League Midlands Division matches, as well as a missed penalty in the FA Cup at Carlton Town. He lives with his partner Coby and their young son, Harley. |
No 715. Shane Michael Hobbs. 2003-04.
Born, 30.4.1985, Bristol. 5’ 7”; 11 st 6 lbs. Début: 18.10.03 v Cambridge United. Career: 2001 Bristol Rovers (professional, 1.8.03) [0+2,0]; 2.4.03 Mangotsfield United (trial); 29.12.03 Clevedon Town (loan); 13.5.04 Mangotsfield United (free); 31.1.05 Frome Town (free); 1.7.05 Odd Down; 6.9.05 Hallen; August 2006 Totterdown Port; 15.11.06 Taunton Town; 16.7.07 Clevedon Town; 2008 Henbury; 2009 Highridge United; 2010 Dawlish Town; 2012 Greyfriars Athletic; 2014 Shaftesbury Crusade; 2015 Henbury Old Boys; 2015 Sportsman; March 2016 Shaftesbury Crusade. Substitute appearances for Wayne Carlisle on his début and for Junior Agogo at Kidderminster encapsulated midfielder Shane Hobbs’ Rovers career; Rovers lost both fixtures without scoring. The son of Michael Hobbs and Beverley Tuck, Hobbs had previously scored a hat-trick as the reserves beat Swansea City reserves 6-2 in October 2002 and twice in the Under-19 side’s 5-3 victory over Cardiff City in March 2003. In addition, he had scored twice against Cambridge City in Rovers’ FA Youth Cup campaign of 2001-02. His twelve goals in 28(+5) games for Clevedon included two in a minute against Mangotsfield in March 2004, for whom he had played in 5(+2) games the previous year, and he added five goals in 23 matches at Hallen. After 32 goals for Henbury, where his father was club manager, had left him as the top scorer in that league, his 27 goals for Highridge included a hat-trick in November 2009 against DRG Stapleton. He later scored a hat-trick as Sportsman won 7-4 away to Stoke Lane Athletic in September 2015. Shane Hobbs was sentenced to sixteen months in jail by Judge Phillip Wassall in April 2012 for sexual assault on a woman in Queen Street, Exeter and common assault on a second woman. |
No 707. Lee Leslie Hodges. 2002-04.
Born, 2.3.1978, Plaistow. 5’ 5”; 10 st 2 lbs. Début: 22.2.03 v Hartlepool United. Career: West Ham United (professional, 2.3.95) [0+3,0]; 13.9.96 Exeter City (loan) [16+1,0]; 28.2.97 Orient (loan) [3,0]; 6.11.97 Plymouth Argyle (loan) [9,0]; 20.11.98 Ipswich Town (loan) [0+4,0]; 25.3.99 Southend United (loan) [10,1]; 8.7.99 Scunthorpe United (£130,000) [97+16,20]; 16.7.02 Rochdale (free) [3+4,0]; 21.3.03 Bristol Rovers (loan); 20.5.03 Bristol Rovers (free) [12+9,2]; 2.8.04 Gray’s Athletic (trial); 8.8.04 Thurrock (free); 13.2.06 Billericay Town (free); 28.6.08 AFC Hornchurch (free); 1.8.09 Tilbury (free) (player-coach); 17.2.10 Braintree Town (free); 2.8.10 East Thurrock United; 10.1.11 Maldon and Tiptree; 15.11.11 Aveley (coach, to 6.2.12). Although only twenty-five years of age when he signed for Rovers, winger Lee Hodges already had League experience with eight separate clubs under his belt. Fast and dynamic, he created many opportunities, but his time at Rovers was blighted by knee trouble and, having had nine cartilage operations, his professional career drew to a close. Armed with pace, skill and a direct running style, Hodges represented England Schoolboys, winning five caps at Under-16 level, and played alongside Rio Ferdinand OBE and Frank Lampard in the West Ham youth side which lost the 1995-96 FA Youth Cup Final to Liverpool, Michael Owen scoring one of the goals. An Orient début alongside Justin Channing, on the same day that forty-year-old Ray Wilkins played his first match for the club, preceded his Premier League début, as a substitute for Eyal Berkovic in the Hammers’ 1-0 defeat at Spurs in January 1998. A Plymouth team-mate of Ronnie Maugé, Hodges scored his first League goal four minutes from time in Southend’s 2-0 victory at Barnet in May 1999. Player of the Year at Scunthorpe, and twice voted into the PFA divisional team of the season, he scored the winning goal, after 85 minutes, against his former club when Rovers won 2-1 at Glanford Park in August 2003. Scoring the opening goal as Thurrock defeated Canvey Island in the 2004 Isthmian Charity Shield Final, he added sixteen goals in 73 matches at Ship Lane and fifteen in 76 fixtures for Billericay before commencing work from 2007 as a stockbroker in Canary Wharf. |
No 267. Leonard Herbert Hodges. 1946-50.
Born, 17.2.1920, Bristol. Died, 5.8.1959, Bristol. 5’ 6”; 10 st 10 lbs. Début: 14.9.46 v Torquay United. Career: Portway; Bristol Boys; August 1937 Bristol Rovers; Kingswood Aero Engineers; Soundwell; 9.8.46 Bristol Rovers [118,20]; 28.7.50 Swansea Town [2,0]; 1.8.51 Reading [6,2]; 8.7.53 Chippenham Town (released, 13.5.54). Replacing Vic Lambden for his League début and scoring in a 3-0 victory, inside-right Len Hodges was to score exactly five goals in each of Rovers’ first four post-war League seasons. A talented forward with a creative streak, he scored twice in the 6-1 Eastville victory over Orient on Easter Monday 1947 and twice more when Rovers won 3-2 at Newport County in April 1950. Later captain of the reserve side at Reading, where he also registered League goals against Watford and Newport County, he was signed for Chippenham by the former Rovers full-back Jack Preece and, living in Kingswood, worked as a clerk at Bristol Aeroplane Company in Filton, playing cricket locally with Soundwell. The son of George Thomas Hodges (1898-1961) and Lily Hayman (1897-1946), who had married in Bristol in 1915, he married Gladys Poole, the eleventh of twelve children to Samuel Poole and Louisa Shepherd, shortly after war broke out and they had two sons, Tony (1942-78) and Keith, as well as grandchildren. Tragically, Len Hodges did not live as long as his fortieth birthday, dying of meningitis in Frenchay Hospital. |
No 656. Lewis James Hogg. 2000-03.
Born, 13.9.1982, Little Stoke, Bristol. 5’ 8”; 10 st 7 lbs. Début: 12.8.00 v Bournemouth. Career: 1992 Bristol Rovers (professional, 1.8.99) [53+4,3]; 8.8.03 Barnet (free); 24.12.03 Weston-super-Mare (free); 18.9.04 Tiverton Town (trial); 23.5.06 Bath City (free); 12.6.12 Gloucester City (free); 17.10.14 Mangotsfield United (free; 28.10.15 joint caretaker-manager, 28.10.15; player-coach, 12.11.15-20.2.16); 18.3.16 Yate Town (free); 15.6.16 Mangotsfield United (assistant manager, to 22.4.17); October 2017 Street (free). Just a week after his eighteenth birthday, Lewis Hogg scored for Rovers at Goodison Park as Rovers came away with a 1-1 draw in a League Cup-tie against Paul Gascoigne’s Everton, before defeating their illustrious opponents in a penalty shoot-out after the replay. The teenager had made his League bow a few weeks earlier, Rovers’ seventh débutant of the game as a late substitute for Nathan Ellington on the opening day of the season. He contributed his first two League goals in a 6-2 win at Brentford, the first being a thirty-five-yard shot which deflected in off goalkeeper Ólafur Gottskálksson, but early season optimism dissipated as Rovers were relegated to the basement division for the first time in the club’s history. Sent off against Reading on the aptly-name Boxing Day 2000, Hogg was one of Rovers’ youngest captains and, having made the England Under-18 squad, played for England semi-professionals against Belgium at Darlington in the autumn of 2003. Signed for Barnet by Martin Allen, a cousin of his former Rovers team-mate Bradley Allen, Hogg scored his only goal in 11(+5) Conference games against Leigh Genesis, but was sent off against Exeter City in October 2003 before two former Rovers men Chris Plummer and Giuliano Grazioli both scored in the final minute. Turning down an offer to join Newport County, Hogg joined a growing band of former Rovers players at Weston, appearing alongside Mark McKeever, David Mehew, Dave Gilroy, Billy Clark and Jon French. Sent off three times for Weston in his 103 games, with twelve goals, Hogg received red cards for Bath against Bognor in December 2007 and Forest Green in August 2010. He scored 35 goals in 179(+18) games for Bath, helping the Romans to promotion to the Conference through the play-offs in 2009-10 and playing against Rovers in a pre-season friendly in July 2011. His thirteen yellow cards in 2011-12 showed his commitment, but Bath were relegated from the Conference in the spring of 2012 and Hogg added eight goals in 76(+2) Nationwide North games with Gloucester City, as well as playing against Rovers in pre-season in July 2014. He scored and was sent off, as Gloucester lost 5-3 at Stockport County at the start of October 2014 and opened the scoring after thirteen minutes on his Mangotsfield début against Evesham United later that month, the first of four goals in 35(+3) Southern League Division One appearances. He left Mangotsfield after being sent off against Larkhall Athletic, having accumulated eighteen yellow cards and three reds in twenty-two matches during the 2015-16 campaign, to play twice for Yate Town before the season was out. Hogg played alongside Tom Parrinello and Matt Groves in the Mangotsfield side which faced Rovers in a pre-season friendly in July 2016 and scored twice in 23(+2) Southern League First Division matches, but also headed two first-half own goals, both from crosses from the former Rovers youngster Ross Staley, in a 6-1 defeat at Taunton Town on April Fool’s Day 2017. He retired from football later that month to focus on a career as a plumber, but returned to the fray to convert a hat-trick of penalties as Mangotsfield defeated Brislington 4-1 in a pre-season friendly prior to the 2017-18 campaign. |
No 61. Sydney Holcroft. 1924-27.
