The Bristol Rovers History Group. |
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No 510. John Vaughan. 1985-86.
Born, 26.6.1964, Isleworth. 5’ 10”; 13 st 1 lb. Début: 6.9.85 v Newport County. Career: West Ham United (professional, 30.6.82); 12.3.85 Charlton Athletic (loan); 5.9.85 Bristol Rovers (loan) [6,0]; 23.10.85 Wrexham (loan) [4,0]; 4.3.86 Bristol City (loan); 21.8.86 Fulham (£12,500) [44,0]; 21.1.88 Bristol City (loan) [5,0]; 6.6.88 Cambridge United (free) [178,0]; 3.8.93 Charlton Athletic (free) [11+1,0]; 26.7.94 Preston North End (free) [65+1,0]; 14.8.96 Lincoln City (free) [65,0]; 4.2.97 Colchester United (loan) [11,0]; 20.1.00 Chesterfield (loan) [3,0]; September 2003 York City (coach); 2004 Macclesfield Town (coach); 2005 Grimsby Town (coach); August 2006 Huddersfield Town (goalkeeping coach); July 2012 Birmingham City (goalkeeping coach, to 28.10.14); 25.6.15 Barnsley (goalkeeping coach); 21.6.19 Bradford City (goalkeeping coach). Not content with appearing for both Bristol’s professional clubs, strong goalkeeper John Vaughan made his début for both Rovers and City against Newport. His Rovers breakthrough came once Ron Green was side-lined with a broken foot and Vaughan conceded just eight goals in his six League starts. At Eastville early in his career, he spent many sessions on loan, whilst never making the League side for his mother club, West Ham, with whom he won the FA Youth Cup in 1981 and twice won Southern Junior Floodlit Cup winners’ medals. A reserve midfielder at Charlton, he played at Wembley in 1990 as Cambridge defeated Chesterfield to gain promotion through the play-offs. Indeed, Cambridge were promoted in successive seasons before losing in the 1991-92 play-offs, narrowly missing out on a place in the inaugural Premier League campaign. John Beck, manager at the Abbey Stadium, was suitably impressed with the burgeoning career of the custodian that he took Vaughan on with him to Preston and Lincoln. Having played twice for Fulham against Rovers in 1986-87, but also being in goal when Liverpool beat the Cottagers 10-0 in a League Cup-tie in September 1986, Vaughan helped Preston to the Third Division play-offs in the spring of 1995, alongside Paul Raynor, where they lost 2-0 on aggregate to Bury, and to the title of that division in 1995-96. A team-mate of John Taylor at Cambridge, where he twice played in the League against Rovers, Vaughan was sent off after just 23 minutes of Colchester’s game with Northampton in February 1997, but recovered to feature in a relegation and a promotion campaign at Lincoln, where he played alongside Paul Miller, Dennis Bailey and Jason Perry. Retiring with a persistent back injury, he now lives just outside Wakefield with his wife Suzanne and their son and daughter. Vaughan was goalkeeping coach of the Barnsley side which played at The Mem in May 2019 in the final day of a season which saw the Tykes promoted back to second-tier football. |
No 15. William Vaughan. 1920-21.
Born, 18.12.1898, Willenhall. Died, 1976, Walsall. 5’ 8”; 11 st. Début: 9.9.20 v Newport County. Career: 27.8.19 Willenhall; 13.3.20 Bristol Rovers [6,1]; July 1921 Stafford Rangers; August 1922 Merthyr Town; August 1923 Shrewsbury Town; 20.8.24 Wrexham [11,2]; May 1925 Bilston; June 1926 Burton Town; 13.5.27 Exeter City [33,9]; 18.5.28 Merthyr Town [9,4]; 26.2.29 Luton Town [3,2]; 26.6.29 Brierley Hill Alliance; 1.11.29 Gresley Rovers; 31.8.30 Exeter City (trial); October 1930 Bloxwich Strollers; October 1932 Cheltenham Town; 14.11.33 Walsall Wood; 1934 Winsford United; 9.10.34 Knotty Ash Athletic (Liverpool). Inside-left Billy Vaughan was one of a select few players to appear for Rovers in both the Southern League and also the Football League. His three appearances in the former, following a début against Watford, naturally preceded six in the latter and a goal in the 2-2 draw with Norwich City in October 1920. Living at that time in Southmead, he had previously made his début for Rovers’ reserve side in the 7-0 victory over the Wednesday League XI in April 1920. One of fourteen children, of whom eight died young, to iron-caster George Vaughan and his wife Alice Moore of 11 Cross Street, Willenhall, Billy was a boxing champion in his battalion stationed in Egypt during World War One, before embarking on a remarkable footballing career that took in a wide range of clubs and enabled him to score for five separate third-tier sides. He played twice against Rovers for Exeter, one of these being the Guy Fawkes Night 1927 fixture when Fred Dent (1896-1983) scored all four of the Grecians’ goals, opposed Rovers for Exeter in the Allen Palmer Cup Final of 1928 and, in his final game for Merthyr, was in the game Rovers won 4-0 in November 1928. Later he scored for Luton Town against both Watford and Charlton Athletic. A team-mate of the legendary Cliff Bastin (1912-91) at Exeter, although the two never played alongside each other in the League, he also scored 27 goals as Burton Town were Birmingham League runners-up in 1926-27 and six goals in 24 appearances in the Birmingham League for Shrewsbury, who were Walsall Senior Cup winners in 1924. Vaughan was to score three times in only two Southern League matches for Cheltenham, two against Cannock Town and one against Market Harborough, before settling in the Walsall area. The son of George and Henrietta Vaughan, he married Lillian May Bullock (1895-1975), the daughter of James Bullock (1848-1918) and Margaret Elliott (1862-1935) of 9 Clifton Streeet, St Philip and Jacob, at Easton Free Methodist Church on 5th August 1922. |
No 547.Keith Brian Viney. 1988-89.
Born, 26.10.1957, Portsmouth. 5’ 11”; 11 st 11 lbs. Début: 24.9.88 v Northampton Town. Career: 1974 Portsmouth (professional, October 1975) [160+6,3]; 15.7.80 Torquay United (trial); 17.6.82 Exeter City (free) [270,8]; 2.11.85 Torquay United (trial); 22.9.88 Bristol Rovers (loan) [2+1,0]; February 1989 Torrington; 1991 Elmore (joint manager, 1992-93); 29.10.04 Torrington (manager; Director of Football, 18.10.05). Experienced left-back Keith Viney, who had played for Exeter against Rovers on three occasions, made a brief appearance in the Bristol Rovers story as Gerry Francis constructed the side which was to storm to the Third Division championship in 1989-90. Rovers remained unbeaten in the games in which he appeared. Pompey’s Player of the Year in 1980-81, Viney had even played once in goal in 1976, after Grahame Lloyd had been injured against Preston and a long career at Fratton Park was interrupted by a trial at Torquay, for whom he later played as a substitute when they drew 1-1 at Windsor and Eton in the FA Cup in November 1985. Club captain at Exeter and Player of the Year in both 1982-83 and 1983-84, Viney’s goals were rare, although he scored twice when the Grecians drew 2-2 with Wrexham in February 1983. Additionally, he scored in Rovers’ favour when his own goal, on the stroke of half-time, put Rovers 4-2 ahead at Eastville in December 1982. The younger son of John Viney and Dorothy Fazackerley of Portsmouth, he wrote a column for the Exeter Express and Echo but, losing his place to Richard Dryden, was sent out to Rovers on loan. Following his spell at Twerton Park, his solitary League appearance came in Terry Cooper’s Exeter’s 2-2 draw at Hartlepool in November 1988. His sister was married for a time to the former Portsmouth goalkeeper Alan Knight. In 2004 he succeeded his former Exeter team-mate Richard Bowker as manager at Torrington, a club for whom he had earlier played. Single and living near Portsmouth, Viney worked in finance, at Britannic Assurance and Honister Capitol for eleven years each, prior to working from August 2012 as a training supervisor for a national financial services organisation, Best Practice IFA. |
No 816. Adam John Virgo. 2011-13.
Born, 25.1.83, Brighton. 6’ 2”; 13 st 8 lbs. Début: 6.8.11 v AFC Wimbledon. Career: St Aubyn’s Prep School; September 1996 Ardingly College; 1.8.00 Brighton; 29.11.02 Exeter City (loan) [8+1,0]; 20.7.05 Celtic (£1,500,000) [3+7,0]; 7.8.06 Coventry City (loan) [10+5,1]; 17.8.07 Colchester United (loan) [30+6,1]; 30.6.08 Brighton (free) [124+13,14]; 3.7.10 Yeovil Town (free) [28+5,5]; 15.6.11 Bristol Rovers (free) [18+1,1]; 17.7.13 Crawley Town (trial) (retired, 24.10.13). Strong, central defensive Adam Virgo scored the winning goal from the penalty spot on his Rovers début, five minutes from time at Wimbledon. A local boy in the Brighton side, he accumulated six red cards in his days on the south coast, one of these coming in Brighton’s 1-1 draw with Rovers in September 2009. The son of Robert Virgo and Audrey Nash, he had made his League bow in a 1-0 victory at Torquay in February 2001, although he had earlier appeared as a seventeen-year-old in a Football League Trophy game against Brentford in January 2001 alongside the former Rovers goalkeeper Michel Kuipers. Appreciated for his tough, no-nonsense displays at the heart of Albion’s defence, he moved to Scotland for a huge fee and then scored three goals in his first two games back at Brighton. The holder of two Scotland “B” caps, he was a member of three promoted Brighton sides and Celtic were League champions and League Cup winners during his time in Glasgow. In truth, his time with Celtic did not go well, Virgo conceding a penalty before being substituted on his début against Rangers, then finding his house burgled and having to return south after the death of his father, Bob. This followed the loss of his mother when he was just thirteen and the early illness-related conclusion to his brother James’ promising career. After three League games and a League Cup-tie for Brighton against Rovers, he played in both Yeovil’s games against the Pirates in 2010-11, scoring at The Mem in August 2010. Virgo’s signing was a popular one with Rovers’ supporters but, after a promising start, his initial campaign at the club was curtailed by a knee injury. He was to undergo five separate operations during his two years with the Pirates and, full of “dignity, courage and talent” (Mark McBurney), was released in the summer of 2013, playing in Crawley’s trial game against Millwall before announcing his premature retirement from the game to take up a post as a co-commentator for BT Sport. Married to Jess and with a son, William, born in March 2011, he now coaches at Ardingly College. |
No 576. Gary Patrick Waddock. 1992-95.
Born, 17.3.1962, Alperton, London. 5’ 10”; 11 st 12 lbs. Début: 7.11.92 v Wolverhampton Wanderers. Career: Queen’s Park Rangers (professional, 26.7.79) [191+12,8]; 1.12.87 RSC Charleroi, Belgium (free) [15,0]; 16.8.89 Millwall (free) [51+7,2]; 20.12.91 Queen’s Park Rangers; 19.3.92 Swindon Town (loan) [6,0]; 5.11.92 Bristol Rovers (£100,000) [71,1]; 9.9.94 Luton Town (loan); 8.12.94 Luton Town [146+7,3]; 6.5.98 Queen’s Park Rangers (coach; caretaker manager, 7.2.06; manager, 28.6.06; assistant manager, 20.9.06-20.10.06); 18.5.07 Aldershot Town (manager); 13.10.09 Wycombe Wanderers (manager); 24.6.13 MK Dons (Head of Coaching); 22.3.14 Oxford United (Head Coach); 5.11.14 Barnet (coach); 12.12.14 Portsmouth (assistant manager); 19.5.15 Barnet (assistant manager); 5.5.16 Aldershot Town (manager); 5.7.19 Southend United (assistant manager; 9.9.19-22.10.19 caretaker manager); 10.7.20 Cambridge United (assistant coach). Captain of Rovers and the club’s Player of the Year in 1992-93, Gary Waddock was a combative, tough-tackling, industrious midfielder with international experience. The son of John Waddock and Christina Walsh, his début in the quartered shirt came in a 5-1 thrashing against Wolves, on the day Andy Tillson also first appeared for the club, and his strong, determined approach proved insufficient to prevent Rovers’ relegation to third-tier football in the spring of 1993. During the home defeat against Brentford in February 1994, he suffered a broken nose in the build-up to one of the Bees’ three first-half goals. The eldest child of John Waddock and Christina Walsh, Gary Waddock grew up in Alperton and made all his appearances at QPR during his first spell at Loftus Road, during which time he appeared in the FA Cup Final of 1982, which was lost to Spurs, and helped Rangers secure the Second Division title in 1982-83, as well as scoring in the 8-1 League Cup victory over Crewe Alexandra in October 1983. He also played for QPR against Rovers in both fixtures of the 1980-81 season. Following a serious injury against Sheffield Wednesday in November 1985, it was believed that his career was over, but the young man, who had represented the Republic of Ireland once each at Under-21, Under-23 and “B” level, made a positive recovery. As it was, he secured 21 full caps for his country between April 1980 and May 1990, scoring three goals in the process before being controversially left out of Jack Charlton’s (1935-2020) squad for the 1990 World Cup Finals. After a spell in Belgium, he registered his only Rovers goal after 61 matches for the club, the strike in a 3-2 defeat at Wrexham in March 1994 being his first since October 1990. Eschewing the opportunity of a managerial post at Scarborough to help his former QPR team-mate Steve Wilks at Loftus Road, he later played alongside John Taylor at Luton, where he was sent off in a 6-3 defeat against Sheffield United in December 1994, played in two FA Cup-ties against Rovers the following month and suffered relegation to Division Two in the spring of 1996. Down in the third tier, Waddock was sent off after 35 minutes of the League Cup-tie with Rovers in August 1996, scored a long-range goal after coming on as a substitute at The Mem in February 1997 and helped the Hatters to the play-offs, where they lost to Crewe. Succeeding Ian Holloway at QPR, he managed an Aldershot side containing Ryan Williams and Louis Soares back to the Football League in 2008 before managing Wycombe against Rovers in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, Rovers winning 6-3 at Adams Park in November 2010 and losing 3-1 there ten months later. Later, he took Aldershot back to the Conference play-offs in 2016-17, but they were relegated in 2019. Cambridge United were promoted from league Two in 2020-21. He holds a UEFA “A” coaching licence. |
No 38. Arthur Henry Wainwright. 1922-24.
Born, 31.10.1894, Barnsley. Died, 18.1.1968 Barnsley. 5’ 8½”; 10 st 3 lbs. Début: 26.8.22 v Portsmouth. Career: Tinsley Working Men’s Club; July 1914 Leeds City; Royal Garrison Artillery; 25.12.18 Leeds City (professional, 22.1.19); 17.10.19 Grimsby Town (£200) [8,2]; 12.8.20 Gresley Rovers; 17.5.22 Bristol Rovers [16,0]; July 1924 Barrow [34,3]; May 1925 Boston United; August 1925 Castleford Town; 1931 Scarborough; 5.10.31 Tinsley Working Men’s Club. Bought as a replacement for the departing Joe Walter, inside-left Arthur Wainwright played in fourteen matches for Rovers in the 1922-23 season and briefly the following campaign. Although he never scored in the first-team, he scored once against the Gloucestershire FA XI in May 1923 and had a goal disallowed for offside in the FA Cup-tie with Stalybridge Celtic in December 1922, as well as scoring twice as the reserves beat Hanham Athletic in April 1933 and in the 7-0 victory over Taunton United the following October. He even took penalties on occasion, scoring from the spot when the reserves played Coventry City reserves over Easter 1923, the summer both he and Rovers’ full-back Harry Armitage played club cricket for Stapleton. The elder child of Henry Wainwright, an electrical engineer of 100 Shambles Street, Barnsley, and his wife Annie White, Arthur Wainwright was baptised at St Mary’s, Barnsley on 29th September 1895. He did not made the grade at Leeds City but was sent off in a reserve match in October 1915, his final game before serving as no.216121 in the Prince of Wales’ Own (West Yorkshire) Regiment, rising to the rank of Lieutenant. When Leeds City were declared bankrupt, he joined Grimsby in a joint deal with George Affleck and scored on his League début in a local derby against Hull City in November 1919. Wainwright scored the opening goal on his home début for Barrow against Crewe Alexandra in September 1924, but the side lost 6-0 at Durham City in the final game of the campaign to finish in eighteenth place in Division Three (North). Later an estate agent living at 103 Lancaster Street, Barnsley, he married a Barnsley girl, Ethel Beatrice Scarff (1899-1976), on 4th June 1932 at the Parish Church of St Thomas in Gawber, Barnsley and they had a son, Roger, and a daughter, Janet. Ethel was the daughter of a rent collector, Josiah Scarff (1870-1950) and his wife Ada Rebecca Funnell (1871-1949). |
No 192. Sidney Percival Wallington. 1933-37.
Born, 15.10.1908, Aston, Birmingham. Died, December, 1989, Birmingham. 5’ 9”; 10 st 4 lbs. Début: 14.10.33 v Cardiff City. Career: Wolseley Sports; December 1928 Birmingham [2,0]; August 1932 Shirley Town; 24.8.33 Bristol Rovers (£150); 11.8.36 Guildford City; 30.1.37 Bristol Rovers [94,1]; May 1937 Worcester City; May 1938 Cradley St Luke’s. Late on in the 3-2 defeat at Reading in October 1935, Sid Wallington scored a consolation goal which proved to be his only strike in League football. Seven days later he was knocked out in the first-half of the game against Watford and played the entire second-half with his head wrapped in brown plaster. The consistent, slender wing-half was a regular name in the starting line-up for three years at Eastville and, indeed, Rovers stood to be paid £200 by Guildford City if he had moved on from them to another Football League side. His début for the reserves, against Newport County reserves in the Southern League in August 1933, had been closely followed by a first-team game in the friendly with Bristol City prior to his League bow. A talented half-back with good, close ball control, Wallington had enjoyed ups and downs with Rovers, being in the side which won the 1935 Third Division (South) Cup, defeating Watford 3-2 in the final, and also playing in the demoralising 12-0 defeat at Luton over Easter 1936. Another rare goal came fifteen minutes from the end of the reserves’ 6-1 victory over Hereford United in April 1937. The youngest of eight, and the sixth son, to James Alfred Wallington (1871-1930) and Selina Elizabeth Kesterton (1872-1931), who had married in 1895, Sid Wallington had been a regular for Shirley Town in the Birmingham Central League after a brief career at Birmingham. In 1931, he married Edna Joyce Forward (1911-93), the daughter of Henry Forward and Kate Windridge, and they had three sons; he was wounded in 1944 whilst serving in northern France. |
No 757. James Luke Newton Walker. 2006-07.
Born, 25.11.1987, Hackney. 5’ 11”; 11 st 3 lbs. Début: 27.9.06 v Hereford United. Career: Charlton Athletic (professional, 1.7.05); 1.1.06 Hartlepool United (loan) [1+3,0]; 26.9.06 Bristol Rovers (loan) [3+1,1]; 23.11.06 Orient (loan); 15.3.07 Notts County (loan) [2+6,0]; 19.10.07 Yeovil Town (loan) [11+2,3]; 14.1.08 Southend United (£200,000) [27+20,6]; 24.9.09 Hereford United (loan) [6,1]; 1.2.10 Gillingham (loan) [2+3,0]; 10.9.10 Orient (free) [9+16,2]; 16.2.11 Grimsby Town (trial); 4.3.11 Woking; 2.8.11 Dover Athletic; 6.8.12 Eastbourne Borough (to 26.2.13); June 2013 Albany Creek Excelsior; 1.8.14 Eastbourne Borough; 9.12.14 Bishop’s Stortford (free); 3.9.15 East Thurrock United (free); 16.6.17 Canvey Island (free); 5.4.18 Maldon and Tiptree United (free). Not just an ageing music group, “The Walker Brothers” became Rovers’ strike force temporarily during the 2006-07 promotion season, when Richard Walker was joined in attack by loan signing James Walker. An England Under-19 striker, who had played against Belgium, the Czech Republic and Poland in the autumn of 2005, scoring in the first of these games, the young Londoner had scored twice in seventeen games for Charlton reserves and added three goals in pre-season friendlies. Replacing Lewis Haldane after 58 minutes on his début, he was on the field as his namesake claimed two goals in a minute to secure victory and he scored the only goal of the game, when set up inside the six-yard box by James Hunt, in the next home fixture, to defeat Boston United. Walker scored with his first touch for Orient, in a 5-2 win at Millwall in his first spell at Brisbane Road and, after suffering relegation with Southend in 2009-10, replaced Belgian striker Paul-José Mpoku after 67 minutes of Orient’s 3-0 win at The Mem in November 2010. After his final League goal, for Hereford against Dagenham and Redbridge, he played five times for Woking, scored six times in 27 games for Dover and added three goals in fifteen appearances with Eastbourne before leaving for personal reasons. He later scored three times in seven Brisbane Premier League matches with Albany Creek, but did not score in fifteen games during a second spell at Eastbourne. A goal in the 3-1 victory over Concord Rangers in December 2014 proved his solitary strike in 8(+10) Conference South appearances with Bishop’s Stortford and his first East Thurrock goal was the fifth in a 5-0 thumping of Carshalton Athletic in the FA Cup in September 2015. He added five goals in 26(+7) Isthmian League matches for East Thurrock during 2015-16, before playing 24 times (five goals) for Canvey Island and three times for Maldon. In September 2012, James Walker had won his solitary full international cap, when he came on as a 75th-minute substitute for Tamorley Thomas for Antigua and Barbuda in a World Cup qualifying match against Guatemala, a 1-0 defeat in St John’s. |
No 732. Richard Martin Walker. 2004-08.
Born, 8.11.1977, Birmingham. 6’; 12 st 4 lbs. Début: 7.8.04 v Mansfield Town. Career: 1.8.95 Aston Villa (professional, 13.12.95) [2+4,2]; 11.12.98 Cambridge United (loan) [7+14,3]; 7.2.01 Blackpool (loan); 14.9.01 Wycombe Wanderers (loan) [10+2,3]; 20.12.01 Blackpool (£50,000) [44+36,15]; 21.10.03 Northampton Town (loan) [11+1,4]; 15.3.04 Oxford United (loan); 25.3.04 Oxford United (free) [3+1,0]; 27.7.04 Bristol Rovers (free) [115+28,46]; 4.7.08 Shrewsbury Town (loan) [16+11,5]; 1.7.09 Burton Albion (free) [19+6,4]; 9.9.11 Solihull Moors (free); 2.3.12 Beer Albion (free; player-manager, 26.7.16). In May 2007, with Rovers trailing at Wembley in the play-off final against Shrewsbury Town, Richard Walker scored twice with his left foot before half-time to put the Gas in the driving-seat and ultimately seal promotion from Division Two. After 21 minutes, he met Ryan Green’s left-wing cross at the near post to turn in an equaliser and, fourteen minutes later, he ran clear of the Shrews’ defence, taking one touch before deftly chipping goalkeeper Chris McKenzie. Richard Walker began his career at Villa, making his League début against Leeds United at Elland Road over Christmas 1997. He scored Premier League goals in the spring of 2000 in a 4-0 victory over Watford and, with a header, in a 1-1 draw with Arsenal when Dion Dublin and Darius Vassell were out injured, as well as featuring in an Intertoto Cup game against Celta Vigo in August 2000. Prior to his arrival at Rovers, he had featured in Cambridge’s 7-2 victory over Mansfield in March 1999, scoring once, added a hat-trick for Blackpool in an LDV Vans Trophy tie at Oldham in January 2002 and scored for Northampton at The Mem on Boxing Day 2003. Opening his scoring account for Rovers in the League Cup at Brighton, on the back of goals in all three of Rovers’ matches on their Isle of Man tour, he then hit a last-minute volley away to his former club Oxford in the League and the goals began to flow. In the 2005-06 season he became the first Rovers player in six years to register twenty League goals in one campaign, but the following year brought greater success as Rovers were promoted. His thirteen League goals included two in a minute to defeat Hereford, a brace in the 4-0 thumping of Accrington and one more on the final day as Rovers needed to defeat table-toppers Hartlepool to make the play-offs. At the tail end of that season, he scored a 49th-minute penalty at the Millennium Stadium in Rovers’ Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Final defeat to Doncaster Rovers, one in each leg of the play-off semi-finals and two first-half goals at Wembley as Rovers sealed promotion to League One via the play-offs. With Rovers back in third-tier football, Walker scored twice from the penalty-spot against Orient in September 2007 and was sent off as a substitute at Swindon that November – his only previous red card had also been against Swindon, when playing for Wycombe. He belatedly came on as a substitute against West Brom in March 2008 in Rovers’ third FA Cup quarter-final appearance. Leaving Rovers, he appeared in the basement division for Shrewsbury, being sent off at Lincoln, and Burton before adding goals against Altrincham and Bishop’s Stortford in 23 matches at Solihull Moors under former Rovers full-back Marcus Bignot, and scoring on his Beer début against Newton. The son of Martin Walker and Barbara Molloy, he now works for an engineering firm in the Devon town of Seaton and started the 2016-17 season alongside his teenage son in the Beer Albion side and Richard scored a hat-trick in December 2016 as Newton St Cyres were defeated 5-3 in a Macron League Premier Division tie. |
No 833. Samuel Colin Walker. 2012-13.
Born, 2.10.1991, Gravesend. 6’ 6”; 14 st 7 lbs. Début: 18.8.12 v Oxford United. Career: Gravesend and Northfleet; 2006 Millwall (schoolboy); 2007 Chelsea (professional, 1.7.10); 25.3.11 Barnet (loan) [7,0]; 11.7.11 Northampton Town (loan) [21,0]; 19.1.12 Yeovil Town (loan) [20,0]; 14.8.12 Bristol Rovers (loan) [11,0]; 14.1.13 Colchester United (loan); 19.7.13 Colchester United (loan); 20.1.14 Colchester United (free) [200,0]; 25.7.18 Reading (free) [7,0]; 23.12.20 Blackpool (loan) [2,0]; 11.1.21 Wimbledon (loan) [12,0]; 8.7.21 Kilmarnock (free) [0+1,0]. Tall custodian Sam Walker joined Rovers in the midst of a series of loan spells. His mother club, Chelsea, for whom he starred in the 2010 FA Youth Cup, appearing in all nine matches as Chelsea defeated Aston Villa 3-2 on aggregate in the final, sent him around the country to gain Football League experience. After a Barnet début against Chesterfield, he was sent off at home to Crewe in only his third game, but returned to League fray to concede seven against Shrewsbury, whilst with Northampton, and six at home to Stevenage, when playing for Yeovil. Agile and adept, he played for Northampton at the Memorial Stadium in August 2011 and served under manager Aidy Boothroyd, a former Rovers player. His stint with Rovers included two cup-ties but, having not kept a clean sheet in eight appearances, he found his place taken temporarily by Filipino international Neil Etheridge. Walker’s loan spell with Colchester included saving a penalty from Kevin Lisbie in the 2-1 victory over Orient in April 2013, in which he was a team-mate of John-Joe O’Toole. His own goal contributed to United’s FA Cup first-round exit in November 2013 at the hands of Sheffield United and he was in the team, alongside Will Packwood, which lost 6-0 at MK Dons in November 2014. Colchester, though, were indebted to him for a late penalty save as they recorded a 1-0 victory over local rivals Peterborough United in the FA Cup in December 2014, and a dramatic final-day 1-0 victory at promotion-hopefuls Preston secured their League One status in May 2015. Sam Walker was ruled out of the entire 2015-16 League season through injury, Colchester being relegated to League Two, but re-established himself the following campaign as his side missed out narrowly on the play-offs. Colchester, with Walker in goal, lost 1-0 at home to Oxford City in the first round of the FA Cup in November 2017, and he saved a Brandon Hanlan penalty at The Mem for Blackpool in January 2021. Bizarrely, he returned to the Mem just ten days later, to play for Wimbledon in a Football League Trophy tie, this time keeping a clean sheet. In 2021-22, although restricted to just eight minutes of play in an away fixture at Hamilton Academical that Boxing Day, he helped Kilmarnock become champions of the Scottish Championship and gain an immediate return to top-flight football. |
No 946. Zain Walker. 2020-22.
Born, 8.1.2002, Wandsworth, London. 5’ 9”; 9 st 2 lbs. Début: 26.9.20 v Doncaster Rovers. Career: Fulham; 21.7.18 Bristol Rovers (free) [4+7,0]; 8.9.21 King’s Lynn Town (loan); 12.11.21 Chippenham Town (loan); 19.1.22 King’s Lynn Town (free). A constructive midfielder, Zain Walker played the opening 52 minutes of the Football League Trophy game at Exeter City in November 2018 as a sixteen-year-old. In so doing, he became the youngest Rovers player in this competition and the fourth youngest in any competitive fixture. He had earlier scored in a pre-season friendly against Yate Town in July 2018 and registered a hat-trick as Cheltenham Town were defeated 5-0 earlier in November of that year. Two goals in the pre-season victory over Bristol Manor Farm in August 2020 saw him secure a match-day squad position for the 2020-21 season; despite sporadic appearances, Walker was unable to help Rovers avoid relegation to League Two that campaign. He played in 3(+8) National League games without scoring, as King’s Lynn were relegated in 2021-22 and came on as a substitute when they won 1-0 away to Doncaster Rovers in a shock FA Cup result in November 2022. |
No 16. Joseph Dorville Walter. 1920-22 and 1928-29.
