Gerry Wolstenholme's Blog, page 4
February 4, 2022
Curmudgeonly bookseller? … or, All-round good egg?
Eric Barton 7 May 1909 to 21 May 1997
I discovered some back issues of Picture Postcard Monthly and decided to have a browse through them before discarding them. And in the July issue for 1997 I discovered a piece entitled The first postcard dealer – Eric Barton. I immediately realised that this was the Eric Barton that I had met and got to know, especially when in the first paragraph it mentioned his Baldur Bookshop on Hill Rise, Richmond. That is where I got to know him, quite late in my bookselling career I should add.
The last statement is something of a surprise for Richmond, and John Prescott’s establishment in particular, was one of my favourite book-hunting grounds and I had visited it regularly throughout my early years of bookselling. But I had heard of the reputation of the owner of the Baldur Bookshop so I studiously avoided going there while in Richmond as there were other profitable outlets to visit where the welcome was more wholesome, shall we say.
Then some years later, after I had returned to my hometown of Blackpool, and visited London for book buying trips I was in Richmond with my wife, daughter and Mum and Dad and while they went shopping I decided to go and pay a visit to the Baldur Bookshop. It was a wintery November day and as I opened the shop door the doorbell sparked Eric into action. I was greeted with a loud shout from the rear of the shop where Eric sat on his cushioned chair and tried his very best to discourage customers from entering. ‘What do you want?’ was the cry. ‘I just wanted to have a look round to see if there was something for me to buy,’ I replied. This brought from him ‘Well, what are you looking for?’
As a youngster I would probably have been intimidated by his approach and stopped in my tracks but then, well established, I simply proceeded into the well stacked shop. Indeed the shop had been described as ‘one of the most individual, maddening but rewarding secondhand bookshops in the London area’. His approach was summed up by Michael Goldsmith in that 1997 article with ‘[H]e presented a more austere figure – and several visitors confirmed to me that he was the sort of chap who would truculently throw you out of his shop rather than serve you if he didn’t care for “the cut of your jib”.’
Eric had opened the shop on Hill Rise in 1936 with a partner, who soon disappeared, and had developed it into what it was since that date. He spent some time in the forces and on his return he acquired huge quantities of postcards and he is credited with almost single-handedly reviving a postcard craze that had died out with World War I. By the 1950s he was acknowledged as having over a million postcards in stock but by the time I was there this had been well picked over but there were still dozens and dozens of boxes of postcards interwoven with the thousands of books.
He had acquired any number of celebrity customers during his time including Caryl Brahms, Ronnie Barker, John Arlott, TS Eliot, Compton Mackenzie and Bernard Levin, as his business expanded. By the time I arrived he was winding down a little and some six years after my visit he retired in 1993 when his extended 15-year lease ran out. Interestingly, one of his accomplishments had been that he persuaded the then London County Council to install a plaque on Oscar Wilde’s Tite Street home in Chelsea.
But back to my visit we discussed trends in bookselling and when I mentioned cricket as one of my main interests, he changed completely. The 1997 article explains this with Goldsmith saying ‘once you got him going on his three favourite topics, cricket, the weather and reminiscences of the postcard world – he was off like a train!’ And fortunately one of my subjects coincided with one of his so we were, almost instantly, friends!
I spent a pleasant hour or so with him and then, as I was about to leave, he announced, ‘I have a present for you.’ He went to the back of the shop and brought out a battered Panama hat. A long-time MCC member and attendee at Lord’s, he told me, ‘I wore this at the Eton versus Harrow game at Lord’s in 1936 and I want you to have it.’ I immediately fell in love with it, thanked him and departed into the November gloom proudly wearing it. When I met up with my folks outside the department store where we were to have coffee, my daughter almost collapsed on the floor when she saw me approaching in this Panama and it remained a family joke for many years. Almost as long as the hat lasted me, for I wore it religiously until it was beyond wear – even then my son-in-law extended its life by wearing it while working on his garden for some years!
So, as you can imagine, my feelings for Eric Barton were, in the words of the heading of this article, ‘all-round good egg’ for he was certainly a character and an entertaining one at that. Thank goodness I got over that initial ‘What do you want?’
I discovered some back issues of Picture Postcard Monthly and decided to have a browse through them before discarding them. And in the July issue for 1997 I discovered a piece entitled The first postcard dealer – Eric Barton. I immediately realised that this was the Eric Barton that I had met and got to know, especially when in the first paragraph it mentioned his Baldur Bookshop on Hill Rise, Richmond. That is where I got to know him, quite late in my bookselling career I should add.
The last statement is something of a surprise for Richmond, and John Prescott’s establishment in particular, was one of my favourite book-hunting grounds and I had visited it regularly throughout my early years of bookselling. But I had heard of the reputation of the owner of the Baldur Bookshop so I studiously avoided going there while in Richmond as there were other profitable outlets to visit where the welcome was more wholesome, shall we say.
Then some years later, after I had returned to my hometown of Blackpool, and visited London for book buying trips I was in Richmond with my wife, daughter and Mum and Dad and while they went shopping I decided to go and pay a visit to the Baldur Bookshop. It was a wintery November day and as I opened the shop door the doorbell sparked Eric into action. I was greeted with a loud shout from the rear of the shop where Eric sat on his cushioned chair and tried his very best to discourage customers from entering. ‘What do you want?’ was the cry. ‘I just wanted to have a look round to see if there was something for me to buy,’ I replied. This brought from him ‘Well, what are you looking for?’
As a youngster I would probably have been intimidated by his approach and stopped in my tracks but then, well established, I simply proceeded into the well stacked shop. Indeed the shop had been described as ‘one of the most individual, maddening but rewarding secondhand bookshops in the London area’. His approach was summed up by Michael Goldsmith in that 1997 article with ‘[H]e presented a more austere figure – and several visitors confirmed to me that he was the sort of chap who would truculently throw you out of his shop rather than serve you if he didn’t care for “the cut of your jib”.’
Eric had opened the shop on Hill Rise in 1936 with a partner, who soon disappeared, and had developed it into what it was since that date. He spent some time in the forces and on his return he acquired huge quantities of postcards and he is credited with almost single-handedly reviving a postcard craze that had died out with World War I. By the 1950s he was acknowledged as having over a million postcards in stock but by the time I was there this had been well picked over but there were still dozens and dozens of boxes of postcards interwoven with the thousands of books.
He had acquired any number of celebrity customers during his time including Caryl Brahms, Ronnie Barker, John Arlott, TS Eliot, Compton Mackenzie and Bernard Levin, as his business expanded. By the time I arrived he was winding down a little and some six years after my visit he retired in 1993 when his extended 15-year lease ran out. Interestingly, one of his accomplishments had been that he persuaded the then London County Council to install a plaque on Oscar Wilde’s Tite Street home in Chelsea.
But back to my visit we discussed trends in bookselling and when I mentioned cricket as one of my main interests, he changed completely. The 1997 article explains this with Goldsmith saying ‘once you got him going on his three favourite topics, cricket, the weather and reminiscences of the postcard world – he was off like a train!’ And fortunately one of my subjects coincided with one of his so we were, almost instantly, friends!
I spent a pleasant hour or so with him and then, as I was about to leave, he announced, ‘I have a present for you.’ He went to the back of the shop and brought out a battered Panama hat. A long-time MCC member and attendee at Lord’s, he told me, ‘I wore this at the Eton versus Harrow game at Lord’s in 1936 and I want you to have it.’ I immediately fell in love with it, thanked him and departed into the November gloom proudly wearing it. When I met up with my folks outside the department store where we were to have coffee, my daughter almost collapsed on the floor when she saw me approaching in this Panama and it remained a family joke for many years. Almost as long as the hat lasted me, for I wore it religiously until it was beyond wear – even then my son-in-law extended its life by wearing it while working on his garden for some years!
So, as you can imagine, my feelings for Eric Barton were, in the words of the heading of this article, ‘all-round good egg’ for he was certainly a character and an entertaining one at that. Thank goodness I got over that initial ‘What do you want?’
January 18, 2022
A Seasider and a Lilywhite!
William (Billy) Cranston (1942 – 2022)
Billy Cranston was born in Kilmarnock on 18 January 1942 and played his junior football as a wing half. He joined Blackpool from Saxone Youth Club, a Kilmarnock junior club, at the start of the 1960/61 season and he was signed as a part-time professional on 26 August 1960. Blackpool manager Ronnie Suart had originally watched him play in a Scottish Amateurs versus Scottish YMCA game in January 1960 and the player had at that time agreed to join Blackpool at the end of the season after he had completed his studies as an engineer. Towards the end of that 1959/60 season he had also played for Saxone Youth Club against a Blackpool junior team in an arranged game at Bloomfield Road on 16 April 1960. The game ended in a 1-1 draw and Blackpool were impressed enough with his performance to go ahead and sign him.
His reign as a part-time player at Bloomfield Road was short-lived as his early performances convinced Suart that he should become a full-time professional and he was duly signed as such at the end of September 1960. Still a few months before the abolition of the maximum wage in football (this happened in January 1961), his weekly wage was set at £10 in the summer, £11 in the winter plus an extra £9 if and when he played in the first team and an extra £1 10s 0d [£1.50] when he played in the reserve side.
He made his first Central League appearance for the reserve side at left half against Huddersfield Town reserves on 24 August when he had an impressive debut as Blackpool won 4-3. He went on to play 33 Central League games, scoring two goals, in the 1960/61 season.
For his second season, his basic terms for the 1961/62 season were increased to a basic £15 per week all year round plus an extra £5 if and when he played in the first team.
Always an extremely competitive player, he got his first booking when he was cautioned against Leeds United reserves on 26 December 1961; Blackpool won the game 3-1. Then with regular left half David Durie injured, he made his First Division League debut against Wolverhampton Wanderers on 20 January 1962. Blackpool won 7-2 [I was lucky enough to be there] and he came through his debut with flying colours in a side that was ‘playing straight-forward no-nonsense football with no outstanding example of genius’. However, David Durie was fit again for the following game and Billy returned to Central League football.
Durie was out again for the visit of Arsenal on 24 February 1962 and Cranston replaced him again but this time Blackpool lost 1-0 in a game I well remember as George Eastham, a Blackpool-born player, missed a penalty for Arsenal and 17-year-old George Armstrong made his Arsenal debut. But it was ‘a drab match’ and no Blackpool player had much chance to shine. He played his third and final League game of that season at Turf Moor on 30 April 1962 (Good Friday) when Durie was absent and Blackpool lost 2-0 to Burnley. He played three League games but was almost a regular in the Central League side for whom he played 37 games in the 1961/62 season.
He did not immediately agree terms at the start of the 1962/63 season but once he did so they were the same basic £15 per week all year round but the bonuses had been increased to £10 when he played in the first team and £3 when he played in the reserve side.
He was a Central League regular at the start of the 1962/63 season but he was re-called to the League side for the game against Sheffield Wednesday on 27 October 1962 when the game was drawn 0-0. He kept his place for the following game against West Bromwich Albion on 3 November 1963 when Blackpool lost 2-0. But when Blackpool moved John McPhee from the forward line to the half-back line the following week, he returned to Central League football. Once again he played three League games in the 1962/63 season but he did make 40 Central League appearances, scoring one goal.
His weekly wage for the 1963/64 season was increased to £20 plus an extra £10 when he played in the first team. This agreement was in place for two seasons. By this time manager Ronnie Suart was so impressed with him that he was tipping him as a future player for representative honours. The only reservation Suart had some niggling doubts about was his distribution, saying that he had ‘an annoying tendency towards short cross-field passes that achieved nothing’, but in October 1963 he did comment, ‘In my opinion Billy’s distribution has already improved and he is developing into a highly useful player. I could be out of order because I don’t know the entire position in Scotland, but I don’t know off-hand of any young Scottish left half who could fit their Under-23 bill better than Billy. He is tremendously keen and enthusiastic about the game.’ Unfortunately, Billy did not win any Scottish representative honours.
He started the 1963/64 season as first choice left half in the League side, playing in the two opening games, a 2-2 draw with Sheffield United and a disappointing 3-1 defeat by West Ham United before Durie, who had been playing as an inside left, returned to the half back line and Billy returned briefly to Central League football.
After Blackpool had lost five games in succession, he was recalled to the League side for visit of unbeaten Manchester United on 16 September when Blackpool surprised the football world by winning 1-0. Thereafter he retained his place for 24 successive League and Cup games as he became an integral part of the Blackpool League side, proving himself to be a hard-tackling and a constructive distributor of the ball half back.
Unfortunately he had to miss the match against Wolverhampton Wanderers at the start of February 1964 due to a recurrence of a knee injury sustained on Boxing Day against Chelsea. He was out of action for three weeks and he went into hospital for an exploratory operation towards the end of February and was expected to be sidelined for a further three to four weeks. To add insult to injury, his replacement Johnny Green, converted from an inside forward, was earning rave notices about his performances at half-back!
By mid-March 1964, after a cartilage operation, he was obliged to have a long aluminium plate inserted in his left leg and when he had it removed he commented, ‘Despite this, I can’t see my having more than a couple of games in the ‘A’ team this season.’ However, he did not play any further senior football that season, his appearances restricted to 22 League games, two FA Cup ties, two League Cup ties and two Central League games.
He missed the opening Central League game of the 1964/65 season but was in the side at an unaccustomed left back position for the second game of the season against Liverpool reserves on 29 August 1964 when Blackpool won 4-2. And he returned to League action at right half in 2-2 draw at Liverpool on 5 September 1964 and went on to play in the following three League games. He made what turned out to be his final League appearance for Blackpool in a 3-0 defeat by Birmingham City on 24 October 1964.
Back in the Central League side he was unhappy about his chances of regular first team football and he requested a transfer. Reluctantly the directors granted his request and, despite Huddersfield Town making a substantial offer for him, he was transferred to Preston North End on 4 December 1964 for a fee of £10,700 that was paid in two instalments, £5,700 on 7 December 1964 and £5,000 on 2 March 1965.
He had appeared in five League games and 13 Central League games up to the time of his transfer in the 1964/65 season and his Blackpool career had encompassed 33 League games, two FA Cup ties, two League Cup ties and 125 Central League games, in which he had scored three goals.
He had established himself as the regular centre half for Preston North End by October 1965 and he commented, ‘I was in and out of the team last season then at the start of this season I got a game at left half. I thought I played well enough to get an extended run but I was dropped. I was sick, man.’ About his first team success he gave credit to fellow half back Howard Kendall by saying ‘Howard makes it easy for someone like me who isn’t terribly fast; he covers a lot of ground.’
He continued to live in Blackpool whilst training and playing at Preston. He didn’t want to move and said ‘That’s part of the reason why I didn’t go to Huddersfield who were also interested in me.’ He went on to play 80 League games, make seven substitute appearances and score one goal for Preston North End, where, despite originally asking for a transfer in September 1967 when the directors refused his request, he was voted player of the season in his final year, 1969/70, at the club. One comment from that season that admirably sums up Billy’s wholehearted commitment was after a 0-0 draw with Queens Park Rangers when it was reported he ‘proved to be a rock-like if somewhat unceremonious pivot’ and as a result, ‘Frank Clarke moved out to the left to avoid Cranston’s clutches’.
Preston transferred him to Oldham Athletic in July 1970 for a fee of £6,000. He played 98 League games and made two substitute appearances, scoring two goals, four FA Cup games and five League Cup games for Oldham, winning a Division Three League championship medal with the club in 1973/74.
After retiring from football he became a maintenance officer at Burnley police station, a position from which he retired on 22 August 2008.
Although his stay at Bloomfield Road was relatively short, he will be remembered for being a big-hearted player who will take his deserved place in the annals of Blackpool Football Club.
He died on 10 January 2022 after a brave fight against illness and he is survived by his wife Katherine, daughter Julie and son Daniel. Condolences from all his clubs and their officials and supporters go to the family.