Born, 1901, Aston, Birmingham. Died, 1934, Birmingham. 5’ 9”; 11 st 7 lbs. Début: 30.8.24 v Merthyr Town. Career: 1919 Britannia; 1920 Small Heath Unity; 16.9.22 Hednesford Town; September 1923 Stourbridge; 17.5.24 Bristol Rovers [32,9]; September 1927 Willenhall; November 1927 Cannock Town; 6.2.28 Birmingham Corporation Trams. A clever inside-forward who scored in each of his first five League games for Rovers, Sid Holcroft was the sixth and youngest child of electrical meter assembler Matthew Holcroft (1866-1960) and Emma Gibbons and was brought up with his five elder sisters at 163 St Andrew’s Road, Birmingham. He scored a hat-trick when Rovers defeated QPR 5-0 at Eastville in October 1925, scoring the first two goals after 35 and 44 minutes and Rovers’ fifth twenty-five minutes from time. He added four goals in the reserves’ 10-3 win against Weymouth in December 1925 and, despite not playing again for the League side after the opening day of the 1926-27 campaign, added many goals for the reserves and a hat-trick in a friendly against Gloucester City in April 1927. That he did not play again was partly a disciplinary decision, for he was suspended for a fortnight in January 1927 for “a breach of club rules”. Holcroft had arrived at Eastville with a formidable goal-scoring record behind him. Seventeen goals for Britannia and 31 for Small Heath United preceded twenty with Hednesford Town, which included a first-half hat-trick against Kidderminster Harriers over Christmas 1922. This form had earned a representative game for English Juniors against Scottish Juniors in 1923 and he scored nineteen of Stourbridge’s seventy goals as they secured the Birmingham League championship in 1923-24. He died, unmarried, at a desperately young age, his father, thanks to cruel fate, surviving his only son by almost thirty years. |
No 476. Ian Scott Holloway. 1980-85, 1987-91 and 1996-99.
Born, 12.3.1963, Kingswood. 5’ 8”; 10 st 10 lbs. Début: 25.4.81 v Wrexham. Career: Sir Bernard Lovell School; Northavon Boys; Bristol Rovers (associate schoolboy, 12.3.77; apprentice, 10.7.79; professional, 18.3.81); 19.7.85 Wimbledon (£35,000) [19,2]; 12.3.86 Brentford (£25,000) [27+3,2]; 30.1.87 Torquay United (loan) [5,0]; 21.8.87 Bristol Rovers (£10,000); 12.8.91 Queen’s Park Rangers (£230,000) [130+17,4]; 13.5.96 Bristol Rovers (player-manager) [379+18,42]; 26.2.01 Queen’s Park Rangers (manager); 28.6.06 Plymouth Argyle (manager); 22.11.07 Leicester City (manager); 21.5.09 Blackpool (manager); 3.11.12 Crystal Palace (manager); 6.1.14 Millwall (manager, to 10.3.15); 11.11.16 Queen’s Park Rangers (manager, to 10.5.18); 31.12.19 Grimsby Town (manager, to 23.12.20). No brief written summary can possibly do adequate justice to the life story of Ian Holloway, who served Rovers in three stints as a player and is well-known nationally as a player, manager and man of innate humour. The third son of local player Bill Holloway, a seaman by profession, and Jean Malcolm Young of Cadbury Heath, “Ollie” signed for Rovers on his fourteenth birthday becoming, in the process, the first associate schoolboy signing in England, the rules having altered that day. From his first appearance in a Rovers shirt, as Rovers fielded their youngest ever line-up, there was something about Holloway that made him stand out from the crowd: the passion, the relentless enthusiasm, the eager positivity and the reluctance to bow to the inevitable. Above all else, though, was a deep love of his home-town club; “I swear he’d bleed blue if you cut him”, Darren Carr once commented. He regularly scored critical goals, specialising in crucial strikes against Bristol City, from the winning goal, curled beautifully from the right-wing, in the 1983 Gloucestershire Cup Final as part of a hugely exciting young Rovers midfield, to the only goal in a promotion clash at Eastville in April 1985 to the decisive fifty-eighth-minute penalty in May 1990 when Rovers defeated City 3-0 to seal promotion to Division Two. An ever-present and the club’s Player of the Year in the Third Division title season of 1989-90 and an ever-present again the following campaign in second-flight football, he equalled a club record with penalties in three consecutive games in the autumn of 1990, although missed penalties also came against Cardiff City in October 1989 and West Ham on New Year’s Day 1991. Perhaps his best goal for Rovers came from Brian Williams’ cross in the FA Cup against Ipswich Town in January 1985 but, equally, he should be remembered more for his constructive midfield play, his combative presence in the engine room of midfield and his never-say-die attitude. He also played at Wembley in a Rovers shirt in the 1990 Leyland Daf Cup Final against Tranmere Rovers, a competition in which no Rovers player can exceed his 22 appearances. One of only thirteen players to make 100 consecutive League appearances for Rovers, he is the only player to appear in the League for the club in three spells and one of only two to score League goals on three home grounds. Away from Rovers, Holloway experienced top-flight football at Wimbledon and QPR, where Gerry Francis had attracted a following of former Rovers players, adding Dennis Bailey, Gary Penrice, Devon White and Steve Yates to the ranks. Injured in the eye against Sheffield United in August 1992 and sent off for two yellow cards at Coventry City in April 1995, he certainly made his presence felt. As QPR were relegated from the Premier Division in 1995-96, he simultaneously helped their reserve side secure the Avon Insurance championship. With his playing days almost over, the veteran Holloway became only the second Bristolian to manage Rovers and led his club to the 1997-98 League Two play-offs but, with relegation to the basement division staring the club in the face, he left in 2001. Thereafter, he has enjoyed a decade in the media spotlight, taking QPR to promotion to League One in 2003-04, one point ahead of Bristol City, yet being knocked out of the FA Cup by Vauxhall Motors, taking Rovers favourites Jamie Cureton and Marcus Bignot (twice) to Rangers, leading Leicester City out at Ashton Gate for his first game and even playing ninety minutes for Plymouth Argyle reserves at Liskeard in October 2006. Miracles appeared at Blackpool, where the seaside team returned to top-flight football in 2010 after an absence of 39 years and were relegated back only on the final day of the next campaign after a hugely entertaining and enjoyable season. Even then, they came ninety minutes away from an immediate return, losing 2-1 to West Ham in the Wembley play-off final in May 2012, and Holloway led unfashionable Palace back to the Premier League via the play-offs in the spring of 2013 before being replaced at Selhurst Park by Tony Pulis. He then rescued Millwall from the jaws of relegation to League One in the spring of 2014, only to lose his position before their end-of-term relegation was confirmed. On New Year’s Eve 2019 he signed on as manager at Grimsby Town during a meeting at Papa’s fish restaurant on Cleethorpes Pier but left the club during a season which saw them drop back out of the Football League in May 2021. Based in St Albans, Ian and his wife Kim have four children, a son William, followed by identical twins Chloë and Eve and another daughter Harriet, the three girls all being genetically deaf. “A skeletal man who speaks with an agricultural accent” (Vitālijs Astafjevs), Holloway has kept the footballing world amused and encouraged by his optimistic attitude, his penchant for off-the-wall interviews and his incessant good-natured banter; “I have such bad luck at the moment”, he said, “that if I fell in a barrel of boobs I’d come out sucking my thumb”. In 2005 a book of his quotations, “Let’s Have Coffee: The Tao of Ian Holloway” was published. Following his father’s early death, though, as outlined in his 2007 autobiography, “Ollie”, he is aware of the effect an all-encompassing job can have on his health and was described in the 2004 BBC documentary “The Stress Test” as “a nuclear bomb, waiting to go off”. Honorary Patron of the organisation Show Racism the Red Card, Holloway is also heavily involved in self-sufficiency, keeping chickens and becoming a proficient carpenter. Footballer, manager, pundit, enthusiast, realist and life-long Bristol Rovers man, Ian Holloway is a credit to his profession and a rôle model for us all. |
No 917. Tareiq Holmes-Dennis. 2018-20.