Born, 16.8.1895, Eastville, Bristol. Died, 24.5.1995, Stapleton, Bristol. 5’ 7½”; 11 st. Début: 9.9.20 v Newport County. Career: All Hallows; Cliftonians; 1918 Horfield United; 1918 Bristol Rovers (trial); 2.8.20 Bristol Rovers (2sh, 2d); 8.5.22 Huddersfield Town (£2,500) [55,5]; 21.8.25 Taunton United (£300); 13.3.26 Blackburn Rovers [27,2]; August 1928 Bristol Rovers [82,12]; August 1929 Bath City; 11.12.31 Kingswood AFC; 1952 Bristol Co-operative Society (groundsman); 1953-October 1958 Bristol City (groundsman); 6.8.60 Bristol Rovers (assistant coach). Did you ever hear of the League title-winning player who scored a goal in the FA Cup which was disallowed as two sheep had entered the field of play before the ball had crossed the line? Joe Walter was an outside-right of considerable merit in his day, who gave Rovers loyal service and lived to just short of his hundredth birthday, a greater age than any other player in the club’s history. His father had been a tailor’s cutter who died when Joe was just seven, Joseph Dorville Walter (1864-1903) and Emily Florence Pomphrey (1865-1937) having five children, Joe being the third-born and the elder of two sons, and the family lived at 3 Northcote Street, St George. Serving in the Gloucestershire Regiment in World War One, Walter won the brigade championship with the Third Battalion and represented Southern Command against Northern Command. He scored both the goals on his home début for Rovers, as Grimsby were defeated 2-0, displaced George Chance as regular outside-right and was the club’s third highest scorer in 1921-22, including goals in both fixtures against Northampton. A high-profile transfer took him to Huddersfield in time to be part of Herbert Chapman’s (1878-1934) side which won successive League titles in 1923-24 and 1924-25; in fact, Walter won a medal in the first campaign, but had not made sufficient appearances to qualify second time round, even though he won a Central League medal in 1924-25 with the reserves, and he had left the club before they completed their historic hat-trick of League championships. After a stint at Ewood Park, he returned for a cameo rôle at Eastville, his seven games in 1928-29 bringing a goal in the 5-2 loss at Crystal Palace on Boxing Day. Joe Walter also scored four times in nineteen Southern League matches for Taunton, as well as once in twelve Western League fixtures, his début coming in the 1-0 defeat against Weymouth in August 1925. In March 1926, in his penultimate appearance for the club, he scored as Rovers reserves were defeated 2-0 at Priory Park before a crowd of 553. The disallowed FA Cup goal came at Taunton, too, when the game with Torquay United in October 1925 was interrupted by a pitch invasion of ruminant mammals. A team-mate of Rovers men in Albert Rotherham, Ernie Sambidge and Billy Compton at Bath City, he helped his new side win the Southern League championship in 1929-30, playing twice in April 1930 against Rovers’ reserve side. He married Adeline Rose Townsend, who died in 1982; their son, Alan Dorville Walter, born in 1922, married Dilys Price and had a daughter Jane. Joe Walter was an extraordinarily talented sportsman: he played for Bristol Co-op against Post Office Sports in December 1959, aged sixty-four; he played tennis at Cleeve Hill, Downend until he was eighty-six; he was groundsman at Ashton Gate and an assistant coach at Eastville. Guest of honour when Huddersfield opened their McAlpine Stadium in August 1994, their game against Wycombe Wanderers proved to be the last he saw, for he died at the age of ninety-nine just four days before Rovers met Huddersfield in a Wembley play-off final. |
No 645. Mark Everton Walters. 1999-2002.
Born, 2.6.1964, Birmingham. 5’ 10”; 12 st 8 lbs. Début: 20.11.99 v Chesterfield, Career: Aston Villa (professional, 18.5.82) [168+13,39]; 31.12.87 Rangers (£550,000) [101+5,32]; 13.8.91 Liverpool (£1,250,000) [58+36,14]; 24.8.94 Stoke City (loan) [9,2]; 9.9.94 Wolverhampton Wanderers (loan) [11,3]; 18.1.96 Southampton (free) [4+1,0]; 31.7.96 Swindon Town (free) [115+21,27]; 17.11.99 Bristol Rovers (free) [46+36,13]; 25.7.02 Aston Villa (academy youth coach); 16.8.02 Ilkeston Town; 15.11.02 Tividale; 29.11.02 Willenhall Town; 7.8.03 Dudley Town; Aston Villa (Under-16 coach). Vastly experienced crowd-pleasing winger Mark Walters injected a breath of enthusiasm and excitement into Rovers’ ultimately unsuccessful promotion push as the new millennium was ushered in. Prior to joining the club, he had over 500 Football League and Scottish League games under his belt, he had won Scottish Premier League titles in 1989, 1990 and 1991, he had twice scored in successful Scottish League Cup Finals, in 1989 against Aberdeen and two years later against Celtic, and he had been an unused substitute as Liverpool defeated Sunderland 2-0 in the 1992 FA Cup Final and played Bolton Wanderers in the League Cup Final three years later. Having scored his first goal in a 2-1 win at Notts County in September 1991, Walters recorded Liverpool’s first Premier League goal ever, in August 1992 and was their second highest scorer in 1992-93, his tally including a hat-trick against Coventry City that April. He also scored a hat-trick when Villa beat Crystal Palace 4-1 in October 1987. Impressive as a youngster at Villa, he was the third of four children to Ivy Millicent Walters, who had arrived in Britain from the Caribbean with her elder two children, and her partner Lawrence Johnson Wabara, a Nigerian by birth who had allegedly represented his country at football. An England schoolboy and youth cap, he had won nine Under-21 caps, played once for England B and finally, against New Zealand in Auckland, had played in one match for England in June 1991. Having made his Villa début as a raw seventeen-year-old against Leeds United in April 1982 Walters, supremely talented, “sometimes brilliant but at other times … frustrating”, became a huge favourite at Villa Park. A member of their 1980 Youth Cup winning team, he helped the side secure the 1982 European Super Cup and, in a 1-1 draw with Bournemouth in October 1987, scored the goal which meant Villa were the first club to register 6,000 goals in the Football League. His career encompassed success north and south of the border, despite his middle name scoring Liverpool’s first Premier League goal and their first hat-trick in that league, against Coventry City, and appearing in European competition in several seasons, which included a goal against Bayern Munich. He also opposed Rovers in Liverpool’s colours in the FA Cup in January 1992. Mark Walters was vastly popular at the Memorial Stadium. He scored from a direct free-kick on his home début, the middle goal in a 3-0 victory over Luton Town and followed this up with a cracking goal at Brentford seven days later. Even after relegation to the basement division in the spring of 2001, he maintained his popularity and scored a refreshing number of goals. When the future Rovers manager Paul Buckle was in the opposition, he was sent off at Exeter in October 2001 for a two-footed challenge on Barry O’Connell nine minutes from time. A member of the England Over-35 six-a-side team, Walters was relegated from the Doctor Martens League with Ilkeston in 2002-03. In January 2003 he began coaching football at Coventry Preparatory School and has been a member of staff there since January 2006, as well as being Head of Languages at Aston Villa Academy, and is heavily involved in groups striving to eliminate racism from football. Mark Walters had two children, Mischa and Marlon, from his marriage in 1990 to Tracey. One nephew Simon Ford has played for Kilmarnock and Jamaica, having been briefly on Rovers’ books in the autumn of 2004, whilst another nephew is Reece Wabara, who was in the Bolton Wanderers side which faced Rovers in February 2017. |
No 48. James Jackson Walton. 1923-24.
Born, 3.11.1898, Sacriston, Co Durham. Died, 26.8.1989, Altrincham. 5’ 9”; 11 st 7 lbs. Début: 25.8.23 v Gillingham. Career: Cleator Moor Celtic; August 1919 West Stanley; May 1920 Leeds United [69,4]; 5.7.23 Bristol Rovers [40,1]; 18.11.24 Brentford (£125) [59,0]; November 1926 Hartlepools United [2,0] (to May 1927). “A very special player” had joined Rovers, claimed manager Andrew Wilson and left-half Jimmy Walton certainly gave good service through the 1923-24 season, missing just two League matches and scoring a consolation goal in the 3-1 defeat at Exeter before a 5,000 crowd in November 1923. Jimmy Walton has often been believed to have been a child prodigy but recent research, in revealing a new date of birth, which ties in with his recorded age at death of ninety, shows he was the eldest child of Joseph Richardson Walton and Meggie Jackson (1874-1950), his middle name deriving from his mother’s maiden name, and that he made his League bow at the more appropriate age of twenty-one, in Leeds United’s first ever Football League game, the 2-0 defeat at Port Vale in August 1920. Despite missing just one game that season, he fell out of favour at Leeds due to the form of Jim Baker and furthered his career in the lower leagues. His Brentford début was at Eastville and he played at Griffin Park alongside Rovers names in Jack Allen and Jack Thomson. Jimmy Walton married Edith Johnson in Sacriston in 1923 and they had a son, Alan. Only seven Rovers players from the Football League era have lived to a more advanced age. |
No 423. Alan Warboys. 1972-77.
Born, 18.4.1949, Goldthorpe, Yorkshire. 6’; 14 st 5 lbs. Début: 6.3.73 v Rochdale. Career: West Riding junior football; Don and Dearne District XI; Doncaster Rovers (professional, April 1967); 29.5.68 Sheffield Wednesday (£12,000) [66+5,13]; 24.12.70 Cardiff City (£42,000) [56+4,27]; 22.9.72 Sheffield United (£20,000 plus Gil Reece and Dave Powell) [7,0]; 6.3.73 Bristol Rovers (£35,000) [141+3,53]; 17.2.77 Fulham (£30,000) [19,2]; 7.9.77 Hull City (£25,000) [44+5,9]; 12.7.79 Doncaster Rovers (£12,500) [118+1,33] (retired, October 1982). Tall, distinguished and strong, Alan Warboys’ approach to the game epitomised the glory season of Rovers’ promotion in 1973-74. Never one to be worried about the opposition, he set about scoring goals at will, as Rovers lost just three of his first 38 League matches for the club, his attacking partnership with Bruce Bannister at Eastville being dubbed “Smash and Grab” by the awed national press. At one stage during Rovers’ extraordinary 32-game unbeaten League run, Warboys contributed ten goals in just four matches, including four at Brighton. This spell began with a 3-1 victory over Southport, the tall Yorkshireman completing his hat-trick with a fine solo run and right-foot drive six minutes from time; the 8-2 televised victory away to Brian Clough’s (1935-2004) Brighton then featured a header two minutes from half-time and three low shots, after 55, 63 and 70 minutes, Warboys then leaving the field to have stitches inserted around a cut eye before returning to hit the crossbar with an angled drive in the closing seconds of an astonishing victory; in the very next fixture, he added three second-half goals against Southend United, with right-foot shots after 47 and 64 minutes before completing the 4-0 win with a late penalty. Unsurprisingly, Rovers gained promotion to Division Two in the spring of 1974, the old-fashioned target man being top scorer at the club that season as well as in 1974-75 and 1976-77. The younger of two sons to Sidney Warboys, who died in 1993, and Florence Eileen Wilkins (1921-2005), she being the daughter of Thomas Nathaniel Wilkins and Florence May Peacock, Alan Warboys worked as an apprentice fitter down the mines for just three weeks at Goldthorpe Colliery before Doncaster spotted his undoubted potential. His League bow came in Doncaster’s game with Orient in April 1967, the veteran Norman Sykes, a former Rovers wing-half, playing alongside him. By the time he arrived at Eastville as Rovers’ record signing, he had appeared in all four divisions, as well as playing for Cardiff in the European Cup Winners’ Cup during 1971-72 alongside Jim Eadie. Suffering relegation from the top flight with Wednesday in 1969-70, he had scored twice against his old club on his Bluebirds’ début and added a hat-trick in the opening nine minutes of Cardiff’s 4-0 victory over Carlisle United in March 1971, scoring all the goals that afternoon. An ever-present in Rovers’ first season back in Division Two, his strike against Hull City in November 1976 was the hundredth in the League of his long career. Having left Rovers, he played against the Pirates for Fulham, Hull and Doncaster, contriving to play in three League fixtures against Rovers in the 1977-78 campaign alone, a goalless draw with the Cottagers followed by both Hull’s fixtures. He had also been in the Fulham side in May 1977 when they led Orient 6-0 at half-time in a fixture eventually won 6-1. In May 1981, with Doncaster requiring a win to seal promotion from the basement division, Warboys contributed one of the goals in a heady 2-1 victory over Bournemouth. A back injury initially sustained in an FA Cup-tie against Cambridge United in January 1982 effectively ended his playing career. He ran the “Ring o’ Bells” public house in Swinton for eight-and-a-half years before becoming a long-distance lorry driver in 2002 and scored at Wembley in the warm-up game prior to Rovers’ Leyland Daf Final against Tranmere Rovers in May 1990. Married to Carol Baker and with a son, Alan, a Physical Education teacher, Alan Warboys remains a huge figure in the Rovers story, a popular occasional visitor to the Memorial Stadium and an admired pivotal character in the club’s long history. |
No 324. (Dai) David Ward. 1954-61.
Born, 16.7.1934, Barry. Died, 12.1.1996, Barry. 5’ 7”; 10 st 4 lbs. Début: 16.4.55 v Nottingham Forest. Career: local football in Barry; August 1950 Barry Town; 1952 Cardiff City (amateur); 24.11.54 Bristol Rovers (free) [175,90]; 21.2.61 Cardiff City (£11,000 plus John Watkins) [35,18]; May 1962 Watford (£7,000) [59,31]; 15.10.63 Brentford (£8,000) [47,11]; August 1965 Worcester City (£2,000); 3.8.66 Bath City; February 1967 Cambridge United (youth coach); Kettering Town (coach); 1972 Cambridge City (coach, to April 1974). When Wales drew 2-2 with England at Villa Park in November 1958, inside-forward Dai Ward joined a rare breed of players to appear for their country whilst on Rovers’ books. The son of Dai Ward senior (1901-59), a former Merthyr Town, Coventry City and Newport County player, who played in the Merthyr side which defeated Rovers 1-0 at Penydarren Park in March 1925, he fully deserved his call-up, for in-form Rovers were riding high in the second tier and Ward was on course for 26 League goals in a productive League season. He won a second cap on October 1961, England once again being the opposition. Ward had played in just two Southern League fixtures for Barry, scoring against Llanelli over Easter 1952, before signing for Rovers. Leading scorer at Eastville in both 1956-57 and 1958-59, he scored in a club record eight consecutive League matches in the spring of 1956, a tally equalled by Matty Taylor over Easter 2016, and contributed a four-minute hat-trick in the 6-1 victory over Doncaster Rovers in December 1956 as well as scoring twice in a League game for Rovers on twelve further occasions. The four-minute hat-trick was remarkable in that it came in his comeback game after a lengthy spell out injured; he received an inscribed lighter in recognition of this feat. In addition, his goal after just seven seconds against Bristol City in the Gloucestershire Cup Final of May 1959 is the fastest ever recorded by a Rovers player. Top scorer as Cardiff were relegated from Division One in 1961-62, and registering a hat-trick in the snow when Watford beat Carlisle United 5-1 in December 1962, Ward scored after just six minutes on his Brentford début, scoring twice as the Bees defeated Wrexham 9-0 in October 1963 and, their top scorer that campaign, added a hat-trick against Mansfield Town later that calendar month. He played three times in the League for Watford against Rovers, scoring at Eastville in April 1963 and at Vicarage Road the following September, and in both Brentford’s game against Rovers during the 1963-64 campaign. After 22 goals in 43 Southern League matches at Worcester, he was injured after 53 minutes of Bath’s 2-0 Southern League defeat at Romford in January 1967, required five stitches in his right leg and retired from the game. A motor trade apprentice, who became a delivery driver in Cambridge, Ward attended Watford’s centenary dinner but, once he fell ill, returned to Barry from Cambridge and died in his native Wales at the age of sixty-one. |
No 956. Jed Ward. 2020-
Born, 20.5.2003, Bristol. 5’ 10”; 9 st 7 lbs. Début: 9.5.21 v Blackpool. Career: Bradley Stoke Community School; 2010 Bradley Stoke United; 2012 Bristol Rovers (professional, 5.2.21) [1,0]; 21.1.22 Swindon Supermarine (loan); 16.2.22 Prescot Cables (loan); 12.8.22 Hungerford Town (loan). Despite being beaten late on by Ellis Simms’ goal from Demetri Mitchell’s cross, young goalkeeper Jed Ward made an impressive first appearance for already-relegated Rovers at Blackpool in May 2021. One particularly brave point-blank save from Keshi Anderson on the stroke of half-time summed up his attitude. Having followed his elder brother Louis to Bradley Stoke, Ward had been on Rovers’ books for nine years by the time he became the thirty-third youngest player to appear for the club in the League and was swiftly called up to the England Under-19 squad two days before his eighteenth birthday. He was at Hungerford Town at the same time as fellow Rovers player Ryan Jones but his loan spell there was curtailed by a broken bone in his hand, suffered during a training session. |
No 736. Elliott Leslie Ward. 2004-05.
Born, 19.1.1985, Harrow, Middlesex. 6’ 1”; 13 st 2 lbs. Début: 29.12.04 v Cheltenham Town. Career: West Ham United (professional, 1.8.01) [13+2,0]; 28.7.04 Peterborough United (loan); 24.12.04 Bristol Rovers (loan) [0+3,0]; 22.11.05 Plymouth Argyle (loan) [15+1,1]; 16.6.06 Coventry City (£1,000,000) [111+5,14]; 15.2.10 Doncaster Rovers (loan) [6,1]; 23.3.10 Preston North End (loan) [4,0]; 26.5.10 Norwich City (free) [51,1]; 26.10.12 Nottingham Forest (loan) [29+2,3]; 18.6.13 Bournemouth (free) [22+3,0]; 9.9.15 Huddersfield Town (loan) [5,0]; 20.1.16 Blackburn Rovers (free) [21+2,1]; 30.1.18 MK Dons (loan) [15,0]; 3.9.18 Notts County (free, to 17.5.19) [16+1,1]; 17.7.19 Cambridge United (trial); 13.9.19 Cambridge United (free) [13,0]; 17.2.20 Chelmsford City (free; 1.5.20 assistant academy manager; 21.6.21 coach); 7.3.22 West Ham United (Under-14 coach); 11.7.22 Colchester United (Under-18 coach; 20.9.22-30.9.22 interim assistant manager). Prior to his Rovers début, strongly-built central defender Elliott Ward had just one League Cup appearance under his belt having played in West Ham’s 2-0 win against Adam Barrett’s Southend United in August 2004. His physical strength notwithstanding, Ward’s Rovers career of three ninetieth-minute substitute appearances, twice replacing a substitute, represents arguably the briefest career in the club’s history, although he almost scored from a corner at Lincoln. With Anwar U’ddin at West Ham, Ward played in the 2005 play-off final and for the Hammers in the Premier League in 2005-06; he was in the Norwich side which gained promotion likewise in 2010-11, scoring his solitary goal against Millwall in February 2011 and represented the Canaries in the Premier League. Moving to the East Midlands, he scored twice in the spring of 2008 when Coventry won 5-1 away to Colchester United. Noted for scoring a spectacular overhead goal on his Doncaster début at Hillsborough, Ward then conceded an own goal in the local derby with Leicester City in only his fourth game in a Forest shirt, but scored against Peterborough, Huddersfield and, on a dramatic final day of the season, local rivals Leicester as Forest narrowly missed out on a play-off berth. The Leicester theme continued into 2013-14 as Ward was sent off on Bournemouth’s visit there in October 2013; he also conceded an own goal in the 3-0 defeat at Wigan Athletic in January 2014. Astonishingly, Bournemouth swept all before them in 2014-15, scoring 98 goals in winning the Championship title and securing promotion to the Premier League for the first time in their history, Ward making just two substitute appearances. The following campaign, he scored Blackburn’s consolation goal in their April 2016 derby match against Preston North End but missed many games through a long-term ankle injury as Rovers were relegated to League One on the closing day of the 2016-17 campaign on goal difference. He played against Rovers with MK Dons in March 2018 but could not prevent that club from being relegated that campaign from League One. The following campaign, he suffered relegation again for, having scored at Port Vale that November, he saw his Notts County side drop out of the Football League in May 2019. Later he appeared in seventeen National League South matches with Chelmsford City. A son of John Ward and Lesley Long, he is the younger brother of Darren Ward of Watford, Millwall, Palace, Wolves and latterly captain of Yeovil Town and of Luton Town goalkeeper Scott Ward. |
No 252. Frank Warhurst. 1938-39.
Born, 5.4.1917, Sheffield. Died, 30.10.2002, Lincoln. 5’ 11”; 12 st. Début: 8.10.38 v Reading. Career: August 1935 Sheffield United (professional, May 1936); July 1937 Bath City; 6.7.38 Bristol Rovers (free) [4,0]; May 1945 Plymouth Argyle; 1945-46 Newport County. Perhaps the archetypal example of a player whose career was wrecked by the onset of war in 1939, centre-half Frank Warhurst never finished on the winning side for Rovers. He scored for the reserves in the 3-1 defeat against Chelmsford City at Eastville in November 1938, but his season was curtailed by an injury sustained in the reserves’ 4-2 defeat at Tunbridge Wells Rangers the following February. He had apparently been outstanding in the second string’s 4-4 draw with Exeter City reserves that month and was so again in a comeback game against Guildford City in late April. Having played for Bath City in the first match ever played at Colchester United’s Layer Road, a game the Romans lost 6-1 in September 1937, his regular appearances ended with an injury in a 7-0 defeat at Dartford on the final day of the campaign. The middle child to Samuel Warhurst and Ann Harrison, who had married in Sheffield in 1909, Frank Warhurst had an elder sister Muriel and a younger brother Horace; he worked at BAC during World War Two and married Amy Whiting in 1940, their daughter Marilyn being born the following year. |
No 694. Christer Simon Warren. 2002-03.
Born, 10.10.1974, Weymouth. 5’ 10”; 11 st 3 lbs. Début: 8.9.02 v Macclesfield Town. Career: 1.8.94 Cheltenham Town; 31.3.95 Southampton (£63,000) [1+7,0]; 11.10.96 Brighton (loan) [3,0]; 7.3.97 Fulham (loan) [8+3,1]; 10.10.97 Bournemouth (£50,000) [95+9,13]; 15.6.00 Queen’s Park Rangers (free) [24+12,0]; 5.9.02 Bristol Rovers (free) [0+2,0]; 8.10.02 Eastleigh (free); 26.9.05 Winchester City (free); 11.9.06 Lymington and New Milton (free); 9.2.07 Wimborne Town (free) (manager, 19.4.07-7.11.08); 2009 US Melloise; 2012 FC Boutonnais; July 2013 US Melloise; 2.6.15 Christchurch; 5.10.16 Verwood Town (coach, to 21.12.21). A 41st-minute substitute on his Rovers début in front of Sky TV cameras at Moss Rose, Christer Warren had made his League bow in Saints’ 4-2 defeat at Arsenal in September 1995. The midfielder’s career had begun with Cheltenham Town, where he had been scouted by the former Rovers full-back Lindsay parsons and for whom he scored fifteen goals in 83(+31) matches prior to their admission into the Football League, and added an FA Cup goal in December 1992 against his home-town club Bournemouth. His transfer fee to Southampton was, at the time, the highest ever received by the Gloucestershire club. He scored after 78 minutes on his Fulham début in a 4-0 victory over Scarborough in March 1997 and helped the Cottagers to promotion as Third Division champions before playing under Ian Holloway at QPR. In 2002 he returned to live and work in Bournemouth, for whom he had previously appeared in five League games against Rovers, as well as being sent off at Wycombe on Boxing Day 1999, and played alongside Matt Le Tissier at Eastleigh. Five goals followed in 22 matches for Winchester, who were Wessex League champions that season with 107 points and 112 goals. Having played for Lymington in the Southern League Division One, he managed Wimborne to the Sydenhams Wessex League Cup Final in 2008, in which they defeated Moneyfields 1-0, before emigrating the following year to France, where he scored seven times in 23 matches with Boutonnais. He worked as a builder near La Rochelle, establishing his own company in Rue du Puits de la Barre in Sompt, but he and his wife Nicola Sheen sold the company on 9th June 2015 and, along with their children Amy, Millie and Lucas, moved back to Hampshire. Christer Warren scored a late consolation goal, as a substitute, on his Verwood Town début against Bemerton Heath in October 2016. |
No 226. Raymond Richard Warren. 1936-56.
Born, 23.6.1918, Bristol. Died, 13.3.1988, Bristol. 5’ 11”; 11 st 2 lbs. Début: 14.3.36 v Queen’s Park Rangers. Career: Luckwell Lane School; Parson Street Old Boys; September 1935 Bristol Rovers (professional, 12.3.36) [450,28] (retired, May 1956). One-club men are a rarity nowadays, so centre-half Ray Warren’s Rovers career stands out as exceptional service to the club he joined from Suburban League fare. A Bristol Schools cap in 1931-32, he had scored 52 goals in schoolboy football in 1930-31, 56 the following campaign and 67 in 1932-33, before converting to the stopper rôle. After wartime work on “swimming tanks” and guest appearances for Rovers, for whom he scored four times in 39 games, Bristol City, where he played ten times and scored twice, plus seven games for Leeds, one of those a 9-0 defeat at Newcastle, and a goal at Bath City, Warren became a fixture in Rovers’ side for a decade once peacetime football resumed. Captaining the side, he helped develop a locally-born team which grew in stature, reaching the quarter-finals of the FA Cup in 1950-51 and securing the Third Division (South) championship in 1952-53. Offered a benefit game in 1946, he went on Rovers’ tour to The Netherlands in 1948 and apparently featured for the club in every position, including goalkeeper after Jack Weare’s injury at Cardiff in November 1946. The half-back line of Jackie Pitt, Ray Warren and Peter Sampson was arguably the greatest in Rovers’ history and Warren, undeniably one of Rovers’ finest servants, equalled Jesse Whatley’s club record of being an ever-present in five separate seasons. He even managed to score twice from open play in one League fixture, the 3-2 home win against Notts County on New Year’s Day 1949. His relatively high goal-scoring performance, including eleven in that season, is partly explained by a prolific ability from the penalty-spot, his seven successful spot-kicks in 1948-49 remaining a club record until equalled by Jeff Hughes in 2009-10. The second of five children to Edward John Warren and Nellie Louisa Williams, who married in 1908, Ray Warren married Ivy Abrahams (1920-2009) in the spring of 1940 and they had a daughter and grandchildren. Following his retirement from football, Ray Warren, like so many other footballers, ran a public house, in his case The Trident in Downend. |
No 353. John Victor Watkins. 1960-62.
Born, 9.4.1933, Bristol. 5’ 11”; 11 st 10 lbs. Début: 25.2.61 v Luton Town. Career: Portway School; Combe Dingle; 1950 Clifton St Vincent’s; Bristol City (professional, June 1951) [95,19]; 29.6.59 Cardiff City (£3,000) [65,17]; 21.2.61 Bristol Rovers (exchange with Dai Ward) [23,0]; 3.8.62 Chippenham Town; July 1965 Welton Rovers; 7.6.67 Bath City; 7.6.69 Welton Rovers (retired, 2.5.72); August 1974 Shirehampton Sports (manager). England Youth cap Johnny Watkins was well-known to Rovers’ supporters before his arrival at Eastville. He had played for Bristol City against Rovers on five occasions in the League as well as twice for Cardiff, scoring in the Bluebirds’ 2-2 draw in April 1960. The tall outside-left became a penalty expert at Ashton Gate and enjoyed promotion from Division Two at Ninian Park in 1959-60, scoring a spectacular goal in the astonishing 7-4 win at Barnsley in August 1958 and later gave Rovers loyal service. The son of Wilfred Watkins (1895-1964) and his wife Agnes Griffin, he played in fourteen consecutive League matches in 1960-61, including the 4-3 home victory over Liverpool and his time with Rovers included away fixture at Anfield twice, Fratton Park and Roker Park. Upon leaving Rovers, he rejected a move to Plymouth Argyle in 1962 in order to remain closer to his family. At Welton, Western League champions in 1965-66 and 1966-67, alongside Micky Slocombe, Dave Stone, Malcolm Norman and Trevor Rhodes, he played under his former Bristol City team-mate Arnold Rodgers at both Welton and Bath, before signing a very young Mike Barrett for Shirehampton in 1976. A keen bowls enthusiast, who was on the Gloucestershire Cricket Club ground staff in 1959 and later captained Stoke Bishop at cricket, Watkins worked for Brecknell, Dolman and Rogers and later spent twenty years with Rolls Royce. Married to Debra Silverthorn, with a son Paul and a daughter Debra, who was born whilst Johnny was playing in an away fixture at Blackpool, as well as four grandchildren, Johnny Watkins currently lives in Coombe Dingle. |
Mo 265. (Barry) Randall Burnell Watkins. 1946-57.