Billy Cranston was born in Kilmarnock on 18 January 1942 and played his junior football as a wing half. He joined Blackpool from Saxone Youth Club, a Kilmarnock junior club, at the start of the 1960/61 season and he was signed as a part-time professional on 26 August 1960. Blackpool manager Ronnie Suart had originally watched him play in a Scottish Amateurs versus Scottish YMCA game in January 1960 and the player had at that time agreed to join Blackpool at the end of the season after he had completed his studies as an engineer. Towards the end of that 1959/60 season he had also played for Saxone Youth Club against a Blackpool junior team in an arranged game at Bloomfield Road on 16 April 1960. The game ended in a 1-1 draw and Blackpool were impressed enough with his performance to go ahead and sign him.
His reign as a part-time player at Bloomfield Road was short-lived as his early performances convinced Suart that he should become a full-time professional and he was duly signed as such at the end of September 1960. Still a few months before the abolition of the maximum wage in football (this happened in January 1961), his weekly wage was set at £10 in the summer, £11 in the winter plus an extra £9 if and when he played in the first team and an extra £1 10s 0d [£1.50] when he played in the reserve side.
He made his first Central League appearance for the reserve side at left half against Huddersfield Town reserves on 24 August when he had an impressive debut as Blackpool won 4-3. He went on to play 33 Central League games, scoring two goals, in the 1960/61 season.
For his second season, his basic terms for the 1961/62 season were increased to a basic £15 per week all year round plus an extra £5 if and when he played in the first team.
Always an extremely competitive player, he got his first booking when he was cautioned against Leeds United reserves on 26 December 1961; Blackpool won the game 3-1. Then with regular left half David Durie injured, he made his First Division League debut against Wolverhampton Wanderers on 20 January 1962. Blackpool won 7-2 [I was lucky enough to be there] and he came through his debut with flying colours in a side that was ‘playing straight-forward no-nonsense football with no outstanding example of genius’. However, David Durie was fit again for the following game and Billy returned to Central League football.
Durie was out again for the visit of Arsenal on 24 February 1962 and Cranston replaced him again but this time Blackpool lost 1-0 in a game I well remember as George Eastham, a Blackpool-born player, missed a penalty for Arsenal and 17-year-old George Armstrong made his Arsenal debut. But it was ‘a drab match’ and no Blackpool player had much chance to shine. He played his third and final League game of that season at Turf Moor on 30 April 1962 (Good Friday) when Durie was absent and Blackpool lost 2-0 to Burnley. He played three League games but was almost a regular in the Central League side for whom he played 37 games in the 1961/62 season.
He did not immediately agree terms at the start of the 1962/63 season but once he did so they were the same basic £15 per week all year round but the bonuses had been increased to £10 when he played in the first team and £3 when he played in the reserve side.
He was a Central League regular at the start of the 1962/63 season but he was re-called to the League side for the game against Sheffield Wednesday on 27 October 1962 when the game was drawn 0-0. He kept his place for the following game against West Bromwich Albion on 3 November 1963 when Blackpool lost 2-0. But when Blackpool moved John McPhee from the forward line to the half-back line the following week, he returned to Central League football. Once again he played three League games in the 1962/63 season but he did make 40 Central League appearances, scoring one goal.
His weekly wage for the 1963/64 season was increased to £20 plus an extra £10 when he played in the first team. This agreement was in place for two seasons. By this time manager Ronnie Suart was so impressed with him that he was tipping him as a future player for representative honours. The only reservation Suart had some niggling doubts about was his distribution, saying that he had ‘an annoying tendency towards short cross-field passes that achieved nothing’, but in October 1963 he did comment, ‘In my opinion Billy’s distribution has already improved and he is developing into a highly useful player. I could be out of order because I don’t know the entire position in Scotland, but I don’t know off-hand of any young Scottish left half who could fit their Under-23 bill better than Billy. He is tremendously keen and enthusiastic about the game.’ Unfortunately, Billy did not win any Scottish representative honours.
He started the 1963/64 season as first choice left half in the League side, playing in the two opening games, a 2-2 draw with Sheffield United and a disappointing 3-1 defeat by West Ham United before Durie, who had been playing as an inside left, returned to the half back line and Billy returned briefly to Central League football.
After Blackpool had lost five games in succession, he was recalled to the League side for visit of unbeaten Manchester United on 16 September when Blackpool surprised the football world by winning 1-0. Thereafter he retained his place for 24 successive League and Cup games as he became an integral part of the Blackpool League side, proving himself to be a hard-tackling and a constructive distributor of the ball half back.
Unfortunately he had to miss the match against Wolverhampton Wanderers at the start of February 1964 due to a recurrence of a knee injury sustained on Boxing Day against Chelsea. He was out of action for three weeks and he went into hospital for an exploratory operation towards the end of February and was expected to be sidelined for a further three to four weeks. To add insult to injury, his replacement Johnny Green, converted from an inside forward, was earning rave notices about his performances at half-back!
By mid-March 1964, after a cartilage operation, he was obliged to have a long aluminium plate inserted in his left leg and when he had it removed he commented, ‘Despite this, I can’t see my having more than a couple of games in the ‘A’ team this season.’ However, he did not play any further senior football that season, his appearances restricted to 22 League games, two FA Cup ties, two League Cup ties and two Central League games.
He missed the opening Central League game of the 1964/65 season but was in the side at an unaccustomed left back position for the second game of the season against Liverpool reserves on 29 August 1964 when Blackpool won 4-2. And he returned to League action at right half in 2-2 draw at Liverpool on 5 September 1964 and went on to play in the following three League games. He made what turned out to be his final League appearance for Blackpool in a 3-0 defeat by Birmingham City on 24 October 1964.
Back in the Central League side he was unhappy about his chances of regular first team football and he requested a transfer. Reluctantly the directors granted his request and, despite Huddersfield Town making a substantial offer for him, he was transferred to Preston North End on 4 December 1964 for a fee of £10,700 that was paid in two instalments, £5,700 on 7 December 1964 and £5,000 on 2 March 1965.
He had appeared in five League games and 13 Central League games up to the time of his transfer in the 1964/65 season and his Blackpool career had encompassed 33 League games, two FA Cup ties, two League Cup ties and 125 Central League games, in which he had scored three goals.
He had established himself as the regular centre half for Preston North End by October 1965 and he commented, ‘I was in and out of the team last season then at the start of this season I got a game at left half. I thought I played well enough to get an extended run but I was dropped. I was sick, man.’ About his first team success he gave credit to fellow half back Howard Kendall by saying ‘Howard makes it easy for someone like me who isn’t terribly fast; he covers a lot of ground.’
He continued to live in Blackpool whilst training and playing at Preston. He didn’t want to move and said ‘That’s part of the reason why I didn’t go to Huddersfield who were also interested in me.’ He went on to play 80 League games, make seven substitute appearances and score one goal for Preston North End, where, despite originally asking for a transfer in September 1967 when the directors refused his request, he was voted player of the season in his final year, 1969/70, at the club. One comment from that season that admirably sums up Billy’s wholehearted commitment was after a 0-0 draw with Queens Park Rangers when it was reported he ‘proved to be a rock-like if somewhat unceremonious pivot’ and as a result, ‘Frank Clarke moved out to the left to avoid Cranston’s clutches’.
Preston transferred him to Oldham Athletic in July 1970 for a fee of £6,000. He played 98 League games and made two substitute appearances, scoring two goals, four FA Cup games and five League Cup games for Oldham, winning a Division Three League championship medal with the club in 1973/74.
After retiring from football he became a maintenance officer at Burnley police station, a position from which he retired on 22 August 2008.
Although his stay at Bloomfield Road was relatively short, he will be remembered for being a big-hearted player who will take his deserved place in the annals of Blackpool Football Club.
He died on 10 January 2022 after a brave fight against illness and he is survived by his wife Katherine, daughter Julie and son Daniel. Condolences from all his clubs and their officials and supporters go to the family.
December 28, 2021
A First Division Championship and FA Cup Winner
James (Jimmy) Robson (1939-2021)
Jimmy Robson was born in Pelton, County Durham, on 23 January 1939. He was an inside forward who had been spotted by a Burnley scout playing local football in his native north east and he signed for the club as a 15-year-old. In later life he reflected on the move to Burney remembering that on arriving in Lancashire to the sight of chimneys and mills, he feared he’d made a mistake, and longed for home. But he quickly adapted and after some reserve games, he made his Burnley debut in the First Division on 6 October 1956 as a 17-year-old inside right against Blackpool at Turf Moor in front of 27,678 fans and he scored a late equaliser for his side in a 2-2 draw.
He went on to become an integral part of the First Division Championship winning Burnley side of 1959/60 and played in the club’s following season’s European Cup campaign and scored in the first minute of their tie again Stade de Reims and he also scored in the second leg as Burnley went through 4-3 on aggregate. He also scored in the quarter final when Hamburger SV were defeated 3-1 at Turf Moor but Burnley were eliminated when they lost the return leg 4-1. {I was lucky enough to see the two Burnley home European games at Turf Moor as coaches were run from Blackpool in those days to other Lancashire team’s games and I particularly remember my first sighting of the German striker Uwe Seeler.] He also scored the equaliser in the 1962 FA Cup Final and it was the 100th goal scored in a Wembley Cup Final; Burnley eventually lost 3-1 to Tottenham Hotspur.
Blackpool had originally been reported as being interested in signing him and Burnley’s Ray Pointer as early as January 1964 but no deal took place and manager Ronnie Suart later said that the reports of Blackpool’s interest were purely ‘guess work’. However, Blackpool did get their man when they signed him from Burnley for a fee of £12,000 on 12 March 1965 [Ironically Pointer was also to sign for the Seasiders but that signing did not take place until 1973.] By the time of his move Robson had become a crowd favourite at Turf Moor as he had played 202 League games for the club, scoring 75 goals. He had also won an England Under-23 cap against West Germany on 10 May 1959 at the Ruhrstadion, Bochum, taking his place in a forward line that read, Peter Brabrook, Robson, Peter Dobing, Ray Parry and Albert Scanlon Scanlon. He scored one of England’s goals in a 2-2 draw.
After signing for Blackpool, Ronnie Suart rushed him to London for his debut against Tottenham Hotspur the day after his signing, 13 March 1965, and he made his first appearance for the Seasiders at inside left in place of Graham Rowe. Blackpool were struggling in the lower reaches of the First Division at the time and up to then Robson had spent most of the season in the Burnley reserve side after having scored only six goals in 26 League games the previous season. So it was asking a lot of him to immediately perform at a high level against a rampant Spurs’ side, particularly with Jimmy Greaves in goalscoring form. And so it proved as one report stated, ‘Robson will have to re-adjust himself to the pace of First Division football, for his slowness was exposed too often in this game, particularly when it came to working with the quick-thinking Ball.’ He did, however, ‘send outside right Moir through for Blackpool’s goal’.
He was up and running in his second game against West Bromwich Albion at Bloomfield Road on 20 March for he scored in the 23rd minute. Moir took a free kick ‘and dropped the ball into the goalmouth’ where ‘Potter failed to clear cleanly and the ball dropped at the feet of Robson who promptly slammed it into the net to score his first goal for Blackpool’. Blackpool won the game 3-0 and he went on to play nine League games and score two goals for Blackpool in the 1964/65 season.
He began the 1965/66 season in Blackpool’s Central League side but after the League side had drawn one and lost two games, he was recalled for the game against his former club Burnley on 30 August 1966. He scored Blackpool’s goal but even so the Seasiders lost 3-1. He also scored in a losing cause in the following game when Liverpool won 3-2. Then after four successive defeats, Blackpool defeated Leicester City 4-0 and once again he was on the scoresheet.
Then in December 1965 Blackpool signed Scotsman Bobby Waddell as an additional inside forward and Robson lost his regular starting spot and consequently he played spasmodically for the League side for the remainder of the season.
He scored twice in a 2-1 victory over Blackburn Rovers in a Lancashire Senior Cup tie on 4 April 1966. His first came after 14 minutes when “Parry hit a perfect centre into the middle where inside right Robson rose head and shoulders above Blackburn pivot Mulvaney and flashed the ball into the net” and his second came when “Parry, starved of the ball in the second half, then broke away, laid on a perfect pass for Robson and, despite a brave attempt by Jones, the Blackburn ‘keeper, Robson succeeded in pressing the ball just inside the post for the winner.” Blackpool subsequently lost 3-2 to Barrow in the semi-final of the tournament.
He scored four goals in the Central League side’s 6-1 victory over Everton reserves on 23 April 1966 when he was “fed by a stream of passes through the middle by wingers Horne and Moir and really rocked the Mersey boat as Everton finished a bemused and battered team”. And in addition “Hunter scored the fifth and sixth near the end from openings created by Robson.”
On 27 April 1966 he wrote his name into the annals Blackpool FC history when he became the club’s first substitute to score a goal in a 2-1 defeat by Manchester United. And he ended the 1965/66 season having played 18 League games, making two substitute appearances, scoring seven goals, 15 Central League games, scoring eight goals, two Lancashire Senior Cup ties, scoring two goals, and three friendly games, scoring two goals.
He made his first League appearance of the 1966/67 season at inside left in a 2-0 defeat by Aston Villa on 10 September 1966 and then on 8 October he reappeared at inside right in a 2-1 defeat by Manchester United. Thereafter he missed only one game until the end of the season, playing the last 10 games in the half-back line. His final appearance for Blackpool in the First Division was in a 3-1 victory at Anfield over Liverpool, only Blackpool’s sixth victory of the season as they were relegated to Division Two. He played 30 League games, made two substitute appearances, scoring three goals, one FA Cup tie, four League Cup ties, scoring two goals, and eight Central League games, scoring one goal, in the 1966/67 season.
He had a run of three League games in November 1966 when he scored in a 3-1 victory over Cardiff City and also in a 2-0 defeat of Charlton Athletic, and he had also played two League Cup ties and 15 Central League games, scoring three goals, up to the time of his transfer in the 1967/68 season. In total he had played 60 League games, made four substitute appearances, scoring 14 goals, one FA Cup tie, six League Cup ties, scoring two goals, and 38 Central League games, scoring 12 goals, for Blackpool.
He was transferred to Barnsley for a fee of £6,000 on 19 January 1968 when he was paid £863 as his accrued share of benefit. He went on to play 87 League games and score 15 goals for Barnsley, and he was part of the Division Four promotion-winning side in the 1967/68 season.
He was transferred to Bury in August 1970 and he played 100 League games, made three substitute appearances and scored three goals for the club.
He later coached at Burnley, Huddersfield Town and Rochdale.
He was always a well-respected visitor to Turf Moor and after retirement from the game he worked in public relations at Burnley Football Club.
He died on 14 December 2021 after a period of illness on 14 December 2021 with supporters and all his former clubs saddened at his passing, with a Blackpool FC official stating, ‘We are saddened to learn of the passing of former forward Jimmy Robson at the age of 82. Our sincere condolences go out to his family.’
Jimmy Robson was born in Pelton, County Durham, on 23 January 1939. He was an inside forward who had been spotted by a Burnley scout playing local football in his native north east and he signed for the club as a 15-year-old. In later life he reflected on the move to Burney remembering that on arriving in Lancashire to the sight of chimneys and mills, he feared he’d made a mistake, and longed for home. But he quickly adapted and after some reserve games, he made his Burnley debut in the First Division on 6 October 1956 as a 17-year-old inside right against Blackpool at Turf Moor in front of 27,678 fans and he scored a late equaliser for his side in a 2-2 draw.
He went on to become an integral part of the First Division Championship winning Burnley side of 1959/60 and played in the club’s following season’s European Cup campaign and scored in the first minute of their tie again Stade de Reims and he also scored in the second leg as Burnley went through 4-3 on aggregate. He also scored in the quarter final when Hamburger SV were defeated 3-1 at Turf Moor but Burnley were eliminated when they lost the return leg 4-1. {I was lucky enough to see the two Burnley home European games at Turf Moor as coaches were run from Blackpool in those days to other Lancashire team’s games and I particularly remember my first sighting of the German striker Uwe Seeler.] He also scored the equaliser in the 1962 FA Cup Final and it was the 100th goal scored in a Wembley Cup Final; Burnley eventually lost 3-1 to Tottenham Hotspur.