Born, 31.10.1995, Farnborough. 5’ 9”; 11 st 12 lbs. Début: 15.12.18 v Sunderland. Career: Sydenham Sports; Charlton Athletic (professional, 18.10.13) [5+7,0]; 16.10.14 Oxford United (loan) [14,0]; 5.2.15 Plymouth Argyle (loan) [17,1]; 18.3.16 Oldham Athletic (loan) [10,0]; 24.8.16 Huddersfield Town (free) [7+2,0]; 8.8.17 Portsmouth (loan) [1,0]; 23.7.18 Bristol Rovers (free) [20+2,1]; 21.8.20 Charlton Athletic (trial). Retired, 13.10.20. As Ellis Harrison left Rovers, right-back Tareiq Holmes-Dennis arrived on the same day, “a great young British talent”, according to his manager at Huddersfield, David Wagner. Indeed, he had played once for England at Under-18 level, in a 1-0 defeat against Belgium in March 2013. He was to make a belated, injury-delayed bow in the Football League Trophy tie at Exeter City in November 2018 and then, following manager Darrell Clarke’s departure from The Mem, make his League bow in the first post-Clarke fixture, before a crowd of 28,971 at The Stadium of Light. A goal soon followed, set up by Alex Jakubiak seven minutes after half-time in a large win at Walsall that Boxing Day. The son of Marcel Dennis, an exciting player at Bromley, Tareiq had made his League bow on loan at Oxford against Tranmere Rovers in October 2014, offering “a lot of energy down the wing” (Michael Appleton). Tranmere were also the opponents when he scored his solitary League goal, as Plymouth won 3-2 in April 2015 en route to the play-offs, where they lost to Wycombe Wanderers; this strike was voted Argyle’s Goal of the Season. Previously youth team captain at Charlton, Holmes-Dennis forced his way into his mother club’s side, only to be sent off at home to Nottingham Forest in January 2016. Huddersfield were unexpectedly promoted to the Premier League in 2016-17 and he played in both play-off semi-finals as well as opposing Manchester City in the FA Cup, before being an unused substitute as Reading were defeated in the play-off final at Wembley in May 2017. However, he had missed part of that season with tendonitis in both knees and an injury to the cartilage lining at the end of his thigh bone meant that he played just the first thirty-nine minutes for Pompey against Rochdale on the opening day of the 2017-18 campaign before missing the rest of the season. Long-term injury was to deprive a supremely talented young footballer of the bulk of his potential career. |
No 98. Sydney Homer. 1927-30.
Born, 14.1.1903, Bloxwich, Staffordshire. Died, 22.1.1983, Walsall. 5’ 2¾”; 9 st 10 lbs. Début: 7.9.27 v Plymouth Argyle. Career: Bloxwich White Star; 1924 Bloxwich Strollers; May 1925 Wolverhampton Wanderers [29,1]; 22.6.27 Bristol Rovers [38,5]; 8.11.29 Bristol City (£250) [179,18]; August 1934 Worcester City; 1938 Hereford United. However much you sense the three-quarters of an inch felt important to his height Syd Homer, if small in stature, was a phenomenally good winger, offering even more at Ashton Gate than earlier in his career. Helping White Star to the Walsall and District Junior League title in 1923-24, his form for Strollers in the Birmingham Combination, which they won in 1924-25, earned trials at Redditch Town before League football came calling. A first Football League goal duly arrived as Fred Scotchbrook’s Wolves defeated Barnsley 7-1 in Division Two in April 1926. He and Jack Russell both scored début goals against Plymouth Argyle and Homer added a brace when Bournemouth were defeated 3-0 at Eastville in April 1928. Rovers’ shortest player in the Football League era, Homer then transferred across the City, playing in three Gloucestershire Cup Finals against Rovers, and indeed scoring twice in the 1932-33 final, although never opposing his former employers in League action. Despite City’s relegation from Division Two in 1931-32 and an appearance in the record 9-0 defeat at Coventry City, Homer was in the side which secured the Welsh Cup in 1934, beating Tranmere Rovers 3-0 in the final before he and Aubrey Scriven joined Worcester City in a joint deal. The younger son of a coal mine hewer, Joseph Homer, and his wife Sarah Dugmore, Syd Homer had been brought up at 66 New Street, Bloxwich. |
No 961. Luca Hoole. 2021-
Born, 2.6.2002, Newport. 5’10”; 11 st. Début: 7.8.21 v Mansfield Town. Career: Bristol Rovers (13.3.18 professional) [27+2,1]; 2.11.20 Taunton Town (loan). A second-year Academy scholar with Rovers from the age of eleven, initially as a striker, full-back Luca Hoole first appeared in Rovers’ side in the Football League Trophy tie at Plymouth Argyle in September 2019, when he replaced the tiring substitute Abu Ogogo with twenty-nine minutes to play. He had previously set up Tom Nichols’ goal in the pre-season draw at Kidderminster Harriers that July. In November 2019 Hoole was called up to the Wales Under-19 squad. A loan spell at Taunton featured just one match, in which he was ineligible, before covid restrictions drew the season to a premature close. He had a “goal” disallowed at Peterborough United in January 2022, a potential last-minute FA Cup equaliser and was sent off for two first-half yellow cards at home to Walsall later that month. However, he did not have to wait long for his first goal, firing home from Antony Evans’ corner after just ten minutes of the play-off six-pointer at home to Exeter City the following month. Incredibly, with Hoole playing a key part in the process, Rovers shot up the table and secured a dramatic final-day promotion back to League One, Hoole having been a key member of a closely-knit squad. Club form earned a well-merited call-up to the Wales Under-21 squad for June 2022 fixtures, where he replaced Brentford’s Finley Stevens for the final fifteen minutes of Wales Under-21’s 2-0 victory over Gibraltar. |
No 319. Peter John Hooper. 1953-62.
Born, 2.2.1933, Teignmouth, Devon. Died, 13.8.2011, Barnstaple, Devon. 5’ 9”; 11 st 11 lbs. Début: 27.3.54 v Rotherham United. Career: Teignmouth Grammar School; Exeter City (amateur); Dawlish Town; 5.5.53 Bristol Rovers [297,102]; 2.7.62 Cardiff City (£10,500) [40,22]; July 1963 Bristol City (£11,250) [54,14]; 1966 Worcester City (£1,500); 1967 Glastonbury; 1968 Barnstaple Town (retired, 1969). Time and again, long-range powerful shots from outside-left Peter Hooper troubled opposition defences, as unfashionable Bristol Rovers became a recognised force in Second Division football. Making his début in the first season which followed promotion from Division Three, Hooper played his last game during the relegation campaign of 1961-62. Hence, his 297 League games for Rovers, during which time he became the fifth highest scorer in the club’s League history, all came in second-tier football. Those long distance blockbuster shots became part of Rovers’ folk-lore and Hooper also scored direct from a corner against Orient in August 1959 as well as being prolific from the penalty-spot. On Boxing Day 1961, as Bury were defeated 6-1 at Eastville, he hit a first-half hat-trick, after six, 20 and 34 minutes, and he also scored a penalty within two minutes of the start of the FA Cup-tie with Mansfield Town in January 1958, a feat also achieved by Jimmy Lofthouse. When Rovers first played under floodlights, in September 1959, two Hooper goals helped defeat Ipswich Town 2-1 before a crowd of 24,093. The only man to have scored for both Bristol sides in local derbies in the Football League, his seventy goals for Rovers at Eastville was exceeded by only three other players. One astonishing tale relates that a late penalty against Leicester City in September 1956 was struck with such ferocity that, when it struck the base of the post, it bounced away so sharply that the Foxes broke away to score the winning goal. Hooper’s club form earned a game at Elland Road in 1960, representing the Football League against the Irish League. Whilst on National Service Hooper, alongside East Fife’s Ross Cousins, was called into the Kenyan side for two matches in September 1952, playing in a 7-1 victory over Zanzibar and in a 6-3 defeat in Uganda. Following his departure from Eastville, Hooper made his Cardiff début in a 4-4 draw with Newcastle United and scored against Rovers in his first game for Bristol City before scoring three goals in thirty Southern League matches for Worcester. Peter Hooper ran The Three Pigeons at Bishops Tawton, near Barnstaple from 1969 to 1979, before becoming a probation officer in North Devon and coaching youngsters at Newport Primary School in Barnstaple. In 1958 he married Crystal Radford (1938-2008), the daughter of John Radford and Gladys Blithe, and was widowed after fifty years of marriage; they had two daughters, Paula and Karen, as well as a grand-daughter, Ella May. |
No 204. Harry Hope. 1934-35.