Born, 30.11.1921, Bedlinog, near Merthyr Tydfil. Died, 20.6.2004, Fishponds, Bristol. 5’ 6”; 10 st. Début: 31.8.46 v Reading, Career: Merthyr Schoolboys; Bedlinog; 1939 Wolverhampton Wanderers (amateur); BAC, Patchway; 20.9.45 Bristol Rovers (professional, 18.10.45, to May 1957) [115,7]. Formerly captain of Merthyr Schoolboys, garrulous and informative full-back Barry Watkins played in Rovers’ first 52 post-war League fixtures. An ever-present in 1946-47, having made his reserve team début in September 1945 against the Royal Artillery at Hanham, he appeared in a 6-0 defeat at Notts County and a 4-0 loss at Ashton Gate, before losing his place to the skilful Geoff Fox and thereafter had to be content with occasional, sporadic appearances until his retirement from the game in 1957. A keen cricketer for Purdown Hospital and for the staff side at Bristol University, he worked from 1946 in the engines division at BAC, Patchway and lived in Vassall Court, Fishponds. The only child of Moses Watkins and Gladys Burnell, he married Mary Osborne in 1950 and they had two daughters, Anne and Judith. Mary was the daughter of Albert Thomas Osborne (1884-1940), who was on Rovers’ books in 1909-10 before signing for Bristol City, and Elsie Lilly Nott; Judith married Richard Crabtree, who played in goal for Rovers in the early 1970s; Barry and Mary’s niece, Sue Ball, married Bobby Brown, who was in the Rovers side between 1967 and 1970. |
No 385. (Wally) Robert Stephen Watkins. 1965-66.
Born, 20.12.1946, Bristol. 5’ 6”; 10 st. Début: 28.12.65 v Bournemouth. Career: Bedminster United; Bristol Rovers (amateur); Weston-super-Mare; 1964 Bristol City (amateur); 12.7.65 Bristol Rovers [1,0]; 20.7.66 Glastonbury; May 1967 Dartford; 1969 Minehead; 1970 Crawley Town. So nicknamed because he apparently ran in the same style as the contemporary Bristol City player Wally Hinshelwood, “Wally” Watkins turned down moves to Weston-super-Mare and Trowbridge Town in September 1965 and appeared in Rovers’ 1-0 defeat at Dean Court that Christmas, Ken Hodgson (1942-2007) scoring the only goal of the encounter. Later in his career he scored six goals in 27(+1) appearances for Dartford. He is the second of six children to the Bristol couple William Watkins and Eileen Goodman, who married in 1943. |
No 288. (Josser) John Daniel Watling. 1947-63.
Born, 11.5.1925, Bristol. Died, 3.6.2023. 5’ 7½”; 10 st 4 lbs. Début: 14.2.48 v Bristol City. Career: Palin House Youth Club; Royal Navy; Plymouth Argyle (trial); St Andrew’s Boys’ Club, Avonmouth; October 1945 Bristol Rovers (professional, January 1947) [323,19] (coach and scout, May 1963); 1965 Hillfields (coach). Natural comedian, impromptu pianist and all-round entertainer “Josser” Watling lit up the atmosphere of Rovers’ predominantly Bristol-born changing-room during the immediate post-war era. Popular and enigmatic on and off the field, he played for Rovers in fifteen consecutive League campaigns, proving an essential ingredient in the club’s success through his exciting wing play, his staunch defending when employed as a left-back, and his hilarious antics off the field. Into the twenty-first-century, he became the oldest former Rovers footballer alive. The third of four children to Albert Watling and Alice Collins, who married in Bristol in 1917, he survived being on a boat sunk by Nazi warships off the Russian coast during the Second World War and joined Rovers on the strength of his performances for the Gloucestershire county side. Watling, who made his début in a 5-2 local derby Valentine’s Day defeat and also scored his first goal against Bristol City, was a fast and effective, raiding winger, who had the crowd on their feet and supplied crosses for the potent strike-force of Vic Lambden and a young Geoff Bradford. He only once scored twice in a League fixture, as Rovers defeated Port Vale 4-1 on Easter Saturday 1949. His shimmy deceived countless opponents both in third-tier football and in Division Two, Watling’s five appearances during the 1952-53 promotion campaign being insufficient to warrant the receipt of a championship medal. A constructive left-back at the tail end of his career, he captained the side for four years up to his retirement in 1962 and was credited with giving Alfie Biggs the pseudonym “The Baron” – “yes, that was down to me”. After running a fruit shop for four years, Watling worked from 1966 as a storekeeper at Glenside Hospital and continues to live in Bristol, where he had the honour of having a road named after him, Watling Way in Shirehampton. In January 2014, by now the sole survivor of Rovers’ 1952-53 side, he won £716 on Rovers’ Supporters’ Club 50/50 half-time draw, receiving his winnings on the Memorial Stadium pitch. Married since 1980 to Maureen King, Josser Watling had first married Ellen Hickery (1926-1978), the daughter of Henry Hickery and Ellen Ratcliffe and a first cousin to the welterweight boxer Terry Ratcliffe (who won 33 of his 51 professional bouts and was a gold medal winner at welterweight in the 1950 British Empire Games), and has two children, five grandchildren and a great-grandchild. ---------------------------------------------
How sad it is to learn of the passing of former Bristol Rovers player John ‘Josser’ Watling, the last surviving link with the glorious Rovers side of the 1950’s.
Born in Bristol on 11th May 1995, ‘Josser’ served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War and survived being on a boat sunk by Nazi warships off the Russian coast. ‘Josser’ who had been in hospital after suffering a broken hip in a fall at home before Christmas, signed for Rovers in October 1945 and joined the professional ranks in January 1947 and made his league debut for the club in a local derby, against Bristol City, on Valentine’s Day 1948. Rovers lost 5-2 at Ashton Gate on that occasion, but it was the first of 323 league games he appeared in for Rovers, his only league club. There were also 19 league goals, the first of which was scored against City in a 3-0 win at Eastville in September 1948. Initially a deceptively quick left winger, he was converted to left back during the latter part of his career and he skippered the side for four years until his retirement, in 1962. Not just a talented footballer, ‘Josser’ was a real character among a team made up, predominantly, of local players who formed a close knit group in an era before the abolition of the maximum wage, before substitutes were even thought of and when players seldom moved to other clubs. A natural comedian and entertainer, there are many photos of ‘Josser’ playing the piano with his team mates gathered around him. He admitted to naming Alfie Biggs ‘The Baron’ due to the striker’s dress sense, and he was proud to have represented the club in 15 consecutive seasons. The 288th player to represent the club in the Football League, he ran a fruit shop for four years following his retirement, and then worked for many years as a storekeeper at Glenside Hospital. He also had a road named after him, Watling Way in Shirehampton. He was a regular at Rovers home games when I first met him always accompanied by his great friend, and another former Rovers player, Bill Roost. He always had time for a chat and had a fund of stories from his navy days and his time as a Rovers player. Although he appeared in only five games during the 1952/53 promotion season ‘Josser’ played in both FA Cup quarter finals for the club in the 1950’s, against Newcastle United in 1951 and against Fulham in 1958. He also played in the first ever League Cup tie, between Rovers and Fulham, in 1960 So many supporters will have had the pleasure of meeting him and they will be mourning his loss today, as will his close family and friends to whom we send our sincere condolences. |
No 232. Herbert Leonard Watson. 1936-37.
Born, 20.11.1908, Usworth Springwell, Co Durham. Died, 13.10.1939, Isleworth. 5’ 9½; 11 st 12 lbs. Début: 29.8.36 v Millwall, Career: Pelton Fell Institute; January 1926 Middlesbrough (professional, May 1926) [13,1]; May 1932 Brentford (£1,500, including Jack Holliday and Billy Scott) [109,1]; 22.4.36 Bristol Rovers [19,0] (to May 1937). When Rovers signed James Raven and Les Sullivan from Brentford, they also picked up the experienced right-half Bert Watson. The youngest of ten children to a master mason and his wife, Charles Selby Watson (1860-1933) and Margaret Miller Kellett (1863-1927), Watson grew up at Mona Cottage, Springwell; he was keen on cricket, golf and gardening. Having played alongside the celebrated George Camsell (1902-66) at Ayresome Park, he had featured in Middlesbrough’s 7-0 defeat at Blackburn on New Year’s Day 1930, and helped them win the Sunderland Ship-Owners’ Cup and North Riding Senior Cup, but strangely did not appear in any FA Cup-ties after that season. Part of the great rise of Brentford, he helped them secure the Third Division (South) title in 1932-33, playing twice against Rovers, captained them to the Second Division championship twelve months later and represented the West London side in top-flight football. His solitary goal at Brentford came against Plymouth Argyle in September 1933. Starting the 1936-37 campaign as Rovers’ left-half, Watson was ousted by Wally McArthur and had to be content with sporadic appearances at right-half later in the season. Bert Watson, who had married Ida Barnes (1910-91) in 1931, had a daughter Audrey and retired in 1937 to run a public house near Brentford’s ground, but died at the very early age of thirty. |
No 191. James Boyd Watson. 1933-34.
Born, 14.4.1910, Govan, Glasgow. Died, 1978, Pembury. 5’ 10”; 12 st 7 lbs. Début: 2.9.33 v Southend United. Career: St Anthony’s; July 1932 Tunbridge Wells Rangers; 9.5.33 Bristol Rovers [14,2]; June 1934 Northampton Town [7,3]; July 1935 Gillingham [111,38]; May 1938 Notts County (£1,000) [17,4]; 21.7.39 Bristol Rovers; 1946 Brighton. Ginger-haired left-winger Jimmy Watson emerged from Central League football with his Glaswegian side to play for Rovers during the 1933-34 season. He had earlier scored an impressive thirty-nine goals in twenty Southern League matches at Tunbridge Wells. Noted for scoring in the local derby against Bristol City in December 1933, he also played for Rovers against AC Milan in Nice in May of that year and helped the reserves defeat Bristol St George in the Bristol Charity Cup Final of May 1934. Although Rovers had beaten Sunderland and West Ham to his signature, he remained in third-tier football, scoring in both Gillingham’s games against Rovers in 1936-37 and playing for Notts County at Eastville in October 1938. He scored four League hat-tricks for the Gills as well as one in the FA Cup in November 1937, when he and Swindon’s Jack Bradley both scored 3(2 pens), as the Wiltshire side won 4-3. A team-mate of Jimmy Smith at both Tunbridge Wells and Rovers, he was in the same Gillingham side as George Tadman, George Tweed, Albert Taylor, Syd Hartley and Archie Young, which lost its Football League status at the end of the 1937-38 campaign. Watson re-joined Rovers just as storm clouds were gathering over Europe and, although he scored twice in two games of the aborted 1939-40 season, he swiftly moved on to guest for Bradford City 21 times as well as for Blackpool and Tunbridge Wells in wartime fare. Jimmy Watson married Mary Ellis, the daughter of a Tunbridge Wells director, in the summer of 1933 and they had a son James. According to his wife, he died in Pembury Hospital near Tunbridge Wells after a long illness, aged sixty-eight. |
No 266. (Jack) Arthur John Weare. 1946-51.
Born, 21.9.1912, Newport. Died, 17.11.1994, Harare, Zimbabwe. 5’ 11”; 12 st 4 lbs. Début: 31.8.46 v Reading. Career: 1931 Lovell’s Athletic; May 1933 Wolverhampton Wanderers [42,0]; August 1936 St Mirren (trial); September 1936 West Ham United [58,0]; 1942 St Mirren; 22.9.45 Bristol Rovers (trial); 29.11.45 Bristol Rovers [141,0]; March 1951 Barry Town (retired, May 1951); Estcourt, South Africa (coach). When Rovers took to the field for the first post-war League fixture, goalkeeper Jack Weare made his début for the club. He was to be the regular custodian for four years, despite being carried off injured early in the 4-0 defeat at Cardiff City in November 1946. He was between the sticks for the 6-0 defeat at Notts County in the first post-war season. Strong, dominant and agile, he provided the stability in the back-line which Rovers craved as the club attempted to re-establish itself in Division Three (South) on the resumption of League football. A keen tennis player, Weare had made his Wolves début in a 5-1 defeat against Newcastle United in April 1934 and at this stage lived very close to Jackie Pitt, later being in the Hammers side which lost 5-0 to Fulham in November 1936. He made six wartime appearances for St Mirren in the Scottish Southern League and gave Rovers loyal service. “Weare’s masterful keeping” (Western Daily Press) was particularly noted in the 2-0 wartime victory away to his home-town club Newport County over Easter 1940, when the strong custodian “performed remarkable feats in saving shots from a range of a few yards”. After five Southern League games with Barry Town, Jack Weare moved to South Africa to run a butcher’s shop and later moved to Zimbabwe, where he worked in a bacon factory. Arthur George Weare (1888-1963) and Olivette Besselo had six children, Jack being the eldest, followed by twins, the youngest in the family being Len Weare (1934-2012), whose 525 League matches in goal render him Newport County’s all-time record appearance maker. Jack Weare married Gertrude Morris in the autumn of 1935 and they had three sons, Arthur, Roy and David, who established and ran the Jack Weare Dance Band. |
No 673. Ross Michael Weare. 2001-02.
Born, 19.3.1977, Perivale. 6’ 2”; 13 st 9 lbs. Début: 11.8.01 v Torquay United. Career: Chelsea (schoolboy); East Ham United; 25.3.99 Queen’s Park Rangers (£10,000) [0+4,0]; 18.6.01 Bristol Rovers (free) [9+1,1] (retired, 26.4.02); 27.2.04 East Thurrock United (trial); 26.4.22 Clapton FC (manager). Seconds before half-time at Glanford Park in August 2001, Ross Weare moved on to a David Hillier through ball and shot past goalkeeper Steve Cousden to score what proved to be his only goal for Rovers. The tall striker soon left the field with cramp but, before a crowd of 3,593, Rovers had won 2-1. Making his début in Rovers’ first ever game in the fourth tier of English football, Ross Weare was unable to live up to his early promise and retired with a muscular injury. At Queen’s Park Rangers, where his playing style had seen him compared to Les Ferdinand, he had also struggled with injury. He spent over three years in Spain before returning to London as a house decorator. Weare subsequently took a two-year Sports diploma course and, living in London with his wife Dee and sons Pele and Theo, runs the Under-13 side at Shield Academy in Essex. |
No 46. George Henry Webb. 1922-23.
Born, 26.5.1896, Coventry, Died, 1972, Coventry. 5’ 8”; 11 st. Début: 2.4.23 v Merthyr Town. Career: Cannock Town; 1912 Nuneaton Town (trial); Willenhall Swifts; December 1913 Aston Villa; Army football; April 1919 Aston Villa; 3.12.20 Nuneaton Town (free); June 1921 Derby County [2,0]; 14.10.22 Bristol Rovers [2,0]; November 1923 Wellington Town; October 1924 Shrewsbury Town; August 1925 Hednesford Town (trial); Cannock Town. A reserve player, whose details remain sketchy to the modern researcher, George Webb played for Derby against Sheffield Wednesday in August 1921 and Fulham on New Year’s Eve 1921 as well as for Rovers on consecutive days against Merthyr Town twice over Easter 1923. Hastily signed so that he could appear for the reserves against Southend United reserves the same day, Webb had in fact first appeared in Rovers’ first-team in the friendly against a North Somerset XI in November 1922, a 2-2 draw to raise money for hospital funds and his League appearances followed a strong performance at right-half when the reserves lost 2-0 to Bristol City reserves before a crowd of 8,000. He also appeared in 27 Birmingham League matches with Nuneaton Town. It is feasible he is the player listed as T. Webb, who played in Villa’s 5-1 defeat against West Brom in the Midland Victory League in April 1919. He died just weeks after his seventy-first birthday. |
No 250. Harold James Webb. 1938-39.
Born, 15.5.1910, Fulham. Died, 1956, Hitchin. 5’ 11”; 12 st. Début: 17.9.38 v Exeter City. Career: Park Royal; Walthamstow Avenue; September 1930 Fulham (professional, March 1931) [7,1]; March 1933 Exeter City [69,5]; June 1935 Coventry City [3,0]; July 1936 Newport County [54,3]; June 1938 Bristol Rovers (free) [1,0] (to 1939). A keen tennis player and swimmer, Harold Webb was an “ungainly stopper” who scored a forty-first-minute penalty for Exeter against Rovers in November 1934 in an astonishing 5-5 draw and played his only Rovers game, as a stand-in for Alec Millar, against the Grecians. Having scored against Torquay United on his Fulham début over Easter 1931, he made three appearances as the Cottagers sealed the Third Division (South) championship in 1931-32. A Third Division (South) Cup winner with Exeter in 1934, he bizarrely made Coventry and Rovers débuts against his former club whilst, having played for Newport against Rovers in the League, he returned to Somerton Park in Rovers’ reserve side in March 1939. Harold Webb married Ivy Walker (1910-1989) in Hitchin in 1940 and had two sons, John and Andrew; he died shortly after his forty-sixth birthday. |
No 383. Christopher William Weller. 1965-66.
Born, 25.12.1939, Reading. Died, 4.6.2018, Wimborne Minster, Dorset. 5’ 8”; 11 st 9 lbs. Début: 6.11.65 v Gillingham. Career: Thorneycroft’s, Basingstoke; 1958 Reading (amateur); 24.8.59 Bournemouth; 16.6.65 Bristol Rovers (free) [2+1,0]; 18.1.66 Bournemouth (free) [109+2,26]; 1.6.67 Yeovil Town; 7.5.73 Salisbury City; 5.5.75 Poole Town; June 1977 Ringwood Town; July 1978 Holt United (player-manager); 28.7.83 Shaftesbury (manager); 16.8.85 Holt United (manager); 8.12.87 Wimborne Town (manager); 1989 Brockenhurst (manager); 1992 Wimborne Town (manager); 1993 Bournemouth Poppies (coach). All three games in which fast, incisive inside-forward Chris Weller played for Rovers ended in draws. The middle of three children to William Weller and Lilian Hatt, who had married in Reading in 1934, he turned down offers from Ipswich Town and Weymouth to make his début for Bournemouth reserves in a 1-0 win at Swansea in August 1959 and enjoyed success in two spells at Dean Court. During his final season with Bournemouth, he played against Rovers in March 1967, the match fittingly ending 1-1. Signed by Ron Saunders (1932-2019) and Yeovil’s top scorer in 1967-68 with sixteen goals in 42 matches in all competitions, having first appeared in a 2-2 draw at home to Chelmsford City, he scored 102 goals for the Glovers in 218 matches, helping Yeovil secure the Southern League title in 1970-71 and defeat his former club Bournemouth in the FA Cup in December 1970. He was also in the side which opposed Arsenal in the FA Cup in January 1971, scored an FA Trophy hat-trick against Wimbledon the same season and was granted a testimonial game in the spring of 1973 against Wolves. A local manager with a range of clubs and a youth coach at Grange Athletic, Parley and Brockenhurst, he initially lived in Ringwood before becoming a self-employed plumber based in Verwood and returned to Yeovil in May 1977 to appear in Terry Cotton’s testimonial game against Dover Athletic. He married hairdresser Dorli Mild in Austria in 1966 and they had two children, Britta and Kristian, the latter being a teacher in Bournemouth who married Jenny Pickles in 2002. Chris Weller suffered from dementia in his later years; he lived in Verwood and was buried at Wimborne. |
No 477. Kevin David Westaway. 1980-1982.
Born, 24.11.1962, Bristol. 5’ 9”; 11 st 5 lbs. Début: 25.4.81 v Wrexham. Career: Speedwell School; 10.7.79 Bristol Rovers (professional, 24.11.80) [2,0]; 10.7.82 Clevedon Town; 1983 St Joseph’s FC; 21.9.84 Cadbury Heath. Tough-tackling full-back Kevin Westaway, a member of the England Youth “shadow” squad, played in Rovers’ 3-1 defeat at the Racecourse Ground and a 4-0 defeat against Burnley in February 1982. Having scored the consolation goal as Rovers’ reserve side lost 4-1 to Bath City in a friendly in August 1980, he had appeared in 22(+1) reserve games in 1980-81 without hitting the net. He was the middle of three sons to Denis Westaway, the son of Leslie Westaway (1907-72) and Phyllis Hicks (also 1907-72), and Maureen Webb, the only child of Ernest Ivor Webb (1904-88) and Ivy Sophia Fudge (1909-58). Sadly, a serious head injury, sustained in a road accident in Germany in the late 1980s, finished Kevin Westaway’s footballing career and left him requiring a permanent carer. |
No 945. Zain Westbrooke. 2020-2022.
Born, 28.10.1996, Chertsey. 5’ 11”; 10 st 4 lbs. Début: 12.9. 20 v Sunderland. Career: Woking High School; Chelsea; 2011 Brentford (professional, 28.4.15) [0+1,0]; 31.8.17 Solihull Moors (loan); 11.10.17 Orient (loan); 10.5.18 Coventry City (free) [25+7,4]; 3.8.20 Bristol Rovers (free) [34+12,2]; 17.1.22 Stevenage (loan) [11+1,0]. Contract terminated 23.1.23. Constructive and influential, Zain Westbrooke made his first appearance for Rovers at the Stadium of Light on the opening day of the delayed 2020-21 season. Following 55 games and four goals for Brentford Youth, he added thirteen goals in 61 matches for Brentford’s reserve side between 2015 and 2017 and was named Player of the Year for this team in 2016-17. At the end of the campaign, in April 2017, he replaced Austrian midfielder Konstantin Kerschbaumer in the Bees’ West London derby against Fulham for the final fourteen minutes. He also managed a goal against Benfica B in a July 2017 friendly and scored against Hungarian side ETO Györi on tour. Loan spells in Conference football saw him play 1(+1) games for Solihull, assisting a goal and then being red-carded against Chester, and 3(+2) times with Orient. Incredibly successful at Coventry, where he played alongside Rovers’ Tom Davies, Westbrooke helped the Sky Blues secure the League One title in 2019-20, scoring against Southend, Oxford, Fleetwood and Lincoln. He played in both fixtures against Rovers that campaign, Coventry completing the double, as well as in the FA Cup-tie of January 2020 in which Tony Craig scored for both sides. With all this borne in mind, his signing over the elongated summer of 2020 was viewed as a major coup for manager Ben Garner. Nonetheless, despite several very promising performances, both player and club endured a torrid season and Rovers were relegated to League Two in the spring of 2021. As I build this page it is anounced that His contract has been terminated. |
No 528. Ian Paul Weston. 1986-88.
Born, 6.5.1968, Bristol. 5’ 10”; 11 st 10 lbs. Début: 28.12.86 v Brentford. Career: Parkway Juniors; 1984 Bristol Rovers (professional, May 1986) [13+3,0]; 8.9.88 Torquay United [57+5,2]; March 1990 Shamrock Rovers (loan); July 1990 Bath City; 21.9.93 Cheltenham Town (loan); 16.2.94 Cheltenham Town (loan); 1994 Weston-super-Mare; 11.6.96 Clevedon Town; 28.8.97 Almondsbury Town (coach); June 2000 Clevedon Town (physiotherapist); 2001 Forest Green Rovers (physiotherapist); 2002 Cheltenham Town (physiotherapist); 10.7.15 Forest Green Rovers (physiotherapist). Before making his League début, midfielder Ian Weston was selected for Rovers’ FA Cup-tie at Brentford in December 1986, picking up a yellow card after ten minutes and a red five minutes after half-time to become the first Rovers player dismissed on his début for the club. It was an uncharacteristic performance from the tall, slim, creative player, who had registered his first goal for Rovers’ reserve side in a 3-0 win against Fulham reserves in April 1985. The elder child of Michael Weston and Elizabeth Troake, he gave solid service to a struggling Rovers side and played at Wembley in his first season at Plainmoor, Torquay losing the Sherpa Van Trophy Final 4-1 to Bolton Wanderers; he scored in Torquay’s home fixtures against Rotherham and Doncaster during the 1988-89 campaign. In 89(+7) games for Bath City, his solitary goal arrived away to Slough Town in a Conference game in December 1991, although he was also in the Romans’ side which knocked Cardiff City out of the FA Cup 3-2 at Ninian Park in November 1992. A team-mate at Weston of David Mehew and Shaun Penny, he made 5(+4) Beazer Homes League appearances before moving to Clevedon, where his swirling long cross deceived Bridport goalkeeper Martin Peters for the only goal of an FA Cup-tie in August 1996. Player of the Year at Clevedon in 2000-21, he is married to Sam, a client services manager, with a son Joseph and a daughter Alexandra, and lives in Kingswood whilst commuting to Cheltenham, where he has worked alongside Bob Bloomer and John Ward. He was still with The Robins when they lost their Football League status at the end of the 2014-15 campaign and with Forest Green for consecutive play-offs in the Conference, resulting in elevation to the Football League in 2017. |
No 17. Jesse Winter Whatley. 1920-30.
Born, 20.1.1895, Trowbridge. Died, 19.3.1982, Chipping Sodbury. 6’ 1”; 11 st 9 lbs. Début: 9.9.20 v Newport County. Career: Army representative football; August 1919 Trowbridge Town; 27.10.19 Bristol Rovers (professional, 5.11.19) [371,0]; Aug 1930 Stapleton Institute (contract, 14.9.31); 1930-32 Mental Institution Club; 1937 Fry’s Cocoa Tree Boys (coach); 1940 Downend (manager); 1943 Soundwell (coach). Perhaps the outstanding player during Rovers’ first decade of League football and arguably Rovers’ greatest goalkeeper of all time was Jesse Whatley, a tall, agile, determinedly dependable custodian. Emerging from Army football with the 1st and 4th Wiltshire Battalion in the Far East and India, and having played for the Egyptian Army XI against both Belgium and France, Whatley began the 1919-20 campaign in the Wiltshire League with Trowbridge Town, but soon made his Southern League début for Rovers against Norwich City that November, conceding five goals on that occasion. Saving penalties against Gillingham and Luton, he played fourteen times, remaining at times the deputy behind Harry Stansfield who subsequently appeared in Rovers’ first three Football League encounters. “Gentleman Jess” was to retain a positive reputation from penalties in the League, notably saving a last-minute penalty from Bertie Menlove (1892-1970) as Rovers beat Crystal Palace 2-1 in October 1920, Bristol City’s Laurie Banfield (1889-1979) as Rovers won the first League derby 1-0 at Ashton Gate in September 1922 and from Gillingham’s Jock Henderson (1895-1957) in August 1923, who had apparently scored from all ten penalties awarded to the club the previous campaign. Having dislodged Stansfield, Whatley proved almost immovable himself, playing in all the remaining 39 League games in 1920-21 and then playing in 246 consecutive League matches between August 1922 and April 1928, when he voluntarily stepped down to allow Bert Densley a run in the side. This impressive run, which included five seasons as an ever-present, a club record equalled by Ray Warren but never beaten, was a Football League record until 1953 and remains a Rovers club record tally. In the 1922-23 campaign, Whatley kept 21 clean sheets in 42 League games and this consistent form earned a call-up for the prestigious South v North trial game at Stamford Bridge in January 1925, effectively an England international trial fixture. Awarded a benefit game against Portsmouth in April 1925, plus a £500 cheque, he continued to represent Rovers until the decade was out. A bowls player, coach at several clubs and Club President of Bristol Corinthian Club, Whatley was founder chairman of the Rovers’ Ex-Players’ Club in 1965, a post he held for eight years, and worked at Manor Park Hospital from 1931 until 1960. The uncle of Ralph Whatley, Trowbridge Town’s goalkeeper between 1935 and 1938, Jesse Whatley married in 1923 Frances Dorothy Watts, who was three years his junior, and their son Keith was born in 1929. They lived in Overndale Road, Downend and Jesse Whatley lived in retirement at Leigh Farm, Westerleigh. |
No 50. Ernest Whatmore. 1923-28.