Blackpool had originally been reported as being interested in signing him and Burnley’s Ray Pointer as early as January 1964 but no deal took place and manager Ronnie Suart later said that the reports of Blackpool’s interest were purely ‘guess work’. However, Blackpool did get their man when they signed him from Burnley for a fee of £12,000 on 12 March 1965 [Ironically Pointer was also to sign for the Seasiders but that signing did not take place until 1973.] By the time of his move Robson had become a crowd favourite at Turf Moor as he had played 202 League games for the club, scoring 75 goals. He had also won an England Under-23 cap against West Germany on 10 May 1959 at the Ruhrstadion, Bochum, taking his place in a forward line that read, Peter Brabrook, Robson, Peter Dobing, Ray Parry and Albert Scanlon Scanlon. He scored one of England’s goals in a 2-2 draw.
After signing for Blackpool, Ronnie Suart rushed him to London for his debut against Tottenham Hotspur the day after his signing, 13 March 1965, and he made his first appearance for the Seasiders at inside left in place of Graham Rowe. Blackpool were struggling in the lower reaches of the First Division at the time and up to then Robson had spent most of the season in the Burnley reserve side after having scored only six goals in 26 League games the previous season. So it was asking a lot of him to immediately perform at a high level against a rampant Spurs’ side, particularly with Jimmy Greaves in goalscoring form. And so it proved as one report stated, ‘Robson will have to re-adjust himself to the pace of First Division football, for his slowness was exposed too often in this game, particularly when it came to working with the quick-thinking Ball.’ He did, however, ‘send outside right Moir through for Blackpool’s goal’.
He was up and running in his second game against West Bromwich Albion at Bloomfield Road on 20 March for he scored in the 23rd minute. Moir took a free kick ‘and dropped the ball into the goalmouth’ where ‘Potter failed to clear cleanly and the ball dropped at the feet of Robson who promptly slammed it into the net to score his first goal for Blackpool’. Blackpool won the game 3-0 and he went on to play nine League games and score two goals for Blackpool in the 1964/65 season.
He began the 1965/66 season in Blackpool’s Central League side but after the League side had drawn one and lost two games, he was recalled for the game against his former club Burnley on 30 August 1966. He scored Blackpool’s goal but even so the Seasiders lost 3-1. He also scored in a losing cause in the following game when Liverpool won 3-2. Then after four successive defeats, Blackpool defeated Leicester City 4-0 and once again he was on the scoresheet.
Then in December 1965 Blackpool signed Scotsman Bobby Waddell as an additional inside forward and Robson lost his regular starting spot and consequently he played spasmodically for the League side for the remainder of the season.
He scored twice in a 2-1 victory over Blackburn Rovers in a Lancashire Senior Cup tie on 4 April 1966. His first came after 14 minutes when “Parry hit a perfect centre into the middle where inside right Robson rose head and shoulders above Blackburn pivot Mulvaney and flashed the ball into the net” and his second came when “Parry, starved of the ball in the second half, then broke away, laid on a perfect pass for Robson and, despite a brave attempt by Jones, the Blackburn ‘keeper, Robson succeeded in pressing the ball just inside the post for the winner.” Blackpool subsequently lost 3-2 to Barrow in the semi-final of the tournament.
He scored four goals in the Central League side’s 6-1 victory over Everton reserves on 23 April 1966 when he was “fed by a stream of passes through the middle by wingers Horne and Moir and really rocked the Mersey boat as Everton finished a bemused and battered team”. And in addition “Hunter scored the fifth and sixth near the end from openings created by Robson.”
On 27 April 1966 he wrote his name into the annals Blackpool FC history when he became the club’s first substitute to score a goal in a 2-1 defeat by Manchester United. And he ended the 1965/66 season having played 18 League games, making two substitute appearances, scoring seven goals, 15 Central League games, scoring eight goals, two Lancashire Senior Cup ties, scoring two goals, and three friendly games, scoring two goals.
He made his first League appearance of the 1966/67 season at inside left in a 2-0 defeat by Aston Villa on 10 September 1966 and then on 8 October he reappeared at inside right in a 2-1 defeat by Manchester United. Thereafter he missed only one game until the end of the season, playing the last 10 games in the half-back line. His final appearance for Blackpool in the First Division was in a 3-1 victory at Anfield over Liverpool, only Blackpool’s sixth victory of the season as they were relegated to Division Two. He played 30 League games, made two substitute appearances, scoring three goals, one FA Cup tie, four League Cup ties, scoring two goals, and eight Central League games, scoring one goal, in the 1966/67 season.
He had a run of three League games in November 1966 when he scored in a 3-1 victory over Cardiff City and also in a 2-0 defeat of Charlton Athletic, and he had also played two League Cup ties and 15 Central League games, scoring three goals, up to the time of his transfer in the 1967/68 season. In total he had played 60 League games, made four substitute appearances, scoring 14 goals, one FA Cup tie, six League Cup ties, scoring two goals, and 38 Central League games, scoring 12 goals, for Blackpool.
He was transferred to Barnsley for a fee of £6,000 on 19 January 1968 when he was paid £863 as his accrued share of benefit. He went on to play 87 League games and score 15 goals for Barnsley, and he was part of the Division Four promotion-winning side in the 1967/68 season.
He was transferred to Bury in August 1970 and he played 100 League games, made three substitute appearances and scored three goals for the club.
He later coached at Burnley, Huddersfield Town and Rochdale.
He was always a well-respected visitor to Turf Moor and after retirement from the game he worked in public relations at Burnley Football Club.
He died on 14 December 2021 after a period of illness on 14 December 2021 with supporters and all his former clubs saddened at his passing, with a Blackpool FC official stating, ‘We are saddened to learn of the passing of former forward Jimmy Robson at the age of 82. Our sincere condolences go out to his family.’
November 19, 2021
Rambles Round My Bookshelves 2
There are many book shelves around my house and every shelf I look on intrigues me and I wonder what the books must think of their neighbours, who often have little or nothing in common with each other; how do they converse I wonder?!
For this second ramble, I am picking a different shelf in a different room from the one I looked at for the first ramble. This is because, apart from my Dickens’ collection, which I try to keep together – at least in the same room – books of different genres nestle next to each other everywhere. You will soon see what I mean!
Books on war, or should that be military history (the heading I used for such in my catalogues in days of yore) are not my favourites but I do have a number of them scattered around the shelves (and the wardrobes). And one leapt off the shelf I am concentrating on and it is Ian McDonald’s The Boer War in Postcards. I am interested in the Boer Wars, perhaps because Conan Doyle wrote about them, and me and Linda were always postcard collectors so the two subjects combined endeared me to this book.
The book provides a vivid record of the way that the war was seen by the people and countries involved as it unfolded before them. The thing that somewhat surprised me from the images within was the number of comic cards that the war spawned. All together with the battle scenes and troop shots they do provide a useful historical record of the conflicts.
Sitting nearby is another military history volume, The Battle of the River Plate. My interest in that battle was pricked when my Dad took me to see the film in 1968 and as a youngster it made a massive impression on me with its high drama; I can still remember the scene in Montevideo harbour with the British ships standing off, the American commentating from the quayside and then Captain Langsdorff scuttling his ship the Admiral Graf Spee. High drama, indeed! I must read it soon to remind of the battle, not least because the book’s sub-title is a somewhat bewildering The Grand Delusion.
Close by is a book that sounds military, Brothers in Arms but its sub-title tells us The Kennedys, the Castros, and the Politics of Murder. I have always had a fascination for the Kennedys that probably developed when a friend walked into our dormitory in London in November 1963 and announced ‘President Kennedy has been sot.’ We were stunned. So this book could be interesting especially as Lee Harvey Oswald, with his supposed Cuban connections will undoubtedly feature in it.
The nearest a neighbouring book got to warfare was the fact that the subject had a Prussian childhood. The book is Dietrich A Biography. Finely modelled cheekbones and a broad smooth forehead define Marlene, although my early, and perhaps abiding, memory of her was as she appeared in the film The Blue Angel. Once she arrived in Hollywood she became the highest paid woman in the world and this book looks at the lady behind the glittering image. She did visit my hometown of Blackpool in 1954 but I was too young to appreciate it … pity!
And from a movie star we move on to a traveller and explorer in the Last Voyage of Captain Cook as told by John Ledyard (1751-1789) who sailed with Captain James Cook and it is the only account of Cook’s third voyage to be published by an American. It vividly covers life aboard the first ship to sail to the Hawaiian Islands and Cook’s tragic death on an Hawaiian beach. Also in the book is Ledyard’s harrowing journey through Russia and his spell in pre-revolutionary Paris.
A far cry from Paris is Steven Watts’ Mr Playboy: Hugh Heffner and the American Dream. Watts suggests that Hefner ‘profoundly altered American life and values’. This is quite surprising considering Hefner’s Methodist upbringing. My interest lies in reading how he established his publishing empire as Playboy became such a cultural phenomenon. As a bookseller, collections of the playboy magazine would come up in various private libraries that I purchased and I was always pleasantly surprised when I came across serious literary articles within its covers; I distinctly remember one learned one on PG Wodehouse and things like that always helped to sell the magazine to collectors of, in that instance Wodehouse material.
I had never read any Terry Pratchett books, or even owned any of his books as they do not appeal to me. But when I saw Dodger on a bookseller’s shelves and realised that it had undertones of Oliver Twist, I just had to purchase it. It remains unread so far (with hundreds, nay, thousands, of others) but at least own it and can read it when ready – its strapline of ‘a scavenger in the squalor of Dickensian London’ is certainly appetising.
Mention of Dickensian London takes me to a nearby book, The Mile End Murder, which was billed as ‘The Case Conan Doyle Couldn’t Solve’. Author Sinclair McKay writes of the murder of Mary Emsley, an East End girl who was killed in what is described as ‘a veritable locked room mystery’ that took place in August 1860. Investigations revealed a variety of suspects and a sensational public trial followed. Arthur Conan Doyle believed that an innocent man was executed in one of the final executions at Newgate. The author follows this through and ends with a sensational revelation.
And moving on to Edwardian times, there is close by The Peasenhall Murder in which Martin Fido and Keith Skinner collaborate on a 1902 case from the sleepy Suffolk village. It is billed as ‘one of England’s most extraordinary real-life murder mysteries’. We shall see when we read it one of these fine, or not so fine, days.
To crime of a different sort in Scene of the Crime for the book is sub-titled A Guide to the Landscapes of British Detective Fiction. The book represents my interest in crime fiction, particularly from the so-called Golden Age, say 1920 to 1950. The authors Julian Earwaker and Kathleen Becker use a regional approach and also picture selected authors with their comments on their choice of location. For instance, Peter Gutteridge is pictured outside the Half Moon pub in Plumpton where a good part of A Ghost of a Chance was written with the suggestion, ‘The 1979 painting on the wall here provides a vital clue’ – perhaps best not to see it before the book is read!
On a much lighter note The Really Lancashire Book sits alongside and this is a series of essays from a relatively short-lived magazine of the mid to late 1990s. There are historical, topographical, amusing and even dialect essays within its covers (I don’t understand a word of Lancashire dialect although born and bred in the Red Rose county). Two of these are entitled ‘Med I’ Lancasheer’ and ‘Jugglin’ Wi’ Fawse Teeth’, both of which titles are just about understandable, even if the contents of the stories aren’t! ‘Lancashire’s Mormon Connections’ is alongside ‘Southport’s First Car’, which was owned by Felix William Isherwood Hudlass; it apparently claimed a top speed of 15mph! I also noticed ‘A Dedicated Amateur: WW Parr of Blackpool FC’ by a certain Gerry Wolstenholme … enough said, let’s move on!
And finally on this ramble two arty books rub covers with the more macabre titles, Luke Hermann’s 1963 JMW Turner 1775-1851 and Herbert E Binstead’s 1929 The Furniture Styles. I first appreciated Turner when visiting the National Gallery and my interest was increased when Linda and I visited an exhibition of his work at The Tate Gallery. ‘Yellow Billy’ with swatches of his colour on show really captured my imagination from then on! The furniture book comes from our shared interest in furniture design and this one, under the Sir Isaac Pitman imprint, covers many of the style used from Elizabethan through Queen Anne, Chippendale, Sheraton, Adam, Hepplewhite right through to British New Art. And with 177 line drawings it is a real treat.
Oh, well … and so to bed!
For this second ramble, I am picking a different shelf in a different room from the one I looked at for the first ramble. This is because, apart from my Dickens’ collection, which I try to keep together – at least in the same room – books of different genres nestle next to each other everywhere. You will soon see what I mean!
Books on war, or should that be military history (the heading I used for such in my catalogues in days of yore) are not my favourites but I do have a number of them scattered around the shelves (and the wardrobes). And one leapt off the shelf I am concentrating on and it is Ian McDonald’s The Boer War in Postcards. I am interested in the Boer Wars, perhaps because Conan Doyle wrote about them, and me and Linda were always postcard collectors so the two subjects combined endeared me to this book.
The book provides a vivid record of the way that the war was seen by the people and countries involved as it unfolded before them. The thing that somewhat surprised me from the images within was the number of comic cards that the war spawned. All together with the battle scenes and troop shots they do provide a useful historical record of the conflicts.
Sitting nearby is another military history volume, The Battle of the River Plate. My interest in that battle was pricked when my Dad took me to see the film in 1968 and as a youngster it made a massive impression on me with its high drama; I can still remember the scene in Montevideo harbour with the British ships standing off, the American commentating from the quayside and then Captain Langsdorff scuttling his ship the Admiral Graf Spee. High drama, indeed! I must read it soon to remind of the battle, not least because the book’s sub-title is a somewhat bewildering The Grand Delusion.
Close by is a book that sounds military, Brothers in Arms but its sub-title tells us The Kennedys, the Castros, and the Politics of Murder. I have always had a fascination for the Kennedys that probably developed when a friend walked into our dormitory in London in November 1963 and announced ‘President Kennedy has been sot.’ We were stunned. So this book could be interesting especially as Lee Harvey Oswald, with his supposed Cuban connections will undoubtedly feature in it.
The nearest a neighbouring book got to warfare was the fact that the subject had a Prussian childhood. The book is Dietrich A Biography. Finely modelled cheekbones and a broad smooth forehead define Marlene, although my early, and perhaps abiding, memory of her was as she appeared in the film The Blue Angel. Once she arrived in Hollywood she became the highest paid woman in the world and this book looks at the lady behind the glittering image. She did visit my hometown of Blackpool in 1954 but I was too young to appreciate it … pity!
And from a movie star we move on to a traveller and explorer in the Last Voyage of Captain Cook as told by John Ledyard (1751-1789) who sailed with Captain James Cook and it is the only account of Cook’s third voyage to be published by an American. It vividly covers life aboard the first ship to sail to the Hawaiian Islands and Cook’s tragic death on an Hawaiian beach. Also in the book is Ledyard’s harrowing journey through Russia and his spell in pre-revolutionary Paris.
A far cry from Paris is Steven Watts’ Mr Playboy: Hugh Heffner and the American Dream. Watts suggests that Hefner ‘profoundly altered American life and values’. This is quite surprising considering Hefner’s Methodist upbringing. My interest lies in reading how he established his publishing empire as Playboy became such a cultural phenomenon. As a bookseller, collections of the playboy magazine would come up in various private libraries that I purchased and I was always pleasantly surprised when I came across serious literary articles within its covers; I distinctly remember one learned one on PG Wodehouse and things like that always helped to sell the magazine to collectors of, in that instance Wodehouse material.
I had never read any Terry Pratchett books, or even owned any of his books as they do not appeal to me. But when I saw Dodger on a bookseller’s shelves and realised that it had undertones of Oliver Twist, I just had to purchase it. It remains unread so far (with hundreds, nay, thousands, of others) but at least own it and can read it when ready – its strapline of ‘a scavenger in the squalor of Dickensian London’ is certainly appetising.