Born, 21.5.1908, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Died, 1991, Bristol. 5’ 8”; 11 st. Début: 5.5.34 v Norwich City, Career: Crawcrook Albion; July 1933 Rochdale; November 1933 Chopwell Institute; March 1934 Sheffield Wednesday (trial); 5.5.34 Bristol Rovers (amateur) [2,0]; 17.4.35 Bristol City (free); 17.7.35 Bath City; 29.11.35 Weymouth (to May 1939). An inside-left, Harry Hope played in the goalless draw at Norwich and in Rovers’ 3-0 defeat at Bournemouth, as well as the friendly at Wrington in April 1935; he also scored for the reserves on at least three occasions, against Exeter City reserves, Bath City and Folkestone, where he was often deployed as a left-half. Hope “used the ball well occasionally”, one reporter penned, almost enigmatically, and almost scored in his League game from a cross by George McNestry, another former Chopwell player. In addition, he made a dramatic start to his career at Weymouth, scoring after two minutes and completing a hat-trick in the opening half an hour of a 4-1 victory at home to Street the day after joining the club. Harry Hope married Kathleen Warwick (1914-2004, the second of three children to George Warwick, 1885-1945 and Bertha Mabel Bunnage, 1891-1978) in 1936 and they had a daughter Shirley, who married Gordon Dyson, and a son Alan, who married Sheila Smale. |
No 571. Jeffrey Hopkins. 1991-92.
Born, 14.4.1964, Swansea. 6’; 12 st 12 lbs. Début: 7.3.92 v Blackburn Rovers. Career: Wokingham; June 1980 Fulham (professional, 10.9.81) [213+6,4]; 17.8.88 Crystal Palace (£240,000) [70,2]; 24.10.91 Plymouth Argyle (loan) [8,0]; 5.3.92 Bristol Rovers (free) [4+2,0]; 13.7.92 Reading [127+4,3]; June 1997 Notts County (trial); July 1997 Barry Town (trial); July 1997 Selangor; July 1998 Morwell Falcons (player-coach); Eastern Pride; 2001 Derby County Australian Academy (coach); 2008 Brisbane Roar (coach of women’s team; women’s 1st XI coach, 27.1.12; men’s assistant manager, 15.6.12; youth coach, 30.4.13; assistant coach, 26.11.14); 17.6.16 Melbourne Victory women’s team (head coach). Experienced central defender Jeff Hopkins made a brief impact during Rovers’ second season back in the second tier of English football. A Welsh Youth international with two Wales Under-21 caps to his name, he represented Wales in sixteen full internationals from a début against Northern Ireland in May 1983 to a final match against Costa Rica in May 1990. He was in the Welsh side which drew 1-1 with Brazil in Cardiff and the team which defeated England at Wrexham. At club level, he had played three times for Fulham against Rovers in the League and scored for Fulham reserves against Rovers reserves in April 1987. With the Cottagers, he had experienced promotion from Division Three in 1981-82 as well as relegation four seasons later and he was in the Palace team that suffered a record 9-0 defeat at Liverpool in Division One in September 1989. At Reading, Hopkins appeared in the 1994-95 play-off semi-final, as Tranmere were defeated 3-1 on aggregate and played at Wembley in the play-off final, replacing Andy Bernal after 68 minutes. Sadly, though, Reading threw away a 2-0 lead to lose 4-3 after extra time in an exciting match against Bolton Wanderers and missed out on top-fight football. Highly thought of by colleagues, Hopkins was highly praised in Ian Wright’s autobiography: “I’ve never met another player who could match Jeff for honesty, courage and commitment”. Captaining Selangor to victory in the 1997 Malaysian Cup Final, winning 1-0 against Pahang and counting Chris Kiwomya and Tony Cottee amongst his team-mates, Hopkins then moved to Australia to play 23 times for Falcons, a side from Gippsland, and coach the Brisbane Roar women’s side to the Hyundai A-League title in 2010-11. He married Debbie in 1985 and they have a son, Daniel, and a daughter, Madeline. |
No 787. William Richard Hoskins. 2010-11.
Born, 6.5.1986, Nottingham. 5’ 11”; 11 st 2 lbs. Début: 7.8.10 v Peterborough United Career: 1.10.02 Rotherham United [35+38,23]; 5.1.07 Watford (£1,200,000 plus Lee Williamson) [25+35,7]; 18.9.07 Millwall (loan) [9+1,2]; 8.2.08 Nottingham Forest (loan) [2,0]; 25.6.10 Bristol Rovers (free) [41+2,17]; 20.5.11 Brighton (free) [6+12,1]; 31.1.12 Sheffield United (loan) [4+8,2]; 4.7.14 Barnsley (trial); 25.8.14 Oxford United (free) [2+2,0]; 30.7.15 Exeter City (free) [2+7,1]; 8.12.16 Colchester United (trial); 10.11.17 Hemel Hempstead United (free); 8.6.18 Northcote City (free); 3.1.20 Kings Langley (free; retired, 27.3.20; coach, 25.6.20). Relegation to League Two marred a season when Will Hoskins’ decent goal-scoring rate indicated the promise of the young striker. Having set up the winning goal against Scotland in April 2004 on his only England Under-18 appearance, he had won one Under-19 cap and three at Under-20 level. Aged just seventeen, his two goals for Rotherham at Wigan in December 2003 “suggested this player was set to take the game by storm” (Steve Claridge) and, having scored twice in pre-season against Scottish Cup finalists Gretna, he was named League One Player of the Month for October 2006. He was also sent off at Bradford in August 2006, the only red card of a long and clean footballing career. Signed by Aidy Boothroyd for Watford, he scored the goal which knocked Rovers out of the League Cup in August 2008 and played at Old Trafford in the Premier League. He was in the Millwall side defeated 2-1 at The Mem in November 2007 and, with a good first touch, pace and strength, allied to a “liveliness and willingness to work hard”, Hoskins was top scorer for Rovers in 2010-11, despite an injury picked up at Darlington in the FA Cup. Having scored his only League goal for Brighton against Cardiff on his début, Will Hoskins was in the Sheffield United side which lost out on promotion from League One on a tantalising final day, before missing out on penalties at Wembley in May 2012 to Huddersfield Town in the play-off final. The following campaign was concluded by an injury, his only goal not arriving until January, but it was worth waiting for, as the very late strike confirmed Brighton’s shock 2-0 FA Cup victory over Premier League side Newcastle United. Hoskins made his Oxford bow as a substitute against Dagenham and Redbridge in August 2014 and scored a late winner against Yeovil Town on his first appearance in an Exeter shirt. He scored three times in 10(+9) Nationwide North appearances at Hemel Hempstead United, adding a hat-trick in a September 2018 fixture against Hertfordshire Police, and two goals in 1(+4) appearances with Kings Langley, his first appearance coming off the bench against Nuneaton Borough. The son of Amanda Hoskins, he has a sister Alex, who was born in October 1996. |
No 182. Edward Hough. 1932-33.
Born, 4.12.1899, Walsall. Died, 3.9.1978, Birmingham. 5’ 11½”; 12 st 7 lbs. Début: 4.2.33 v Reading. Career: Little Bloxwich Strollers; September 1920 Talbot Stead Tubeworks; October 1921 Southampton [175,0]; 7.5.31 Portsmouth (£200) [1,0]; 22.12.32 Bristol Rovers [1,0]; 1933 Portsmouth Electricity FC; 1934 Cowes; 8.11.35 Bevis FC (Portsmouth). Fifty-two pints of beer is an unusual transfer fee, yet Ted Hough signed for Southampton in exchange for a pint per week for a year to his former boss and gave ample service at The Dell before making one appearance each at his next two clubs. A Southampton début against Aberdare Athletic as Saints wrapped up the 1921-22 Third Division (South) championship, preceded two FA Cup semi-final appearances, against Sheffield United in March 1925 and Arsenal two years later. Called up in an injury crisis for the former game, a 2-0 defeat, Hough was “for the most part satisfactory … [he] showed strength and coolness, even if a little lacking in experience” (The Scotsman). Two years on, as Arsenal reached their first ever FA Cup Final, with a 2-1 victory at Stamford Bridge, Hough was “blundering rather frequently and conceding many corners” (ibid), and also deflected Joe Hulme’s (1904-91) shot into his own net to give the Gunners the lead. Awarded a benefit game against Millwall in May 1928, he played for Pompey in Division One at home to Aston Villa in October 1931, losing to three second-half goals. A regular for Rovers’ reserve side, where he “revealed sterling defensive qualities”, Hough appeared in the Gloucestershire Cup replay against Bristol City in April 1933 before working for many years as a fitter’s mate at Portsmouth Power Station. He married Agnes Fletcher in Walsall in the summer of 1921. |
No 222. Harold Houghton. 1935-37.