Born, 25.4.1900, Wolverley, Worcestershire. Died, 31.7.1991, Kidderminster. 5’ 9”; 11 st 6 lbs. Début: 27.8.23 v Queen’s Park Rangers. Career: Worcestershire Regiment; 1921 Stourbridge; April 1922 Wolverhampton Wanderers (trial) [2,0]; 24.2.23 Shrewsbury Town; 13.8.23 Bristol Rovers [134,39]; 9.6.28 Queen’s Park Rangers [76,4]; 24.2.33 Shepherd’s Bush; August 1933 Stourbridge. Rather prosaically, the Western Daily Press reported that “never has a more earnest fellow worn the colours of Bristol Rovers than Ernest Whatmore”. Bald-headed and strong, Ernie Whatmore was the club’s joint highest scorer in 1924-25 and scored reliably over his five Eastville campaigns. A hat-trick against Charlton Athletic in September 1924 was followed by three more as Rovers defeated Crystal Palace 4-1 in April 1927 and Whatmore created many more opportunities for Wilkie Phillips, Jonah Wilcox and Willie Culley. In addition, he scored after just two minutes in the 2-1 defeat at Watford in October 1925. “He took more knocks in one match”, reported his manager Andrew Wilson, “than I took in eighteen years at Sheffield Wednesday” and he was sent off along with an opponent for fighting in the reserve fixture with Aberaman on New Year’s Eve 1923. He even appeared in goal at Plymouth in March 1927 after Jesse Whatley had been injured. Scoring on his Shrewsbury début in a 3-2 win against Willenhall in the Birmingham League in February 1923, he totalled six goals as the Shrews were champions of that division and he also helped them secure the Shropshire Senior Cup that campaign. Four seasons at QPR brought just four goals, primarily as he was converted to wing-half, but one of these came in the 2-1 victory over Rovers in May 1932 in what proved to be his final game. The youngest of five children to a labourer Thomas Whatmore and his wife Emma Smith of Shrubbery Hill, Cookley, near Kidderminster, Whatmore married Clarice Green (1896-1957) in 1923; they had a daughter Beryl, who in 1942 married Ernest Priddle (1919-2000, who later married Mary Marlow), and Victor Hayes in 1949, having children from both marriages; they also had a grand-daughter Linda Mason. Ernie Whatmore died two weeks after breaking his hip in a fall at a Kidderminster nursing home. |
No 973. Glenn Whelan. 2021-
Born, 13.1.1984, Dublin. 5’ 11”; 12 st 4 lbs. Début: 11.9.21 v Hartlepool United. Career: St Lorcan’s Boys National School; 2000 Cherry Orchard; 1.8.01 Manchester City (free); 30.9.03 Bury (loan); 23.12.03 Bury (loan) [13,0]; 1.7.04 Sheffield Wednesday (free) [139+6,13]; 30.1.08 Stoke City (£500,000) [248+43,5]; 20.7.17 Aston Villa (£1,000,000) [53+15,2]; 14.8.19 Heart of Midlothian (free) [13+2,0]; 24.1.20 Fleetwood Town (free) [25+9,0]; 4.9.21 Bristol Rovers (free) [19+12,0] (player-coach, 29.7.22); 31.10.22 Republic of Ireland (Under-16 coach). With relegated Rovers languishing near the foot of the Football League in September 2021, manager Joey Barton signed an experienced head in midfielder Glenn Whelan, in a bid to steady the ship. His arrival, after a prolonged spell training with the club, was seen as a boost both on and off the pitch, where his reason, common sense and experience could help knit together a new squad. A Liverpool supporter from Palmerstown, Dublin, who later lived in Clondalkin, Whelan was the son of Eilis Whelan and married Karen Byrne at St Philomenas’ in Palmerstown on 19th May 2012, with a daughter Abbie and a son Jack. He had 91 full international caps with the Republic of Ireland to his name, making him after Vitālijs Astafjevs the second highest capped player to appear in League football with Rovers and, at 37 years 241 days, he became the fourth oldest player to make his League début for The Gas. After two games at Under-16 level, fourteen matches and two goals at Under-21 and one B fixture, Whelan won his first senior cap against Serbia in May 2008, scored against Georgia in Mainz in September 2008 and Italy in Dublin in October 2009, played at the 2011 Nations Cup and at Euro 2016, where Ireland lost to France in the round of sixteen, as well as captaining his country on several occasions. Despite never appearing in the League with Manchester City, Whelan did play in a UEFA Cup-tie against the Welsh side TNS in August 2003, he and Joey Barton both being used as substitutes that day, Whelan replacing Paul Bosvelt with seventeen minutes left to play. His first League appearance came in Bury’s 2-0 victory over York City in September 2003 and he was in the Shakers’ side which won 2-1 at The Mem two months later. Football Association of Ireland Young Player of the Year in 2004, he was also Wednesday’s captain and Player of the Year by 2007; having helped the Owls to promotion from League One in 2004-05, scoring and being Man of the Match in the play-off final at Wembley against Hartlepool United, he scored twice against Southampton in each of successive seasons, a 3-3 draw in December 2006 (when Wednesday’s goalkeeper Mark Crossley scored a last-minute equaliser) and a 5-0 victory eleven months later. On the other hand, despite his goal, Wednesday were the victims of a League Cup giant-killing in August 2006, when they were defeated 4-1 at home by Wrexham. An expensive signing at Stoke, he helped the side to promotion to the Premier League in 2007-08 and enabled the Potteries side to establish themselves in the highest tier. In fact, Many supporters claimed his later exit from the Potteries hastened the side’s subsequent relegation. During his eight-and-a-half years at Stoke, the side reached the FA Cup Final under Tony Pulis in 2011, losing 1-0 to his former club Manchester City. He captained the side which led Liverpool 5-0 at half-time in the Premier League in May 2015, a game eventually won 6-1, having recovered from a broken leg earlier in the campaign. A freakier injury in 2016 saw him hurt his back, whilst getting out of his car, and miss a succession of matches. Sent off at Newcastle on Boxing Day 2013, as he had been for Wednesday at Coventry and Oldham in the 2004-05 campaign, he commanded a million-pound fee in joining Championship side Villa. Successive Wembley play-off finals followed in 2018, losing 1-0 to Fulham, and 2019, defeating Derby County 2-1 to return to the top flight, Whelan scoring against Middlesbrough and his former club Wednesday. Having been a Hearts team-mate of Michael Smith, he made his first appearance for Fleetwood in the goalless draw at The Mem in January 2020, his second appearance against the Gas coming over sixteen years after his first, before his time with the Shrimpers was cut short by an Achilles injury. A strong-minded individual, he turned Good Samaritan in February 2017, providing CCTV footage to support the legal case of the family of David O’Driscoll, who had been hit by a Mercedes-Benz whilst walking to work in Wilmslow. Seen as a constructive defensive midfielder - the company Paddy Power suggested “Andrea Pirlo is a poor man’s Glenn Whelan” -, he was sent off during Rovers’ 2-1 home victory against Northampton Town in November 2021, the oldest recipient of a red card in Rovers’ League history and befell the same fate in the Football League Trophy against Crystal Palace Under-21 in October 2022. The second oldest player to wear a Rovers shirt in the League, he played arguably the best game of his time with the club on the final day of a dramatic 2021-22 campaign, as he helped The Gas secure an unlikely 7-0 victory at home to Scunthorpe United to earn promotion by the narrowest of margins. |
No 541. Devon Winston White. 1987-92.
Born, 2.3.1964, Nottingham. 6’ 3”; 14 st. Début: 29.8.87 v Aldershot. Career: Radford Olympic; Notts County (trial); 1983 Arnold Kingswell; 14.12.87 Lincoln City (£2,000) [21+8,4]; October 1985 Boston United (loan); December 1985 Naxxar Lions, Malta (loan); July 1986 Boston United (free); July 1987 Grantham Town (trial); July 1987 Shepshed Charterhouse; 21.8.87 Bristol Rovers (free) [190+12,52]; 28.3.92 Cambridge United (£100,000 plus John Taylor) [15+7,4]; 26.1.93 Queen’s Park Rangers (£100,000) [16+10,9]; 23.12.94 Notts County (£200,000); 16.2.96 Watford (£100,000) [28+10,7]; 14.2.97 Notts County [45+10,17]; 25.9.97 Shrewsbury Town (£45,000) [45+6,10]; July 1999 Ilkeston Town (free) (to 2000); 17.2.00 Stafford Rangers (loan); 13.12.06 Gedling Town (coach); 25.7.09 Gedling Miners’ Welfare. From calculated gamble to unlikely folk-hero to the scorer of the first goal Rovers ever scored at Wembley, Devon White’s Rovers career has all the indications of cult status. Tall, strong as an ox, with broad shoulders and a wonderful work ethic, White helped Rovers secure the Third Division title in 1990, scored for two different clubs at Wembley and is now the father of six children. His story takes some telling. A team-mate of the former Rovers striker Bob Lee at Boston and with a spell in Malta and one County Cup game for Grantham against Scunthorpe to his name, White arrived at Twerton Park shortly after the start of the 1987-88 campaign. Thrust into the starting line-up against Aldershot after Robbie Turner had missed his train, White scored one of Rovers’ three first-half goals and his legendary status amongst Rovers’ supporters was born. “The Dublin look-alike” (Clive White, “The Times”) had a knack of creating havoc in the penalty area, using his body frame to good effect and allowing shorter players such as Gary Penrice and David Mehew to score considerable numbers of goals as Rovers pushed for promotion to Division Two. In the spring of 1990, this target was fulfilled, Rovers defeating Bristol City at Twerton Park that May to secure promotion, with “Bruno”, as he was invariably called by dint of his perceived resemblance to the contemporary boxer Frank Bruno, scoring twice, after 24 and 52 minutes, on an electric and heady evening. He scored again a fortnight later, firing left-footed high into the roof of the Wembley net after fifty-one minutes, although off balance, to give Rovers temporary hope as Tranmere Rovers won the Leyland Daf Final 2-1. Joint top scorer for Rovers in Division Two in 1991-92, his popularity never waned, even if “he has all the elegance of a giraffe on roller-skates” (Ian Grant) and “all the mobility of a wardrobe without wheels” (Daily Telegraph). Oddly enough, though, the promotion night at Twerton Park was one of only three occasions when the amiable striker scored twice in a League fixture with Rovers. Notts County were relegated from Division One in 1994-95 and to the basement division in 1996-97, White playing for them at Twerton in October 1995, top scoring in 1995-96 and adding another Wembley goal as Ascoli were defeated 2-1 in the Anglo-Italian Cup Final of March 1995. Immensely popular at Vicarage Road despite his perceived failings, his début came in a 4-0 defeat at Palace and, just days afterwards, Graham Taylor (1944-2017) was re-appointed Watford manager, White scoring the first goal under the new manager after 21 minutes of a 3-2 home defeat to Ipswich. The Hornets were relegated in the spring of 1996, White scoring for the reserves in a 2-2 draw with Rovers’ second string that March, and he scored the only goal of the game when the League side visited The Mem in September 1996, hitting the ball home after seventeen minutes of a scrappy encounter. After temporarily joining Ian Holloway and Gary Penrice at Loftus Road, he was sent off for a foul on the former Rovers goalkeeper John Vaughan against Lincoln City in August 1997, but helped Notts County become runaway champions of Division Three that campaign. A hat-trick followed when the Shrews defeated Macclesfield Town 4-3 in November 1997 and his Ilkeston début alongside Paul Raynor came in a 3-1 win at Merthyr before he made 6(+4) Doctor Martens League appearances with Stafford, his six goals including a hat-trick against Weston-super-Mare in March 2000. The father of six, including twin boys, Devon White is a qualified electrician and runs a Nottingham-based company, returning in July 2008 to his former club Radford, an East Midlands Counties League outfit, to open their club shop. |
No 396. Raymond Sidney White. 1968-69.
Born, 14.1.1948, Rochford, Essex. 6’; 12 st. Début: 17.9.68 v Northampton Town. Career: 1964 Southend United (professional, January 1966) [10,0]; 4.7.68 Bristol Rovers (free) [3,0]; 11.7.69 Brentwood; Dover Athletic; Tonbridge. When Laurie Taylor was side-lined in September 1968, Rovers fielded tall goalkeeper Ray White in his stead for three League fixtures. However, as he had already arranged to marry Linda Westhorp in Southend on 5th October 1968, he missed the next fixture and never returned to the starting line-up; he and Linda (the younger daughter of George Westhorp and Jose Jay) had a son, Mark, in 1971. White had made his League bow at the age of sixteen, playing in Southend’s 4-2 defeat at Reading in April 1964 and he rejected a move to Romford in order to join Rovers, following in the footsteps of his former team-mate Trevor Rhodes. His five League outings during the 1965-66 had seen him concede sixteen goals, including a 9-1 drubbing at the hands of Brighton that November. Ray White, his twin brother Peter and their younger sister Susan were the children of Reginald White and Edith Freedland, she being the second of four children to a Jewish couple living in the East end of London, Jack Freedland and Lilian Hilson. Signed for Southern League champions Brentwood by the former Rovers wing-half Dave Bumpstead, he later ran an industrial cleaning business. |
No 448. Stephen James White. 1977-80 and 1983-86.
Born, 2.1.1959, Chipping Sodbury. 5’ 10”; 11 st 4 lbs. Début: 27.3.78 v Southampton. Career: 1972 Frampton Rangers; Sefton Park; Mangotsfield United; 11.7.78 Bristol Rovers (free); 24.12.79 Luton Town (£195,000); 20.7.82 Charlton Athletic (£150,000) [29,12]; 27.1.83 Lincoln City (loan) [2+1,0]; 24.2.83 Luton Town (loan) [67+9,25]; 25.8.83 Bristol Rovers (£35,000) [135+15,44]; 8.7.86 Swindon Town [200+44,87]; 26.8.94 Hereford United [70+6,44]; 8.7.96 Cardiff City (player-reserve team manager) [44+23,15]; March 1998 Cwmbran Town (loan); 8.7.98 Bath City (free) (assistant manager, to 30.1.01); February 2001 Southampton’s Bath Academy (Director of Football); 23.11.03 Chippenham Town (manager, to June 2005); 8.10.18 Chipping Sodbury (manager, to 2.5.19); 24.6.19 Almondsbury (assistant manager). Free-scoring strike Steve White enjoyed a healthy ratio of goals-per-games and was well-respected around the Football League for his ability to poach goals. A teenage Rovers débutant, he later returned for a second spell at Eastville and scored a League hat-trick for four separate clubs, as well as making close to a hundred League appearances as an impact substitute. The holder of an England Schoolboys cap, having played against Wales in 1977, White was seen as “another Paul Randall” when he burst on the scene and into Rovers’ Second Division side, registering four goals in eight games in his opening season. He scored twice as Sheffield United were defeated 4-1 in April 1978 and added two goals in fixtures at both Luton and Millwall the following campaign. It came as little surprise when more ambitious clubs came for him, Luton being rewarded for their tenacious approach when he scored four goals in their 6-0 victory over Grimsby Town in October 1981. He returned to Eastville in 1983 to a hero’s reception, scoring five times in a reserve fixture against Oxford within months of signing and contributing a hat-trick when Darlington were defeated 3-1 in January 1986. However, Rovers could not hold on to White forever and, as the club left its ancestral home at Eastville, so too was the sharp-shooting striker off, finishing the 1986-87 season as Swindon’s top scorer and hitting a hat-trick against Mansfield Town that Easter, when he also scored in the Robins’ 4-3 victory over Rovers in a fixture played at Ashton Gate. These were incredible years for Swindon, White playing at Wembley against Sunderland in a play-off place for top-fight football in May 1990, the club demoted for financial irregularities and White’s hat-trick against Watford in March 1993 setting them again on track for the Wembley play-off final against Leicester in which White, on as substitute, won a penalty and helped the unfashionable Wiltshire side finally attain Premier League status. So, too, was this the now thirty-four-year-old’s first taste of this level of football. Despite an appearance in the club record 7-1 defeat against Mansfield Town on Boxing Day 1994, his stint at Hereford enabled White to be the Bulls’ top scorer two years in succession, his 29 goals in 1995-96 easing the side into the play-offs, playing in the 1-1 draw with Spurs in the FA Cup and registering four goals in a 5-2 victory against Cambridge United in January 1996, as well as three goals against Plymouth Argyle that April. He also scored a minute before half-time against his former club, as Hereford defeated Swindon 2-0 in the Herefordshire Senior Cup Final of August 1995. Again top scorer at Cardiff, he appeared in their 7-1 victory over Doncaster Rovers in March 1998 as well as scoring four goals in eight games on loan at Cwmbran. A Bath début against Gloucester City was the first of 19(+34) Doctor Martens League games, which brought twelve goals and he appeared in an injury crisis for Chippenham at Moor Green in February 2004, as well as leading the Bluebirds to the Wiltshire Senior Shield in both 2004 and 2005. Long-time leaders of the Southern League Premier Division, Chippenham lost in the play-offs with the veteran White sent off in consecutive fixtures. The younger child of Donald White and Margaret Davis, he is now living in Old Sodbury; he is married to Mandy, with a daughter Ashley and a son Joe, who was on Rovers’ books until April 2010. |
No 591. Thomas Matthew White. 1994-2000.
Born, 26.1.1976, Bristol. 6’ 1”; 13 st 6 lbs. Début: 7.2.95 v Brighton. Career: St Bernadette’s School; Whitchurch Sports; Bristol Boys; 1991 Fairfurlong; 13.7.92 Bristol Rovers (professional, 13.7.94) [47+7,1]; 5.3.99 Kingstonian (loan); 27.1.00 Hereford United (loan); 26.7.00 Carlisle United (trial); 2.8.00 Yeovil Town (trial); 3.8.00 Yeovil Town; 6.2.03 Woking (loan); 2003 Tiverton Town (loan); 23.5.05 Mangotfield United; 31.8.06 Highridge. Tall, dependable central defender Tom White worked his way up through Rovers’ ranks, after making his début for Rovers Youth as a substitute against Colchester United in October 1992. After 47(+3) games and a goal for Rovers Youth and a handful of reserve game, the first coming at the age of fifteen, plus a goal when the reserves beat Brighton 5-0 in January 1995, he earned a call-up for four away matches in February 1995 whilst Bill Clark was injured. Missing much of the 1995-96 season with glandular fever, he then missed eighteen months with a knee injury, his game at Preston over Christmas 1999 being his first since March 1998. After a goal at Newton Abbot in a friendly in August 1997, White scored his solitary League goal in a 3-2 defeat at Watford in February 1998. Tom White is the younger son of Tom White senior and Bernadette Moran, who were married in Bristol in 1973. Formerly Whitchurch Sports’ Player of the Season for 1986-87, his Conference tally was sixteen games for Hereford, 56(+11) for Yeovil and two for Woking, scoring once in Yeovil’s colours, a low shot from Darren Way’s cross after 27 minutes of the 2-0 win against Telford United in December 2000. Sadly, in his first game for Tiverton, he exacerbated a knee injury and missed a further eighteen months of football. Working for Connell’s Estate Agent in Bedminster, Tom White lives in Kingswood with his partner Louise and their son Zachary, having tragically lost their young daughter Olivia in November 2001 to a brain tumour. |
No 118. William Walter White. 1928-30.
Born, 5.12.1909, Kirkcaldy, Fife. Died, December, 1981, Bristol. 5’ 8½”; 11 st 6 lbs. Début: 22.9.28 v Fulham. Career: 1926 Musselburgh Bruntonians; June 1927 Reading; 19.6.28 Bristol Rovers [8,0]; July 1930 Charlton Athletic; December 1930 Gillingham [64,18]; May 1932 Aldershot [71,10]; June 1934 Carlisle United [8,2]; October 1934 Manchester City; 10.11.34 Newport County [19,3]; 8.5.35 Bristol City [50,15]; 30.12.36 Lincoln City [46,18]; June 1938 Hull City [2,0] (to May 1939). Another of the have-boots-will-travel brigade, Wullie White scored 66 League goals in his time at eight Football League clubs, largely at third-tier level. Indeed, during the 1936-37 seasons, ten clubs on whose books he was at some stage in his career, were performing in the Third Division of English football. On the back of 38 goals at Musselburgh and 22 strikes in just 28 matches for Reading reserves, White made his League bow whilst at Eastville. Although Rovers lost seven of the nine League and cup matches in which he played, he was able to steer the reserves towards the Western League title in 1928-29. Leaving Charlton without a game, as the club cut its wage bill, he then played League football against Rovers for Gillingham, Aldershot, Bristol City and Newport County. Carlisle finished bottom of Division Three (North) in his season at Brunton Park, although he scored in autumnal home victories over Accrington and Rotherham. He was leading scorer at Gillingham in 1931-32 with nine goals to his name and represented Bristol City in the FA Cup, Gloucestershire Cup, Welsh Cup and Third Division (South) Cup as well as appearing in one abandoned match. A banjo player, Wullie White married a Bristol girl, Phyllis Skuse, in 1930 and they had a son William and a daughter Brenda; in 1939 they were living at 3 Lydney Road, Mangotsfield, his father-in-law James Skuse also living with them. |
No 256. Wilfred Whitfield. 1938-47.
Born, 17.11.1916, Chesterfield, Derbyshire. Died, 18.2.1995, Hamilton, Lanarkshire. 5’ 7”; 11 st 7 lbs. Début: 19.11.38 v Swindon Town. Career: Killamarsh Juniors; Kiveton Park Colliery; 11.6.36 Sheffield Wednesday (professional, 31.10.36); 27.8.37 Worksop Town; 29.6.38 Bristol Rovers [26,1]; July 1948 Albion Rovers (trial); August 1948 Bangor City; 4.8.49 Torquay United [37,1]; July 1951 Bath City (to May 1954). Few players represented Rovers both sides of World War Two, yet Baggy Whitfield enjoyed a long career, even if interrupted by war. Initially an inside-left, he was converted to left-half and made this position his own at Eastville and later at Plainmoor. A Corporal in the Royal Electrical Mecahnical Engineers during the war, he represented the Anti-Aircraft Command against Southern Command at Ashton Gate in January 1944, played four times as a guest for Bristol City and scored eleven goals in 63 wartime matches with Rovers, three coming against Swindon Town in January 1940. His wartime contribution also included scoring direct from a corner against Swansea Town and he was “prominent with some clever solo runs along the wing” (Western Daily Press). He scored for Bangor when they defeated Orrell in September 1948 and was in the Torquay side which played Rovers in Division Three (South) in January 1951, scoring in a League match against Port Vale, before spending two years as a full-time professional at Bath and a third season as a part-time professional. A son of Frederick and Emily Whitfield, Baggy Whitfield was based at 23 Sheffield Road, Killamarsh when, on 11th November 1943 at St John’s, Hamilton, he married Mary Reilly of 11 Dean Crescent, Hamilton, who worked in a dairy shop. It appears the couple moved to Hamilton permanently in the summer of 1954. He should not be confused with his contemporary, William Whitfield, who played for Bury from 1931 to 1939, nor with Bob Whitfield, who preceded him at Plainmoor and was with Bridgwater Town and Street in the 1950s. |
No 618. David Anthony Whyte. 1997-98.
Born, 20.4.1971, Greenwich. Died, 9.9.2014, London. 5’ 8”; 10 st 7 lbs. Début: 14.2.98 v Wrexham. Career: 1.8.88 Greenwich Borough; 15.2.89 Crystal Palace (free) [17+10,4]; 26.3.92 Charlton Athletic (loan); 1.8.94 Charlton Athletic (free) [72+21,30]; 19.9.97 Reading (loan); 30.10.97 Ipswich Town (free) [2,0]; 11.2.98 Bristol Rovers (loan) [0+4,0]; 16.3.98 Southend United [17+9,3] (released, 1.2.99). Having previously appeared as a substitute for Peter Beadle in an Auto Windscreens Shield defeat against Walsall, striker David Whyte was part of a triple substitution 24 minutes from time in a 1-0 defeat at the Racecourse Ground on his Rovers début. A twenty-year-old débutant for Palace at Wimbledon on Boxing Day 1991, Whyte represented his side at Old Trafford before moving to Charlton. Top scorer in 1994-95, he was the first player for fourteen years to register twenty League and cup goals for the Addicks in one campaign and played in their 1-0 defeat against Rovers that May. However, although Charlton turned down a £1,500,000 bid from Coventry, Whyte was viewed as talented, but a negligible team contributor. No appearances at Reading preceded a spell with Rovers, which was to open with a game for the reserves against Swansea in January 1998. Southend were relegated to Division Three in 1997-98 and Whyte, who missed a penalty during the 2-1 win over Shrewsbury in August 1998, was soon immortalised in the lyrics of a Shrimpers song to the tune of “O Tannenbaum”, which featured two former Rovers men: “from Margetson to David Whyte, you just know we’ll get it right”. Scoring a simple tap-in on his Southend début to seal a 3-1 win against Wigan Athletic, he played in their 2-0 defeat against Rovers in his third League appearance for the Shrimpers. David Whyte died at the young age of forty-three. |
No 540. David Phillip Wiffill. 1987-88.
Born, 19.4.1961, Thornbury, Bristol. 6’ 1½”; 10 st 12 lbs. Début: 15.8.87 v Rotherham United. Career: Bath City; April 1980 Manchester City (£25,000); 12.3.82 Happy Valley, Hong Kong; 1983 Thornbury Town (trial); 25.7.84 Bristol City (trial); May 1986 Gloucester City; 1986 Bristol Rovers (trial); 9.12.86 Bath City; August 1987 Bristol Rovers (free) [2,0]; July 1988 Bath City; July 1989 Stroud; November 1991 Clevedon Town; Thornbury Town. Tall midfielder Dave Wiffill had joined Manchester City for what then constituted a record fee for a non-league player but, unable to make the grade, had enjoyed four years of football in Hong Kong. Breaking his leg, he returned to make a few reserve appearances on trial with Rovers in 1986 and played in a 3-1 victory over Rotherham and a 2-1 defeat at Blackpool the following year. He scored seven goals in 72(+1) games in three spells with Bath City and appeared in 7(+1) matches with Gloucester City. The son of William Wiffill (1931-1984) and Joan Perry (1933-1985), his father was the eldest of three children to a Devon couple, William Wiffill (1906-1965) and Alice Branton (1911-1995) and his mother the elder of two children to Jack Perry (1904-1969) and Eileen May (1911-1985). Dave Wiffill, twice divorced and with a son and two daughters, owned a fitness club in Kingswood for twenty-eight years, worked as a sales representative in the cycle industry for fifteen years and now works as a sales agent in the clothing business. |
No 72. Jonah Charles Wilcox. 1925-26.
Born, 19.1.1894, Coleford, Somerset. Died, 5.8.1956, Shipham, Somerset. 5’ 11½”; 12 st. Début: 29.8.25 v Charlton Athletic. Career: 7.9.12 Coleford Athletic; 13.9.13 Frome Town; 22.11.13 Welton Rovers; August 1914 Abertillery; 21.10.16 Bristol City (to 25.12.16); 1.9.19 Bristol City [59,20]; 8.9.22 Bradford Park Avenue (£600) [21,5]; 17.7.24 New Brighton [42,35]; 7.5.25 Bristol Rovers [32,18]; 10.5.26 Queen’s Park Rangers [9,2]; 24.8.27 Gillingham [56,27]; 3.7.29 Kidderminster Harriers; October 1931 Taunton Town; 1935 Frome Town. On the back of an extraordinarily successful season at New Brighton, in which he scored 35 League goals, including hat-tricks against Rochdale, Barrow and Ashington, the most by any player in that club’s League history as they reached their highest ever Football League placing, Jonah Wilcox signed for Rovers in 1925. It was a home-coming of sorts, not just because the tall forward was a Somerset man, but also because he had previously been at Ashton Gate, where he was joint top scorer in 1921-21 as City finished third in Division Two. Wilcox had scored twice in his sole Somerset League game for Coleford, a 5-1 win against Temple Cloud, and added six goals in eight Wiltshire League games for Frome Town as well as three in three matches in other competitions. A regular for Coleford Juniors, who were East Somerset League runners-up in 1912-13, he helped Frome secure the Wiltshire League Second Division title for 1913-14. Sporadic re-appearances at Coleford saw him score a hat-trick against Clapton Star in the East Somerset League in October 1913, his final game for that club being later that month. He added thirteen goals in eight wartime appearances for Bristol City, including five against RFC Filton in November 1917, and represented a Bristol XI against an International XI in Billy Wedlock’s May 1921 testimonial game. Able to claim a début goal for both Bristol sides, Wilcox top-scored at Eastville in 1925-26, his eighteen League goals including a haul of four, two of these being penalties, as Rovers massacred Bournemouth 7-2 on Boxing Day 1925. Gillingham’s top scorer with 24 League goals in 1927-28, including a hat-trick against Torquay United and two in a 7-4 defeat at Walsall, he also added three goals in two matches that campaign against Rovers and scored when QPR lost 4-1 at Eastville in March 1927. He had earlier scored for Park Avenue in both their fixtures against Barrow during the 1923-24 season. The son of a collier, William Charles Wilcox (1860-1922) and Louisa Annie Denning (1864-1915), Jonah Wilcox married Ellen Alice Coles (1901-1937, daughter of Benjamin Coles, who was dead by the time of his daughter’s wedding, and Florence Mary Ford, 1881-1970) at St Saviour’s, Bristol on 6th March 1922; they lived at 11 Brighton Road and had a daughter Joan, who married Alfred Hallett. As his footballing career drew to a close, he entered the pub trade, being the landlord of the Vine Hotel in Kidderminster and, returning to Bristol when he was widowed, The Golden Bowl in Old Market from 1938, before running The New Inn at Blagdon from the spring of 1941 until December 1955, when he retired to Shipham. |
No 205. Thomas Wildsmith. 1934-36.