Mention of Dickensian London takes me to a nearby book, The Mile End Murder, which was billed as ‘The Case Conan Doyle Couldn’t Solve’. Author Sinclair McKay writes of the murder of Mary Emsley, an East End girl who was killed in what is described as ‘a veritable locked room mystery’ that took place in August 1860. Investigations revealed a variety of suspects and a sensational public trial followed. Arthur Conan Doyle believed that an innocent man was executed in one of the final executions at Newgate. The author follows this through and ends with a sensational revelation.
And moving on to Edwardian times, there is close by The Peasenhall Murder in which Martin Fido and Keith Skinner collaborate on a 1902 case from the sleepy Suffolk village. It is billed as ‘one of England’s most extraordinary real-life murder mysteries’. We shall see when we read it one of these fine, or not so fine, days.
To crime of a different sort in Scene of the Crime for the book is sub-titled A Guide to the Landscapes of British Detective Fiction. The book represents my interest in crime fiction, particularly from the so-called Golden Age, say 1920 to 1950. The authors Julian Earwaker and Kathleen Becker use a regional approach and also picture selected authors with their comments on their choice of location. For instance, Peter Gutteridge is pictured outside the Half Moon pub in Plumpton where a good part of A Ghost of a Chance was written with the suggestion, ‘The 1979 painting on the wall here provides a vital clue’ – perhaps best not to see it before the book is read!
On a much lighter note The Really Lancashire Book sits alongside and this is a series of essays from a relatively short-lived magazine of the mid to late 1990s. There are historical, topographical, amusing and even dialect essays within its covers (I don’t understand a word of Lancashire dialect although born and bred in the Red Rose county). Two of these are entitled ‘Med I’ Lancasheer’ and ‘Jugglin’ Wi’ Fawse Teeth’, both of which titles are just about understandable, even if the contents of the stories aren’t! ‘Lancashire’s Mormon Connections’ is alongside ‘Southport’s First Car’, which was owned by Felix William Isherwood Hudlass; it apparently claimed a top speed of 15mph! I also noticed ‘A Dedicated Amateur: WW Parr of Blackpool FC’ by a certain Gerry Wolstenholme … enough said, let’s move on!
And finally on this ramble two arty books rub covers with the more macabre titles, Luke Hermann’s 1963 JMW Turner 1775-1851 and Herbert E Binstead’s 1929 The Furniture Styles. I first appreciated Turner when visiting the National Gallery and my interest was increased when Linda and I visited an exhibition of his work at The Tate Gallery. ‘Yellow Billy’ with swatches of his colour on show really captured my imagination from then on! The furniture book comes from our shared interest in furniture design and this one, under the Sir Isaac Pitman imprint, covers many of the style used from Elizabethan through Queen Anne, Chippendale, Sheraton, Adam, Hepplewhite right through to British New Art. And with 177 line drawings it is a real treat.
Oh, well … and so to bed!
August 31, 2021
A Delightful Trip up the Coast
An absorbing couple of hours in the
Fleetwood Museum Bookshop
I am not a great traveller these days but one trip I do enjoy making is the seven-mile journey up the Fylde Coast to Fleetwood. My great friend Laura, with whom I spend many happy hours hunting around charity shops and junk shops for bargains, and I go there approximately once a month to browse in the fabulous Fleetwood Museum Bookshop.
The thing is it is not just browsing for we both come away having purchased any number of books, which is the object of the exercise in supporting the Museum. My excuse – that is if I need one – is that I am subscribing to Sigmund Freud’s view that collecting is compensation for grief. I can say that with some truth because my book collection has grown massively since I lost my dearly beloved wife, Linda, 17 years ago. Laura, a good deal younger than me, does not need an excuse, she just loves books!
The trip to the bookshop has become a regular outing on a given Tuesday and we have made friends with a charming lady who helps to run the shop and it is always a pleasure to meet up with her when we visit. I am afraid that at the time of writing this, having just come home after fish and chips from Pisces, the best fish and chip shop on the Fylde Coast, I have not asked her name. This is very remiss of me and I will rectify the matter on our next visit. Incidentally that is already scheduled for two weeks today, Tuesday 14 September.
On our visits I am never sure what I am going to buy because my tastes are very eclectic and anything I see that I take a fancy to could well go home with me! If I had to be specific, I would say that my two main interests are literature and art, with a strong liking for London, cricket …, should I go on? No, so you will get the idea, anything can find its way to the Wolstenholme library!
So the specifics of this last visit, the purchases from which I have just spent a most enjoyable hour or so looking through, reading the odd introduction or foreword and generally enjoying my purchases over a cup of coffee in the back garden. As I said to the lady in charge as we left, I might not have the time to read them all – I would have to live, say, 839 more years to get through all my books (even if I did not add any more, which is MOST unlikely) but just to enjoy having them in my collection is worth every penny spent. I know they are there amongst the hundreds, nay, thousands, which I own; Laura always teases me about how many that is and her estimate is around 12,000. Of course, she exaggerates as I would estimate it to be perhaps 4 to 5,000. However, be that as it may, there are plenty!
And after this latest visit there are a further 30 volumes. And I thought it would be fun to list them. I should add that they are not all for me for I do buy for my daughter, who, unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, for her, has my bibliomaniac genes in her make-up. I also make purchases as presents for her husband.
The titles this time around and what attracted me to them are:
A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings by Charles Dickens. This is the Penguin Classics edition with an introduction by Michael Slater. I am a massive Dickens collector and any different editions, particularly with new introductions, are likely to end up at home. Incidentally, I was lucky enough to be invited to take part in a symposium with Michael Slater, who I have always admired, last year and an essay of mine accompanied his and a couple of other academics’ writing on the Blackburn Museum website.
Lord Hornblower by CS Forester. I have never read a Hornblower novel but I saw this American edition that had an eye-catching illustrative cover by Douglas Smith and it appealed to me. It will be my first Hornblower read; fancy beginning with the final title in a 10-novel sequence.
Period Piece by Gwen Raverat. I was a secondhand and antiquarian bookseller for many years and this book of reminiscences by Charles Darwin’s granddaughter was a perennial good seller but I never read it so I thought it was about time I did.
Jack Kerouac by Warren French. This title fulfils my literary interest. I have read the informative introduction already, over my coffee, and in the main body of the text the author introduces much of Kerouac’s fiction that does not get the coverage that On the Road gets.
Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith by Valerie Grove. Another literary title, which I never had in my bookselling days so I thought it was time I owned a copy to read.
Pursuit of Pleasure: High Society in the 1900s by K Middlemas. This tickled my history fancy as it concerns the society and social habits of the Edwardian years.
Tramway Memories by J Joyce. Not the famous J Joyce (I’m pleased to say for his wife said to him on one classic occasion, ‘James, why don’t you write something that people want to read?’) My Dad was a huge tram fan and I always bought him such books as presents so this one was in homage to him as he did pass on those interests, although not quite as strong.
London United Tramways: A History 1894-1933 by Geoffrey Wilson. As well as the tram interest (see above), this combines another main interest of mine London and it also has historical context.
Loving Mr Darcy by Sharon Lathan. I have a number of sequels to Jane Austen’s novels and here is another. At school we read Northanger Abbey for GCE and I was not keen on it, thinking it a girls’ novel but I am now quite a Janeite and I do enjoy how other authors continue famous works.
It’s About Time: the dave brubeck story by Fred M Hall. Jazz is another of my interests and I well remember as a youngster Dave Brubeck’s Take Five entering the charts. It was, to me anyway at the time, a surprise hit as I was a rock ‘n’ roller with a passion for Chuck Berry. But Take Five took the music world by storm and became the first million-selling jazz record, I grew to like it and so I thought I ought to learn something about Dave and his record.
The British Tram by Frank E Wilson. Another for the small tram collection, it is a more ephemeral offering which, for me, adds to the charm.
Wicked Women’s Wit and Humour from Elizabeth I to Ruby Wax edited by Fidelis Morgan. I rather like such books for browsing and when I saw not unsurprisingly Dorothy Parker was oft quoted I couldn’t resist it.
The London Transport Golden Jubilee Book 1933-1983 by Oliver Green and John Reed. This combines my London interest with my interest in the metropolis transport systems so I just had to have it; perhaps this could be my next read!
A Brief History of Life in the Middle Ages by Martyn Whittock. I was not the greatest history scholar at school but as I have got older I find it fascinating to read about how people lived and acted in days of yore.
Churchill’s Grand Alliance: The Anglo-American Special Relationship 1940-57 by John Charmley. My Dad was a Churchill fan although he was a strict Labour voter and we had books on the shelves about him so I was aware of him from a young age. I thought this would be interesting because it looks at a specific aspect of his career.
The Booker Quiz by Christopher Booker. At first I thought this might by a quiz about the Booker Prize and as that is rather modern for my tastes I avoided it. However, I decided to have a closer look at it to discover that it is the author’s name rather than the award and that the quizzes are all literary. I thought it would be fun to have a go, that is until I looked at the first three and answered one question, Who wrote The Prime Minister? Yes, I knew that was Anthony Trollope but other questions left me blank! I will get better, I feel sure as I progress through the book!
The Decline of the Castle by MW Thompson. Architecture and castles in particular have always had a fascination for me so I thought it would be good to appreciate how the latter went into decline. The very minor disappointment is that Pendennis Castle in Falmouth is not mentioned for when we visited when Deborah was young I persuaded her to pretend that we were storming the castle as we made our way up the grassy slopes and once on the battlements that we were firing the cannons at the French! Well, it was fun at the time.
Birds in Your Garden: A month-by-month guide by Tony Soper and Roger Lovegrove. I bought this for Deborah for she has a haven of wildlife, particularly birds, where she lives in Somerset. It has lovely watercolour illustrations by Tony Busby.
Oasis Among the Chimney Pots: The story of a town bird sanctuary by Gwen Haines. Similarly I bought this for Deborah because she will appreciate the author’s efforts in setting up an urban sanctuary.
The Ship: The life and death of the Merchant Sailing Ship 1815-1965 by Basil Greenhill. I have always had an interest in olden day sailing ships ever since my Dad took me to see the Cutty Sark as a nine-year-old. And then, a couple of years ago we visited SS Great Britain and both these feature in this volume. An additional incentive to purchase it came when I opened the cover to discover the pricing of a great friend and former bookselling colleague Bob Dobson’s pricing inside.
LaRousse Encyclopedia of Renaissance and Baroque Art edited by René Huyghe.
The Complete Paintings of Piero della Francesca by Peter Murray and Pierluigi de Veecht.
Degas by Antoine Terrasse.
Klee by Douglas Hall.
An Introduction to The Humanities Illustration Book.
The World of Turner 1775-1851 by Diana Hirsh.
Manet and the Modern Tradition by Anne Coffin Hanson.
Holbein by Radu Boureanu.
The Drawings of Watteau by Malcolm Cormack.
History & Techniques of the great Masters: Toulouse-Lautrec by Christopher Ackroyd.
These art books cover a wide variety of styles and periods which reflect my interests from the Middle Ages and 15th century Italian della Francesca through Turner, a real favourite, the Impressionists, all of whom I enjoy, to the more modern Paul Klee. There are plenty of great images to enjoy even if I don’t get round to reading all of them!
Oh, I almost forgot, I did acquire two children’s books to go along with these purchases.
Noddy and the Roller Skates and The Wars of the Roses. The former reflects my interest in Noddy as he was my very first collectible; I had the whole series and my Dad built a special bookcase to house them into the wall in my bedroom. I don’t have those books now (sadly) but I have reacquired them and still have a sneak read of them when no-one is looking! As for the latter, it also dates back to my youth for it is a Pitkin Pictorial and we used to buy those at various places that we visited so I built up quite a collection. They, too, are gone but I am rebuilding the collection!
So there we have it, a resumé of today’s purchases. I do so hope it has some appeal to the reader(s)!
Fleetwood Museum Bookshop
I am not a great traveller these days but one trip I do enjoy making is the seven-mile journey up the Fylde Coast to Fleetwood. My great friend Laura, with whom I spend many happy hours hunting around charity shops and junk shops for bargains, and I go there approximately once a month to browse in the fabulous Fleetwood Museum Bookshop.
The thing is it is not just browsing for we both come away having purchased any number of books, which is the object of the exercise in supporting the Museum. My excuse – that is if I need one – is that I am subscribing to Sigmund Freud’s view that collecting is compensation for grief. I can say that with some truth because my book collection has grown massively since I lost my dearly beloved wife, Linda, 17 years ago. Laura, a good deal younger than me, does not need an excuse, she just loves books!
The trip to the bookshop has become a regular outing on a given Tuesday and we have made friends with a charming lady who helps to run the shop and it is always a pleasure to meet up with her when we visit. I am afraid that at the time of writing this, having just come home after fish and chips from Pisces, the best fish and chip shop on the Fylde Coast, I have not asked her name. This is very remiss of me and I will rectify the matter on our next visit. Incidentally that is already scheduled for two weeks today, Tuesday 14 September.
On our visits I am never sure what I am going to buy because my tastes are very eclectic and anything I see that I take a fancy to could well go home with me! If I had to be specific, I would say that my two main interests are literature and art, with a strong liking for London, cricket …, should I go on? No, so you will get the idea, anything can find its way to the Wolstenholme library!
So the specifics of this last visit, the purchases from which I have just spent a most enjoyable hour or so looking through, reading the odd introduction or foreword and generally enjoying my purchases over a cup of coffee in the back garden. As I said to the lady in charge as we left, I might not have the time to read them all – I would have to live, say, 839 more years to get through all my books (even if I did not add any more, which is MOST unlikely) but just to enjoy having them in my collection is worth every penny spent. I know they are there amongst the hundreds, nay, thousands, which I own; Laura always teases me about how many that is and her estimate is around 12,000. Of course, she exaggerates as I would estimate it to be perhaps 4 to 5,000. However, be that as it may, there are plenty!
And after this latest visit there are a further 30 volumes. And I thought it would be fun to list them. I should add that they are not all for me for I do buy for my daughter, who, unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, for her, has my bibliomaniac genes in her make-up. I also make purchases as presents for her husband.
The titles this time around and what attracted me to them are:
A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings by Charles Dickens. This is the Penguin Classics edition with an introduction by Michael Slater. I am a massive Dickens collector and any different editions, particularly with new introductions, are likely to end up at home. Incidentally, I was lucky enough to be invited to take part in a symposium with Michael Slater, who I have always admired, last year and an essay of mine accompanied his and a couple of other academics’ writing on the Blackburn Museum website.
Lord Hornblower by CS Forester. I have never read a Hornblower novel but I saw this American edition that had an eye-catching illustrative cover by Douglas Smith and it appealed to me. It will be my first Hornblower read; fancy beginning with the final title in a 10-novel sequence.
Period Piece by Gwen Raverat. I was a secondhand and antiquarian bookseller for many years and this book of reminiscences by Charles Darwin’s granddaughter was a perennial good seller but I never read it so I thought it was about time I did.
Jack Kerouac by Warren French. This title fulfils my literary interest. I have read the informative introduction already, over my coffee, and in the main body of the text the author introduces much of Kerouac’s fiction that does not get the coverage that On the Road gets.
Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith by Valerie Grove. Another literary title, which I never had in my bookselling days so I thought it was time I owned a copy to read.
Pursuit of Pleasure: High Society in the 1900s by K Middlemas. This tickled my history fancy as it concerns the society and social habits of the Edwardian years.
Tramway Memories by J Joyce. Not the famous J Joyce (I’m pleased to say for his wife said to him on one classic occasion, ‘James, why don’t you write something that people want to read?’) My Dad was a huge tram fan and I always bought him such books as presents so this one was in homage to him as he did pass on those interests, although not quite as strong.
London United Tramways: A History 1894-1933 by Geoffrey Wilson. As well as the tram interest (see above), this combines another main interest of mine London and it also has historical context.
Loving Mr Darcy by Sharon Lathan. I have a number of sequels to Jane Austen’s novels and here is another. At school we read Northanger Abbey for GCE and I was not keen on it, thinking it a girls’ novel but I am now quite a Janeite and I do enjoy how other authors continue famous works.