Born, 26.8.1906, Liverpool. Died, 3.2.1986, Liverpool. 5’ 10”; 10 st 6 lbs. Début: 2.11.35 v Brighton. Career: Anfield Social Club; 26.1.22 Everton (professional, 26.12.23) [1,0]; 15.6.28 Exeter City (£350) [207,79]; 9.3.34 Norwich City (£550) [52,10]; 1.11.35 Bristol Rovers [63,23]; 24.9.37 South Liverpool. Mighty Arsenal were at Eastville for an FA Cup-tie and, as half-time approached and the spectators relished the fact that Rovers were holding the League champions, “Happy” Houghton let fly from distance with a shot that arrowed into the net at the Muller Road End to give Rovers a shock interval lead. The romance ended there, as Arsenal struck five times after the break for a comfortable win, but this January 1936 tie brought the veteran Houghton back into the public eye. An England Schoolboys international, he had been an Everton team-mate of Dixie Dean (1907-80) and was at Exeter alongside Cliff Bastin (1912-91). On the Football Association tour of Canada in June 1931, he played in eight of the seventeen games, his nine goals including hat-tricks as the FA defeated New Ontario 10-1 at Fort William and Saskatoon 6-1. A fixture in the side for six campaigns at Exeter, he had seen a £3,000 offer from Spurs turned down and he also played in their astonishing 11-6 win against Crystal Palace in the Third Division (South) Cup in January 1934. His goal at Roker Park gave the Grecians hope against Sunderland in an FA Cup quarter-final in February 1931 which finished 1-1. A Division Three (South) champion in 1933-34 with Norwich City, he played once for the Canaries against Rovers and added five goals in his nine matches for the Grecians against his future employers. Creating a goal for Tom Harris within two minutes of his Rovers début, Houghton also scored once that day and added a goal as Bournemouth were defeated 2-0 in the 1936 Allen Palmer Cup Final. On the other hand, he appeared in the Rovers side that was demolished 12-0 at Luton Town on Easter Monday 1936. “One of the best forwards in Division Two”, Harold Houghton was the youngest of three sons to Sam and Margaret Houghton of 21 Hawthorn Road, Bootle and, marrying Agnes Darlington in 1939, brought up three daughters, Alda, Irene and Doreen, in his native Liverpool. |
No 43. James Thomas Howarth. 1922-23.
Born, 15.8.1890, Bury, Lancashire. Died, 1.11.1946, Newport. 5’ 8”; 12 st. Début: 11.11.22 v Plymouth Argyle. Career: Bury; January 1914 Bristol City [52,17]; 10.3.21 Leeds United (£460) [45,19]; 9.11.22 Bristol Rovers (£500) [21,4]; 7.5.23 Lovell’s Athletic (£750) (goalkeeper-manager, 13.8.23, to 1933). Having scored against Rovers in Bristol City’s friendly game in January 1914, Tommy Howarth appeared years later in Rovers’ side towards the end of his career. The 1911 census shows him boarding at 3 Penfold Place, Rochdale, attempting to kick-start a football career which took off either side of World War One at Ashton Gate. Howarth had joined the Lancashire Fusiliers in December 1909, where he served until January 1914; the fact that he was in City’s reserve side in the South Eastern League on New Year’s Day 1914 indicates that he had signed up prior to his army service being terminated and this explains why the Robins were fined £50 and he was suspended from football for twelve months. On the outbreak of war, he had signed up for the 7th King’s Liverpool Isle of Man Volunteer Battalion, leaving them on 10th May 1918 (the company was wound up in 1916, but he remained as a warden at the prison camp) and serving with the Motor Transport Royal Army Service Corps from 13th May 1918 to 12th April 1919. Self-isolation on the Isle of Man may have averted the threat of front-line service, but it also won him a wife, as he married Margaret Alice Corlett (1897-1964) there in 1915; they had four children, Gordon (1916-63), Alan (1921-71, who married Maud Buchanan, who later married Arthur David), Syd and Stella (who married Pawel Wramba in Newport in 1953 and had a son Paul, who married Jacqueline Santini). Vying with Rovers’ Jonah Wilcox for the Robins’ centre-forward position, Howarth was City’s top scorer in 1919-20 and played in March 1920 in their FA Cup semi-final against Huddersfield Town. Although he scored (“after loose play, Howarth ran from halfway and scored a brilliant goal”, purred The Sunday Post), the Terriers won 2-1 in this fixture played before a 30,000 crowd at Stamford Bridge. “An all-action player with something of a short temper”, he scored twice as Rovers defeated Merthyr Town 3-0 at home on Easter Monday 1923. Converting himself into a goalkeeper-manager, he led Lovell’s Athletic to the Western League Second Division championship in 1923-24. The son of Benjamin Haigh Howarth and Caroline Swift, who married in Huddersfield in 1880, Tommy Howarth’s third son Syd Howarth (1923-2004) played at centre-forward for Aston Villa, Swansea Town and Walsall. |
No 19. Denis Howes. 1920-22.
Born, 23.3.1898, Bristol. Died, 23.3.1970, Bristol. 5’ 10”; 12 st 4 lbs. Début: 2.10.20 v Brighton. Career: Royal Navy; Greenbank Villa; 26.11.19 Bristol Rovers [21,0]; 1922 Bath City. In Rovers’ reserve side during 1919, left-half Denis Howes first played for the first-team in Rovers’ Christmas Day 1919 Southern League clash with Swansea Town. The younger child of fish proprietor James Howes (1865-1944) of 27 Dean Lane, St George, and his wife Laura Maggs (1872-1952), who had married in 1895, Denis was in the Rovers side that lost 6-2 to Spurs at White Hart Lane in January 1921, leaving the field early through injury. He is known to have scored a rare goal in the Whites v Stripes pre-season trial game in August 1921 and further injury led to a recall in the tempestuous reserve match against Portsmouth in the Southern League in January 1922 when, after a game marred by crowd trouble, spectators broke into the changing rooms. Denis Howes played for Bath City against Yeovil in April 1924, having married on the 7th of that month Louisa Marion Needs (1899-1984) at St Agnes’ Church, Bristol – they had a daughter Avis, who married John Ballam, and a son Trevor and lived for many years at 31 Park Road, Stapleton. |
No 672. Scott Howie. 2001-03.
Born, 4.1.1972, Glasgow. 6’ 2”; 13 st 7 lbs. Début: 11.8.01 v Torquay United. Career: Lenzie Youth Club; Dundee Boys; Harestanes; 1.8.90 Ferguslie United; 7.1.92 Clyde [55,0]; 12.8.93 Norwich City (£300,000); 13.10.94 Motherwell (£300,000) [137,0]; 27.1.98 Coventry City (loan); 26.3.98 Reading (£30,000) [84+1,0]; 31.7.01 Bristol Rovers (free) [90,0]; 16.7.03 Exeter City (trial); 8.8.03 Shrewsbury Town (free) [40,0]; 1.7.05 Boston United (trial); 7.9.05 Cambridge United (free); 31.3.07 King’s Lynn; 15.6.09 Wroxham (free). Tall, commanding and dominant, goalkeeper Scott Howie was a reliable back line to Rovers’ side for two consistent seasons, as the side struggled to adapt to life in fourth-tier football. Player of the Year with Rovers in 2001-02, one spectacular penalty save from Southend’s Jay Smith in February 2003 exemplified his talent. Howie had been carried off injured after just fifteen minutes of his Clyde début against Cowdenbeath and had made a brief appearance for Norwich after Bryan Gunn had been sent off in a League Cup-tie against Liverpool. Early club form had earned five Scotland Under-21 caps, the first against Malta, and a place in the full Scotland squad for the match against Sweden in 1996-97. Indeed, the Malta game was at Tannadice one February 1993 afternoon and he returned to play the same evening for Clyde against Queen’s Park, coming within ten minutes of keeping two clean sheets on the same day. The tall Glaswegian also played as the Under-21s secured a 3-0 victory over the Highland League at Telford Road, Inverness in May 1993. He suffered relegation to Division Two with Reading in 1997-98. After his time with Rovers, Howie played alongside Kevin Street and Trevor Challis at Shrewsbury, where he played in 37(+1) Conference games and saved three penalties in the shoot-out as the Shrews defeated Aldershot to seal their return to the Football League in May 2004; he was their regular keeper through the following campaign before losing his place to the up-and-coming Joe Hart. He conceded an own goal, playing in one of his 33 Conference games for Cambridge, against Gray’s Athletic in September 2005 and was sent off after 38 minutes of King’s Lynn’s 2-2 draw with Hitchin Town in March 2008, having been unsuccessful in the May 2007 Southern League play-offs. Now running a tax consultancy business in Norfolk and married to Karinna with a son Solway, Scott Howie enjoyed one final big day in football when he played at Wembley in May 2010 in the FA Vase Final, although he conceded six goals as Whitley Bay ran out 6-1 victors, one of 125 matches with Wroxham. |
No 240. (Jack) John Henry Howshall. 1937-38.