Born, 8.1.1913, Sheffield. Died, 28.2.1976, Sheffield. 6’; 11 st 10 lbs. Début: 25.12.34 v Aldershot. Career: Hadfield; August 1931 Wolverhampton Wanderers (professional, June 1932) [1,0]; 27.7.34 Bristol Rovers [24,2]; May 1936 Doncaster Rovers [4,0]; August 1938 Frickley Colliery. Christmas Day 1934 marked Tom Wildsmith’s Rovers début and the young wing-half-cum-inside-forward showed the form that had earned an appearance in a friendly against Reading the previous September. A product of local Sheffield football, he was an enthusiastic defender and a clever distributor of the ball, who was on Wolves’ books simultaneously with Rovers names in Jack Ellis, Jack Smith and Irvine Harwood. He made just one League appearance for Wolves, though, in the goalless draw at Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane in February 1933. Wildsmith scored from the penalty-spot as Rovers beat Bristol City 3-1 in the 1935-36 Gloucestershire Cup Final and repeated the feat in a 1-1 draw in Division Three (South) against the same opposition. He also scored in a friendly against Thornbury, converted a penalty past the former Rovers custodian Charlie Preedy when the reserves played Margate in October 1935 and added two first-half goals in his final appearance for the reserves, as they defeated Torquay United reserves in April 1936 to secure the Western League championship. Uncharacteristically, he also missed two second-half penalties in the FA Cup victory over Northampton Town in December 1935. Making his Doncaster début in a 1-0 defeat at Fulham in Division Two in March 1937, he played alongside the former Rovers man Albert Taylor in the 1-1 draw at Blackpool that April. The son of Arthur Wildsmith (1883-1959) and Mary Brown, Tom Wildsmith married Mary Hague in Barnsley in 1935 and they had a daughter, Wendy, and a son, Terence. |
No 763. Andrew Williams. 2007-10.
Born, 14.8.1986, Hereford. 6’ 2”; 12 st 10 lbs. Début: 11.8.07 v Port Vale. Career: Holme Lacy; 1.8.97 Hereford United (professional, March 2004); 5.7.07 Bristol Rovers (free) [37+51,9]; 1.9.08 Hereford United (loan) [45+19,13]; 21.5.10 Yeovil Town (free); 18.6.12 Swindon Town (free) [69+20,32]; 23.8.13 Yeovil Town (loan) [65+16,22]; 19.6.15 Doncaster Rovers (free) [69+23,23]; 21.5.18 Northampton Town (free) [46+25,20]; 1.8.20 Cheltenham Town (free) [30+39,12]; 15.6.22 Walsall (free). Away to Southampton in the autumn of 2009, tall striker Andy Williams produced a fine left-footed shot from outside the area to seal a dramatic late victory. The goal was voted Rovers’ Goal of the Season for 2009-10 and secured an unlikely win. Williams was no one-goal wonder, though, for he had scored after four minutes of his Rovers début, when he replaced Rickie Lambert, scrambling the ball home at Vale Park from a Joe Jacobson corner, and hitting the post against Crewe in his second game. The tall striker added another soon after in the League Cup against West Ham and he appeared in the FA Cup quarter-final against West Brom in March 2008. Primarily used as an impact substitute, he had made his Hereford début as a substitute for Craig Stanley in Hereford’s Conference game against Northwich Victoria in March 2005 and, playing alongside Alex Jeannin and Guy Ipoua, scored ten goals in 27(+7) Conference matches at Edgar Street, to be their seasonal top scorer. In addition, his two play-off goals included one against Halifax Town in the 3-2 play-off final victory which enabled the Bulls’ return to the League fold in 2006. In Yeovil’s side for both League fixtures as Rovers were relegated in 2010-11, Williams was the Glovers’ top scorer in 2011-12 and later also helped Swindon reach the League Two play-offs in the spring of 2013, where they lost at the semi-final stage to Brentford. However, his 2013-14 season was cut short by a cruciate injury, with Yeovil suffering relegation to League One. The following campaign promised to be very different, Williams scoring freely for Swindon who made early progress towards the top of League One. He contributed a brace of goals away to three struggling sides, Coventry, Notts County and Walsall, and his 21 goals for the season rendered him the third highest goal-scorer in that division; a late dip in form, however, which coincided with a paucity of goals from Williams, left the Robins missing out on promotion and fighting out the play-offs instead. He appeared briefly at Wembley as a late substitute, as Swindon’s dreams vanished in a 4-0 defeat against Preston North End in the May 2015 play-off final and was Doncaster’s top scorer as they suffered relegation to League Two in 2016. August 2016 saw the first League hat-trick of Williams’ career, opening the scoring after 34 seconds en route to three of Doncaster’s four goals against a former club, Yeovil Town and further goals that campaign contributed to his side’s ultimate promotion to League One. Williams was Northampton’s top scorer in League Two in the 2018-19 season and scored at Tranmere in his second League appearance for Cheltenham. The Robins were promoted from League Two in 2020-21 as champions, swapping division in the process with Rovers. He scored a hat-trick for Cheltenham in a July 2021 pre-season friendly against Hereford and played against Rovers the following month in the Football League Trophy. Matt Williams, Andy’s cousin, was also on Cheltenham Town’s books. |
No 639. Anthony Simon Williams. 1998-99.
Born, 20.9.1977, Ogwr, near Maesteg. 6’ 1”; 13 st 8 lbs. Début: 27.3.99 v Notts County. Career: 4.7.96 Blackburn Rovers (professional, 1.8.97); 5.2.98 Queen’s Park Rangers (loan); 16.10.98 Macclesfield Town; 7.1.99 Macclesfield Town; 5.3.99 Huddersfield Town (loan); 25.3.99 Bristol Rovers (loan) [9,0]; 5.8.99 Gillingham (loan) [2,0]; 28.1.00 Macclesfield Town [15,0]; 23.6.00 Hartlepool United (free) [131,0]; 23.1.04 Stockport County (loan) [15,0]; 29.7.04 Grimsby Town [46,0]; 10.6.05 Carlisle United (free) [11,0]; 13.1.06 Bury (loan); 23.3.07 Wrexham (loan) [27,0]; 1.6.09 Neath Athletic (free); 24.6.11 Bury (goalkeeping coach; player, 14.1.12) [8,0]; 7.8.12 Crawley Town (assistant manager); 17.12.13 Portsmouth (goalkeeping coach, to 27.3.14); 2014 Cardiff Metropolitan University (Head of Coaching). With sixteen Welsh Under-21 caps to his name, the first coming against San Marino in 1996, goalkeeper Anthony Williams joined Rovers after playing four times in the Macclesfield side relegated to Division Three in 1998-99. A deadline-day signing, he conceded a goal after fourteen minutes on his Rovers début, a deflected free-kick from the veteran Gerry Creaney. Thereafter, he appeared against Rovers on many occasions, playing excellently for Hartlepool in both games in 2001-02, pulling off a spectacular save from Richard Walker in the goalless draw at Grimsby in October 2004 and making his Wrexham début at The Mem in March 2007, as the Welsh side narrowly survived the drop into the Conference. Gillingham were promoted to the second tier of English football in 1999-2000 for the first time in their history, Carlisle were League Two champions in 2005-06 and he was an ever-present at Grimsby. A team-mate at Edgeley Park of Aaron Lescott and Ally Gibb and later on Bury’s books as they were relegated to the basement division in 2012-13, he is a talented sportsman who is a keen rugby player and has represented Wales at basketball. Formerly living at The Beeches whilst with Rovers, Anthony Williams lives in Maesteg with his partner Victoria, their son Tye and their daughter Amber. He has coached Cardiff Met to a place in Europa League football, becoming in the process the first university side to have achieved this feat. |
No 480. Brian Williams. 1981-85.
Born, 5.11.1955, Salford. 5’ 9”; 12 st 1 lb. Début: 29.8.81 v Chester. Career: Bury (professional, April 1973) [149+12,18]; 20.7.77 Queen’s Park Rangers (£70,000) [9+10,1]; 30.6.78 Swindon Town [89+10,8]; 22.7.81 Bristol Rovers (exchange for Gary Emmanuel) [163,20]; July 1985 Bristol City (free) [77,3]; 28.7.87 Shrewsbury Town [62+3,1]; February 1991 Alvechurch; July 1992 Hereford United (Community Officer); July 1999 Shrewsbury Town (Community Officer). As Rovers pushed for the elusive promotion back to second-tier football in November 1983, table-topping Burnley came to Eastville and lost to two first-half goals, left-back Brian Williams calmly sending Roger Hansbury the wrong way to put the Pirates two goals ahead. For a time, penalties were his speciality, converting two in a game as Brentford were defeated 3-0 in April 1985, Rovers apparently being denied a clear-cut third “penalty” close to time. Of course, there were blips and to missed penalties against Doncaster in September 1982, Hull in March 1985 and Newport in May 1985 can be added a red card at Cardiff on New Year’s Day 1983 as well as one against his former club Swindon the previous Easter, but Williams’ consistency, dependability and thoroughness, not to mention his shrewd captaincy of the side, were qualities which helped Rovers become a force in Division Three at this time. He was one of three Williamses to grace the side, and ended up having spells as captain at Bury, Swindon, Shrewsbury and both Bristol clubs. As for penalties, Williams was clear: “once you’ve decided where you’re going to put the ball, you should never change your mind”, he said in 2007. He contrived to score a penalty and an own goal against Bournemouth in the League Cup in September 1983, the season he was named Player of the Year and the first of his two successive campaigns as an ever-present. One of the youngest players to appear for Bury, he made his début against Stockport County aged sixteen years 133 days and scored twice against Liverpool in a Lancashire Senior Cup-tie in December 1973, the season the Quakers were promoted to Division Three. Having scored his first League goal in a 1-1 draw with Cambridge United in December 1972, he added a brace as Darlington succumbed 5-1 in October 1973. Bob Smith, his manager at Gigg Lane, signed him for Swindon where, the Robins faithful still fondly remembering their League Cup triumph of 1969, he played in a League Cup semi-final which was lost to Wolves over two legs. At Bristol City, in addition to appearing in four local derbies against Rovers, the penalty king and club captain managed to score from the spot at Wembley, the Robins losing to Mansfield Town in a shoot-out at the close of the May 1987 Freight Rover Trophy Final. Williams returned to haunt Rovers, scoring the goal which knocked the Pirates out of the FA Cup in January 1988 and, having trained schoolboys at Monmouth School whilst with Hereford, he was part of the Shrews’ staff when Rovers played them in the 2007 Wembley play-off final. He is the son of Lyndon Williams and Joan White and the grandson of the Chepstow couple, Frederick Albert Williams (1905-71) and Florence Butt. Brian Williams married Andrea Bentley, the daughter of Edward Bentley and Joan Watts, and they live near Shrewsbury, with a daughter Chloë and a son Oliver, who was once on the books of Aston Villa. |
No 724. Daniel Ivor Llewellyn Williams. 2003-04.
Born, 12.7.1979, Wrexham. 6’ 1”; 13 st. Début: 27.3.04 v York City. Career: 1.8.97 Liverpool; 23.3.99 Wrexham (free); 18.1.01 Doncaster Rovers (loan) [6,0]; 27.6.01 Kidderminster Harriers (free) [108+3,8]; 19.2.04 Chester City (loan) [5,0]; 25.3.04 Bristol Rovers (free) [6,1]; 19.5.04 Wrexham (free) [155+5,10]; 4.5.08 Rhyl; 28.7.09 Droylsden; 14.1.10 Bala Town; 1.8.12 Denbigh Town; 1.8.13 Rhos Aelwyd. Midfielder Danny Williams, the holder of nine Welsh Under-23 caps, was no stranger to Bristol Rovers. Prior to signing for the club in 2004, on the same day as Bo Henriksen, he had played in seven League matches against Rovers. Five of these had been in the colours of Kidderminster, where he was Player of the Year in 2002-03 and hit the bar when Rovers drew 1-1 at Aggborough on the final day of the season and two had been with Wrexham, in whose 4-0 defeat at The Mem in May 2001 he had been sent off after thirty-nine minutes for a foul on Simon Bryant. On his Rovers début, he scored with a low shot after just eighteen minutes, after Ali Gibb’s shot had been blocked, to set the club on course for a comfortable 3-0 victory. A strong-tackling midfield anchor man, Williams subsequently returned to Wrexham and played twice more against Rovers with his home-town club, hitting the bar again in the October 2008 fixture. Wrexham suffered relegation to League Two during his second spell, but won the LDV Vans Trophy by beating Southend United 2-0 in the final, Williams appearing as a substitute. He also played against Rovers in the July 2004 Isle of Man tournament, set up Dennis Lawrence’s winner at The Mem in October 2005 and appeared in a Welsh Cup Final, which was lost 2-1 to Swansea. A free-kick against Airbus UK brought Williams his solitary goal in 28(+2) games as Rhyl became Welsh champions in 2008-09, which was followed by one goal (in a 2-2 draw at Blyth Spartans) in nine games at Droylsden and two (in home fixtures with Prestatyn Town in April 2010 and Aberystwyth Town in January 2011) in 50(+11) matches with Bala. He subsequently appeared in five Cymru Alliance games with Denbigh, adding an assist as Bodedern Athletic were defeated 3-1 in September 2012, and scored in a 3-2 victory over Queen’s Cefn on his Rhos Aelwyd début. A trainee at Liverpool with Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen, Danny Williams is married to a daughter of Brian Wood, the former Wrexham, Chester and Wales goalkeeper. |
No 470. David Geraint Williams. 1980-85.
Born, 5.1.1962, Cwm-Parc, Treorchy. 5’ 7”; 10 st 6 lbs. Début: 18.10.80 v Sheffield Wednesday. Career: 10.7.78 Bristol Rovers (professional, 12.1.80) [138+3,8]; 29.3.85 Derby County (£40,000) [276+1,9]; 10.7.92 Ipswich Town (£650,000) [217,3]; 28.5.98 Colchester United (free) [39+1,0] (assistant manager, 25.2.02; manager, 28.7.06-22.9.08); 5.2.09 Orient (manager, to 3.4.10); 9.7.12 Wales Under-21 (manager, to 5.12.16); 16.1.18 Ipswich Town (Under-18 assistant coach). For five seasons, diminutive, slightly-built yet ferociously tenacious midfielder Geraint Williams played a critical rôle in Rovers’ on-field progress. One of three players sharing a surname in the side, he held the side together after relegation to Division Three in 1980-81 and, a lifelong Cardiff City supporter, won two Wales Under-21 caps in 1982 to add to his Welsh youth appearances. Constructive and ball-winning in midfield, he belied his years to put in some extraordinarily mature performances in a relatively successful Rovers side. Although goals were relatively rare, he scored after just 84 seconds at home to Preston North End in November 1983. He also added two goals in the 4-0 victory over Newport County in January 1984 and was one of three Williamses to score against Wrexham in December 1982, Rovers registering 21 goals in six League games at this stage. Given his impressive track record at Eastville, it is perhaps surprising to note that “George” played in more League fixtures at both Derby and Ipswich, winning thirteen full caps for Wales in the process. Appearing for Derby against Rovers in April 1986, he enjoyed promotion from third-tier football that spring and was the club’s Player of the Year as the Rams secured the Division Two title in 1986-87 and a place in top-flight football. He won his first Welsh cap in November 1987 against Czechoslovakia and his thirteenth and last as a substitute against Germany in October 1995. Ipswich’s record signing, he suffered relegation from the Premier League in 1994-95, losing 9-0 to Manchester United in the process, and the setback of a play-off final defeat against Sheffield United in the spring of 1997, before captaining the Ipswich side which drew 1-1 with Rovers at The Mem in an FA Cup-tie in January 1998; his three Ipswich goals all came in victories, at home to Leeds in November 1994, at Reading in October 1995 and against Oldham in April 1997. A member of the Colchester side defeated 4-1 at Bridlington Terriers in an FA Cup shock in November 1998, he managed United to promotion to the Championship in 2007 and relegation back down twelve months later, before taking over at Orient. He was later the Wales Under-21 manager who gave Ellis Harrison his first taste of international football. The son of David Williams and Meryl Evans, Geraint Williams married Lynne at St David’s Church, Ton Pentre in July 1985 and they have two children, David and Bethan. |
No 432. David Michael Williams. 1975-85.
Born, 11.3.1955, Cardiff. 5’ 10”; 11 st 8 lbs. Début: 16.8.75 v Oldham Athletic. Career: Howardian High School; Clifton Athletic; August 1975 Bristol Rovers (part-time professional, 12.12.75; professional, 1.8.78; player-manager, 27.5.83) [342+10,66]; 13.7.85 Norwich City (£40,000) (coach, 22.5.87; assistant manager, 20.8.88) [56+4,11]; March 1988 Wales (caretaker manager); 14.7.92 Bournemouth (coach and assistant manager) [0+1,0]; 21.1.94 Everton (assistant manager); 19.1.94 Wales “B” (manager); 1995 Leeds United (first-team coach); 12.9.97 Manchester United (youth team coach, to July 2002); August 2002 Kent State University, USA (coach); 6.5.04 Norwich City (assistant Academy Manager, to May 2007); 19.9.10 Wales (assistant manager); 4.2.13 Doncaster Rovers (assistant manager, to 24.5.14). Cultured midfielder David Williams, a fixture at the heart of Rovers’ side through a decade, became a manager before belatedly winning five Welsh caps during his thirties. For a generation of Rovers’ supporters, Williams epitomised the side which maintained its position in Division Two before, having been relegated in the spring of 1981, fighting to restore second-tier football at Eastville. Inside the old stadium, which was into its final few years, his presence as a midfield general evoked numerous memories of the great players of previous generations and he is universally accepted now as one of the greatest post-war players to appear for Rovers. A creative, intuitive player around whom the side revolved, Williams made his début at the age of twenty in a Gloucestershire Cup victory over Bristol City in April 1975 and barely missed a game for many years. The first amateur since Alan Wood in 1962 to play for the side, he had trained as a teacher at Cardiff Teacher Training College and worked as a Maths teacher at Mostyn High School in Cardiff whilst representing Wales at Youth and Schoolboy level, winning six Welsh amateur caps as well as an Under-23 cap against Scotland in 1976, and appearing as an official over-age player for the Under-21 side for a solitary cap against Yugoslavia in 1983. An ever-present in both 1978-79 and 1981-82, Rovers’ first campaign back in third-tier football, he played in the 9-0 defeat at Spurs in October 1977 and scored twice in the exciting 5-5 draw at home to Charlton Athletic in November 1978. He scored twice against Millwall in October 1982, Rovers registering 21 goals in an astonishing six-game run at this stage, two more in a 3-3 draw at Rotherham in October 1984 and was one of three Williamses to score when Rovers defeated Wrexham 4-0 in December 1982. Goals were his trademark, registering double figures in three separate seasons from the engine-room of midfield. “Match Weekly” named him their Player of the Year from Division Three in consecutive seasons, 1981-82 and 1982-83 and he was selected for the Professional Footballers’ Association’s divisional Team of the Year in the latter campaign. When appointed as Rovers’ manager in 1983, he became the youngest in the Football League at that time, and his two years as manager included just three defeats in the League at Eastville. Just when it appeared he might remain with Rovers his entire career, Norwich signed Williams in 1985, secured the Division Two title that season and gave him the opportunity to play top-flight football in 1986-87. Sudden club success led to hugely belated international honours, Williams playing against Saudi Arabia, Uruguay and Canada twice in 1986 and against Finland the following year, before becoming Wales’ caretaker manager for one fixture. The Canaries reached two FA Cup semi-finals between 1988 and 1992 before, in April 1993 after five years without playing, Williams came on as Bournemouth’s substitute against Bolton Wanderers. Deputy at Bournemouth to Tony Pulis, his former Rovers midfield comrade, Williams subsequently coached at various top-level clubs and worked for a while as a driving instructor in Harrogate before becoming part of the Doncaster set-up, as the side secured the League One title in April 2013 in a highly dramatic final-day flourish, and was relegated by a last-minute goal in May 2014. Married to Mandy and with a son and a daughter, David Williams brought out his own range of four football coaching DVDs between 2002 and 2004. |
No 799. Gavin John Williams. 2010-11.
Born, 20.7.1980, Merthyr Tydfil. 5’ 11”; 11 st 5 lbs. Début: 5.2.11 v Brighton. Career: Cardiff City (schoolboy); 1.8.96 Hereford United; 11.5.02 Yeovil Town (£22,500); 8.12.04 West Ham United (£250,000) [7+3,1]; 10.11.05 Ipswich Town (loan); 4.1.06 Ipswich Town (£300,000) [47+7,3]; 27.6.08 Bristol City (free) [26+26,3]; 11.3.10 Yeovil Town (loan); 31.1.11 Bristol Rovers (free) [17+2,2]; 15.6.11 Yeovil Town (free) [142+23,30]; 22.7.13 Woking (free); 20.12.13 Merthyr Town (free; 23.5.14 assistant manager; 27.5.16-30.1.21 manager). Having hit the inside of a post against Brighton on his Rovers début, Welsh midfielder Gavin Williams scored the only goal of the game as Rovers won at Huish Park, but his form was insufficient to prevent Rovers’ relegation to the basement division in the spring of 2011. The ironic inevitability that Williams should score one of only two goals for the club against the side he has represented so often was not lost on the spectators at the game; his other goal came against Charlton Athletic. Gavin Williams made his Hereford début at the age of seventeen in the FA Cup against Sittingbourne and he added 27 goals in 110(+11) Conference games for the Bulls as well as an astonishing goal in the FA Cup in December 2001 against Swindon Town. Player of the Year as Yeovil won the Conference title in 2002-03, he scored six times in 38 Conference matches and played in the Glovers’ first ever League fixture, a 3-1 win at Rochdale in August 2003, before helping West Ham achieve promotion to the Premier League in the spring of 2005, scoring his only Hammers goal at Elland Road. Having secured three semi-professional caps for Wales, he won two full caps, playing in the goalless draw with Slovenia in August 2005 and a 1-0 defeat in Cyprus that November, Chrysis Michael of APOEL scoring from the penalty-spot. Sent off after scoring for Hereford against Yeovil in the Conference in October 2000, he was dismissed three times for Yeovil, including his farewell game against Lincoln in November 2004 and, after scoring, his comeback game against Hartlepool in March 2010 and was viewed by many as playing a key rôle in Rovers’ two first-half red cards in the 2-2 draw at The Mem in November 2004. This was one of four League appearances against Rovers, Williams scoring in Yeovil’s 4-0 victory in 2003-04 as well as in the aforementioned draw. A third spell at Huish Park saw Williams help the unfashionable Somerset side into second-tier football for the first time in Yeovil’s history; although he was an unused substitute for the May 2013 play-off final against Brentford at Wembley, he did pick up a yellow card for time wasting, back-heeling the ball away four minutes into stoppage time at the close of the 2-1 victory. This victory endured that, during his career, he had played in sides which won promotion to all four division of the Football League. He ended up in goal in December 2014 as Merthyr Town won 2-1 at Tiverton Town in the Southern League, his side running away with the championship in that division for 2014-15; he was sent off during the 2-1 defeat at Bridgwater Town that February. Returning to South Wales on the death of his father, Glyn, he helped Merthyr reach the 2016-17 Southern League play-offs, only to lose on penalties to Hitchin Town, but the club suffered financially and a low point was reached in a 13-1 defeat against Chesham United. Nonetheless, he persevered and rebuilt the side, including former Rovers players Ben Swallow and Eliot Richards in his team. His brother Lewis, seven years his junior, is a winger with Pontypridd RFC and has represented Wales at Rugby Sevens; Gavin’s son, Jay, was born in 2003. |
No 952. George Williams. 2020-21.
Born, 14.4.1993, Hillingdon. 5’ 9”; 11 st 1 lb. Début: 23.1.21 v Oxford United. Career: Milton Keynes College; 2007 MK Dons; September 2011 Loughborough University; August 2013 Worcester City (free); 22.12.14 Barnsley (free) [16+6,1]; 17.8.15 Barrow (loan); 28.6.16 MK Dons (free) [133+9,4]; 21.1.21 Bristol Rovers (free) [25+1,0]; 25.6.21 Cambridge United (free). Strong in the tackle and fast, versatile defender George Williams was Paul Tisdale’s first permanent signing as Bristol Rovers’ manager. He had worked with Tisdale at MK Dons, the boyhood club to which he had returned, and Rovers’ manager knew of his “high level of professionalism and his attitude and application”. As a student, he had been part of the Great Britain side which defeated the home nation in the semi-finals before losing to France at the 2013 World University Games in Kazan, Russia. Completing his degree in Sports Science at Loughborough with a 2:2, dark-haired Williams had been Worcester’s Player of the Year in 2013-14, a bullet header against Gloucester City in August 2013 being the first of two goals in 45 National League North appearances. That season, Worcester enjoyed a successful FA Cup run, Williams playing as League One Coventry City were defeated 2-1 before Scunthorpe United eventually prevailed 14-13 after 32 spot-kicks when the replay had gone to a shoot-out. Inspired to sign the young right-back, Barnsley gave him a League début on Boxing Day 2014 in a 1-0 defeat at Preston and he scored his only goal for the Tykes in April 2016, a dramatic injury-time winner as Peterborough United, featuring Erhun Öztümer and Jack Baldwin in their side, were defeated 1-0. With Barnsley, he enjoyed promotion by defeating Millwall, featuring Joe Martin and Tony Craig, 3-1 at Wembley in the League One play-off final in 2016, just weeks after playing there in the Football League Trophy Final, in which his side came from a goal down to defeat Liam Sercombe’s Oxford United side 3-2. After fifteen National League games on loan at Barrow, Williams returned to the club he supported, enjoying another promotion season, alongside Lee Nicholls, with MK Dons under Tisdale in 2018-19. The club’s Player and Young Player of the Year in 2016-17, he had scored his first goal for the club with a header after twenty-three minutes of the 3-3 draw with Rovers in October 2016, one of six League appearances against The Gas. Sent off against Gillingham in April 2017 and at Bolton in November 2019, he had also played alongside Hiram Boateng against Liverpool in the League Cup in September 2019 and joined Rovers with a reputation as a tough defender. However, Rovers endured a torrid run of form through the spring of 2021 and were relegated back to League Two at the close of the campaign. |
No 388. John Stanley Williams. 1966-69.
Born, 16.8.1935, Knowle, Bristol, Died, 24.11.2011, Plymouth. 5’ 11”; 11 st 4 lbs. Début: 27.12.66 v Orient. Career: EEM Department, Plymouth; Plymouth Argyle (professional, October 1952) [411+1,48]; 20.12.66 Bristol Rovers (£6,500) [66+3,10]; June 1969 Plymouth Argyle (youth team coach); July 1970 Falmouth Town (manager); 1975 Bodmin Town (manager). Throughout an era of heavy footballs and deep mud at Eastville, as the Rovers side toiled to pull itself back out of Division Three, Johnny Williams' tough-tackling, ferocious shot and determined forward play was one highlight. In the period immediately after England had secured the World Cup in 1966, the image of a half-back was gradually being re-invented as a midfielder and Williams epitomised this change, at the tail end of a distinguished career in lower league football. Born in Daventry Road, Knowle, the youngest of four children to Sidney Williams, a journalist on the "Bristol Evening World" newspaper, and Selina Prestina Comer, the daughter of Samuel Comer (1871-1945) and Alice Maud Spear (1872-1949), Johnny Williams converted at Plymouth from a marauding inside-forward to a reliable wing-half. He was an ever-present in three League seasons for the Devon club, running up 179 consecutive League appearances, and played against Rovers six times in the League, scoring three goals; he also helped Argyle win the Third Division championship in 1958-59, reach the semi-finals of the League Cup in 1964-65 and went on the club tour of Eastern Europe in 1963. In addition he played several times for the Army, occasionally alongside Bobby Charlton, once impressing Matt Busby (1909-94), who described him as "the finest player on view" and, in March 1958 played for an Army XI in an emphatic 8-1 win against a Navy XI at Eastville. A surging, bustling midfielder, his move to his home-town club shortly before Christmas 1966, rejecting a potential move to Wolves, enabled him to be at the heart of almost every Rovers move, from supplying the strike force of Alfie Biggs and Bobby Jones to contributing the back-pass that led to the unfortunate collision which ended goalkeeper Bernard Hall's career on New Year's Eve 1966. He twice scored two goals in a League game for Rovers, in the 4-1 victory over Shrewsbury Town in December 1967 and the 4-3 win against Oldham Athletic two months later. Half of Williams' ten League goals for Rovers came from the penalty spot, generally with a forceful shot that was best avoided by even the most fearless goalkeeper. Married to Shirley Hannam and with a son John, a daughter Debbie and five grandchildren, Johnny Williams had been an electrical apprentice and later ran three garages in the Plymouth area. |
No 391. Robert Gordon Williams. 1966-69.