It’s About Time: the dave brubeck story by Fred M Hall. Jazz is another of my interests and I well remember as a youngster Dave Brubeck’s Take Five entering the charts. It was, to me anyway at the time, a surprise hit as I was a rock ‘n’ roller with a passion for Chuck Berry. But Take Five took the music world by storm and became the first million-selling jazz record, I grew to like it and so I thought I ought to learn something about Dave and his record.
The British Tram by Frank E Wilson. Another for the small tram collection, it is a more ephemeral offering which, for me, adds to the charm.
Wicked Women’s Wit and Humour from Elizabeth I to Ruby Wax edited by Fidelis Morgan. I rather like such books for browsing and when I saw not unsurprisingly Dorothy Parker was oft quoted I couldn’t resist it.
The London Transport Golden Jubilee Book 1933-1983 by Oliver Green and John Reed. This combines my London interest with my interest in the metropolis transport systems so I just had to have it; perhaps this could be my next read!
A Brief History of Life in the Middle Ages by Martyn Whittock. I was not the greatest history scholar at school but as I have got older I find it fascinating to read about how people lived and acted in days of yore.
Churchill’s Grand Alliance: The Anglo-American Special Relationship 1940-57 by John Charmley. My Dad was a Churchill fan although he was a strict Labour voter and we had books on the shelves about him so I was aware of him from a young age. I thought this would be interesting because it looks at a specific aspect of his career.
The Booker Quiz by Christopher Booker. At first I thought this might by a quiz about the Booker Prize and as that is rather modern for my tastes I avoided it. However, I decided to have a closer look at it to discover that it is the author’s name rather than the award and that the quizzes are all literary. I thought it would be fun to have a go, that is until I looked at the first three and answered one question, Who wrote The Prime Minister? Yes, I knew that was Anthony Trollope but other questions left me blank! I will get better, I feel sure as I progress through the book!
The Decline of the Castle by MW Thompson. Architecture and castles in particular have always had a fascination for me so I thought it would be good to appreciate how the latter went into decline. The very minor disappointment is that Pendennis Castle in Falmouth is not mentioned for when we visited when Deborah was young I persuaded her to pretend that we were storming the castle as we made our way up the grassy slopes and once on the battlements that we were firing the cannons at the French! Well, it was fun at the time.
Birds in Your Garden: A month-by-month guide by Tony Soper and Roger Lovegrove. I bought this for Deborah for she has a haven of wildlife, particularly birds, where she lives in Somerset. It has lovely watercolour illustrations by Tony Busby.
Oasis Among the Chimney Pots: The story of a town bird sanctuary by Gwen Haines. Similarly I bought this for Deborah because she will appreciate the author’s efforts in setting up an urban sanctuary.
The Ship: The life and death of the Merchant Sailing Ship 1815-1965 by Basil Greenhill. I have always had an interest in olden day sailing ships ever since my Dad took me to see the Cutty Sark as a nine-year-old. And then, a couple of years ago we visited SS Great Britain and both these feature in this volume. An additional incentive to purchase it came when I opened the cover to discover the pricing of a great friend and former bookselling colleague Bob Dobson’s pricing inside.
LaRousse Encyclopedia of Renaissance and Baroque Art edited by René Huyghe.
The Complete Paintings of Piero della Francesca by Peter Murray and Pierluigi de Veecht.
Degas by Antoine Terrasse.
Klee by Douglas Hall.
An Introduction to The Humanities Illustration Book.
The World of Turner 1775-1851 by Diana Hirsh.
Manet and the Modern Tradition by Anne Coffin Hanson.
Holbein by Radu Boureanu.
The Drawings of Watteau by Malcolm Cormack.
History & Techniques of the great Masters: Toulouse-Lautrec by Christopher Ackroyd.
These art books cover a wide variety of styles and periods which reflect my interests from the Middle Ages and 15th century Italian della Francesca through Turner, a real favourite, the Impressionists, all of whom I enjoy, to the more modern Paul Klee. There are plenty of great images to enjoy even if I don’t get round to reading all of them!
Oh, I almost forgot, I did acquire two children’s books to go along with these purchases.
Noddy and the Roller Skates and The Wars of the Roses. The former reflects my interest in Noddy as he was my very first collectible; I had the whole series and my Dad built a special bookcase to house them into the wall in my bedroom. I don’t have those books now (sadly) but I have reacquired them and still have a sneak read of them when no-one is looking! As for the latter, it also dates back to my youth for it is a Pitkin Pictorial and we used to buy those at various places that we visited so I built up quite a collection. They, too, are gone but I am rebuilding the collection!
So there we have it, a resumé of today’s purchases. I do so hope it has some appeal to the reader(s)!
August 27, 2021
One of Dundee’s ‘Champions of Scotland’ at Blackpool
Bobby Waddell was born in Kirkcaldy on 5 September 1939. As a centre forward he had played his early football for St Andrews United where he had won a Scottish Juvenile Cup medal and scored over 100 goals for the club. He signed for Dundee in July 1959 and went on to score 46 goals in 85 games for The Dark Blues where he was initially the understudy to the legendary Alan Gilzean. He had also won a Scottish League Championship medal with Dundee in the 1961/62 season when he played his part with vital goals when called upon. However, he had asked for a transfer when Dundee signed Alex Harley from Birmingham City in November 1964 and he had lost his first team spot.
He was signed by Blackpool for a fee of £5,000 (some reports stated £10,000 but the £5,000 fee is from Blackpool official records) from Dundee on 12 March 1965. Manager Ronnie Suart, his assistant Eric Hayward and a director had watched Waddell play in a second XI Cup semi-final and his display encouraged Suart to make a bid for the player – said to be £8,000 (but see above). Waddell had only just previously turned down a move to Preston North End! He duly signed for the Seasiders.
He made his Blackpool debut for the Central League side and he made an impressive start, scoring after nine minutes in a 1 0 win over Manchester United reserves on 13 March 1965.
After that promising start, he made his League debut for the club on 20 March 1965 when he replaced the injured Ray Charnley who was missing his first game of the season. Again he impressed and he scored twice in a 3 0 defeat of West Bromwich Albion. It was reported, ‘He gave a hard working performance, capped with two goals in three minutes, the 37th and 40th, which finally put West Brom on the floor.’
This began a run of five successive League appearances with another goal coming in a 3-0 victory over Fulham on 3 April but injury against Arsenal in a 1-1 draw on 16 April ended his season, in which he played five League games, scoring three goals, and also played two Central League games, scoring one goal.
He was still injured as the 1965/66 season began and he was described as ‘Blackpool’s Mystery Man’ in September 1965 as he had only played seven games since his arrival, five in the first team and two in the Central League side. Recovering from his injury, the 26-year old was back in full time training by September. Blackpool manager Ronnie Suart commented, ’Bobby is feeling pretty fit again and looking forward to getting back into the game and making a mark for himself here in Blackpool.’ He had played centre forward in all his games to that date but Ray Charnley was then back to his best form so he occupied the number nine position but Suart commented, ‘He [Waddell] can play in any forward position.’
It took some time for him to get back in the League side but he returned to action at inside left in a 1 1 draw with Stoke City on 11 December 1965. Blackpool then had no games for two weeks but in a Christmas Day game (the last League game ever played on 25 December) he scored one of Blackpool’s goals in a convincing 4-2 victory over Blackburn Rovers. The other goals came from Charnley, Ball and Turner.
Thereafter he was in and out of the side, but after he had scored five goals in seven Central League games, he earned a recall to the League side for the game against Aston Villa on 26 February 1966 when Blackpool lost 1-0. Unfortunately he had to leave the field with an injury in the following game against Arsenal but he only missed one game before returning for a further three games.
But after a 3-0 defeat by Sheffield Wednesday on 4 April, his lack of goals cost him his place and Jimmy Robson, who ironically was signed on the same day as Waddell, took over. He did return for the final four games of the season but once again he was unable to find the net. He finished the season with one goal in his 15 League and Cup games.
He started the 1966/67 season at inside let in the League side, appearing in the opening game, a 3-0 defeat by Sheffield Wednesday on 20 August 1966. He was moved to inside right for the following game and held his place there for eight games in one of which he scored a ‘surprise equaliser’ against Liverpool on 5 September but Blackpool eventually lost 2-1.
But, despite being bottom of Division One, Blackpool defeated Manchester United 5-1 in the second round of the League Cup on 14 September 1966 and the inspiration for the victory was reported thus: ‘For Blackpool’s four Scots it was a memorable evening. The quartet are [sic] right half Hugh Fisher from Glasgow, right winger Ian Moir from Aberdeen, inside right Booby Waddell from Dundee and John McPhee from Motherwell.’ Waddell scored one of the goals, with Ray Charnley scoring a hat-trick and Leslie Lea scoring the other.
Playing in the Central League side, his time was running out at Blackpool, and he was transferred to Bradford Park Avenue for a fee of £5,500 on 4 November 1966. The fee was paid in three instalments, £4,000 on 4 November 1966, £500 on 3 January 1967 and the balance of £1,000 on 20 January 1967. He had played nine League games, scoring one goal, four Central League games, scoring one goal up to the time of his transfer in that 1955/57 season. Overall his Blackpool career encompassed 30 League and Cup games in which he scored six goals.
He played 20 League games and scored three goals in his one season at Bradford before the club released him and he returned to Scotland, joining East Fife, for who he was reported as playing ‘splendidly’ at right half, a role to which he had taken to ‘like a duck to water’ in August 1968.
He later played for Montrose before moving on to play for and then manage the then-amateur side Tayport.
In April 2012 he attended a 50th anniversary dinner to celebrate Dundee winning the Scottish League. By that time he had earned iconic status as one of Dundee’s ‘Champions of Scotland’.
He died on 25 August 2021.
He was signed by Blackpool for a fee of £5,000 (some reports stated £10,000 but the £5,000 fee is from Blackpool official records) from Dundee on 12 March 1965. Manager Ronnie Suart, his assistant Eric Hayward and a director had watched Waddell play in a second XI Cup semi-final and his display encouraged Suart to make a bid for the player – said to be £8,000 (but see above). Waddell had only just previously turned down a move to Preston North End! He duly signed for the Seasiders.
He made his Blackpool debut for the Central League side and he made an impressive start, scoring after nine minutes in a 1 0 win over Manchester United reserves on 13 March 1965.
After that promising start, he made his League debut for the club on 20 March 1965 when he replaced the injured Ray Charnley who was missing his first game of the season. Again he impressed and he scored twice in a 3 0 defeat of West Bromwich Albion. It was reported, ‘He gave a hard working performance, capped with two goals in three minutes, the 37th and 40th, which finally put West Brom on the floor.’
This began a run of five successive League appearances with another goal coming in a 3-0 victory over Fulham on 3 April but injury against Arsenal in a 1-1 draw on 16 April ended his season, in which he played five League games, scoring three goals, and also played two Central League games, scoring one goal.
He was still injured as the 1965/66 season began and he was described as ‘Blackpool’s Mystery Man’ in September 1965 as he had only played seven games since his arrival, five in the first team and two in the Central League side. Recovering from his injury, the 26-year old was back in full time training by September. Blackpool manager Ronnie Suart commented, ’Bobby is feeling pretty fit again and looking forward to getting back into the game and making a mark for himself here in Blackpool.’ He had played centre forward in all his games to that date but Ray Charnley was then back to his best form so he occupied the number nine position but Suart commented, ‘He [Waddell] can play in any forward position.’
It took some time for him to get back in the League side but he returned to action at inside left in a 1 1 draw with Stoke City on 11 December 1965. Blackpool then had no games for two weeks but in a Christmas Day game (the last League game ever played on 25 December) he scored one of Blackpool’s goals in a convincing 4-2 victory over Blackburn Rovers. The other goals came from Charnley, Ball and Turner.
Thereafter he was in and out of the side, but after he had scored five goals in seven Central League games, he earned a recall to the League side for the game against Aston Villa on 26 February 1966 when Blackpool lost 1-0. Unfortunately he had to leave the field with an injury in the following game against Arsenal but he only missed one game before returning for a further three games.
But after a 3-0 defeat by Sheffield Wednesday on 4 April, his lack of goals cost him his place and Jimmy Robson, who ironically was signed on the same day as Waddell, took over. He did return for the final four games of the season but once again he was unable to find the net. He finished the season with one goal in his 15 League and Cup games.
He started the 1966/67 season at inside let in the League side, appearing in the opening game, a 3-0 defeat by Sheffield Wednesday on 20 August 1966. He was moved to inside right for the following game and held his place there for eight games in one of which he scored a ‘surprise equaliser’ against Liverpool on 5 September but Blackpool eventually lost 2-1.
But, despite being bottom of Division One, Blackpool defeated Manchester United 5-1 in the second round of the League Cup on 14 September 1966 and the inspiration for the victory was reported thus: ‘For Blackpool’s four Scots it was a memorable evening. The quartet are [sic] right half Hugh Fisher from Glasgow, right winger Ian Moir from Aberdeen, inside right Booby Waddell from Dundee and John McPhee from Motherwell.’ Waddell scored one of the goals, with Ray Charnley scoring a hat-trick and Leslie Lea scoring the other.
Playing in the Central League side, his time was running out at Blackpool, and he was transferred to Bradford Park Avenue for a fee of £5,500 on 4 November 1966. The fee was paid in three instalments, £4,000 on 4 November 1966, £500 on 3 January 1967 and the balance of £1,000 on 20 January 1967. He had played nine League games, scoring one goal, four Central League games, scoring one goal up to the time of his transfer in that 1955/57 season. Overall his Blackpool career encompassed 30 League and Cup games in which he scored six goals.
He played 20 League games and scored three goals in his one season at Bradford before the club released him and he returned to Scotland, joining East Fife, for who he was reported as playing ‘splendidly’ at right half, a role to which he had taken to ‘like a duck to water’ in August 1968.
He later played for Montrose before moving on to play for and then manage the then-amateur side Tayport.
In April 2012 he attended a 50th anniversary dinner to celebrate Dundee winning the Scottish League. By that time he had earned iconic status as one of Dundee’s ‘Champions of Scotland’.
He died on 25 August 2021.
February 8, 2021
Undoubtedly The G.O.A.T.
Superbowl LV
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31
Kansas City Chiefs 9
After last night’s Superbowl in Tampa Bay, there can be no doubt that Tampa’s quarterback Tom Brady is The Greatest Of All Time. At age 43 he not only led his team to victory in his first year at the club but he was the oldest quarterback to win a Superbowl and he won the game’s Most Valuable Player award for a record fifth time; not only that but his Superbowl win was his seventh, more than any other player and, indeed, more than any team in the National Football League.
On the night, Kansas City won the toss and deferred to Tampa so Brady started the game. His first two drives ended in failure, three and outs that resulted in his team punting and then the Chiefs took a 3-0 lead through a 49-yard Harrison Butka field goal after their drive had stalled. But that was practically as good as it got for the team that some pundits had down as clear winners by as many as 21 points.
Brady came back and a pass to Rob Gronkowski, his former team-mate at New England Patriots who Brady enticed out of retirement to join him at Tampa, brought a touchdown. This was the 13th hook-up that these two players had in post-season play, equaling the San Francisco 49ers’ Joe Montana/Jerry Rice record. 7-3 to Tampa.
And when he got the ball back, Brady took Tampa to the Chiefs’ one-yard line, and after his pass to eligible offensive lineman Joe Haeg had been knocked away at the last second, Chiefs’ defense came up trumps. They stopped Tampa on fourth down from the one-yard line and took over on downs.
But it did them no good and when his defense had once more stopped the Chiefs, Brady took over and a Ryan Succop field goal was initially the result when their drive was stopped. But a penalty on the Chiefs gave Tampa a first down and they paid the ultimate price for their indiscretion. And it was Brady to Gronkowski once more for a touchdown, a link up that overtook the Montana/Rice record. It was Brady’s fifth Superbowl touchdown pass to ‘Gronk’, putting the tight end second on the list of Superbowl touchdowns to Jerry Rice’s eight. ‘Gronk’ was in his element spiking the ball in the Chiefs’ end zone! 14-3 to Tampa.
The Chiefs could not get going again when they had possession, Patrick Mahomes was forced back and they had to settle for a 34-yard Butka field goal. 14-6 to Tampa.