Born, 12.7.1912, Normacot, Longton, Staffordshire. Died, 24.12.1962, Shelton, Hanley. 5’ 9”; 11 st 8 lbs. Début: 31.8.37 v Northampton Town. Career: Longton Juniors; Dresden United; October 1930 Stoke City (professional, 23.11.31); 4.6.34 Chesterfield [25,0]; 14.6.35 Southport [51,0]; 25.6.37 Bristol Rovers (£350) [21,0]; 26.7.38 Accrington Stanley (£50) [8,0]; 21.10.38 Carlisle United [32,0]; May 1946 Rochdale (trial); July 1946 Northwich Victoria; August 1947 Wigan Athletic. Red-haired wing-half Jack Howshall represented five Football League sides, Stanley losing seven of his eight games, whilst at Southport he was a team-mate of Frank Curran and Norman Kitchen, both of whom also played for Rovers. At Stanley, he also played in a 3-3 draw with New Brighton in the Lancashire Senior Cup in September 1938. “A reliable defender”, he was a member of the Southport side which lost 2-1 at Eastville in an FA Cup-tie in December 1936, played in Rovers’ 5-2 win against Walsall on Christmas Day 1937 and served in the Royal Air Force in Tunisia during World War Two, before resuming his football career at Rochdale. The eldest of three sons to Thomas Howshall (1886-1950) and Lilian Bradshaw, he married Ethel Watkiss (1913-92), the daughter of John Thomas Watkiss (1876-1944) and Florence Adams (1886-1957) and had a son Barry; his youngest brother Tommy Howshall played for Southport and Port Vale, whilst a nephew Gerry Howshall was at West Brom and Norwich City, as well as playing alongside the former Rovers forward Bobby Williams at Belgian side AS Oostende in 1971-72. Jack Howshall worked at a Michelin factory and died of a heart attack on Christmas Eve 1962, aged just fifty. |
No 300. Herbert Hoyle. 1950-53.
Born, 22.4.1920, Baildon, Yorkshire. Died, 6.7.2003, Torquay. 6’ 3”; 13 st 2 lbs. Début: 19.8.50 v Swindon Town. Career: 1936 Bradford Park Avenue; May 1946 Wolverhampton Wanderers; August 1946 Exeter City [82,0]; 10.5.50 Bristol Rovers (£350) [104,0]; August 1953 Exmouth Town. Hugely popular and immensely respected at Eastville, gentle giant Bert Hoyle won a Third Division (South) championship medal with Rovers in 1952-53. His brother Arthur, the two boys of James William Hoyle (1878-1956) and Florence Beaver (1887-1965), had been on the books of Leeds United and Bert, unable to make the grade at Park Avenue or Wolves, worked on local farms to supplement his footballer’s salary as well as playing for Royal Air Force sides in wartime in Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece. The breakthrough came at St James’ Park, where the extrovert goalkeeper played against Torquay United in the Grecians’ first post-war League fixture and his impressive appearance tally included the two League games against Rovers in the 1948-49 season. Hoyle made his Rovers début at the age of thirty and proved to be a steady, reliable and immeasurably well-liked amongst Rovers’ fan base. Once they had discovered his like of oranges, Hoyle found his goalmouth bombarded on match day with citrus fruit, thrown towards him by hordes of well-wishers. An ever-present in all fifty-eight League and Cup matches of the mammoth 1951-52 season, Hoyle had played 29 times during the promotion campaign when injuries sustained in a car crash in February 1953, following the goalless draw at Ashton Gate, ended his playing career. A garrulous and welcoming publican at the Ship Inn at Cockwood, near the Devon village of Starcross, Hoyle would be delighted to regale Rovers supporters with tales from his playing career. Retiring in June 1994 to Lower Drive in Dawlish, Bert Hoyle and his wife Shirley Butler, who had married in 1979, continued to be popular figures in the local community. |
No 378. David Clive Hudd. 1964-65.
Born, 9.7.1944, Bristol. Died, 31.7.2022, Cheltenham. 5’ 8”; 10 st 4 lbs. Début: 16.1.65 v Port Vale. Career: Bedminster Down School; Old Georgians; 1961 Bristol Rovers (professional, 22.7.63) [5,1]; 15.12.65 Cheltenham Town (trial); 6.8.66 Torquay United (trial); 13.8.66 Cheltenham Town; 1969 Worcester City; 1970 Gloucester City; 1972 Lydbrook. Slight, fast inside-forward Dave Hudd scored on his Rovers début in a 4-0 home victory over Port Vale. He was the only child of Ivor Hudd and Dorothy Comer, the daughter of Bartrum Comer and Hannah Whitby. Injuring an ankle in Rovers’ 2-0 victory at Barnsley in March 1965, he had a cartilage operation and suffered knee problems, surgery ruling him out for six months from January 1966. He recovered sufficiently to play for Cheltenham in the Southern League, where his 23 goals over three seasons included a hat-trick in a 3-0 victory over Poole Town in March 1967 and four goals as Yeovil Town were defeated 8-2 in February 1968; he added ten goals in various cups, including three in a 5-2 win against Tamworth in March 1969, totalling forty goals in 142 matches in all competitions, before scoring three goals in 28 Southern League matches at Worcester and twelve goals in 69(+3) Southern League matches at Gloucester, including a brace against Barry Town in February 1972. Later employed at Robinson’s Waxed Paper Works in Fishponds, he lived in Bloy Street, Easton and later lived in Cheltenham, where he was a director of Chdeltenham Town through the late 1980s. |
No 772. Jeffery Edward Hughes. 2008-11.
Born, 29.5.1985, Larne, Northern Ireland. 6’ 1”; 11 st 4 lbs. Début: 9.8.08 v Carlisle United. Career: Inver Colts; 1998 Larne Youth; Ballymena United; 2004 Larne; 27.8.05 Lincoln City (£5,000) [55+8,8]; 4.7.07 Crystal Palace (£250,000) [4+6,0]; 22.11.07 Peterborough United (loan) [2+5,1]; 27.3.08 Bristol Rovers (loan); 6.6.08 Bristol Rovers (free) [127+2,28]; 28.6.11 Notts County (free) [83+6,20]; 22.5.13 Fleetwood Town (free) [45+2,4]; 15.7.15 Cambridge United (free) [7+2,0]; 2.1.16 Tranmere Rovers (loan); 8.7.16 Tranmere Rovers (free) [87+7,5]; 15.5.18 Larne (free) [69+9,10]. A trainee engineer with one goal in 47 Irish League games for Larne, “The Harbour Rats”, under his belt, tall midfielder Jeff Hughes made his League bow as a last-minute substitute at the Mem, when Lincoln drew 0-0 with Rovers in September 2005. He was to enjoy a degree of success with the Imps, scoring twice in their 7-1 win against Rochdale in October 2006 and scoring in both legs of the play-off semi-finals against Rovers in May 2007. In addition, he had played for Larne in the 2005 Irish Cup Final, where they were hammered 5-1 by Portadown. Consistent club form earned a couple of full caps for Northern Ireland, Hughes playing against Uruguay in New Jersey and Rumania in Chicago at the end of July 2006. Red-booted Hughes found Palace lost his first three games there 1-0 and he scored his only Peterborough goal two minutes from time, a winner against Bradford City over Christmas 2007, having also appeared in a 7-0 drubbing of Brentford. Impressing for the reserves in the spring of 2008 and scoring against FC Copenhagen prior to his League début, Hughes took over the mantle of penalty-taker at The Mem and, in 2009-10, equalled Ray Warren’s Rovers club record of seven successful spot-kicks in one League campaign. This season saw Hughes play at home to Colchester in February and his partner Danielle give birth that evening to a daughter, Esmée, and it also saw the constructive midfielder sent off at Carlisle. The 2010-11 season led to Rovers’ relegation to League Two, despite Hughes compiling a left-footed hat-trick, after 27, 31 and 86 minutes, in Rovers’ first ever League fixture at Dagenham and Redbridge, on a day when transport to the game was held up in congestion due to the Papal visit to London by Benedict XVI; he also conceded an own goal against Brighton, to add to one at Orient the previous campaign. Hughes scored against Carlisle on his Notts County début after just thirteen minutes, but his form was insufficient to prevent County missing out on the play-offs in 2011-12 on goal difference and, having scored in three of his first four League games for the Cod Army, he subsequently played for Fleetwood against Rovers in October 2013 and Cambridge United against Rovers in October 2015. He scored five times in 82(+7) Conference matches with Tranmere, including one of three last-minute goals in a 4-3 win at Barrow in January 2016, but was sent off at York City in September 2016; he also scored in the FA Trophy semi-final in March 2017, only for Tranmere to lose on aggregate to Macclesfield Town. Hughes also played in Tranmere’s 9-0 win over Solihull Moors over Easter 2017, the Prenton Park side losing out to Lincoln City in a two-horse race for the Conference title. Despite his own goal in the second leg of the play-off semi-final against Aldershot Town, Hughes was in the Tranmere side which lost to Forest Green Rovers at Wembley in May 2017 in the play-off final and he played again at Wembley the following year, as Tranmere’s Football League status was restored. In 2018-19, he captained the Larne side which won the second-tier Championship in Northern Ireland for the first time since 1972, scoring eight times in thirty matches and he was named in the Bluefin Sport Championship Team of the Year for that season. Larne secured the County Antrim Shield in 2020-21, after which Hughes captained the side in European Conference football, playing alongside Cian Bolger, and led them to a play-off victory over Glentoran in May 2022. He is married to Danielle with four children, daughters Esmee, born in 2010 (in Bristol) and Gracie, born in 2012 and twin boys, Tommy and Toby, born in 2016. |
No 466. Mark Hughes. 1979-84.