Born, 17.2.1940, Bristol. 5’ 7”; 10 st. Début: 18.3.67 v Grimsby Town. Career: Bristol Boys; Bristol City (professional, 28.5.58) [187,76]; 11.2.65 Rotherham United (£14,000) [47,12]; 16.3.67 Bristol Rovers (£16,000) [28+1,5]; August 1969 Reading [60+4,20]; 1971 Keynsham Town (trial); 30.7.71 AS Oostende, Belgium; July 1972 Cheltenham Town (trial); 5.8.72 Weymouth (free) (retired, 20.9.72); 1973 Reading (youth team manager, to 17.3.97); 13.10.97 Bristol City (youth scout). Talented, subtle, fleet of foot and a connoisseur of short passes, Bobby “Shadow” Williams was a fine inside-forward who enjoyed a considerably longer career at Ashton Gate than at Eastville. Creative and ingenuous, he scored for the Pirates against Torquay, Orient, Brighton, Rotherham and Gillingham. The younger child of Gilbert Williams and Emily Batten, who had married in Bristol in 1936, he was part of the Robins’ side which secured promotion to Division Two in 1964-65. Prior to that, living in the shadow of Ashton Gate, he had enjoyed a healthy April 1963, both he and Barrie Meyer scoring hat-tricks as City defeated Southend United and then Williams scoring four goals in a 5-2 victory at Halifax. He played in five League games for City against Rovers, scoring once, and was to oppose Rovers three further times whilst with Reading. Williams also scored twice in Rotherham’s 4-3 win at home to Wolves in September 1965 and a hat-trick four days later as Cardiff City were defeated 6-4. A decent club cricketer, he had once batted with Greg Chappell in a Somerset benefit game at Dundry. In 1971 he joined Dennis Allen (1939-95), once of Charlton and West Brom’s Gerry Howshall, both of whom were closely related to Rovers players past and future, at Belgian First Division side AS Oostende, missing a good chance just before half-time on his début in a 3-0 victory against Lokeren in September 1971. He scored his only goal for the club after 85 minutes of a 2-0 win against Zottegem the following month and later played under former City colleagues Bobby Etheridge (1934-88) at Cheltenham and Graham Williams at Weymouth. After twelve games for the Dorset club, though, he fell asleep at the wheel after a 1-1 draw with Yeovil and suffered multiple injuries in a crash, breaking his pelvis, six ribs, a hip, his jaw, cheekbone and nose as well as suffering a collapsed lung. Perhaps fortunate to be alive, Williams’ career was over and he spent twenty-five years with Reading’s youngsters, coaching players such as the future England midfielder Neil Webb. A courier for Foster Wheeler, a multi-national company, he continued to live in Tilehurst, Berkshire where he ran an Under-18 football side. Married to Brenda, their son Nick was on Reading’s books and “Shadow”, “a consistent advocate for pure soccer” (David Foot) is now a grandfather. |
No 360. (Keith) Ronald Albert Keith Williams. 1961-63.
Born, 14.1.1937, Eastham, Wirral. 5’ 10”; 12 st 1 lb. Début: 3.2.62 v Orient. Career: Everton (professional, March 1954); May 1957 Tranmere Rovers (free) [161,88]; June 1961 Plymouth Argyle [10,4]; 29.1.62 Bristol Rovers (£6,500) [49,18] (banned for life, 26.4.63; ban lifted, 11.11.71). Every now and again, bribery scandals rock the footballing world and Keith Williams, an accomplished goal poacher, found his career ended when he was named as an accomplice of Rovers’ goalkeeper Esmond Million. It was proven that the pair had attempted to include other players in a scam to raise money by betting on Rovers losing a key fixture at Bradford Park Avenue, Williams was fined £50 in court after admitting match-fixing claims and he was banned by the Football Association. The son of John Williams and Mary Owens, he had a twin sister Margaret, whilst various other siblings included a half-brother Ray Williams, a wing-half at Tranmere Rovers. Unable to make the grade at Goodison Park, Keith Williams had suffered relegation to the basement division with Tranmere in 1960-61, scoring one of their consolation goals in the club record 9-2 defeat against Queen’s Park Rangers in December 1960 and scoring once in the 9-0 victory over Accrington Stanley in April 1959. He hit hat-tricks in League games against Bradford Park Avenue, York City, Southport, Stockport, Shrewsbury and Halifax Town, as well as four goals in an FA Cup-tie in November 1958 in which Bishop Auckland were defeated 8-1. Fifteen goals in fourteen reserve games at Argyle encouraged Rovers’ Supporters’ Club to foot the bill for the inside-forward who moved to a house in Woodcroft Road, Brislington. Scoring on his Rovers début at Brisbane Road, he suffered relegation with Rovers to Division Three in 1961-62 but was the club’s top scorer the following campaign. The seventeen goals he hit that season included a brace in the 5-3 win at Queen’s Park Rangers on Good Friday 1963. Sadly, though, he did not see out the season and emigrated to South Africa with his half-brother Ray to set up a business there and assist Johannesburg FC, seeing as South Africa at that time was not affiliated to FIFA. |
No 716. Ryan Neil Williams. 2003-06.
Born, 31.8.1978, Sutton-in-Ashfield. 5’ 5”; 11 st 4 lbs. Début: 1.11.03 v Swansea City. Career: Sheffield United (schoolboy); Nottingham Forest (schoolboy); 1994 Mansfield Town (professional, 1.8.95) [9+17,3]; 1.8.97 Bristol City (trial); 8.8.97 Tranmere Rovers (£70,000) [2+3,0]; 10.11.99 Chesterfield (loan); 15.2.00 Chesterfield (£80,000) [70+5,13]; 19.6.01 Hull City (£150,000) [40+12,2]; 27.10.03 Bristol Rovers (loan); 27.12.03 Bristol Rovers (free) [26+17,4]; 10.12.04 Forest Green Rovers (loan); 31.8.05 Aldershot Town (loan); 1.1.06 Aldershot Town (free); 4.5.08 Weymouth (free); 27.2.09 Mansfield Town; 8.10.10 Gainsborough Trinity (loan); 3.2.11 Gainsborough Trinity (free); 14.9.12 North Ferriby United (trial); 26.5.13 Scarborough Athletic (free); 22.12.14 AFC Mansfield; 2018 East Yorkshire Carnegie; 2019 Hall Road Rangers. Left-footed crowd-pleaser Ryan Williams had the unusual experience of scoring against his own club; loaned to Rovers, he scored against his mother club Hull as Rovers defeated the second-placed side 2-1 at The Mem in November 2003. Within weeks he had signed permanently for Rovers. An England Youth player and the son of Ian Williams and his wife Susan Watkins, Williams made his Mansfield début against Orient at the age of seventeen, scoring against Rochdale before his eighteenth birthday, and could add 31(+9) Conference games and three goals to his League tally at Field Mill as well as playing against Rovers for both Hull and Chesterfield who, despite being deducted nine points for financial irregularities, were promoted in 2000-01. He added two goals as the Spireites defeated Mansfield, his former club, 4-0 in September 2000 and scored at The Mem when Chesterfield were defeated 3-1 in February of that year. Suffering injuries at Hull, ligament damage on his début being followed by a broken arm, he also received a red card in the 1-0 home defeat against Macclesfield in February 2002. Hugely popular at Rovers, and runner-up in the Player of the Year vote in 2004-05, Williams’ goal against Grimsby in February 2005 was voted the club’s Goal of the Season; the second in a 3-0 win, it was also the first time that a Rovers substitute had scored before half-time in a League fixture. “Rovers fans are a special breed, a class apart and they were always good to me”, he recalled. Out of favour under Ian Atkins, Williams’ recall was cruelly marred by an injured knee in a reserve fixture which necessitated an operation before Aldershot and Crawley fought for his signature. Aldershot were promoted back to the Football League in the spring of 2008, Williams’ sixteen goals in 70(+2) games, to add to one goal in six matches on loan at Forest Green, being followed by two in 28(+3) for Weymouth, plus a pre-season game against Rovers in July 2008, three in a further 41(+9) back at Mansfield Town, nine in 74 matches with Gainsborough and eight in 33 games at North Ferriby. He appeared regularly in the Northern Premier League during 2013-14 with Scarborough Athletic, scoring six times in 46(+2) appearances in all competitions. Ryan Williams lives in Hull with his partner Jennifer and a daughter and a son and is working towards coaching badges, whilst working as a Child Care Officer at a residential school in Hull. |
No 471. Steven John Williams. 1980-82.
Born, 27.4.1963, Barry. Died, 12.12.1999, Barry. 5’ 10”; 10 st 10 lbs. Début: 6.12.80 v Wrexham. Career: Barry Boys; Cadoxton Imps; 10.7.79 Bristol Rovers (professional, 27.4.81) [8,1]; August 1982 Barry Town; 27.11.83 Cardiff City (trial); August 1985 Sully; August 1987 Bideford; August 1988 Barry Town; June 1989 Denhome (Barry Dock); 29.10.94 Newport County (to 1996). Raw, young and supremely gifted, Steve Williams burst onto the scene during Rovers’ relegation campaign of 1980-81 and his goal in the 1-1 draw with Notts County in December 1980 leaves him as the second youngest goal-scorer in the club’s League history. A Welsh Youth international and the son of John Williams, an erstwhile Newport County and Barry Town player, Williams could not fulfil his potential in the Football League and he suffered a tragically early death. That said, his career with Barry Town was staggering, his 166 goals in 230 matches including an incredible 98 Welsh League goals in only 88(+11) fixtures. Top scorer in his first three seasons with the club, he helped Barry secure the Welsh League title in 1982-83, 1983-84 and 1984-85 as well as 1988-89. He scored hat-tricks in three consecutive games in April 1983, four as Pontllanfraith were defeated 4-1 in the Welsh Cup in December 1983 and four in a 13-0 victory over Milford United in January 1985. Returning to the club in the summer of 1988, he scored four times in his first game back, a 6-0 thumping of Port Talbot Town and added hat-tricks against Milford United and Bridgend. Uncharacteristically, Williams contributed just one goal at Newport, in 37(+4) Doctor Martens League matches. |
No 83. Thomas Hutchinson Williams. 1925-28.
Born, 23.5.1899, Ryhope, Sunderland. Died, 14.12.1960, Easington. 5’ 8”; 11 st 10 lbs. Début: 23.1.26 v Merthyr Town. Career: Ryhope Colliery; February 1921 Huddersfield Town (trial); 27.8.21 Clapton Orient [26,6]; 22.8.23 Charlton Athletic [5,2]; 14.2.24 Gillingham [16,9]; 2.8.24 Ashington [12,5]; August 1925 Mid-Rhondda United; 21.1.26 Bristol Rovers [74,27]; 19.6.28 Bristol City [8,4]; 11.1.29 Merthyr Town [49,19]; 8.5.30 Norwich City [27,13]; October 1933 Easington Colliery Welfare; August 1934 Frost’s Athletic. Steve White and Tom Williams share an unlikely feat amongst Rovers players: they have both completed League hat-tricks for four separate clubs; Jamie Cureton has done so for six teams. A teetotaller and non-smoker and “as bald almost as a billiard ball”, inside-forward “Daddy” Williams scored all three of Rovers’ goals in the club’s unlikely 3-2 win away to a resurgent Millwall side in October 1926. “There was not a harder working Rovers forward than Williams”, purred the local press. He had already scored three times in Gillingham’s 6-0 victory over Brentford in March 1924 and was to score four times in Merthyr Town’s 5-2 win against Crystal Palace in April 1930 and complete a hat-trick in Norwich City’s 4-0 victory against his former club Gillingham eight months later. Although captain Steve Sims had re-joined Rovers from Bristol City in 1926, Williams’ 1928 transfer was the first time ever that a Rovers player had been transferred directly to the Ashton Gate club. The younger brother of Orient’s Owen Williams (1896-1960), who won two England caps, Tom Williams was the fifth of ten children to a coal mine hewer James Williams and his wife Mary Ann, of 50 Ryhope, Sunderland. Distinctive on the field because of the pre-mentioned lack of hair, he was a constructive player for Rovers and contributed goals frequently, his career coming to the fore at Rovers and Merthyr, ironically the opposition on his début for the Pirates and the side against whom he had scored one of his Charlton goals. A London FA Challenge Cup winner with Orient, he scored in consecutive games for Charlton in September 1925 and was top scorer at Norwich in 1930-31, despite only playing in half the matches, and was a team-mate of Rovers players Lew Griffiths, Billy Richards and Harry Rose at Mid-Rhondda as well as of Len Smith at Merthyr. Tom Williams’ days at Penydarren Park coincided with Merthyr’s final season in the Football League, and he played in the 8-2 defeat at home to Brighton, although thankfully missed the 10-0 drubbing at Newport |
No 958. Nickolas Jack Wilmer-Anderton. 2021-
b 22.4.1996 Preston 6’ 2”; 12 st 6 lbs LB Début: 7.8.21 v Mansfield Town Career: 2012 Preston North End (professional, 20.5.14); 27.3.14 Chorley (loan); 31.10.14 Gateshead (loan); 31.12.14 Barrow (loan); 10.8.15 Aldershot Town (loan); 5.11.15 Barrow (loan); 30.5.16 Barrow (free); 26.6.17 Blackpool (free) [14+2,0]; 18.8.18 Accrington Stanley (loan) [20+2,0]; 16.1.20 Carlisle United [43+7,4]; 26.5.21 Bristol Rovers (free) [26+8,1]. Ahead of Rovers’ 2021-22 League two campaign, manager Joey Barton announced a quadruple signing, including Carlisle’s captain Nick Anderton. A tall, experienced defender, who could play at left-back or centre-back, he had played in the Blackpool side which Rovers had defeated 4-0 at The Mem in March 2019, Jonson Clarke-Harris scoring a hat-trick and arrived in Bristol “looking for a new challenge”. He had also been in the non-league Barrow side which defeated League One Rovers at The Mem in an FA Cup shock in December 2016. Anderton first appeared for Gateshead in their 4-0 FA Cup victory over Norton United in November 2014 before making three National League North appearances for them, playing in eleven National League games with Aldershot and accumulating 73 games (64 National League and nine National League North) with Barrow, scoring once, after 82 minutes of a 4-0 victory over Eastleigh in October 2016. With his first loan spell at Barrow cut short by a broken leg suffered in February 2015, he was sent off on his first game back at the Bluebirds, at Guiseley in November 2015, and he was also sent off at Lincoln that season and at Aldershot and Solihull Moors in 2016-17. Despite interest from Bradford City, Anderton joined Blackpool and made his first Football League appearance in August 2017 in a 1-0 victory over MK Dons. A fractured leg in training in October 2019 effectively ended his career at Blackpool, but he captained Carlisle to great effect, scoring against Walsall and Cambridge United in 2019-20 and against Stevenage, the opening strike in a 4-0 victory, and Tranmere Rovers during 2020-21. Anderton conceded an own goal at in his first game in a Rovers shirt, a pre-season friendly at Melksham but scored at the correct end, when set up by fellow substitute Alfie Kilgour, for the first goal The Gas ever scored at Harrogate, securing an unexpected 1-0 victory in October 2021. As the season drew on, he played an important part in the club’s progress, The Gas slowly moving up the table and securing a dramatic and unexpected final-day promotion to League One, in defeating Scunthorpe United 7-0 at home. With his wife expecting their next child, Anderton announced on the eve of the 2022-23 season that he had been diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. |
No 551. Ian Michael Willmott. 1989-92.
Born, 10.7.1968, Bristol. 5’ 10”; 12 st 6 lbs. Début: 19.8.89 v Brentford. Career: Bristol Boys; Exeter United; 19.8.86 Frome Town; May 1987 Gloucester City; August 1988 Weston-super-Mare; 8.12.88 Bristol Rovers [18+4,0]; Yeovil Town (loan); July 1992 Clevedon Town; March 1993 Wycombe Wanderers; August 1993 Taunton Town; November 1993 Clevedon Town; 27.1.94 Yeovil Town (trial); 15.7.94 Taunton Town; September 1994 Forest Green Rovers; 30.3.95 Mangotsfield United. Bank employee Ian Willmott was a calm and reliable left-winger who made his Rovers début during the 1989-90 Third Division championship season. He scored in the Gloucestershire Cup Final that campaign, a 57th-minute equaliser with a stunning left-footed volley from David Mehew’s pass as Rovers defeated Bristol City 2-1 and, having lost his place to Phil Purnell and later Tony Pounder, was later on Wycombe’s books as they attained League status in 1993, although he never appeared in the Chairboys’ first-team. A keen golfer, he played 26 times for Weston, in 52(+3) matches with Clevedon, nine times at Yeovil and the first of his eleven games for Mangotsfield was a 3-0 defeat at Tiverton Town in April 1995. Clevedon, unbeaten in 38 games at one stage, were Western League champions whilst he was with them. Retiring in 1995 as he was suffering from leukaemia, a proposed benefit game having to be cancelled, Ian Willmott now lives in Bristol and works as the accounts manager for a roofing company, his two daughters being reported to be accomplished gymnasts. |
No 713. Calum Daniel Willock. 2003-04.
Born, 29.10.1981, London. 6’ 1”; 12 st 2 lbs. Début: 9.8.03 v Scunthorpe United. Career: ADT College, Putney; 1.8.00 Fulham [0+5,0]; 8.11.02 Queen’s Park Rangers (loan) [3,0]; 8.8.03 Bristol Rovers (loan) [0+5,0]; 13.10.03 Peterborough United (loan); 18.12.03 Peterborough United (£25,000) [60+19,23]; 31.1.06 Brentford (free) [23+18,4]; 10.8.07 Port Vale (free) [8+7,3]; 8.1.08 Stevenage Borough (free); 1.8.09 AFC Wimbledon (trial); 7.9.09 Crawley Town (free); 15.2.10 Cambridge United (free); 18.7.10 Ebbsfleet United (free); 7.6.12 Dover Athletic (free); 3.7.13 Boreham Wood (free); 15.10.13 Harrow Borough (free); 30.12.13 Staines Town (free); 3.2.15 Lewes (free); 2.8.15 Dulwich Hamlet (free); 23.11.15 Merstham (free); 2.7.17 Farnborough (free); 1.7.18 Cray Valley Paper Mills; 27.7.21 Erith and Belvedere (free). Three full caps for his familial home nation, St Kitts and Nevis, including a brace of goals in a 3-2 defeat in Barbados in June 2004 as well as a 63rd-minute début goal against St Vincent and the Grenadines, renders tall striker Calum Willock an international footballer. Brief spells with Fulham and Rovers, plus a three-game spell at QPR under Ian Holloway, when Rangers gained one point and did not score, ending with four second-half goals in a 4-0 defeat against Cardiff City at Loftus Road, preceded a far more productive time at London Road. Posh, despite Willock top scoring with twelve League goals, his brace in a 6-1 thumping of Wrexham in March 2004 helping elevate him from crowd favourite to cult status, were relegated from League One in 2004-05, as were Brentford two seasons later and Willock’s Port Vale début came as a 62nd-minute substitute for Akpo Sodje when Rovers visited Vale Park in August 2007. After a 44th-minute début goal in Stevenage’s 5-0 victory over Droylsden in January 2008, his only strike in 6(+3) Conference games, he was an unused substitute at Wembley for Borough’s May 2009 FA Trophy Final victory over York City. Willock and another former Rovers striker, Ricky Shakes, both scored as Ebbsfleet defeated Farnborough 4-2 in May 2011 to seal promotion to the Conference and, top scorer in 2011-12, he contributed 39 goals in 86 matches at Stonebridge Road in all competitions. A half-time substitute, he scored twice in a pre-season friendly against Deal Town before playing regularly for Dover Athletic through the 2012-13 campaign as the Whites reached the Nationwide South play-offs, only to lose 3-2 to Salisbury in the final and his first action with Boreham Wood saw him score once in a 3-0 victory over an Arsenal XI. He played in 4(+2) matches with Boreham Wood, whilst he played in nine scoreless Ryman League fixtures with Harrow Borough and his 23(+16) Conference South appearances alongside Jerel Ifil at Staines included a goal at Farnborough in the spring of 2014 and six more the following campaign, as Staines finished bottom of Nationwide South. Following ten goalless matches with Lewes, Willock scored three minutes into his first appearance for Hamlet, in a 3-0 victory over Canvey Island in August 2015, one of five goals in fifteen matches for the club. Against his future club Merstham, he scored when “the ball [hit] a pich-canoodling Calum Willock and riococheted into the open arms of the net.” This was followed by a hat-trick in Merstham’s 3-1 Ryman Premier League victory at Gray’s Athletic in March 2016; he scored ten goals in 18(+16) Ryman League games with the Surrey side. After two games with Farnborough, Willock helped Cray Valley secure the 2018-19 Southern Counties East Premier Division title and appeared at Wembley as a late substitute in the 2019 FA Vase final, which the Millers lost 3-1 to Chertsey Town after extra time. He later played 3(+1) times for Erith in the Southern Counties East League. |
No 318. Peter John Wilshire. 1953-55.
Born, 15.10.1934, Bristol. 5’ 10”; 10 st 6 lbs. Début: 27.2.54 v Leeds United. Career: Fairfield Grammar School; Kingswood; 1952 Bristol Rovers (professional, January 1954) [1,0]; June 1955 Bristol City; 17.7.59 Bath City (free); Bristol City (scout). On the books of both Bristol clubs, centre-forward Peter Wilshire made just one League appearance in his career, standing in for Geoff Bradford in a 1-1 draw with Leeds. A Gloucestershire Youth XI player, he had scored 98 goals for Rovers’ Juniors by November 1952, scored on his Rovers reserves début at Swindon in September 1953 and hit a hat-trick when the reserves defeated Northampton Town reserves 7-1 at Eastville in January 1954, before a crowd of 4,124. One of several players to suffer the misfortune of being with Rovers when the England international Geoff Bradford was in his prime, Wilshire was valued in 1959 at £1,500, but was given a free transfer on appeal to the Football Association. He represented a Western League XI against a Football Association XI at Eastville in March 1954. The only son of Bernard Wilshire and Margery Zähringer, she being the sixth child of Josef Adolf Zähringer (1873-1933) and Thirza Denning (1879-1950), Peter Wilshire retired from football to become a sales representative for a radio firm, doubling up as a football scout at Ashton Gate. He married Margaret Hayers in 1956 and they had four children, Martin, Stuart, Jon and Paula, as well as nine grandchildren. Work with Sony initially took his young family to Staines where he then worked for Phillips as sales director. A keen golfer off a handicap of two at Hindhead, he lives in Camberley. |
No 658. Che Christian Aaron Wilson. 2000-02.
Born, 17.1.1979, Ely. 5’ 11”; 11 st 10 lbs. Début: 12.8.00 v Bournemouth. Career: 1989 Norwich City (professional, 17.1.97) [16+6,0]; May 2000 Cheltenham Town (trial); 4.7.00 Bristol Rovers (trial); 8.7.00 Bristol Rovers (free) [74+1,0]; 1.7.02 Bournemouth (trial); 10.8.02 Cambridge City; 27.8.02 Cheltenham Town (trial); 28.8.02 Bournemouth (trial); 1.9.02 Cambridge City; 25.7.03 Southend United (free) [98+8,2]; 15.1.07 Brentford (loan) [3,0]; 22.3.07 Rotherham United (loan) [5+1,0]; 3.1.11 Richmond Athletic; 7.4.14 Players’ Football Academy (coach); January 2015 University of Bath (Head of Football). Having played well during the 2000-01 relegation season, full-back Che Wilson was chosen as Rovers’ captain for the first season in the basement division. Named after the revolutionary leader Che Guevara (1928-67) and brought up in Cambridge, Wilson was booked on his Rovers début for a foul shortly after half-time on Jamie Day and played reliably for two campaigns. He suffered the double agony at Southend of twice reaching the LDV Vans Trophy Final, only to lose out 2-0 to Blackpool in 2004 and by the same score to Wrexham twelve months later, as well as missing promotion to League One in 2004-05 on goal difference. The first goal of his professional career, in Southend’s 4-1 win against Brentford in January 2006 signalled a change in fortune, as the Shrimpers were promoted in 2005-06 and, having been relegated twelve months later, made the play-offs again in 2007-08. Sent off at Huish Park in January 2007, when Brentford lost 1-0 to Yeovil, he played alongside Calum Willock, another Rovers player, before scoring three times in six games in New Zealand football. After two serious Achilles injuries necessitated his retirement as a player, he began studying towards a Sports Science degree at the Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, where he also coached football. |
No 564. David Graham Wilson. 1991-93.
Born, 20.3.1969, Todmorden, West Yorkshire. 5’ 9”; 10 st 10 lbs. Début: 23.8.91 v Tranmere Rovers. Career: January 1984 Manchester United (trainee, 31.5.85; professional, 20.3.87) [0+4,0]; 1.11.90 Lincoln City (loan) [3,0]; 28.3.91 Charlton Athletic (loan) [6+1,2]; 29.7.91 Bristol Rovers (free) [11,0]; May 1993 Rovaniemen Palloseura [22,1]; 1994 Ljungskile; 1999 Haka [76,3]; 2002 HFK Helsinki [11,2]; 2003 Ljungskile (player-manager) [135,7]; January 2005 Rosseröds IK; July 2005 GIF Sundsvall (manager); 2.9.06 Ljungskile (manager) (to 17.11.08); 8.5.09 Aston Villa (scout); 2009 Chelsea (Scandinavian Scout). Constructive midfielder David Wilson was to enjoy a long career playing and coaching in Finland and Sweden, but was at Old Trafford before joining Rovers. The eldest child of Graham Wilson and Patricia Botham, his League début had come in a top-flight fixture against Sheffield Wednesday in November 1988, when he replaced Clayton Blackmore in a 1-1 draw. Recovering from a hernia operation in October 1991 and a knee injury two months later, he scored a hat-trick for Rovers in a friendly against Keynsham Town in August 1992, only to fracture his cheekbone against Yate Town three days later. Remarkably, the 1-0 victory over Millwall in October 1992 was the first time in nineteen League games that Wilson had been on the winning side. Thereafter, his time at Haka, who were twice Finnish champions during his time at the club, enabled him to play against Rangers in the Inter Toto Cup in 1999, Haka losing 7-1 on aggregate, and his headed own goal seven minutes from time at Anfield in August 2001 contributed to Liverpool’s 9-1 aggregate victory in a European Cup qualifying fixture. As a manager, he took Ljungskile into the Swedish top division, only to suffer relegation. |
No 73. William Albert Wilson. 1925-26.
Born, 26.12.1898, Seaham, Co Durham. Died, 1975, Seaham, Co Durham. 5’ 10”; 12 st. Début: 29.8.25 v Charlton Athletic. Career: October 1919 Seaham Harbour; 10.11.19 Portsmouth; 21.2.21 Port Vale [2,0]; May 1921 Walsall [19,0]; May 1922 Stafford Rangers; September 1922 Worcester City; 11.6.25 Bristol Rovers [24,0]; 15.2.26 Willenhall; May 1926 Wellington Town; November 1926 Willenhall; February 1929 Pelsall Villa. Having played in one Southern League game, Pompey’s goalless draw with Cardiff City in April 1920, Billy Wilson played briefly in the early 1920s, one of his Port Vale games being another goalless draw with Cardiff and, after Third Division (North) fare with Walsall, arrived at Rovers from Birmingham and District League football in 1925. Wilson scored six goals in 116 matches with Worcester, his cousin Cyril Wilson also appearing in the side during the 1923-24 campaign. He had captained Worcester to the title of that league, a feat achieved only on goal difference, in 1924-25, played in the Blues against Whites trial game, a 2-2 draw, and managed to score for the reserves against Swindon Town reserves prior to his League début. He should not be confused with several other William Wilsons, one playing at this time for Manchester City and Stockport County before joining Ashton National Gas in July 1930 and another being with Watford in 1930-31 after four campaigns with Brighton. Billy Wilson was, though, the younger brother of Tom Wilson (1896-1948), a central defender who ran up 448 League appearances at Huddersfield, won a solitary England cap in the Wembley Wizards game of 1928 and had three sons, Derek, Gordon and Neil. The eldest of ten children to John Wilson and Dorothy Ryles (1872-1940) of 29 Baxter Street, Seaham, Billy Wilson married three times, his first marriage in 1922 to Annie Gavin (1899-1939) producing two sons, Tom and Pat, and later marrying Daisy Donnolly in 1951 and Frances Alice Roberts (1899-1975) in 1970. |
No 210. William Raymond Wilson. 1934-36.
Born, 16.11.1910, Rotherham. Died, 1998, Lytham St Anne’s. 5’ 9”; 13 st. Début: 6.2.35 v Bristol City. Career: Rotherham YMCA; Rotherham Schools; Scunthorpe United; September 1930 Scarborough; July 1932 Frickley Colliery; May 1933 Rotherham United [11,0]; 27.4.34 Bristol Rovers [6,0]; 5.4.36 Bristol City; July 1936 Gillingham [5,0]; July 1937 Wellington Town (loan). A Rotherham Schools representative player, Billy Wilson made his League bow in Rotherham United’s goalless draw at home to Doncaster Rovers in Division Three (North) in September 1933 and was to prove an able bit-part player at three League clubs. He “tried hard but obviously lacked experience”, reported the Western Daily Press of a player who later crossed the city but played only Colts football at Ashton Gate. A member of Rovers reserves’ Western League title-winning side in 1935-36, well-built right-half Wilson made his League début for Rovers in the cauldron of a local derby and, in addition to four League games in 1934-35 and two more the following campaign, he also played in the friendly against Wrington in April 1935. After his football career was over, Billy Wilson ran a successful business in Leeds and then a car showroom in Blackpool, before retiring to Lytham St Anne’s, where he was a member of the Fairhaven Golf Club. The son of William Edward Wilson (1868-1934) and Rose Ellen McLoughlin (1879-1927), he had a twin sister Winifred Irene Wilson (1910-2002), and he married Lily Brown (1913-2000) in Rotherham over Easter 1935; they had no children. |
No 281. Charles Windle. 1946-47.