Brady then went back to work with 61 seconds remaining he drove Tampa down the field, 71 yards in five plays, and with just 13 seconds left on the first-half clock he threw a pass into the end zone and it was knocked down.
However, the Chiefs’ Tyrann Mathieu had committed a pass interference infringement in the end zone so the ball was placed on the one-yard line. That was all Brady needed as he threw a short pass to Antonio Brown, a player that he had managed to persuade to join Tampa after he had been without a club. 21-6 to Tampa at half-time.
There were two storylines to the first half, firstly Brady’s superiority and secondly the undisciplined play of the Chiefs’ defense; eight penalties for 95 yards had been committed and six Tampa first downs had been by penalty.
The first play of the second half brought some satisfaction to the Chiefs as Clyde Edwards-Helaire brought off a 26-yard run, the Chiefs’ longest run of the night. But, once again the drive stalled and they had to settle for Butka’s 52-yard field goal. 21-9 to Tampa.
Tampa responded as Brady once more led the counter attack that resulted in Leonard Fournette’s going untouched for a 27-yard touchdown run. 28-9 to Tampa.
There seemed no way back for the Chiefs, for, although they had often overcome double-digit deficits, even in last year’s Superbowl victory, this was different as Tampa were in complete control. And when the Chiefs got the ball back again, Patrick Mahomes, desperately trying to make something happen, was intercepted by Antoine Winfield when his pass was tipped. Tampa took over again but on this occasion a mistake in snapping the ball sent it over Brady’s head. He chased back and fell on it with the result that Tampa had to settle for a Ryan Succop 52-yard field goal. 31-9 to Tampa.
And that was all she wrote as the fourth quarter went scoreless to leave Tampa Bay Buccaneers victorious by 31-9 thus winning their second Superbowl.
Appropriately the last play of the game ended with a Tampa kneel-down that left the ball in the hands of Tom Brady, who, unsurprisingly, was voted the game’s Most Valuable Player.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31
Kansas City Chiefs 9
After last night’s Superbowl in Tampa Bay, there can be no doubt that Tampa’s quarterback Tom Brady is The Greatest Of All Time. At age 43 he not only led his team to victory in his first year at the club but he was the oldest quarterback to win a Superbowl and he won the game’s Most Valuable Player award for a record fifth time; not only that but his Superbowl win was his seventh, more than any other player and, indeed, more than any team in the National Football League.
On the night, Kansas City won the toss and deferred to Tampa so Brady started the game. His first two drives ended in failure, three and outs that resulted in his team punting and then the Chiefs took a 3-0 lead through a 49-yard Harrison Butka field goal after their drive had stalled. But that was practically as good as it got for the team that some pundits had down as clear winners by as many as 21 points.
Brady came back and a pass to Rob Gronkowski, his former team-mate at New England Patriots who Brady enticed out of retirement to join him at Tampa, brought a touchdown. This was the 13th hook-up that these two players had in post-season play, equaling the San Francisco 49ers’ Joe Montana/Jerry Rice record. 7-3 to Tampa.
And when he got the ball back, Brady took Tampa to the Chiefs’ one-yard line, and after his pass to eligible offensive lineman Joe Haeg had been knocked away at the last second, Chiefs’ defense came up trumps. They stopped Tampa on fourth down from the one-yard line and took over on downs.
But it did them no good and when his defense had once more stopped the Chiefs, Brady took over and a Ryan Succop field goal was initially the result when their drive was stopped. But a penalty on the Chiefs gave Tampa a first down and they paid the ultimate price for their indiscretion. And it was Brady to Gronkowski once more for a touchdown, a link up that overtook the Montana/Rice record. It was Brady’s fifth Superbowl touchdown pass to ‘Gronk’, putting the tight end second on the list of Superbowl touchdowns to Jerry Rice’s eight. ‘Gronk’ was in his element spiking the ball in the Chiefs’ end zone! 14-3 to Tampa.
The Chiefs could not get going again when they had possession, Patrick Mahomes was forced back and they had to settle for a 34-yard Butka field goal. 14-6 to Tampa.
Brady then went back to work with 61 seconds remaining he drove Tampa down the field, 71 yards in five plays, and with just 13 seconds left on the first-half clock he threw a pass into the end zone and it was knocked down.
However, the Chiefs’ Tyrann Mathieu had committed a pass interference infringement in the end zone so the ball was placed on the one-yard line. That was all Brady needed as he threw a short pass to Antonio Brown, a player that he had managed to persuade to join Tampa after he had been without a club. 21-6 to Tampa at half-time.
There were two storylines to the first half, firstly Brady’s superiority and secondly the undisciplined play of the Chiefs’ defense; eight penalties for 95 yards had been committed and six Tampa first downs had been by penalty.
The first play of the second half brought some satisfaction to the Chiefs as Clyde Edwards-Helaire brought off a 26-yard run, the Chiefs’ longest run of the night. But, once again the drive stalled and they had to settle for Butka’s 52-yard field goal. 21-9 to Tampa.
Tampa responded as Brady once more led the counter attack that resulted in Leonard Fournette’s going untouched for a 27-yard touchdown run. 28-9 to Tampa.
There seemed no way back for the Chiefs, for, although they had often overcome double-digit deficits, even in last year’s Superbowl victory, this was different as Tampa were in complete control. And when the Chiefs got the ball back again, Patrick Mahomes, desperately trying to make something happen, was intercepted by Antoine Winfield when his pass was tipped. Tampa took over again but on this occasion a mistake in snapping the ball sent it over Brady’s head. He chased back and fell on it with the result that Tampa had to settle for a Ryan Succop 52-yard field goal. 31-9 to Tampa.
And that was all she wrote as the fourth quarter went scoreless to leave Tampa Bay Buccaneers victorious by 31-9 thus winning their second Superbowl.
Appropriately the last play of the game ended with a Tampa kneel-down that left the ball in the hands of Tom Brady, who, unsurprisingly, was voted the game’s Most Valuable Player.
November 13, 2020
From lifeguard to England international goalkeeper:
Anthony Keith (Tony) Waiters 1937-2020
Tony Waiters was born in Southport on 1 February 1937. As a schoolboy he played his football at centre half but in joining the RAF for National Service he became a goalkeeper at which position he won one England amateur international cap in a 3-1 victory over Luxembourg on 24 May 1959 and he was a trialist for the 1956 Great Britain Olympic team; he eventually lost out to Harry Sharratt, who had been with Blackpool in 1952/53.
He had played for a variety of teams such as Bishop Auckland, Southport amateurs, various RAF teams, Middlesbrough second team in the North Eastern League, English Universities and a Midlands amateur side but it was from Macclesfield Town that Blackpool signed him as an amateur in August 1959 after being alerted to his potential by Verdi Godwin, a journeyman professional footballer who lived in Blackpool. He was a graduate of Loughborough College of Physical Education and was said to have been signed by Blackpool with a view to him being a replacement for ‘the aging George Farm’. He also worked as a lifeguard on Southport beach.
After the 1959/60 pre-season practice games, one critic commented, ‘Some young players of great promise will be jockeying for places, and I think the fans will see such “fresh faces” in action as Leslie Lea, Brian Tyrell, Tony Waiters, Ean Cuthbert, Geoff Barnes and Alan Burrows before long.’ He was vying for a position with another young goalkeeper, Gordon West, but it was Waiters who earned the call up for his debut for the Central League side on 22 August 1959. Blackpool lost 1-0 to Bolton Wanderers reserves.
He made a favourable impression in the Central League side and he was signed as a professional on 2 October 1959 when he commented, ‘Already I have found a big difference between the amateur and the professional game. Even in the Central League the game is faster and calls for unrelaxing concentration.’ His weekly wage was £16 in the summer, £17 in the winter plus an extra £3 if and when he played in the League side.
And he earned that £3 bonus for the first time when he made his League debut on 26 December 1959 in 1 0 home win over Blackburn Rovers. He replaced George Farm who thought that his own return to Scotland would be imminent once his deputy had won his spurs in first class football. He retained his place for the following game, a 3-1 victory over Fulham. Farm then returned for what were to be his final two League games for Blackpool before Waiters took over for the remainder of the season.
And when he was selected for the game at Wolverhampton Wanderers on 6 February 1960 after Farm had moved to Queen of the South he said, ‘I witnessed a mixture of delight and apprehension on the coach journey from Birmingham to the Molineux ground, those old butterflies started fluttering in my stomach but in the dressing room I found something which helped to ease the nervous strain. It was a telegram from George Farm wishing me good fortune. I was still somewhat overawed by the size and noise of the crowd.’ Blackpool drew 1 1 and he was ‘applauded off the field, a sporting appreciation from the home crowd for the agility, daring, precise timing and good handling he showed in defying the Wolves attack’. He ended the 1959/60 season having played 17 League games and 24 Central League games.
He had a wage increase for the 1960/61 season when his terms were £17 in the summer and £20 in the winter. And he began the season as the first choice goalkeeper and he played the first 21 games before an unaccountable loss of form by Christmas 1960 cost him his place in the first team as Blackpool made a change and gave Gordon West his first taste of League football. He said of the situation ‘My other job as a part time teacher has certainly helped me to overcome the gloom that followed my loss of form and subsequent loss of a first team place.’
He returned to action in the Central League side and he was injured in the game against Sheffield Wednesday reserves on 22 April 1961 and he had to be stretchered off the field with his legs tied together. Sammy Salt went in goal as Blackpool won 2-1. The 1960/61 season saw him play 23 League games, two League Cup ties and 17 Central League games.
It was an unhappy Tony Waiters at the end of the season as, after having lost that first team spot to West, he uncharacteristically commented in July 1961, ‘The quicker I get to another club the better. I never want to play for Blackpool again.’ Fortunately the Blackpool directors were having none of that and his wage for the 1961/62 season was increased to £25 per week all year round plus an extra £5 when he played in the League side and these terms were to last for two seasons.
He started the 1961/62 season in the Central League side and although he won back his first team place against Bolton Wanderers on 14 October 1961 he still insisted, ‘I would still like to get away from Blackpool.’ He was apparently feeling that there was a difference between the amateur and professional game as he commented, ‘There is not the same sort of social life as you find in the amateur ranks.’ He admitted that he had only continued playing for the club because when the 1961/62 season opened Blackpool had not signed a replacement for him and he said, ’I did not want to see them in a spot so I signed a month’s contract, and since then I have signed a 12 month contract. But I still hope to get away one day. I should like to start again with a fresh club, although perhaps even further disillusionment lies in store for me if that ever comes about.’ In anticipation of leaving the club, he had given up his part time teaching post at Highfield School.
He injured a shoulder on 10 March 1962 after only 10 minutes against Leicester City and he played the second half of the game in the forward line, ‘given a roving commission, presumably for nuisance value if nothing else’. The injury caused him to miss the remainder of the 1961/62 season. Ironically the injury occurred just two weeks after Gordon West had signed for Everton and Blackpool had signed a replacement in Bryan Harvey from Newcastle United. Manager Ronnie Suart said of the injury, which happened when Waiters toppled over Leicester centre forward Ken Keyworth, ‘The fracture should have healed by the time the muscle fibres have healed. But it could take another three weeks, and I don’t expect he will be fit much before Easter.’ He was not fit by Easter and he said three weeks later, ‘The shoulder is giving me a bit of trouble. I can’t lift very well with my left arm or raise it fully yet. Still, it is remarkable what treatment can do for an injury like this. I shall just have to see how the shoulder responds in the next few days.’ He played in 20 League games, two FA Cup ties, three League Cup ties and 12 Central League games in the 1961/62 season.
He received a wage increase for the 1962/63 season when his weekly terms were improved to £30 per week all year round plus an additional £5 when he played in the League side. And he proved to be an ever-present in that season, playing in 42 League games, two FA Cup ties and three League Cup ties. And he got an honourable mention in the third round FA Cup replay against Norwich City on 6 March 1963 when ‘In the first half hour, where there was only one team in it (and that wasn’t Blackpool), only Waiters’ acrobatics and the superb policing of Gratrix stopped Norwich running riot.’ Unfortunately it was all to no avail as Blackpool lost 3-1 after extra-time.
He broke a finger in a 3-0 defeat by Manchester United at Old Trafford on 11 September 1963 and although he was out of the game, he was selected for the Football League against the League of Ireland in Dublin on 2 October 1963. However, he had no doubt about his fitness and he said, ’I’m certain I’ll be fit in time. I’ve been trying my hand out this week and it feels reasonably comfortable, although the finger is still in a splint. I don’t know whether I’ll be completely fit for the League Cup match with Charlton on Wednesday night, but I should certainly be all right for next Saturday’s game at Stoke and for the Monday match against Fulham.’
And of his selection for the Football League he commented, ’I’m on top of the world about it. One always hopes for these things, but when they come they still leave you a bit out of breath. I’m determined, as every player who represents the League or his country is determined, to put up a good show. But, you never know what can happen in a football match.’ Finally on the transformation that had taken place in his career, out of the team and wanting to leave only a couple of years earlier to being the club’s number one choice again, he remarked, ‘At that time, when things were going badly, I don’t think I understood the professional game properly, perhaps because I joined the paid ranks at a comparatively late age. If such a situation ever arose again, and I fervently hope it won’t, I think I would approach it with a very different attitude. You live and learn.’
He was named as reserve for England in the game against FIFA at Wembley for the FA Centenary on 23 October 1963, a game that England won 2-1 [I had a ticket for this game but suddenly an important meeting cropped up so I had to give the ticket to my Dad!]. And he was included in a squad of 22 players called up by England for training in December 1963. He was also selected for the English League side to play the Scottish League at Roker Park on 18 March 1964. The game was drawn 2-2.
After the inter League game there was pressure for him to be given a full England cap and Ronnie Suart, who went to Roker Park, commented, ’I thought on his showing that he did sufficient to justify his inclusion in the full England side against Scotland. I think he proved at last that he is on a par with Gordon Banks of Leicester. He is worth every consideration, and when the team is chosen at the end of the month it must be a very close thing between Tony and Gordon.’ In the end it was Banks who got the nod. For Blackpool he only missed two League games during the 1963/64 season as he played 39 League games, two FA Cup ties and one League Cup tie.
His weekly wage for the 1964/65 season was increased to £35 all year round plus an extra £5 when he played in the League side.
Unusually in a match, he made two penalty saves from Billy Bremner against Leeds United on 7 September 1964, which prompted Ronnie Suart to say ’There’s no better goalkeeper in England today.’ Blackpool won the game 4-0.
He finally made his England debut in a 3-1 victory over the Republic of Ireland in Dublin on 24 May 1964 and then he went on the England tour of North and South America in the 1964 close season and he replaced Gordon Banks for the game against Brazil at Rio de Janeiro on 30 May when Brazil won 5-1.
Continually vying with Banks for the England goalkeeping spot, he played in a 2 2 draw with Belgium at Wembley on 21 October 1964 and followed this with a game against Wales on 18 November when England won 2-1 [I was delighted to have been at both games for, as a goalkeeper myself in those days, Waiters was my boyhood idol]. Representative honours continued to come as he played for the Football League against the Irish League at The Oval, Belfast, on 28 October 1964 when England won 4-0 with a Frank Wignall hat-trick and a goal from Terry Paine and then he played his fifth and what turned out to be his final international against Holland in Amsterdam on 9 December 1964 when the game was drawn 1-1.
For Blackpool he was an ever-present in the 1964/65 season, playing 42 League games, one FA Cup tie and two League Cup ties. And he received a wage increase for the 1965/66 season when his weekly wage was to be £40 all year round plus an extra £10 when he played in the League side.
Despite being the regular first choice he was still unsettled and he had a transfer request refused in December 1965. Staying loyal to the club, he stated that he would not be renewing the request but added, ‘I still feel the same way about moving, I would like to leave Blackpool, but I am not putting in another transfer request. I don’t think there would be any point in doing so at the moment. It’s true that I may speak to Mr Suart again in two or three weeks or whenever I get round to it. But I haven’t decided on my definite course of action.’ His contract was due to finish at the end of the 1965/66 season but Blackpool held a one-year option.