Born, 3.2.1962, Port Talbot. 6’; 12 st 8 lbs. Début: 3.5.80 v West Ham United. Career: 10.9.78 Bristol Rovers (professional, 1.2.80) [73+1,3]; 23.12.82 Torquay United (loan) [9,1]; 30.7.84 Swansea City (free) [12,0]; 7.2.85 Bristol City [21+1,0]; 19.9.85 Tranmere Rovers (£3,000) [264+8,9]; August 1993 Partick Thistle (trial); August 1994 Shrewsbury Town (free) [20+2,0] (to 1996); 1997 Fleetwood Freeport (manager). When Rovers travelled to Carlisle for the final game of the 1981-82, it was the unexpected figure of central defender Mark Hughes who scored both goals in a 2-1 victory. The tall, talented defender was to score just three times in his career with Rovers, having made his début against a West Ham side preparing for the following week’s FA Cup Final against Arsenal. A Welsh cap at Under-15 level and for Wales Youth in 1979-80, Hughes later played for Tranmere against Rovers at Wembley in the Leyland Daf Cup Final of May 1990 as well as in five League fixtures. Player of the Year at Prenton Park in 1988-89, he also scored in a League Cup semi-final against Aston Villa in February 1994. Sent off for Tranmere at Exeter in October 1990 and for Shrewsbury at Swansea in August 1995, conceding a penalty that the Swans’ goalkeeper Roger Freestone scored, Hughes returned to play Rovers in March 1995 as part of the Shrews’ side defeated 4-0 at Twerton Park. He later worked as a milkman. Mark Hughes’ brother Wayne played for Cardiff City and their cousin, Emlyn Hughes (1947-2004), the son of Fred Hughes, a Great Britain player at rugby league, captained England at football before becoming a regular participant on the popular television programme “A Question of Sport”. |
No 962. Mark Hughes. 2021-22.
Born, 9.12.1986, Kirkby, Liverpool. 6’ 2”; 13 st 12 lbs. Début: 7.8.21 v Mansfield Town. Career: 1994 Everton (professional, 24.8.05) [0+1,0]; 13.2.06 Stockport County (loan) [3,0]; 31.1.07 Northampton Town (free) [92+1,4]; 8.7.09 Walsall (free) [24+2,1]; 28.6.10 North Queensland Fury (free) [30,4]; 21.6.11 Bury (free) [46+6,0]; 31.1.13 Accrington Stanley (loan); 9.7.13 Morecambe (free) [83+1,8]; 27.5.15 Stevenage (free) [19+1,1]; 29.1.16 Accrington Stanley [215,9]; 26.5.21 Bristol Rovers (free) [6,0]; 6.1.22 Plymouth Argyle (first-team coach; 24.5.22 assistant manager). Few players have appeared ten times in the League against Rovers prior to signing for the club, but uncompromising central defender could claim a wealth of experience. Having first appeared in the 2-2 draw between Rovers and Stockport County in February 2006, a match in which Richard Walker scored both Rovers’ goals, Hughes had also represented Northampton, Morecambe and Accrington against The Gas, his final such appearance being Stanley’s 6-1 victory over Rovers in February 2021. Not far behind this tally was his total of red cards, eight accumulated down the years, starting with dismissals whilst playing for Walsall against Colchester United and Huddersfield Town in the 2009-10 season. The youngest of three children to Tom Hughes and Elizabeth Hinnigan, who had married in 1981, she being the second of eight children born to Joe Hinnigan and Elizabeth Quigg, Mark Hughes had captained a number of sides through a long career as a dependable lower-league defender. Everton’s reserve captain, he had enjoyed a brief Premier League cameo as a last-minute substitute for James Beattie in a 2-0 victory over West Ham United at Goodison Park in December 2006 and also appeared in two League Cup matches. His first League goal came with Northampton, firing home after 21 minutes, the second of three first-half goals as Rotherham United were defeated 3-0 in March 2007. A spell in Australia saw him voted Player of the Year at North Queensland Fury – “I believe I have improved as a footballer and grown as a man”, he said. Despite relegation to League Two with Bury and a calf injury which cut short a loan spell at Accrington, he became club captain at Morecambe and scored a dramatic late equaliser for Stevenage when they drew 2-2 with Newport County in August 2015. It was Hughes’ five years at Accrington, though, which made his name as a rugged, commanding defensive player. In 2015-16 he was a regular as the side came tantalisingly close to promotion from League Two; requiring a final-day victory against his former club, Stevenage, Stanley hit the woodwork three times, drew 0-0 and missed out on promotion when Lee Brown’s stoppage-time strike at The Mem saw Rovers promoted in their stead. Having lost to Wimbledon in the subsequent play-offs, Stanley were 2017-18 League Two champions, Hughes playing in all 46 League fixtures as the club rose to the third-tier for the first time in their history. He scored home and away against Notts County that season, Stanley securing the title but losing in the FA Cup to unfashionable Guiseley and he was named in the PFA divisional team of the Year. In addition, he had been in their side which knocked Burnley out of the League Cup in 2016-17, to accompany helping Morecambe defeat Wolves in the same competition three years earlier and, despite not being known as a regular goal-scorer, he scored twice in twenty-two first-half minutes in a 3-2 victory over Crewe Alexandra in April 2017. Having played every minute of the 2020-21 campaign, Hughes was forced off with an injury early in the 7-0 defeat against Peterborough United in March 2021 and never appeared for Accrington again. Richie Barker’s first signing for Bury and Teddy Sheringham’s first at Stevenage, he was part of the quadruple signing which marked Joey Barton’s first foray as Rovers manager into the transfer market. After a positive start, though, he was sidelined with an Achilles injury, the 1-0 defeat at Hartlepool in September 2021 proving to be his final appearance in a Rovers shirt. |
No 368. James Humes. 1962-63.
Born, 6.8.1942, Carlisle. 5’ 10”; 11 st 4 lbs. Début: 22.9.62 v Brighton. Career: September 1959 Preston North End [18,1]; 23.6.62 Bristol Rovers (free) [2,0]; July 1963 Chester [127,31]; July 1967 Barnsley [7,1]; 1968 Chorley (to 1969). Recommended to Rovers by Alfie Biggs, Jimmy Humes signed for the club after manager Bert Tann had driven to Carlisle to offer him a contract. A Preston débutant against Nottingham Forest at the age of seventeen, after joining North End on the same day as Peter Thompson who later played for Liverpool and England, Humes had played in Preston’s 1-0 victory over Rovers at Deepdale in October 1961, but he was to play just twice in a Rovers shirt. Playing alongside Hugh Ryden at both Rovers and Chester, he was part of the forward line which scored over 100 League goals in 1964-65, and his diving header at Old Trafford gave Chester a short-lived lead in their 2-1 FA Cup defeat to Manchester United that season. Blighted by injury at Barnsley, who were runners-up in Division Four in 1967-68, Humes later worked for the housing department at Carlisle City Council, before working for an undertaker. The eldest of three sons to James Humes, the fourth child of Joseph Humes (1885-1918) and Catherine Williamson, and Winifred Ferguson, the daughter of Philip Ferguson and Susannah Caton, he married his partner Maggie after thirty-six years together; one of their sons, Mark, was tragically killed in a car crash and they have a surviving son, Eddie, and six grandchildren. |
No 773. Benjamin Robert Lee Hunt. 2008-09.