Born, 8.1.1917, Barnsley. Died, September 1975, Bury. 5’ 10”; 11 st. Début: 21.12.46 v Port Vale. Career: Rawmarsh Welfare; September 1938 Bury; July 1939 Exeter City; 19.12.46 Bristol Rovers [7,1] (to May 1947). Without a League appearance prior to his arrival at Eastville, Charlie Windle was paid £5 a week at Rovers, scored in the 2-2 draw with Walsall on Christmas Day 1946 and apparently moved back to Barnsley upon leaving the club. He played in two wartime North Regional League fixtures with Chesterfield in October 1941, both times against Mansfield Town and scoring in the first. In addition, he appeared in two of Exeter’s three games in the aborted 1939-40 campaign. Beyond this, much is conjecture, although he could perhaps be the Charles Windle who married Doris Smith in Sheffield in 1951, having a son and two daughters; he may be related to the Arthur William Windle who played for Mexborough Athletic and died in Barnsley in September 2008; there was also an Edward Roebuck Windle (1899-1980) at Frickley Colliery in the 1922-23 season and an R Windle played at outside-right when Notts County played Coventry City in a wartime fixture in March 1945. |
No 175. Foster Windsor. 1932-34.
Born, 9.3.1908, Bristol. Died, 19.3.1985, Bristol. 5’ 10½”; 11 st. Début: 29.8.32 v Southend United. Career: Glendale United; Wesley Rangers; 31.1.31 Bristol Rovers (trial); 14.8.31 Bristol Rovers (professional, August 1932) [20,0]; 18.8.34 Bath City; 14.8.36 Warminster Town (released, 1.5.39). Locally born goalkeeper Foster Windsor faced competition for first-team action from Jack Beby and Charlie Preedy and played for Rovers in the FA Cup when Beby was cup-tied, having appeared for Ashford in an earlier round. The sixth of fifteen children to Jesse Windsor (1876-1940), a boot clicker, and Florence May Godwin (1879-1953), Windsor was brought up at 2 Roaches Cottages, Hudd Hill, St George and enjoyed local football before making his début for Rovers’ reserve side in the 10-1 win against Ebbw Vale. His performance was described as “outstanding” in the goalless draw at Yeovil in March 1934, although he also played when the reserves lost 9-3 against Exeter City reserves in December 1932. A regular in Bath City’s side during 1935-36, he conceded five goals at Plymouth in a Southern League game, but played in both matches as the Grecians secured the Somerset Professional Cup by defeating Street 3-1 in a replay after a goalless draw. His club form earned a representative game for the Bath League XI against his mother club at Twerton Park in February 1936. That summer, he left Bath and played regularly for three seasons at Warminster as a professional under permit, his games including one against Rovers’ “A” side in August 1937. When Rovers’ senior scout Archie Annan (1877-1949), a former Bristol City defender, came to the Weymouth Street ground in search of promising young talent in February 1938, it was the veteran Windsor who stole the limelight, saving a penalty from Welton Rovers’ Fussell. He played in 79 Western League games and thirteen FA Cup-ties for Warminster starting with his début in a 3-2 Western League win at Glastonbury, and including three games against representative Rovers sides, an 8-0 defeat at Trowbridge Town in October 1938 and a 9-2 FA Cup victory over Chippenham Town. Foster Windsor married Violet Hill (1908-90) in Bristol in 1932, they had a son, John, and they lived for many years in Rose Walk, Fishponds. A keen angler and a local darts champions, he worked as a driver for Bristol Corporation and died in Manor Park Hospital after a long illness, aged seventy-seven. |
No 133. Walter Winnell. 1929-30.
Born, 4.2.1908, Sheffield. Died, 13.9.1986, Sheffield. 5’ 11”; 11 st 2 lbs. Début: 21.4.30 v Orient. Career: Park Labour (Sheffield); December 1928 Luton Town; November 1929 Walsall; 30.3.30 Bristol Rovers [4,1]; May 1930 Chesterfield; November 1930 Grantham; August 1931 Wombwell; Sheffield Victoria. Although Chesterfield were Third Division (North) champions in 1930-31, Walter Winnell made no League appearances other than those he accumulated at Eastville. A reserve team début in the astonishing 8-6 win against a Newport League XI in March 1930, unusually at inside-right, preceded four League fixtures for Rovers and a consolation goal in a 2-1 defeat at QPR. The eighth and youngest son of Henry Winnell (1860-1925) and Lilly Darwin (1865-1948), who had married in 1885, Walter Winnell was brought up at 28 Rough Bank, Sheffield; George, Ernest, Robert, William, Alban, Sam and Horace did not make it into League football, but their brother Walter did. He married Edith Nell (1911-95) in Sheffield in 1931 and they had a daughter, Kathleen, who married Albert Coe. After his football career was over, Walter Winnell worked at Sheffield Waterworks until 1948 before running, for three years, the Old Bradley Well public house in Main Road, Darnall, an ale house which had been opened to the public as early as 1825. |
No 25. Thomas Winsper. 1921-22.
Born, 28.3.1895, West Bromwich. Died, 5.2.1968, Sutton Coldfield. 5’ 9”; 11 st 7 lbs. Début: 29.8.21 v Southend United. Career: October 1919 Preston North End (amateur); Halesowen Town; 24.4.20 Hednesford Town; 12.5.21 Bristol Rovers [23,0]; 8.8.22 Willenhall; June 1924 Shrewsbury Town (to 1930). Keen and dependable as an attacking wing-half, Manchester United were reportedly on the trail of this West Midlands League wing-half, but Rovers signed him first. Speedy and strong, Tom Winsper had played 34 times for Hednesford in league fixtures, scoring twice, as well as playing in their celebrated 4-3 win against Manchester United in September 1920 and appeared in 21 consecutive League games for Rovers before losing his place to Harry Boxley. “Winsper improves with every match”, reported the Cannock Advertiser. “He has a nice turn of speed which enables him to recover in a remarkable manner and his placing of the ball is accurate”. Joining the 1922 Birmingham and District League champions from Rovers, he later spent seven years at non-league Shrewsbury, in which time he accumulated 131 Birmingham League matches and six goals. “A rare worker ... who fed the forwards with marked judgement”, Winsper was a team-mate of the former Rovers man Bob Scorer and, as club captain, missed just six matches between 1924 and 1928, being an ever-present in 1926-27 and scoring four goals in the process. Having made his début for the Shrews in their 5-3 victory over Redditch Town in August 1924, he won both the Shropshire Senior Cup and Shropshire Charity Cup in 1924-25 and the Walsall Senior Cup in 1925-26. He enlisted in the RAF in 1918, no.198526, at which time he was working as a gas fitter; in 1938 he was working as a postman in Birmingham. Baptised at St James’, Handsworth on 14th April 1895, Tom Winsper was the fifth of six children born to a gas-worker John Winsper (1854-1918) and his wife Jane Foster, who lived at 101 Booth Street, Handsworth. He is believed to have been the Tom Winsper who married Doris Johnson (who died in 2002) in 1934 and had a son, Thomas, and a daughter, Ann. |
No 272. Herbert Richard Winter-Alsop. 1946-52.
Born, 14.4.1920, Coalpit Heath. Died, 3.7.2007, Winterbourne Down. 6’ 1”; 13 st 9 lbs. Début: 12.10.46 v Queen’s Park Rangers. Career: Mangotsfield School; Staple Hill Central School; Bristol Boys; Coalpit Heath Corinthians; Westerleigh Sports; 18.7.46 Bristol Rovers (professional, September 1946) [13,0] (granted free transfer, 2.5.52). Wartime service in West Africa, during which time he captained a Royal Air Force XI, prefaced muscular centre-half Bert Winter’s career with Rovers. An employee at Carsons’ Chocolate Factory, whose representative side he appeared for on the cricket field between the wars, he leaped at the chance of professional football, standing in for Ray Warren on occasions. The 1948-49 season saw him score five goals for the reserves, whilst he is recorded as playing for the reserve side as late as a 5-2 victory over St George in August 1952. Thereafter, Bert Winter worked in the pub trade, running the “Golden Lion” in Fishponds through the late 1950s and later became the relief manager for a series of shops as well as being a steward at the Conservative Club on Hatters Lane, Chipping Sodbury. Tall and strong, he was one of six children to shopkeeper William George Winter Alsop (1876-1928), listed as Winter on the 1911 census, and Rosa Ellen Pitt, one of eight children to Emma Seviour (1841-83). Born Herbert Richard Allsop (sic), he added Winter to his name and married in 1943 Pearl May Luton (1918-2001), the second child and only daughter amongst seven children to Shadrach Luton (1894-1972), and Daisy Primrose Lloyd (1895-1966); Bert and Pearl lived in Masons View, Winterbourne. Upon his death, at the age of eighty-seven, he was buried at All Saints, Winterbourne Down. |
No 202. Charles John Wipfler. 1934-35.
Born, 15.7.1915, Trowbridge. Died, 1.6.1983, Petts Wood. 5’ 8”; 11 st. Début: 22.9.34 v Charlton Athletic. Career: McCall’s; 21.8.34 Bristol Rovers (professional, 24.9.34) [18,5]; 10.8.35 Heart of Midlothian (£800) [9,5]; June 1937 Watford (£420); 12.8.39 Frickey Colliery; Canterbury City; Gravesend and Northfleet; June 1946 Watford [35,8]; June 1947 Gravesend and Northfleet (free); July 1950 Croydon Rovers (to May 1951). When Rovers defeated Watford 3-2 in April 1935 to secure the Third Division (South) Cup, Charlie Wipfler, a recent signing from Trowbridge Junior League football, scored one of the goals that beat his future club. A clever and fast player who developed into “a strong winger who knows when to cut in”, Wipfler made his Rovers Colts début against Bristol City Colts in September 1934 and, before the month was out, impressed by creating two goals in a friendly with Reading and made the League side. A broken leg sustained against Millwall restricted his appearances at Eastville and he moved north of the border. A flying header from Davie McCulloch’s cross brought a début goal as Hearts beat Partick Thistle 2-0 in August 1935 and he accumulated fourteen goals for the reserves in his first five weeks at Tynecastle. More importantly for Hearts fans, “Wildfire” Wipfler scored twice as Hearts, four goals ahead at the interval, defeated old rivals Hibernian 8-3 in September 1935 and he followed this up with a goal in the 6-2 derby victory over Hibs in the East of Scotland Cup Final of April 1937. His Watford début came, as fate would decree it, against Rovers, a League fixture the Hornets won 4-0 and, with the arrival of war, his seventh and eighth Watford goals were separated by a gap of over eight years. He later represented Croydon Rovers in the Metropolitan and District League for one season. Charlie Wipfler was the eldest of eight children to Karl Wipfler, who died in 1968, and Ellen Roche (1887-1981), who married in Greenwich in 1914, and the first of five sons. A wartime guest for Barnsley as well as Watford, Wipfler had married a Wiltshire girl, Gladys Griffin (1917-2003), the younger daughter of Charles Griffin and Victoria Fryer (1890-1926), in the summer of 1939 and their eldest daughter Elizabeth was born in Yorkshire during the war, Christine and Pauline following in peace-time. |
No 247. Edward Peter Withers. 1937-38.
Born, 8.9.1915, Ower, Hampshire. Died, 7.1.1994, Bear Cross, near Bournemouth. 5’ 10”; 10 st 10 lbs. Début: 4.12.37 v Notts County. Career: Stanleys Owen Rover Scouts; Clarke’s College; August 1934 Southampton (professional, October 1934) [6,0]; 3.12.37 Bristol Rovers [17,4]; 1938 Bramtoco Sports. “Tosh” Withers endeared himself to the Eastville faithful within weeks of signing, when he scored the winning goal against Bristol City in a Third Division (South) clash over Christmas 1937. A product of New Forest League football, he left Second Division Southampton in a deal which saw Tom Harris move in the other direction, as Rovers attempted to shore up their side in the aftermath of the demoralising 8-1 home defeat at the hands of QPR in the FA Cup. A keen cricketer and tennis player, he left Rovers after six months for local football in Southampton and later worked in London as a masseur before finding a job with Dehavilland and Chloride. Peter Withers married Lilian Smith in 1953 and they had a son, Alec, and a daughter, Ruth. He lived for many years at 51 Venning Avenue, Bear Cross and died suddenly at home, being buried at Kinson Cemetery five days later. |
No 486. Graham Alfred Withey. 1982-83.
Born, 11.6.1960, Bristol. 6’ 3”; 13 st 7 lbs. Début: 28.8.82 v Brentford. Career: 1976 Pucklechurch Sports; 1977 Welton Rovers; 8.8.80 Bath City (£5,000); 2.8.82 Bristol Rovers (£5,000) [19+3,10]; 5.8.83 Coventry City (£5,000) [11+11,4]; October 1984 Seiko, Japan (loan); 21.12.84 Cardiff City (loan); 28.1.85 Cardiff City (£20,000) [27,7]; 1985 Bath City (loan); 20.9.86 Bristol City [1+1,0]; 12.12.86 Bath City; 24.2.88 Cheltenham Town; July 1988 Exeter City (free) [5+2,2]; 1989 Brisbane City; December 1989 Gloucester City; 11.3.91 Bath City (loan); 1991 Bath City (free); 16.7.93 Yate Town (trial); August 1993 Weston-super-Mare; 21.3.95 Mangotsfield United; 5.8.95 Clevedon Town (trial); 9.9.95 Glenside Hospital; 30.11.95 Bath City; 1.12.96 Yate Town; 19.12.96 Trowbridge Town; September 1997 Clandown; August 1998 Weston-super-Mare (assistant manager). Enthusiastic, sharp-shooting and tall, Graham Withey spent one season with Rovers, before furthering his career in Japan and Australia and scoring over a hundred goals in five spells with Bath City. In only his second substitute appearance for Rovers, he scored with his first touch from David Williams’ pass and added a second goal as Rovers defeated Wigan Athletic 4-0 at Eastville; it was the first occasion that a Rovers substitute had scored twice in a League fixture. Hapless Wigan conceded two more to Withey, who was recovering from an ankle injury, as Rovers won the return fixture 5-0 at Springfield Park in February 1983. His forward play excited the Eastville crowd. Joining Coventry City in a joint deal involving Nick Platnauer, he scored the winning goal in Steve Bailey’s testimonial game against Rovers in November 1983 after scoring against Spurs on his Sky Blues’ début. A team-mate at Seiko of the Dutch international René van de Kerkhof, he was twice relegated with Cardiff, playing against Rovers in November 1985, a game Cardiff lost 2-1, and was out of the game for some time after picking up an injury with Exeter at Darlington. It was at Twerton Park that Withey made his name, scoring 109 goals in 263(+18) matches for Bath. He scored in the sensational 3-2 FA Cup win at his former club Cardiff City in November 1992, having built up a strong partnership the previous campaign with Paul Randall, scored four times in a 7-0 win against Glastonbury in August 1980 and hat-tricks against AP Leamington in September 1981 and Kettering Town in December 1995. A second cousin of Mike Barrett and the younger child of Robert Withey and Joan Packer, he later added four games with Mangotsfield before being injured in a charity game in Dublin and missing most of the 1997-98 campaign. He later scored six times on the books of Trowbridge. Assistant to John Relish at Weston, he scored the only goal of the game on the opening day of the 1999-2000 campaign, as Weston defeated Shepshed Dynamo. Having worked in Bristol for a firm making exhibition stands, Graham Withey is now a postman and used to work at the Memorial Stadium on match-days for the Press Association, working on players’ statistics. |
No 127. Thomas Henry Wolfe. 1929-30.
Born, 7.3.1900, Barry Dock. Died, 23.3.1954, Edgware. 5’ 10”; 11 st 7 lbs. Début: 31.8.29 v Brighton. Career: Atlantic Mills; 20.10.21 Swansea Town (trial); 27.10.21 Swansea Town; 11.5.22 Sheffield Wednesday; May 1923 Coventry City [10,1]; June 1924 Southend United [11,0]; March 1925 Fulham [27,2]; June 1927 Charlton Athletic (joint deal with Tommy Brown) [10,0]; 7.8.29 Bristol Rovers [2,0]; 4.3.30 Westerham; April 1930 Tunbridge Wells Rangers. “Jones” may not be the most effective pseudonym, but it was the one Tom Wolfe used on trial for Swansea reserves in the 3-1 win against Abertillery in the Southern League in October 1921. He scored for their reserve side against the Barry and District League XI a week later in a 6-2 win, but could not make the League side with Swans or at Wednesday. That said, his form earned Welsh schoolboy caps and a game in January 1922 for Wales amateurs against an England amateur side that included Claude Ashton, whose brother Hubert played for Rovers; conceding six second-half goals, Wales lost 7-0 at Wrexham. Wolfe’s first League appearance came in the colours of Coventry and he marked it with a goal against Barnsley; he later made his Southend début against his future side Charlton, playing the first eight games of the season at inside-left and making three December 1924 appearances at outside-left; he was in Rovers’ side for the first two games of the 1929-30 campaign. Tom Wolfe married Eleanor Nainby (1900-61) in Woolwich in 1929 and their son Barry married twice, to Mary Gann and to Edith Simpson. |
No 651. Robert Ainsley Wolleaston. 1999-2000.
Born, 21.12.1979, Perivale. 5’ 11”; 11 st 7 lbs. Début: 25.3.00 v Millwall. Career: Chelsea (professional, 3.6.98) [0+1,0]; 23.3.00 Bristol Rovers (loan) [0+4,0]; 15.8.00 Nottingham Forest (loan) [2+5,0]; 7.3.01 Portsmouth (loan) [5+1,0]; 3.7.01 Northampton Town (loan) [2+5,0]; 14.5.03 Bradford City (free) [6+8,1]; 3.3.04 AFC Wimbledon (trial); 14.6.04 Oxford United (free) [14+6,0]; 10.2.06 Cambridge United (free); 2.6.08 Rushden and Diamonds (free); 7.8.10 Farnborough (free); 17.9.10 Weymouth (free); 1.7.11 Woking (free); 8.9.11 Harrow Borough (to May 2014). A deadline day loan signing as Rovers’ promotion hopes were disintegrating in the face of one win in ten matches, midfielder Rob Wolleaston had made his Chelsea Premier League début in a 4-1 defeat at Sunderland in December 1999, replacing Dennis Wise as a substitute, after a League Cup appearance against Huddersfield Town. Suffering relegation to Division Two with Bradford City in 2003-04, he played against Rovers for Oxford in October 2004 but made no appearances as they lost their Football League status in the spring of 2006. Sent off in Cambridge’s 1-0 defeat at Crawley Town in March 2006, he scored eleven times in 92(+2) Conference games and helped that side reach the play-offs in 2007-08. Six goals in 40 Conference games at Weymouth came as some recompense for having scored the sixth goal as Rushden defeated the Dorset side 9-0 in February 2009. After 44(+14) games and nine goals at Rushden, he helped Woking to the Conference South championship in 2011-12 and played in 106(+10) games in three seasons at Harrow, latterly as captain, scoring against Carshalton Athletic in February 2012, in the home fixtures in 2012-13 against Thurrock, Hendon and Enfield Town and off the post against Lewes in April 2014. After two young sons, his daughter Freya was born in December 2010. |
No 364. Alan Herbert Wood. 1962-63.
Born, 13.1.1941, Newport. 6’ 1”; 12 st. Début: 25.8.62 v Crystal Palace. Career: Central YMCA; Lovell’s Athletic; August 1962 Bristol Rovers (professional, 10.9.62) [1,0]; January 1963 Merthyr Tydfil; 10.5.65 Newport County [149+7,5]; 1972 Hereford United; Newport County (youth coach); 1980 Bromsgrove Rovers (manager); 1982 Cheltenham Town (manager); Exeter City (chief scout); Birmingham City (chief scout); January 1994 Everton (match assessor); June 1996 Norwich City (chief scout, 17.5.01-23.5.08). Perhaps the son of Horace Wood and Olive Jones, although this has proved difficult to verify, Alan Wood was the last amateur until David Williams in 1977 to play League football for Rovers. A Welsh Amateur XI international who always played in contact lenses, he appeared in the 2-0 victory over Crystal Palace at Eastville. Thereafter, a long career at Somerton Park included one entire game in goal, a 2-0 home defeat against Aldershot, after both Len Weare (1934-2012) and David Timson had been injured. A keen cricketer, he then became an umpire and fixture secretary for Newport Athletic Club. |
No 818. Daniel Mark Woodards. 2011-14.
Born, 8.10.1983, Forest Gate. 5’ 9”; 11 st 1 lb. Début: 3.9.11 v Crawley Town. Career: Chelsea; 31.8.05 Wycombe Wanderers (trial); 29.10.05 Exeter City (free) [48+1,0]; 30.1.07 Yeovil Town (trial); 31.1.07 Crewe Alexandra (£30,000) [80+4,0]; 11.6.09 MK Dons (free) [59+7,1]; 26.8.11 Bristol Rovers (free) [65+5,4]; 27.7.14 Tranmere Rovers (trial); 28.7.14 Tranmere Rovers (free) [4+1,0]; 24.3.15 AFC Hornchurch (free); 1.7.15 Boreham Wood (free; released, 5.6.21). Popular, committed and determined, Dan Woodards epitomised what was required of a Rovers player as the club sought to escape from the basement division. The son of Frances Woodards of Plaistow, he could not make the grade at Stamford Bridge, but 49 Conference matches with Exeter earned him a call-up for one England “C” cap. Following his Crewe début, in a 1-0 win at Bradford City in February 2007, he played three times against Rovers for each of Alexandra and MK Dons, for whom he scored against Aaron Lescott’s Walsall side in August 2010. He counts as a career highlight a cup-tie at Anfield against Liverpool whilst in Crewe’s colours. A clean player who was never sent off in his career, Woodards was a fans’ favourite with Rovers and, having scored an excellent left-footed goal from long range thirteen minutes into the 6-1 FA Cup victory at AFC Totton in December 2011 and a late equaliser at home to Swindon six days later, he was the runaway choice as the club’s Player of the Year for that season. Having won the award, he then suffered a broken leg just seven minutes from the end of the final game, following a challenge by Dagenham’s Jake Reed, an injury which kept him out of football until November 2012. Even worse was to follow, though, when his younger brother Liam (1988-2012) was stabbed to death at Westfield Stratford Shopping Mall in London in June 2012, the day after his twenty-fourth birthday. Dan Woodards returned to the side to play a pivotal rôle in the club’s successful end to the 2012-13 campaign, before succumbing to a long-term cruciate ligament injury in the 4-1 defeat at Bradford just after Easter. Woodards returned to the side only briefly, though, as Rovers’ catastrophic 2013-14 season saw the Pirates surrender their ninety-four-year Football League status. Four League games at Tranmere, where he appeared alongside Matt Gill, Eliot Richards and Clayton McDonald in a side heading for Conference football, preceded a lengthy absence with a foot injury, which caused him to miss the Prenton Park side’s FA Cup-tie with Rovers in November 2014. He subsequently appeared in six games as Hornchurch were relegated from the Ryman League Premier Division and scored three times in 126(+23) Conference matches with Boreham Wood, claiming goals at both Macclesfield and Eastleigh in the autumn of 2016. He conceded an own goal at Fylde on the opening day of the 2017-18 season and was in the side which defeated Blackpool 2-1 in the FA Cup that November. |
No 49. William Henry Woodhall. 1923-24.
Born, 23.11.1900, Lower Gornal. Died, 31.12.1963, Lower Gornal. 5’ 11”; 12 st. Début: 25.8.23 v Gillingham. Career: Lower Gornal Athletic; 1921 Bilston United; 17.5.23 Bristol Rovers [38,13]; 1925 Dudley Bean Athletic; 11.10.27 Tarmac (Ettingshall). Well-built but suffering injuries at Eastville, Billy Woodhall had turned down an offer to join Kidderminster Harriers in 1921 prior to scoring 63 goals in two years at Bilston. Twenty goals for Lower Gornal in the Quarry Bank League had prompted his arrival at Bilston and, after they finished as runners-up in the West Midlands League in 1922-23, Rovers signed their two goal-scorers in Jack Phillips and Billy Woodhall. The third child of a coal miner, William Joseph Woodhall (1876-1961), and his wife Ann Marsh (1875-1956, the daughter of Joseph and Esther Marsh) of 33 Graveyard Road, Sedgley, West Gornal, Billy Woodhall missed three months at Rovers after breaking his right collar-bone against Plymouth Argyle in January 1924. Once recovered, he suffered the misfortune of breaking his left collar-bone in a reserve game against Swansea Town reserves the following September and soon found himself in Midlands non-league circles once more. He married a Bristol girl, Ivy Pursey (1902-88), in 1927 and they had a daughter, Muriel. A postman in Birmingham in the late 1930s, Billy Woodhall died at home at 10 Robert Street, Lower Gornal a matter of days after his sixty-third birthday, leaving £2,357 to his widow. |
No 216. John Albert Edward Woodman. 1935-37.
Born, 9.7.1914, Bristol. Died, 16.1.1984, Bristol. 5’ 10”; 11 st 12 lbs. Début: 2.9.35 v Cardiff City. Career: Windmill Hill School; Melrose; 23.5.35 Bristol Rovers [39,21]; 13.7.37 Preston North End (£500); May 1938 Swindon Town (£250); 23.6.39 Wrexham. Inflated transfer fess notwithstanding, Jack Woodman only played League football for Rovers. A son of Joseph Henry Woodman (1894-1966) and Ann Hodges and a product of Suburban League football, he staked his claim for a regular place in the side by scoring in seven consecutive League matches in January and February 1936. Top scorer with fifteen goals in 1935-36, he was left more in the cold the following campaign, although he scored four goals twice for the reserves, against Oakengates Town in a 14-1 win and in the 12-2 victory over the Monmouthshire Senior League XI. He later added three games and a goal for Wrexham in the aborted 1939-40 season. Although Rovers’ directors found Woodman employment which would prevent him from being conscripted, he volunteered to serve abroad and, having served in Sicily, Africa and Berlin as well as in the D-Day Landings, he never played representative football again. Married during 1937 in Bristol to Doris Bishop (1918-2003), the second of five children to William Bishop and Blanche Harris, and with sons, Peter and Paul, as well as a daughter, Patricia, Jack Woodman returned to live in Bristol after World War Two. |
No 283. Kenneth William Wookey. 1946-48.
Born, 23.2.1922, Newport. Died, 11.1.2003, Newport. 5’ 7”; 11 st 7 lbs. Début: 28.12.46 v Reading. Career: 1938 Newport County (professional, February 1939) [14,2]; 27.12.46 Bristol Rovers (exchange for Wilf Smith) [54,9]; 3.11.48 Swansea Town (£1,000) [13,0]; 1950 Hereford United; October 1950 Ipswich Town [15,1] (retired, May 1951). Having represented Welsh Schoolboys in 1936, outside-right Ken Wookey worked at the Per Way Department at Newport Docks before carving out a career in professional football. Brought up in Slade Street, Newport, the eldest child of William Wookey and Alice Robinson, he served in the Royal Air Force during World War Two and married Stella Day in 1942. He had earlier scored twice as Newport won 5-3 against Rovers at Eastville in an Easter 1940 wartime fixture. A tally of seven goals in 57 matches at Newport included only a few League games, but one of these remains the highest winning margin in Football League history. Having secured promotion in 1939, war deprived the Somerton Park club of the best years of many players and the side struggled in Division Two during 1946-47, the lowest point being a 13-0 thumping at Newcastle in October 1946. By half-time the score was 8-0, the only time in League history when a side has led at the interval by eight clear goals, and Charlie Wayman (1922-2006) had already scored three and Len Shackleton (1922-2000) four. One journalist recorded that Wookey got the critical touch to the final goal, three minutes from time, when he “ran it into his own net with Wayman hampering his bid to clear” but, although referee Harry Hartley of Bolton noted that Shackleton’s cross was going wide, the Magpies credited Shackleton with his sixth goal of a memorable début. This disastrous result, watched by a crowd of 52,137, must have taken some getting over. Arriving at Rovers Wookey, who “kept the ball too close”, according to the local press, scored against Swindon, Norwich and Notts County that campaign and the final goal of his six strikes in 1947-48 was in a 2-2 draw with Newport back at Somerton Park in November 1947. Dropped by Rovers in the aftermath of a 6-1 home defeat against his future club, Ipswich, Ken Wookey soon left Eastville. Wookey went on to score as Ipswich defeated Colchester 3-2 in December 1950 and he played against Rovers the following week. He and Stella had two sons and a daughter, the elder son Ken playing for Newport, Port Vale and Workington before being manager of Shaftesbury at the time of his early death in December 1992; Ken junior married Elizabeth Cotterill in 1970 and their son Gary, who married Helen Minchington in 2008, has two sons and a daughter. |
No 53. Frank Wragge. 1923- 26.