He was left out of the side for the first time since September 1963 after two so-called ’under-par performances’ in two FA Cup ties against Manchester City for the 0 0 draw with Fulham on 29 January 1966 [I was there at Craven Cottage]. He did not renew his transfer request and said, ’I am not going to renew my request just because I have been left out of the side this week. This is not the time to do so. I have been given a few days off and I intend to forget football completely. It’s a strain keeping goal in a side which has been threatened with relegation for the past four years or so — and the strain is beginning to tell. I need a break.’ Manager Ron Suart commented on leaving out Waiters and Johnny Green, ‘As far as Tony is concerned it is a very long time since he was out of the team and I think a rest from football will do him a lot of good. Similarly it will do Johnny no harm to miss a game. Both have lost a little of their edge.’
On the Monday following the Fulham game Suart commented, ’Waiters has been to see me and is quite satisfied that we are resting him for his own good and that it will benefit him after so many consecutive appearances. [He had made 108 consecutive League and Cup appearances.]’ He added, ’Alan [Taylor] deserves another game for his performance on Saturday, where he did quite well.’ After two games Waiters was back in the side, despite that fact that Alan Taylor kept two clean sheets in two 0-0 draws! And he completed the season having played 40 League games, two FA Cup ties and two League Cup ties in the 1965/66 season.
He was selected by Alf Ramsey as one of the original 40 players selected for the 1966 World Cup but when the final 22 were chosen he was left out of the squad. He was, however, asked to remain on standby.
In a pre-season friendly game against Preston North End on 8 August 1966 he earned the headlines with ’Waiters keeps ‘Pool in front – Great saves foil North End Rally’ as Blackpool won 2-1. At the time he was noted as being on the transfer list at his own request.
In what turned out to be his final season at Bloomfield Road, he played 35 League games, one FA Cup tie and five League Cup ties in the 1966/67 season as Blackpool found themselves relegated to Division Two. Then he decided to retire and the club cancelled his registration on 30 June 1967 after he had appeared in 258 League games, 10 FA Cup ties and 18 League Cup ties, a grand total of 286 games.
Taking up coaching, he worked for the Football Association as a Regional Coach, and in January 1969 he joined Liverpool as coach for the club's youth development program. Then in 1970, he answered a cry from Burnley when an injury to their goalkeeper Peter Mellor led to him coming out of retirement. After making another 40 appearances, he finally retired in 1972.
By that time he had made a name for himself as a coach and he was immediately appointed FA North West regional coach and he later became a member of FIFA’s Panel of Instructors as well as being an English Staff Coach.
Thereafter he had a number of appointments, director of coaching at Coventry City in December 1971, a post he held until March 1972 and coach of the England Youth Under-18 team that won the European Championship in Italy in 1973 by defeating East Germany 3-2.
He was appointed manager of Plymouth Argyle in October 1972 and he remained at the club until April 1977. He led them to the League Cup semi-finals in 1973/74 when they lost 3-1 on aggregate to Manchester City and he guided the club to second place and promotion from Division Three (now League One) the following season, when Paul Mariner and Billy Rafferty combined for 43 goals..
He moved to Canada to manage Vancouver Whitecaps later in 1977 and he won the North American Soccer League’s ‘Coach of the Year’ for 1978. And he coached the Whitecaps to the North American Soccer League championship in 1979 when they upset the New York Cosmos en route to victory in Soccer Bowl '79, the NASL championship.
He was appointed coach to the Canadian national side in 1981 and in 1984 he was coach to the Canadian Olympic side that reached the tournament quarter-finals. And in 1985 he was the Canadian National Coach as the team were CONCACAF champions and he was still in the post when Canada reached the 1986 World Cup Finals for the only time in their history. He left the post later in 1986 but returned for a further spell in 1990 and 1991.
He was very highly regarded in North America and as well as his coaching commitments he created his company World of Soccer in the 1980s, producing a complete series of coaching books. He continued to coach children and young adults, helping them pursue their soccer goals and moulding players for the future. He was appointed the first Director of the National Soccer Coaches Association of America's (NSCAA) Goalkeeping Institute, stepping down in 2006. He remained a National Staff Coach of the NSCAA and U.S. Soccer.
He was regarded as a visionary coach and a manager well ahead of his time and he was inducted into the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame in 2001 and into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame in 2019.
As a former Pilgrims' manager he returned to Plymouth to watch the League One match between Argyle and Rochdale on Saturday, February 23, 2019 at Home Park. A lunch was also held in his honour at the Duke of Cornwall Hotel in Plymouth.
He died on 10 November 2020. Former Plymouth player, and one of the club’s Legends, Paul Hart, paid tribute to him with ‘The world is a poorer place this morning with the devastating news that the great Tony Waiters has sadly passed away at the age of 83. Tony has left a legacy that will be remembered by many across the world. His achievements in football are seconded only by his devotion to his lovely family. Our thoughts are with his wife Anne and their two children Scott and Victoria. RIP Tony. I am honoured to have met you.’ And he is fondly remembered on both sides of the Atlantic as an outstanding contributor to the game of football and he will always have his place in the annals of the history of Blackpool Football Club.
Tony Waiters was born in Southport on 1 February 1937. As a schoolboy he played his football at centre half but in joining the RAF for National Service he became a goalkeeper at which position he won one England amateur international cap in a 3-1 victory over Luxembourg on 24 May 1959 and he was a trialist for the 1956 Great Britain Olympic team; he eventually lost out to Harry Sharratt, who had been with Blackpool in 1952/53.
He had played for a variety of teams such as Bishop Auckland, Southport amateurs, various RAF teams, Middlesbrough second team in the North Eastern League, English Universities and a Midlands amateur side but it was from Macclesfield Town that Blackpool signed him as an amateur in August 1959 after being alerted to his potential by Verdi Godwin, a journeyman professional footballer who lived in Blackpool. He was a graduate of Loughborough College of Physical Education and was said to have been signed by Blackpool with a view to him being a replacement for ‘the aging George Farm’. He also worked as a lifeguard on Southport beach.
After the 1959/60 pre-season practice games, one critic commented, ‘Some young players of great promise will be jockeying for places, and I think the fans will see such “fresh faces” in action as Leslie Lea, Brian Tyrell, Tony Waiters, Ean Cuthbert, Geoff Barnes and Alan Burrows before long.’ He was vying for a position with another young goalkeeper, Gordon West, but it was Waiters who earned the call up for his debut for the Central League side on 22 August 1959. Blackpool lost 1-0 to Bolton Wanderers reserves.
He made a favourable impression in the Central League side and he was signed as a professional on 2 October 1959 when he commented, ‘Already I have found a big difference between the amateur and the professional game. Even in the Central League the game is faster and calls for unrelaxing concentration.’ His weekly wage was £16 in the summer, £17 in the winter plus an extra £3 if and when he played in the League side.
And he earned that £3 bonus for the first time when he made his League debut on 26 December 1959 in 1 0 home win over Blackburn Rovers. He replaced George Farm who thought that his own return to Scotland would be imminent once his deputy had won his spurs in first class football. He retained his place for the following game, a 3-1 victory over Fulham. Farm then returned for what were to be his final two League games for Blackpool before Waiters took over for the remainder of the season.
And when he was selected for the game at Wolverhampton Wanderers on 6 February 1960 after Farm had moved to Queen of the South he said, ‘I witnessed a mixture of delight and apprehension on the coach journey from Birmingham to the Molineux ground, those old butterflies started fluttering in my stomach but in the dressing room I found something which helped to ease the nervous strain. It was a telegram from George Farm wishing me good fortune. I was still somewhat overawed by the size and noise of the crowd.’ Blackpool drew 1 1 and he was ‘applauded off the field, a sporting appreciation from the home crowd for the agility, daring, precise timing and good handling he showed in defying the Wolves attack’. He ended the 1959/60 season having played 17 League games and 24 Central League games.
He had a wage increase for the 1960/61 season when his terms were £17 in the summer and £20 in the winter. And he began the season as the first choice goalkeeper and he played the first 21 games before an unaccountable loss of form by Christmas 1960 cost him his place in the first team as Blackpool made a change and gave Gordon West his first taste of League football. He said of the situation ‘My other job as a part time teacher has certainly helped me to overcome the gloom that followed my loss of form and subsequent loss of a first team place.’
He returned to action in the Central League side and he was injured in the game against Sheffield Wednesday reserves on 22 April 1961 and he had to be stretchered off the field with his legs tied together. Sammy Salt went in goal as Blackpool won 2-1. The 1960/61 season saw him play 23 League games, two League Cup ties and 17 Central League games.
It was an unhappy Tony Waiters at the end of the season as, after having lost that first team spot to West, he uncharacteristically commented in July 1961, ‘The quicker I get to another club the better. I never want to play for Blackpool again.’ Fortunately the Blackpool directors were having none of that and his wage for the 1961/62 season was increased to £25 per week all year round plus an extra £5 when he played in the League side and these terms were to last for two seasons.
He started the 1961/62 season in the Central League side and although he won back his first team place against Bolton Wanderers on 14 October 1961 he still insisted, ‘I would still like to get away from Blackpool.’ He was apparently feeling that there was a difference between the amateur and professional game as he commented, ‘There is not the same sort of social life as you find in the amateur ranks.’ He admitted that he had only continued playing for the club because when the 1961/62 season opened Blackpool had not signed a replacement for him and he said, ’I did not want to see them in a spot so I signed a month’s contract, and since then I have signed a 12 month contract. But I still hope to get away one day. I should like to start again with a fresh club, although perhaps even further disillusionment lies in store for me if that ever comes about.’ In anticipation of leaving the club, he had given up his part time teaching post at Highfield School.
He injured a shoulder on 10 March 1962 after only 10 minutes against Leicester City and he played the second half of the game in the forward line, ‘given a roving commission, presumably for nuisance value if nothing else’. The injury caused him to miss the remainder of the 1961/62 season. Ironically the injury occurred just two weeks after Gordon West had signed for Everton and Blackpool had signed a replacement in Bryan Harvey from Newcastle United. Manager Ronnie Suart said of the injury, which happened when Waiters toppled over Leicester centre forward Ken Keyworth, ‘The fracture should have healed by the time the muscle fibres have healed. But it could take another three weeks, and I don’t expect he will be fit much before Easter.’ He was not fit by Easter and he said three weeks later, ‘The shoulder is giving me a bit of trouble. I can’t lift very well with my left arm or raise it fully yet. Still, it is remarkable what treatment can do for an injury like this. I shall just have to see how the shoulder responds in the next few days.’ He played in 20 League games, two FA Cup ties, three League Cup ties and 12 Central League games in the 1961/62 season.
He received a wage increase for the 1962/63 season when his weekly terms were improved to £30 per week all year round plus an additional £5 when he played in the League side. And he proved to be an ever-present in that season, playing in 42 League games, two FA Cup ties and three League Cup ties. And he got an honourable mention in the third round FA Cup replay against Norwich City on 6 March 1963 when ‘In the first half hour, where there was only one team in it (and that wasn’t Blackpool), only Waiters’ acrobatics and the superb policing of Gratrix stopped Norwich running riot.’ Unfortunately it was all to no avail as Blackpool lost 3-1 after extra-time.
He broke a finger in a 3-0 defeat by Manchester United at Old Trafford on 11 September 1963 and although he was out of the game, he was selected for the Football League against the League of Ireland in Dublin on 2 October 1963. However, he had no doubt about his fitness and he said, ’I’m certain I’ll be fit in time. I’ve been trying my hand out this week and it feels reasonably comfortable, although the finger is still in a splint. I don’t know whether I’ll be completely fit for the League Cup match with Charlton on Wednesday night, but I should certainly be all right for next Saturday’s game at Stoke and for the Monday match against Fulham.’
And of his selection for the Football League he commented, ’I’m on top of the world about it. One always hopes for these things, but when they come they still leave you a bit out of breath. I’m determined, as every player who represents the League or his country is determined, to put up a good show. But, you never know what can happen in a football match.’ Finally on the transformation that had taken place in his career, out of the team and wanting to leave only a couple of years earlier to being the club’s number one choice again, he remarked, ‘At that time, when things were going badly, I don’t think I understood the professional game properly, perhaps because I joined the paid ranks at a comparatively late age. If such a situation ever arose again, and I fervently hope it won’t, I think I would approach it with a very different attitude. You live and learn.’
He was named as reserve for England in the game against FIFA at Wembley for the FA Centenary on 23 October 1963, a game that England won 2-1 [I had a ticket for this game but suddenly an important meeting cropped up so I had to give the ticket to my Dad!]. And he was included in a squad of 22 players called up by England for training in December 1963. He was also selected for the English League side to play the Scottish League at Roker Park on 18 March 1964. The game was drawn 2-2.
After the inter League game there was pressure for him to be given a full England cap and Ronnie Suart, who went to Roker Park, commented, ’I thought on his showing that he did sufficient to justify his inclusion in the full England side against Scotland. I think he proved at last that he is on a par with Gordon Banks of Leicester. He is worth every consideration, and when the team is chosen at the end of the month it must be a very close thing between Tony and Gordon.’ In the end it was Banks who got the nod. For Blackpool he only missed two League games during the 1963/64 season as he played 39 League games, two FA Cup ties and one League Cup tie.
His weekly wage for the 1964/65 season was increased to £35 all year round plus an extra £5 when he played in the League side.
Unusually in a match, he made two penalty saves from Billy Bremner against Leeds United on 7 September 1964, which prompted Ronnie Suart to say ’There’s no better goalkeeper in England today.’ Blackpool won the game 4-0.
He finally made his England debut in a 3-1 victory over the Republic of Ireland in Dublin on 24 May 1964 and then he went on the England tour of North and South America in the 1964 close season and he replaced Gordon Banks for the game against Brazil at Rio de Janeiro on 30 May when Brazil won 5-1.
Continually vying with Banks for the England goalkeeping spot, he played in a 2 2 draw with Belgium at Wembley on 21 October 1964 and followed this with a game against Wales on 18 November when England won 2-1 [I was delighted to have been at both games for, as a goalkeeper myself in those days, Waiters was my boyhood idol]. Representative honours continued to come as he played for the Football League against the Irish League at The Oval, Belfast, on 28 October 1964 when England won 4-0 with a Frank Wignall hat-trick and a goal from Terry Paine and then he played his fifth and what turned out to be his final international against Holland in Amsterdam on 9 December 1964 when the game was drawn 1-1.
For Blackpool he was an ever-present in the 1964/65 season, playing 42 League games, one FA Cup tie and two League Cup ties. And he received a wage increase for the 1965/66 season when his weekly wage was to be £40 all year round plus an extra £10 when he played in the League side.
Despite being the regular first choice he was still unsettled and he had a transfer request refused in December 1965. Staying loyal to the club, he stated that he would not be renewing the request but added, ‘I still feel the same way about moving, I would like to leave Blackpool, but I am not putting in another transfer request. I don’t think there would be any point in doing so at the moment. It’s true that I may speak to Mr Suart again in two or three weeks or whenever I get round to it. But I haven’t decided on my definite course of action.’ His contract was due to finish at the end of the 1965/66 season but Blackpool held a one-year option.
He was left out of the side for the first time since September 1963 after two so-called ’under-par performances’ in two FA Cup ties against Manchester City for the 0 0 draw with Fulham on 29 January 1966 [I was there at Craven Cottage]. He did not renew his transfer request and said, ’I am not going to renew my request just because I have been left out of the side this week. This is not the time to do so. I have been given a few days off and I intend to forget football completely. It’s a strain keeping goal in a side which has been threatened with relegation for the past four years or so — and the strain is beginning to tell. I need a break.’ Manager Ron Suart commented on leaving out Waiters and Johnny Green, ‘As far as Tony is concerned it is a very long time since he was out of the team and I think a rest from football will do him a lot of good. Similarly it will do Johnny no harm to miss a game. Both have lost a little of their edge.’