Born, 23.1.1990, Southwark. 6’ 1”; 12 st 7 lbs. Début: 16.8.08 v Brighton. Career: 2005 West Ham United (scholar, 1.7.06); 3.7.08 Bristol Rovers [0+12,0]; 12.10.09 Kingstonian (loan); 17.12.09 Gloucester City (loan); 25.3.10 Newport County (loan); 18.2.11 Lewes (loan); 3.8.11 Weston-super-Mare (free); 27.10.11 Gloucester City (free); 21.3.12 Bishop’s Stortford (free); 3.7.12 Worcester City (trial); 1.8.12 Mangotsfield United (free) (to May 2013); 28.2.14 Odd Down; November 2014 Cray Wanderers (loan); November 2015 Cray Wanderers; July 2016 Cray Valley Paper Mills. Young striker Ben Hunt was used as an impact substitute by Rovers but, unable to find the net in League football, made his name in non-league circles. He had been a regular for West Ham’s Under-18 side, making his début in October 2005 as a substitute for Tom Harvey in a 5-1 defeat at Ipswich and scoring his first goal in the 3-2 loss to Spurs in April 2006, before scoring for Rovers in a pre-season friendly against ADO Den Haag. “He’s got power, pace and bags of potential”, said Dean Holdsworth, manager at Newport County for whom, after scoring a début goal against Redditch United on Boxing Day 2009, the first of four in twelve games for Gloucester, he played just twice. Four goals in eighteen games for Dover and one in fifteen for Lewes preceded two matches at Weston and five for Bishop’s Stortford, before he joined Worcester on the same day as Charlie Reece. Hunt scored eleven goals in 40(+11) Calor League Division One matches for Mangotsfield and played in the Gloucestershire Senior Challenge Cup final as Cinderford Town were defeated 4-0 in May 2013, before scoring with a header and a volley, two first-half goals as his side defeated Guildford City 5-3 the following August. His close-range goal on the hour mark proved a consolation strike as the Mangos lost 3-1 at home to Rovers reserves the following month and he added ten goals in 25 matches with Cray Wanderers. |
No 729. James Malcolm Hunt. 2004-06.
Born, 17.12.1976, Derby. 5’ 8”; 10 st 3 lbs. Début: 7.8.04 v Mansfield Town. Career: Notts County (professional, 15.7.94) [15+4,1]; 1.8.97 Northampton Town (free) [150+22,8]; 2.7.02 Oxford United (free) [75+5,3]; 21.5.04 Bristol Rovers (free) [93+2,6]; 14.1.07 Grimsby Town (loan); 12.5.07 Grimsby Town (free) [68+6,2]; 2.6.09 Gainsborough Trinity (free) (retired, 1.6.10). A combative, box-to-box central midfielder, James Hunt had played in seven League games against Rovers, three with Oxford and four with the Cobblers, as well as two play-off games and an LDV Vans Trophy tie, prior to his arrival at the club. Well-known to Rovers fans on account of scoring in the matches at Northampton’s County Ground in October 1998 and March 2001, both of which Rovers lost, he had two promotions under his belt with Northampton and had suffered relegation both there and at Notts County and had accumulated three red cards, one of these in Northampton’s defeat against Bristol City in August 2001. Having scored the winning goal on his League début, as Notts County defeated Bournemouth 2-1 in February 1996, he had added the September 2002 goal which knocked Bristol City out of the League Cup and was in the Northampton side unceremoniously removed from the FA Cup in December 2001 by Canvey Island. James Hunt brought a degree of strength and vigour to the heart of the Rovers side as well as contributing crucial goals on occasion. His late winner against Southend in August 2004 put Rovers top of League One, whilst he scored the following month as nine-man Rovers clawed back a two-goal deficit at home to Yeovil. Briefly captain on New Year’s Day 2005, after Jamie Forrester had been substituted at Shrewsbury, he took on the armband for the 2005-06 season and led the club by example. Hunt also received red cards away to his former club Northampton in September 2004, at home to Swansea in April 2005 and in the victory at Rushden in January 2006. He and Ciarán Toner, another former Rovers midfielder, scored as Grimsby won 6-0 at Boston United in February 2007 and both players appeared at Wembley the following month in the 2-0 defeat against MK Dons in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Final. Hunt was sent off in Trinity’s game against Tamworth in February 2010 before, after 32 games and one goal, retiring from football for family reasons. |
No 849. Shaquile Junior Anthony Hunter. 2013-14.
Born, 29.8.1995, Birmingham. 5’ 10”; 11 st 3 lbs. Début: 3.8.13 v Exeter City. Career: Bristol Central; 2011 Bristol Rovers (professional, 29.8.12; released, 23.1.14) [0+3,0]; 21.9.14 Mangotsfield United (free); 10.1.15 Bristol City (trial); 11.7.16 Bath City (free); 3.8.17 Weston-super-Mare (free). Quite a prodigious talent in his early years, Shaquille Hunter made his first appearance for the Under-18 side at the tender age of fifteen, against Swansea City in March 2011, scoring eighteen times in 45(+5) appearances at that level. A powerfully-built winger, he was spotted in Avon Youth football and made his first-team début in July 2012 against Bristol City in Louis Carey’s testimonial match, during which he was heavily tackled and left the field early. He had contributed a goal at Tamworth in a pre-season friendly earlier that month and, having been an unused substitute during the 2012-13 campaign, was in the Rovers side which defeated Reading 2-1 in a pre-season friendly in July 2013. A League bow followed, replacing Ellis Harrison six minutes from the close of an opening-day defeat at Exeter City, but he soon left the club under a disciplinary cloud and later played just once for Mangotsfield. His first Nationwide South goal for Bath City came against Gosport Borough in September 2016 and he scored four times in 6(+21) Nationwide South matches for the Romans before adding a goal against Bath in January 2018 amongst his 6(+4) games for Weston in the same league. |
No 370. David George Hurford. 1962-65.
Born, 17.1.1945, Bristol. 5’ 7”; 10 st. Début: 16.3.63 v Southend United. Career: Old Sodbury; 27.7.62 Bristol Rovers (professional, January 1963) [6,0]; 29.5.65 Cheltenham Town; 1969 Gloucester City (to 1972). “Non-stop determination” characterised the play of outside-right David Hurford, a former South Gloucestershire Schools player. He replaced Harold Jarman for five games over Easter 1963 and was recalled, again to replace Jarman, for the match against Oldham Athletic in October 1964. Prior to this, he had scored Rovers’ final goal in a 3-1 victory over Swansea Town in the FA Youth Cup in November 1962 at Eastville. He later scored nine Southern League goals and seven goals in various cup competitions in four seasons at Cheltenham, contributing five Southern League goals in the 1965-66 season alone and added seven goals in 83(+6) Southern League games for Gloucester, scoring in both fixtures against Ilkeston Town in the 1971-72 campaign. David Hurford was the middle of three children to John Hurford and Irene Clark, who had married in 1941, his father being the second of four children to Herbert Hurford (1885-1957) and Rhoda Edith Panes of Clutton. |
No 700. Graham Hyde. 2002-04.
Born, 10.11.1970, Doncaster. 5’ 8”; 11 st 11 lbs. Début: 30.11.02 v Rushden and Diamonds. Career: 1985 Sheffield Wednesday (professional, 17.5.88) [128+46,11]; 5.2.99 Birmingham City (free) [35+16,1]; 16.8.01 Chesterfield (loan) [8+1,1]; 20.9.02 Peterborough United (loan) [8+1,0]; 26.11.02 Bristol Rovers (free) [54+4,3]; 20.7.04 Hereford United (trial); 5.8.04 Hereford United (free); 14.6.05 Worcester City (free); 31.3.06 Hednesford Town (free); November 2006 Halesowen Town (assistant manager); 29.10.07 Fleet Town (free); 17.2.11 Redditch United (coach; manager, 7.9.11-30.4.12); 1.7.12 Boston United (assistant manager); 4.1.13 AFC Telford United (assistant manager; manager, 1.3.13-11.3.13); 2014 West Bromwich Albion (Under-15 coach); 11.1.17 Halesowen Town (assistant coach). Substitute appearances for Wednesday against Arsenal in the League Cup Final, FA Cup Final and FA Cup Final replay, all in 1993, were undoubted highlights of tenacious midfielder Graham Hyde’s footballing career. The tough midfield cog made the majority of his Wednesday appearances in top-flight football, missing the 1994-95 season through injury and scoring a great goal in the 7-1 FA Cup victory over Grimsby Town in January 1997. He also scored a dramatic own goal with a diving header after just ten minutes of the game with Blackburn Rovers in August 1997, a match shown live on Sky TV which was lost 7-2. Under Trevor Francis at Wednesday (where he won a Central League championship medal in 1991) and Birmingham, he scored his only Blues goal with a twenty-five yard volley against Tranmere and was in the Birmingham side which beat Rovers 2-0 in the League Cup in September 1999. He was also sent off twice at Birmingham, against Norwich and Bolton prior to medial ligament trouble in his knee, and three times for Rovers, at Cambridge, his home-town Doncaster and Yeovil. These three red cards came in demoralising defeats, the loss at Cambridge putting Rovers bottom of the league for the first time in the club’s history, whilst the other two games were humiliating four-goal defeats. Having been a team-mate at Peterborough of Bradley Allen, Hyde was Man of the Match on his Rovers début in the FA Cup against Rochdale, and strove to put some strength into the heart of the Rovers side. His 21(+12) Conference games for Hereford took them to the play-offs, his 13 Worcester matches included a goal against Gainsborough Trinity in August 2005 plus one against Tonbridge in the FA Cup, and he added three games for Hednesford, one for Halesowen and two substitute appearances at Fleet (a club for whom the former Prime Minister Clement Attlee used to play) before managing Telford in two fixtures. Halesowen finished nineteenth in the Northern Premier League in 2016-17. |