Born, 9.2.1898, Wolverhampton. Died, 1973, Shrewsbury. 6’ 1½”; 12 st 8 lbs. Début: 10.11.23 v Exeter City. Career: Whitmore; December 1919 Wolverhampton Wanderers (professional, January 1920); 6.11.20 Oakengates Town; August 1921 Wolverhampton Wanderers; August 1922 Oakengates Town; 17.5.23 Bristol Rovers [61,1]; August 1926 Stafford Rangers; 7.7.27 Torquay United [27,0]; May 1928 Walsall [2,0]; November 1931 Oakengates Town; 1932 Madeley Miners’ Welfare; 10.10.33 O.D. Murphy’s Sports, Wellington. Tall, rugged centre-half Frank Wragge missed just three games in 1922-23 as Oakengates won the Birmingham Combination championship and the District Hospital Cup as well as reaching the final of the Shropshire Senior Cup. On the strength of this, he signed for Rovers only to break his arm in 1923-24, having earlier missed most of the 1920-21 season through injury. However, the strong defender made a spirited recovery and gave Rovers solid service. Strong in the air, he added a degree of stability to Rovers’ back line, “strove hard to get his forward going” and scored in the friendly against Belfast Distillery in February 1926. A regular as Stafford Rangers were Birmingham League champions in 1926-27, playing alongside Rovers’ Sam Duckers, he then arrived at Torquay in time to play in their first-ever League fixture, a local derby with Exeter City, coincidentally the opposition on his Rovers début. He was in the Gulls’ side when they first played Rovers in the League, the October 1927 fixture ending up 5-1 in Rovers’ favour and his career was ended by an injury sustained in only his second Walsall match, the August 1928 fixture against Rovers. The son of James Henry Wragg and Esther Marsh (1873-1903), he lost his mother, aged just thirty, when he was five, and married Ellen Mabel Foulkes (1902-38) in Wellington, Shropshire in the spring of 1923 and Daphne Talbot, daughter of Thomas Talbot and Ethel Latham, in 1948. |
No 581. Ian Matthew Wright. 1993-96.
Born, 10.3.1972, Lichfield, Staffordshire. 6’ 1”; 12 st 8 lbs. Début: 25.9.93 v Burnley. Career: 1987 Stoke City (professional, 1.7.90) [6,0]; 1992 Corby Town (loan); 23.9.93 Bristol Rovers (loan); 29.10.93 Bristol Rovers (£25,000) [50+4,2]; 26.6.96 Hull City [65+8,2]; July 1998 Hereford United (trial); August 1998 Hereford United (free); 7.5.03 Burton Albion (free); August 2005 Hednesford Town; July 2006 Chasetown (to 23.2.07). Armed with six GCSEs and a BTec Diploma in Business Studies, tall central defender Ian Wright played under the former Rovers player Alan Ball at Stoke. He had been spotted in Sunday football and signed up at the age of fifteen, captaining the reserves to the Central League Second Division title in 1991-92 and marking Steve White on his League début as Stoke and Swindon drew 1-1 in May 1990. A team-mate of Carl Saunders, he appeared briefly as a centre-forward in a League Cup-tie against Liverpool, but missed selection for the squad ahead of the 1992 Autoglass Trophy Final against Stockport County. Keen on snooker and golf, Wright marked his former Stoke colleagues, Adrian Heath and Kevin Russell, on his Rovers début. Wright scored in Rovers’ defeat at Hartlepool in April 1994 and, having scored for the reserves against Bristol City reserves the previous month, replaced the injured Andy Tillson and scored Rovers’ second goal in his comeback game, a 2-0 victory over Plymouth Argyle in April 1995. Having conceded an 82nd-minute own goal in his first game of the 1995-96 season, deflecting a cross for Walsall’s equaliser in Rovers’ first ever visit to the Bescot Stadium, Wright played in Hull’s 7-4 victory over Swansea in August 1997, incredibly the only goals Hull registered in their first seven games of the campaign, and scored the goal at Selhurst Park the following month, through which Hull knocked Crystal Palace out of the League Cup. Hereford’s captain, his 22 goals in 168(+2) Conference games included two in a fixture against Rushden and Diamonds in September 1999, before he hit a last-minute winning goal at Gravesend on his Burton Albion début in August 2003. The opening game of the 2004-05 season proved to be his final appearance for Burton, retiring with ankle problems after 16(+4) Conference games and two goals. Wright, though, made a comeback and added twelve games and a goal with Hednesford and nine appearances for Chasetown before a serious cheekbone and eye socket injury finally drew a curtain on his career. Now living in Cannock with his second wife Clare, and with a son and a daughter from his first marriage, Ian Wright worked as a scaffolder before joining the West Midlands Fire Service, based in Wolverhampton. |
No 780. Mark Anthony Wright. 2009-11.
Born, 24.2.1982, Wolverhampton. 5’ 11”; 11 st 5 lbs. Début: 5.9.09 v Millwall. Career: 1.8.00 Walsall [94+30,9]; 17.11.01 Nuneaton Borough (loan); 1.8.07 MK Dons (free) [58+8,18]; 23.7.09 Brighton (free) [2+2,0]; 1.9.09 Bristol Rovers (free) [19+5,0]; 16.7.10 Shrewsbury Town (loan); 5.1.11 Shrewsbury Town (free) [100+8,25]; 6.9.13 Tamworth (free) (to 6.1.14); 5.10.15 Stourbridge (to 2016). With Rovers relegated to League Two in 2010-11, midfielder Mark Wright was unable to stake a claim for a regular berth on the side and left the club in mid-season. A long and successful career at Walsall had seen Wright make his début as a late substitute in the League Cup against West Ham at Upton Park in September 2000 and, having played in 3(+2) games on loan at Nuneaton, and having had a “goal” disallowed after just five minutes of the match against Stevenage in January 2002, he was a regular member of the Saddlers’ side from 2004 onwards. Walsall were relegated to League Two in 2006 and he played against Rovers with that club in 2006-07 and with MK Dons in 2008-09, when they lost against Scunthorpe United in the play-offs. The 2007-08 season had seen Wright hit a rich vein of form, finishing as top scorer as the Dons were League Two champions and won the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Final, hitting a hat-trick in the 5-1 victory over Bury at Gigg Lane in February 2008, his goals coming after ten, 36 and 68 minutes. An uncharacteristically unproductive spell in Horfield preceded another goal glut; in November 2010, when he was named League Two Player of the Month, Wright scored six goals in four games, which included a hat-trick, with goals after fourteen, 64 and 77 minutes in a 4-0 victory over Hereford United. He scored the Soccer AM Mitre Goal of the Year in 2010 and the Shrews reached the play-offs, only to lose to Paul Buckle’s Torquay United. During 2011-12, Wright played alongside Joe Jacobson against Rovers and helped Shrewsbury to promotion to League One; he later scored once in 10(+4) matches with Tamworth, who were relegated from the Conference that season, the goal proving the winning strike at Forest Green Rovers in September 2013. After almost two years out of the game, he signed for Stourbridge, the club for which his father Evran Wright, the son of Cecil Wright and Hyacinth Murray, had scored 56 goals during the 1992-93 season. In 0(+6) Northern Premier League games with Stourbridge, he did not score, although he contributed two goals in an FA Trophy tie against Spennymoor Town in November 2015. |
No 593. Michael James Wyatt. 1995-96.
Born, 12.9.1974, Bristol. 5’ 11”; 11 st 3 lbs. Début: 2.9.95 v Wrexham. Career: 1992 Bristol City (professional, 7.7.93) [9+4,0]; 21.7.95 Bristol Rovers [3+1,0]; 30.7.96 Bath City; 31.5.98 Gloucester City; September 2000 Worcester City; July 2001 Clevedon Town; 1.8.03 Yate Town; 2006 Cleeve. Replacing Worrell Sterling after a run of 76 consecutive Football League games, local striker Mike Wyatt had made his League début as Rovers conceded two goals in the final three minutes to lose 2-1 at Wrexham. Despite suffering relegation from the Southern League in 1997-98, he totalled 104(+6) games and twelve goals in all competitions at Bath and 86(+8) Doctor Martens League matches and eleven goals with Gloucester City. Having made his Gloucester début in a 1-1 draw at Cambridge City, he created the first goal and scored the third in a 4-1 victory over Dorchester Town on his home début and added a brace in the 4-3 win over Bromsgrove Rovers that December. Manager’s Player of the Year for 1998-99, he was later in the Yate Town side which beat Rovers 2-0 in the May 2005 Gloucestershire FA Challenge Cup Final. The son of Paul Wyatt and Maureen Cottle and married to Claire with a daughter Tilly, Mike Wyatt lives in Yate and, a graphic designer by trade, runs sportywest.com, a news and information site. |
No 181. Henry Thomas Wyper. 1932-33.
Born, 8.10.1900, Coatbridge, Lanarkshire. Died, 30.1.1974, Eagle Point, Victoria, Australia. 5’ 7”; 10 st 3 lbs. Début: 21.1.33 v Watford. Career: Glengarnock Vale; 30.12.21 Southport (professional, 19.1.22); 7.9.22 Motherwell [2,0]; 22.11.22 Southport [9,0]; 1923 Burnley (trial); September 1923 Wallasey United; August 1924 Burscough Rangers; 27.8.25 Accrington Stanley; 4.2.27 Hull City (£500) [40,2]; August 1928 Arsenal (trial); 7.9.28 Charlton Athletic [82,12]; 13.6.31 Queen’s Park Rangers (£100) [11,0]; 26.2.32 Chester [11,3]; 21.1.33 Bristol Rovers [11,2]; 19.5.33 Accrington Stanley [90,21]; September 1934 Macclesfield Town; 1.3.35 Crewe Alexandra; August 1936 Rossendale United (to 1937). Slender Scottish winger Tom Wyper arrived at Eastville with League experience under his belt at six English clubs as well as with Motherwell. He also played when Rovers lost 3-1 to a French XI in Paris in January 1933. Earlier in his career, he had won a Third Division (South) championship medal with Charlton in 1928-29, scoring four times in 39 League fixtures that campaign and was a team-mate of Rovers’ Bill Stoddart at Stanley. He played in the League against Rovers for both Charlton and QPR and scored twice following left-wing crosses as Athletic defeated Wolves 4-0 on Boxing Day 1929, before succumbing to knee ligament damage. Returning to Accrington, he played in Stanley’s record League win, 8-0 against New Brighton in March 1934 and ran the Peel Park Hotel opposite the ground. In addition, he scored in both Cheshire League games he played for Macclesfield. Noted as a wireless enthusiast and married from 1941 to Hettie Evans with two daughters, Wyper later ran St Aubyn’s boarding house in Bournemouth for seven years from 1942 before, emigrating to Australia in January 1949, keeping a hotel at Alice Springs. |
No 533. Steven Yates. 1986-93.
Born, 29.1.1970, Bristol. 5’ 11”; 11 st. Début: 3.3.87 v Darlington. Career: Brislington School; Hanham Boys; 1.7.86 Bristol Rovers (professional, 1.7.88) [196+1,0]; 17.8.93 Queen’s Park Rangers (£750,000) [122+13,2]; 5.8.99 Tranmere Rovers (loan); 7.9.99 Tranmere Rovers (free) [109+4,7]; 1.7.02 Sheffield United (free) [11+1,0]; 1.8.03 Huddersfield Town (free) [52,1]; 13.1.06 Scarborough (free); 24.1.06 Halifax Town (free); 1.8.06 Morecambe (free); September 2006 Caernarfon Town (free) (to 2007); 14.7.13 Bristol Rovers (kit manager; 2.10.15 Coach and Recruitment Consultant, to 29.4.17). Shrove Tuesday 1987 was a freezing cold day and, that evening, Steve Yates became the fifth youngest player to appear for Rovers in the League, as well as the first born in the 1970s. This 1-1 draw proved the start of a fruitful career with “Rag-bag Rovers”, as Yates was a crucial member of the side which secured the Third Division championship in 1989-90 as well as that which suffered relegation from Division Two in the spring of 1993. Young Player of the Year in 1988-89 and 1989-90, the tall, reliable defender was sent off at Orient after winning the ball in a tackle on substitute Alan Hull in September 1989, played at Wembley in the Leyland Daf Cup Final of May 1990 and latterly was Rovers’ captain. His last-ditch tackle on Mark Gavin had prevented a last-minute winning goal against Rovers at Ashton Gate in September 1989 as the promotion campaign got underway. Indeed, the President’s Club had earlier paid to keep him at the financially-stricken club and this confidence in the young defender’s undoubted ability was rewarded by the success he helped to bring to Twerton Park, where his thorough contribution should not be under-estimated. Although he scored once in a pre-season friendly at Yate Town, Yates never claimed a League goal for Rovers. Goal-scoring, though, came later in his career, goals coming for QPR against Aston Villa in January 1995 and Oxford United in March 1997, whilst Yates’ false teeth fell out in scoring for Tranmere against Sheffield United in August 1999. Indeed, whilst at Prenton Park, Yates began to earn a reputation for contributing critical goals, none more so than the header in each half which helped Tranmere win 3-0 in an FA Cup-tie away to neighbours Everton in the spring of 2001. Having suffered relegation from the Premier League with QPR in 1995-96, although he added nine games and a goal as their reserves won the Avon Insurance League that campaign, Yates also re-appeared at Wembley as a substitute as Tranmere lost the 2000 League Cup Final 2-1 to Leicester City. Sent off for Huddersfield against Carlisle United in October 2003, the Terriers missing out on automatic promotion on the final day of the season before defeating Mansfield Town on penalties to move up to second-tier football, he played just nine minutes for Scarborough, as a substitute for Lee Fowler in an FA Trophy game at Southport before adding 38 Conference games and a goal with Halifax, eight Conference matches for Morecambe and playing twice with Caernarfon. He is believed to be the son of Fred Yates and Jennifer Hiney, his mother being the eldest of three children to John Hiney, son of James Bernard Hiney and Doris Shaw and grandson of James Bernard Hiney (1874-1948) and Amy Elizabeth Timmis (1880-1905), and of Marjorie Aucott, the second of four children to Thomas Arthur Aucott and Elizabeth Williscroft. Steve Yates married Louise and emigrated to Crete in 2007, where he lived with his girlfriend Toni in the village of Rethymnon before reuniting with John Ward’s Rovers in the summer of 2013 and to where they returned in 2017. It was in the rôle as kit manager that Yates returned with Rovers to Prenton Park for an FA Cup first round tie in November 2014 and that campaign he was part of the Rovers set-up which returned at the first attempt to the Football League, completing a double-promotion to League One in May 2016. |
No 214. Archibald Wishart Young. 1935-36.
Born, 10.12.1906, Twechar, Dunbartonshire. Died, 5.7.1980, Exmouth. 6’ ½”; 11 st 5 lbs. Début: 31.8.35 v Notts County. Career: Kilsyth Rangers; Dunipace Juniors; April 1931 Preston North End (trial); July 1931 Dunfermline Athletic [32,5]; 16.4.32 Leicester City [14,0]; 26.7.35 Bristol Rovers [24,0]; 18.6.36 Exeter City [19,0]; May 1937 Gillingham [20,0]; September 1938 Rochdale [1,0]; December 1938 Sligo Rovers. Tall wing-half Archie Young made his Football League bow as Leicester crashed 8-2 to champions-to-be Arsenal. He faced the Gunners again in a Rovers shirt in January 1936, Rovers taking a sensational first-half lead when “Happy” Houghton raced through the Gunners’ defence in this FA Cup-tie, only to fall to five second-half goals from the outstanding team in English football in the 1930s. It is also possible that he had experienced football in the States at some stage early in his career. Young’s Dunfermline career began with a 3-0 win against Armadale in August 1931 in which “Young at outside-left passed judiciously to the men on both sides of him” (The Scotsman). Equally impressive in the return fixture, a 4-1 win at Armadale that Christmas, during the 8-2 victory over King’s Park, “the leading-out work of Young was a feature. Although he was the only forward not to score, Young was probably the outstanding attacker in the game”. Never scoring in the Football League, his five goals north of the border included a low shot after just seven minutes of the 2-0 victory at Raith Rovers in August 1931, when he broke a tackle from Andrew Bell and surged into the penalty area, and a header three minutes from time which sealed the 3-1 win at Bo’ness in March 1932. A member of the Rovers side that capitulated 12-0 at Luton on Easter Monday 1936, he joined Exeter shortly after, just twenty-four hours before a total eclipse of the sun, and was one of the large bevy of players with Rovers connections who could not prevent Gillingham losing their League status in 1938 – Albert Taylor, George Tweed, Syd Hartley and Jimmy Watson were all team-mates of his. After appearing in Rochdale’s 2-1 home defeat against Oldham Athletic in September 1938, he made one appearance for Sligo Rovers. Archie Young married Beryl Jeffrey, the daughter of Arthur Jeffrey (1878-1943) and Miriam Weeden (1879-1955), in Exeter in 1937; she died in 2003. |
No 143. Herbert Young. 1930-32.
Born, 4.9.1899, Liverpool. Died, 1.5.1976, Liverpool. 5’ 8”; 11 st 7 lbs. Début: 30.8.30 v Northampton Town. Career: St Simon and St Jude; Orwell Wednesday; 10.2.21 Everton; May 1923 Aberdare Athletic [68,5]; March 1925 Brentford [33,2]; August 1926 Bangor City; 8.7.27 Newport County [64,6]; 28.6.29 Queen’s Park Rangers [14,1]; 28.7.30 Bristol Rovers (£10) [75,11]; 13.6.32 Swindon Town [14,2] (to June 1933). Given the stalwart nature of his commitment to Rovers’ cause over two seasons, it feels a little harsh that Bert Young should have been in the side that crashed 8-1 at Torquay in March 1932. An experienced outside-left, who played in League fixtures against Rovers for Aberdare, Brentford, Newport and Swindon, and indeed scored for Newport at Eastville in March 1929, his signing brought a wiser head to Rovers. A hat-trick for Newport against Woking in the FA Cup in November 1928 had shown what he could achieve and he scored seven times in his opening Eastville campaign. He also scored the opening goal when QPR defeated Exeter City 2-0 in September 1929. His Swindon début came in a 5-1 defeat at Bournemouth and both his goals for the Robins in a 4-3 defeat at Torquay in October 1932 before a crowd of 4,273, his penultimate game being the 7-1 drubbing at Reading. Bert Young married Mary Coles in his native Liverpool in 1931. |
No 613. Lee Kevin Zabek. 1997-2000.
Born, 13.10.1978, Bristol. 6’; 12 st. Début: 3.5.97 v Rotherham United. Career: Beacon Rise School; Hanham High School; Hanham Boys; Northavon Schools; Somerdale Wanderers; 1995 Bristol Rovers (professional, 28.7.97) [21+8,1]; 8.8.00 Exeter City; 13.6.02 Clevedon Town (free); 18.8.03 Keynsham Town; December 2006 Welton Rovers; 2007 Odd Down; 2008 South Bristol Central; 2009 Nicholas Wanderers; 31.3.10 Roman Glass St George. On the final day of the 1996-97 season, midfielder Lee Zabek made his League début for Rovers, replacing Justin Skinner after 57 minutes against already-relegated Rotherham. A tough tackler and a strong header of the ball, he had earned his call-up after 70 games and five goals in the South-East Counties League over two seasons, some of these matches alongside his brother James Zabek, who scored for Rovers against Gillingham in October 1999 in the FA Youth Cup. The boys’ father Kevin Zabek, who married Kim Stephens, is the son of Piotr Zabek, who left Poland to marry in 1950 Kathleen Hucker, the third of six children to Alfred Ernest Hucker (1890-1955) and Alice Sims (1897-1956). Briefly Rovers’ last-named player alphabetically, Lee Zabek headed home Barry Hayles’ cross in the final moments of the home game with Millwall in April 1998, only for the London side to equalise seconds later in a 1-1 draw, and he played in both play-off games the following month as Rovers lost out to Northampton. Having back-packed across Thailand, Australia and India, he lives in Brislington, with a daughter Ellie from a previous relationship, works for Kemble Building Contractors and enjoys Sunday football for The Three Lions. |
No 644. Robert Lester Zamora. 1999-2000.
Born, 16.1.1981, London. 6’ 1”; 11 st 8 lbs. Début: 6.11.99 v Wycombe Wanderers. Career: Essex Junior School; Little Ilford School; Barking Abbey Secondary School; Senrab; West Ham United (schoolboy); Chelsea (schoolboy); Arsenal (schoolboy); Charlton Athletic (schoolboy); Norwich City (trial); 1998 Bristol Rovers (professional, 1.7.99) [0+4,0]; 29.12.99 Bath City (loan); 13.2.00 Brighton (loan); 10.8.00 Brighton (£100,000); 18.7.03 Tottenham Hotspur (£1,500,000) [6+10,0]; 2.2.04 West Ham United (exchange for Jermain Defoe) [85+45,30]; 15.7.08 Fulham (£4,800,000) [82+9,20]; 31.1.12 Queen’s Park Rangers (£4,000,000) [56+27,12]; 3.8.15 Brighton (free) [133+18,83] (released, 20.5.16; retired, 9.12.16). England caps in the 2-1 victory over Hungary in August 2010 and the 1-0 win against Sweden in November 2011 proved that Bobby Zamora could perform at the highest level. The tall striker, barely given an opportunity in Rovers’ first-team, had proved his doubters wrong. Initially with an outrageously talented Senrab Under-12 side in East London, which also included John Terry, Jlloyd Samuel (1981-2018), Paul Konchesky and Ledley King in its ranks, Zamora had scored freely for Rovers reserves and appeared in both the League Cup and FA Cup prior to his brief League career. Eight goals in just six games on loan at Bath, where he also scored once and set up three in a 7-0 win against Crawley Town, preceded a flamboyant goal-scoring arrival at Brighton. An overnight sensation there – “when the ball hits the goal, it’s not Shearer or Cole, it’s Zamora” - his impressive goal haul included three in a 7-1 win at Chester in February 2000 to become Brighton’s youngest ever hat-trick scorer. Recalled to Rovers, he was sent off playing for the reserves against Bournemouth in March 2000 and promptly moved to the South Coast. With Brighton, he won back-to-back titles, Division Three in 2000-01 and Division Two twelve months later, scoring 28 League goals in both campaigns to become their sixth highest goal-scorer of all time, being voted into the PFA representative divisional side, and made the England squad for the Under-21 European championships in Switzerland in 2002. Top-flight football beckoned and Zamora has represented four London clubs in that division. He played as a substitute in the 2006 FA Cup Final, which West Ham drew 3-3 with Liverpool, missing a penalty in the shoot-out as the Hammers fell at the final hurdle. Sent off against Fulham in January 2007, he also scored the Wembley goal against Preston North End which sealed the Hammers’ promotion to top-flight football in 2005. He also played for Fulham in the first Europa League Final, which was lost 2-1 to Atlético Madrid in 2010. He played for West Ham against Rovers in the League Cup in August 2007, scored as a substitute and was then sent off in the game against Fulham the same year and found his career briefly halted by a broken leg suffered playing for Fulham against Wolves in September 2010 and by hip surgery which caused him to miss much of the 2012-13 season; he was sent off early in the home match with Wigan Athletic in April 2013 as Rangers suffered relegation from the top flight. However, a poor personal return in 2013-14 counted for nothing in Rangers’ fans’ eyes, as substitute Zamora crashed home a last-minute shot at Wembley in May 2014 to earn a 1-0 victory over Derby County in the play-off final and see the West London side return at the first opportunity to top-flight football. However, although he scored at Everton, Sunderland and West Brom, he could not prevent relegated Rangers from making an immediate return to the Championship. On his return to Brighton, he helped steer the Seagulls towards the top of the table, finishing the 2015-16 campaign in a play-off position, where they lost out over two legs to Sheffield Wednesday. The son of Michael Zamora and Linda Pople and a cousin of former Manchester United defender Wes Brown, he also went out at one stage with the Page Three model Nicola Tappenden. Linked with potential international football at Trinidad, the country of his father’s birth, Zamora belatedly added to his six Under-21 caps by winning full England honours. Sponsored by Aviva, Zamora, Rio Ferdinand OBE and Mark Noble unveiled plans in September 2016 to pay for the construction of some 1,300 new homes at a cost of £4,000,000 on a 22-hectare site near Luton. |
No 817. Christopher Matthew Zebroski. 2011-12.
Born, 29.10.1986, Swindon. 6’ 1”; 11 st 9 lbs. Début: 6.8.11 v AFC Wimbledon. Career: Swindon Town; 1.8.04 Cirencester Town; 23.8.05 Plymouth Argyle (free) [0+4,0]; 8.9.06 Millwall (free) [10+15,3]; 20.3.07 Oxford United (loan); 1.8.07 Torquay United (loan); 20.6.08 Wycombe Wanderers (£20,000) [43+5,9]; 20.11.09 Torquay United (loan); 7.1.10 Torquay United [74,20]; 4.7.11 Bristol Rovers (free) [28+11,3]; 2.8.12 Cheltenham Town (free) [20+1,5]; 25.2.13 Eastleigh (free); 5.6.13 Newport County (free) [60+11,19] (released, 17.4.15); 21.6.17 Eastleigh (free; released, 13.5.19); 11.7.19 Aldershot Town (trial); 9.8.19 Chippenham Town (free); 20.7.21 Malmesbury Victoria (free); 4.9.21 Swindon Supermarine (free); 27.12.21 Wantage Town (free); 12.7.22 Melksham Town (free). Disciplinary issues appeared to hang over the talented, speedy winger Chris Zebroski for much of his career. Sacked by Plymouth after smashing a glass in the face of club captain Paul Wotton at an Austrian training camp in July 2006, after which Wotton required 100 stitches, Zebroski was released by Cheltenham after not turning up for several fixtures. More than this, he picked up ten yellow cards in his brief stint with Millwall and was sent off for Wycombe against Darlington in October 2008 and at Bradford City in February 2009 as well as in Torquay’s FA Cup-tie defeat against non-league Crawley Town in January 2011. What is undeniable, though, is that this young man possessed footballing talent, the ability to beat his man and the skill to win over a crowd. The son of Charles Zebroski and Rose Swindona Ishani of Laburnum Road, Swindon, she being the daughter of a Nigerian couple named Ishani and Agbare, he showed great footballing potential as a teenager. Under the watchful eye of the former Wales midfielder Steve Lowndes at Cirencester, Zebroski made his League début in Argyle’s 1-0 defeat against Hull City in August 2005, having played in a League Cup-tie against Peterborough four days earlier. Conference football followed with Oxford, for whom he scored against Weymouth and Stafford Rangers in his 9(+1) outings, and Torquay where, in his first loan spell, his 45(+3) Conference matches brought nineteen goals, this tally including a brace in a 5-4 win at Histon in September 2007 in which the Rovers man Darren Mullings was sent off. He also played alongside Lee Mansell as the Gulls lost 1-0 to an Ebbsfleet featuring Lance Cronin and John Akinde at Wembley in the May 2008 FA Trophy Final. Wycombe were promoted to League One in 2008-09, Zebroski playing alongside Matt Harrold and appearing against Rovers in August 2009, although he had also appeared in the 7-0 home defeat to Shrewsbury Town in the Football League Trophy in October 2008. Under Paul Buckle’s management, Torquay avoided relegation from League Two in 2009-10 and reached the Wembley play-off final of May 2011, only to lose to Stevenage, before Zebroski followed his manager to the Memorial Stadium. In September 2011 his girlfriend Mary gave birth to their daughter Isla Rose, one of many children he fathered with various women (in April 2022 Isla became British Under-11 boxing champion) and Zebroski’s first Rovers goal proved the winner against Shrewsbury Town; he later scored an excellent goal against Torquay on his return to Plainmoor in March 2012. A brief stint at Cheltenham included scoring the only goal of the game six minutes prior to half-time, as Rovers were defeated 1-0 at The Mem in October 2012, and he scored the only goal against Eastbourne Borough in March 2013 on his Eastleigh début. At the Silverlake Stadium a second goal against Dorchester Town, in twelve games for the Hampshire side, helped ensure Eastleigh reached the Nationwide South play-offs in the spring of 2013 where, despite a Zebroski goal in each leg, they lost the semi-final to Dover Athletic. With Newport’s Football League status restored, Zebroski was in the side which defeated Rovers 1-0 at Rodney Parade in August 2013, but missed a string of games after dislocating a knee-cap in the FA Cup draw with Braintree Town that autumn. He hit the crossbar from the penalty-spot as County lost at home to Dagenham and Redbridge in March 2014, but ended the campaign as the Ambers’ top scorer. Living at Corn Gastons, Malmesbury, he was sent off, after coming on as a substitute, in Newport’s League Two game at Stevenage in March 2015 but, by then, was awaiting trial for a case of assault and attempted robbery in a drunken brawl the previous month in Victoria Road, Swindon; this, coupled with a second offence, led to Zebroski being imprisoned in April 2015 for four years four months. Released early, he later scored a hat-trick for Eastleigh against Hartlepool United in January 2018, scoring seventeen times in 59(+31) Conference matches for the Spitfires, but missing the decisive penalty as his side lost out to Salford City in the May 2019 play-off semi-final. Zebroski later scored three goals in 28 National League South matches with Chippenham Town and scored against Larkhall Athletic on his first appearance for Swindon Supermarine. He was in the Melksham Town side which played Rovers in a pre-season friendly in July 2022. |