On the Monday following the Fulham game Suart commented, ’Waiters has been to see me and is quite satisfied that we are resting him for his own good and that it will benefit him after so many consecutive appearances. [He had made 108 consecutive League and Cup appearances.]’ He added, ’Alan [Taylor] deserves another game for his performance on Saturday, where he did quite well.’ After two games Waiters was back in the side, despite that fact that Alan Taylor kept two clean sheets in two 0-0 draws! And he completed the season having played 40 League games, two FA Cup ties and two League Cup ties in the 1965/66 season.
He was selected by Alf Ramsey as one of the original 40 players selected for the 1966 World Cup but when the final 22 were chosen he was left out of the squad. He was, however, asked to remain on standby.
In a pre-season friendly game against Preston North End on 8 August 1966 he earned the headlines with ’Waiters keeps ‘Pool in front – Great saves foil North End Rally’ as Blackpool won 2-1. At the time he was noted as being on the transfer list at his own request.
In what turned out to be his final season at Bloomfield Road, he played 35 League games, one FA Cup tie and five League Cup ties in the 1966/67 season as Blackpool found themselves relegated to Division Two. Then he decided to retire and the club cancelled his registration on 30 June 1967 after he had appeared in 258 League games, 10 FA Cup ties and 18 League Cup ties, a grand total of 286 games.
Taking up coaching, he worked for the Football Association as a Regional Coach, and in January 1969 he joined Liverpool as coach for the club's youth development program. Then in 1970, he answered a cry from Burnley when an injury to their goalkeeper Peter Mellor led to him coming out of retirement. After making another 40 appearances, he finally retired in 1972.
By that time he had made a name for himself as a coach and he was immediately appointed FA North West regional coach and he later became a member of FIFA’s Panel of Instructors as well as being an English Staff Coach.
Thereafter he had a number of appointments, director of coaching at Coventry City in December 1971, a post he held until March 1972 and coach of the England Youth Under-18 team that won the European Championship in Italy in 1973 by defeating East Germany 3-2.
He was appointed manager of Plymouth Argyle in October 1972 and he remained at the club until April 1977. He led them to the League Cup semi-finals in 1973/74 when they lost 3-1 on aggregate to Manchester City and he guided the club to second place and promotion from Division Three (now League One) the following season, when Paul Mariner and Billy Rafferty combined for 43 goals..
He moved to Canada to manage Vancouver Whitecaps later in 1977 and he won the North American Soccer League’s ‘Coach of the Year’ for 1978. And he coached the Whitecaps to the North American Soccer League championship in 1979 when they upset the New York Cosmos en route to victory in Soccer Bowl '79, the NASL championship.
He was appointed coach to the Canadian national side in 1981 and in 1984 he was coach to the Canadian Olympic side that reached the tournament quarter-finals. And in 1985 he was the Canadian National Coach as the team were CONCACAF champions and he was still in the post when Canada reached the 1986 World Cup Finals for the only time in their history. He left the post later in 1986 but returned for a further spell in 1990 and 1991.
He was very highly regarded in North America and as well as his coaching commitments he created his company World of Soccer in the 1980s, producing a complete series of coaching books. He continued to coach children and young adults, helping them pursue their soccer goals and moulding players for the future. He was appointed the first Director of the National Soccer Coaches Association of America's (NSCAA) Goalkeeping Institute, stepping down in 2006. He remained a National Staff Coach of the NSCAA and U.S. Soccer.
He was regarded as a visionary coach and a manager well ahead of his time and he was inducted into the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame in 2001 and into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame in 2019.
As a former Pilgrims' manager he returned to Plymouth to watch the League One match between Argyle and Rochdale on Saturday, February 23, 2019 at Home Park. A lunch was also held in his honour at the Duke of Cornwall Hotel in Plymouth.
He died on 10 November 2020. Former Plymouth player, and one of the club’s Legends, Paul Hart, paid tribute to him with ‘The world is a poorer place this morning with the devastating news that the great Tony Waiters has sadly passed away at the age of 83. Tony has left a legacy that will be remembered by many across the world. His achievements in football are seconded only by his devotion to his lovely family. Our thoughts are with his wife Anne and their two children Scott and Victoria. RIP Tony. I am honoured to have met you.’ And he is fondly remembered on both sides of the Atlantic as an outstanding contributor to the game of football and he will always have his place in the annals of the history of Blackpool Football Club.
September 26, 2020
A Springbok Star
Eric Brian Peterson 1936 - 2020
Brian Peterson was born in Durban on 29 October 1936 and was an inside forward who was signed by Blackpool on 8 October 1956 from his Berea Park club. He had apparently taken two years to make the decision to leave amateur football in South Africa and a partnership that he had in a sports store. He had started his football career with Berea Park FC but he had moved to Queens Park and made his senior debut at age 17 before returning to his original club. He represented the Natal Province team, playing in a Curry Cup final, and he also toured Australia with a South African representative XI.
After impressive games for the junior teams, Blackpool manager Joe Smith commented in early November 1956, ‘Peterson is a very promising player. He is the brainy type of player who has fine ball control and whose distribution is excellent’ and he added that he expected him soon to be in the Central League side.
After playing a number of games in the ‘A’ team he duly made his Central League debut against Chesterfield reserves on 10 November 1956 as Blackpool won 2-1. He then made his home debut in the Central League side on a cold, miserable afternoon 17 November 1956 against Stoke City reserves when he ‘was always calling for passes in the early minutes’ and ‘when he was given one [he] sent Booth away to shoot out by the far post’ as Blackpool eventually lost 1-0.
His talent was obvious and he was quickly promoted to 12th man for the League side against Chelsea on 1 December 1956 and many shrewd judges considered him another Ernie Taylor in the making. But, after his first taste of the League scene, he returned to play for the ‘A’ team against Everton ‘A’ on 8 December 1956 when Blackpool lost 3-0.
He returned to Central League action against Bolton Wanderers reserves on 22 December 1956 when he ‘made one or two good passes but the mud and slime made no surface for this lightweight’ as Blackpool lost 3-1. He scored his first Central League goal in a 3-2 defeat by Everton reserves on 25 December 1956 and his second Central League goal came when he was ‘sliding the ball past Rainford as the ‘keeper came out’ in a 3-1 victory over Blackburn Rovers reserves on 5 January 1957. He then switched position and made a surprise appearance at outside left against Sheffield Wednesday reserves on 2 March 1957 and he ‘came dangerously near opening his team’s account’ early in the second half but Blackpool lost 3-0 at Hillsborough.
His displays had been watched with interest by Joe Smith and he made his League debut in place of the injured Ernie Taylor against Cardiff City in a 4-3 victory on 9 March 1957. He partnered Stan Matthews on the right flank and it was noted by many a critic that he had not been born when Matthews was making his international debut.
Unfortunately he suffered a cut foot in training during the following week and, along with 10 other players, was declared unfit to play on 16 March 1957. When he recovered he discovered that at the last minute Ernie Taylor had developed a temperature before the game against Chelsea on 13 April 1957 and he was told that he would be in the League team for his second appearance. A Jackie Mudie goal settled the game 1-0 in Blackpool’s favour but Peterson earned the headline PETERSON DOES WELL.
Showing his versatility, for the Good Friday game against Arsenal on 19 April 1957, he switched to inside left to replace David Durie as the game was drawn 1-1. And then he moved to outside right, replacing the unfit Stan Matthews, for the return game against Arsenal on 22 April 1957 when Blackpool lost 4-2. He retained the outside right spot for the final two games of the season, a 2-1 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur on 27 April 1957 and a 1-0 victory over Burnley on 1 May 1957.
After a promising first season he had played in six League games and 12 Central League games, scoring two goals. And the end of season comment was ‘It will be interesting to look forward to the progress which Brian Peterson is expected to make. He arrived here last October almost an unknown South African. He has not stayed unknown for long.’
He returned home in the summer of 1957 to get married but returned to Blackpool for the following season after he had re-signed for the club for the 1957/58 season at terms of £14 per week in the summer and £17 per week in the football season.
He began the 1957/58 season with his first taste of European football when he was at inside left in the side that defeated Sparta Rotterdam 3-2 in a pre-season friendly game in Holland on 14 August 1957. And then after the Tangerines versus Whites practice match on 16 August 1957 the view was he was ‘developing into a footballer of great promise’ as he scored the Whites goal in a 4-1 defeat. But he missed the opening game of the season and then he played his first Central League game of the 1957/58 season against Sheffield United reserves on 26 August 1957 when the game was drawn 1-1.
He quickly earned a League re-call at inside left in place of the injured David Durie for the game against Luton Town on 4 September 1957 when Blackpool lost 2-0. He went on to score his first League goal for the club in the 79th minute in a 3-0 defeat of Sheffield Wednesday on 12 October 1957 when ‘Matthews took a free-kick and swept the ball across the field to the unmarked Peterson. The South African did not dally. Instead he cracked it first time into the left-hand corner of the net. Peterson threw his arms in the air and danced down the pitch. No wonder. It was his first goal in League football since he arrived from South Africa 12 months ago.’
Back in the Central League side on 19 October 1957 he was the provider for two of Ray Charnley’s three goals, hitting the bar for the first when Charnley scored from the rebound and providing the pass for his second as Blackpool defeated Newcastle United reserves 4-3. He replaced the injured Ernie Taylor in the League side against Nottingham Forest on 26 October 1957 when he partnered Stan Matthews who was playing his first game on the City Ground for 25 years! Blackpool won 2-1.
He scored a 54th-minute winner in the 2-1 victory over Chelsea on 2 November 1957 when overall he ‘did some good things’. He played his first game In the FA Cup in the third round against West Ham United on 4 January 1958 and although Blackpool took the lead in two minutes, they lost 5-1.
Then out of the blue Blackpool were hit with a bombshell when, on 27 January 1958 manager Joe Smith reported that Peterson had told him that he wanted to return to South Africa. But for the immediate future no movement took place.
Following an injury to Stan Matthews at Chelsea on 15 March 1958, Peterson replaced him at outside right for the game against Birmingham City on 22 March 1958. Blackpool went into half time at 2-2 and went on to win 4-2.
He continued at outside right in place of Matthews in a 2-1 defeat by Burnley on 29 March 1958 and his best moment came when he was ‘given an ovation when he cunningly outwitted Winton, but his curling centre was coolly anticipated by McDonald, who pulled down the ball by the right hand post’. Then, after injury ruled him out for a couple of games he returned at outside right for the 2-1 defeat by Preston North End on 7 April.
He created the opening goal for Bill Perry in a 2-1 victory over Portsmouth on 13 April 1958 and he was at outside right for the last game of the season against Tottenham Hotspur on 26 April 1958 because Stan Matthews was unavailable. Blackpool lost 2-1 with an all-South African right wing as Peter Hauser joined Peterson and both were involved in Blackpool’s late consolation goal. His 1957/58 season was a successful one as he played in 26 League games, scoring four goals, one FA Cup tie and 11 Central League games, scoring one goal. He also played in two friendly games.
Although he was due to return to South Africa in May 1958, on 18 April 1958 Blackpool offered him terms for the 1958/59 season. A spokesman for the club said, ‘Although Peterson has announced he is going home, there is nothing to prevent us from offering him terms just in case he changes his mind.’ And on 8 May 1958 he did return to his homeland. Many Blackpool supporters, disappointed at his return home, were worried that he would never return to play for the club especially when they heard that he had been reinstated as an amateur with Berea Park in the Durban League.
Fortunately he returned to Blackpool in November 1958 having sold his interest in the sports outfitters and he was re-signed by Blackpool on 1 December 1958 at a weekly wage of £17 out of season and £20 during the season. He was back in training with the team the day after he arrived in Blackpool. He commented, ‘It is wonderful to be back.’ And
he was back in Central League action against Sheffield Wednesday reserves on 13 December 1958 when he ‘distributed one or two neat passes’ as Blackpool lost 3-1.
His long awaited return to League action came against Nottingham Forest on 21 February 1959 when Blackpool won 1-0. And he went on to play 13 League games, scoring one goal, 10 Central League games and one friendly game for Blackpool in his first season back at Bloomfield Road.
In the close season Blackpool fulfilled their obligation to Tranmere Rovers by playing a friendly game at Prenton Park on 27 April 1959 in respect of the transfer of Johnny Green. Green scored Blackpool’s goal in a 2-1 defeat for the Seasiders and the programme noted, ‘Prenton Park fans will be able to assess the tremendous potential of the Maestro’s deputy, Brian Peterson, who returned from South Africa last autumn and now bids fair to create as big a stir in English football as his country-man, Bill Perry, on the opposite wing.’ That potential was recognised when Blackpool revised his terms for 1959/60 and the following season when he was to earn £16 per week out of season and £19 per week during the season.
After three games of the 1959/60 season, two of which were won, he was left out of the side after, in his own words ‘three bad games on the trot’. He duly returned to Central League action against Huddersfield Town reserves on 2 September 1959 and he scored Blackpool’s goal in a 1-1 draw. After missing four League games he returned to action in a 5-3 victory over Leicester City on 14 September and he remained in the side for a run of eight games before a niggling injury saw him sidelined for three games. He returned and showed good form in a 2-2 draw with Tottenham Hotspur on 28 November and he looked set to retain his place for the remainder of the season.
Sadly he broke down on 9 January 1960 after 30 minutes of the FA Cup tie against Mansfield Town but ten-man Blackpool went on to win 3-0. He was diagnosed as having cartilage trouble and he was sidelined for a long time. His season was virtually finished and although he tried a comeback in the Central League side against Manchester United reserves on 5 March 1960, he was unable to play again and after the one game, that Blackpool lost 2-1, he had to have further operations. Nevertheless he played 18 League games, scoring two goals, one FA Cup tie, five Central League games, scoring three goals, and one friendly game for Blackpool in the 1959/60 season.
To aid his comeback, he began the 1960/61 season playing junior football in the ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams where he ‘took things cautiously’. And he began his senior comeback in the Central League side on 1 October 1960 against Preston North End reserves when Blackpool won 1-0. He came through that game unscathed and he returned to the first team on 5 October 1960 for the League Cup tie replay with Leeds United when Blackpool lost 3-1 after extra time. But he aggravated the injury and he was out for the next game.
At the end of October a specialist advised him that he would be out until the following February, possibly until the start of the following season but he did stress that he would play again before the season ended.
It looked likely to be a Happy New Year for him when he visited a specialist in December 1960 and got an encouraging report on the right knee injury that had sidelined him for virtually 12 months. He was expected to be fit to challenge for a first team place early in 1961. And so it was as he made an unexpected comeback in the Central League side on 7 January 1961, a year after his injury, in a 4-0 victory over Chesterfield reserves.
After three successive Central League games, he returned to the League side on 11 February 1961 in 2-2 draw with Chelsea. He was back to full fitness and played every game thereafter until the end of the season and he regularly received good reports such as
at Cardiff City on 24 March 1961 when one critic reported, ‘Brian Peterson and Ray Parry [were] working hard and demonstrating ball control of a high order’ as Blackpool won the game 2-0 to ease their relegation fears. He finished the season having played 16 League games, scoring two goals, one League Cup tie, four Central League games and one friendly game.
He was rewarded for his hard work in recovering from injury by being given revised terms for the 1961/62 season. He was to receive £24 per week plus an extra £5 when he played in the League side. And he began earning that bonus immediately as he started the season at inside right in the League side, playing in the opening game, a 2-1 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur on 19 August 1961. And in the second game of the season against Blackburn Rovers on 21 August he scored one of the goals in Blackpool’s 2-1 victory. He moved to outside right for three games before a minor injury interrupted his season and he missed a couple of games.
He returned to action with a goal in a 4-0 defeat of Chelsea on 30 September and then after a 3-0 defeat at Arsenal (Stan Matthews’ last game for the club and a game that I attended at Highbury) he scored again in a 2-1 defeat of Bolton Wanderers on 14 October. Then after injury sidelined him once more for two games he returned with a goal in a 4-2 defeat of Manchester City on 2 December 1961. He scored again in the following game, a 2-2 draw with West Bromwich Albion on 9 December but after he scored Blackpool’s consolation goal in a 2-1 defeat by Sheffield United on 26 December, he was out of the side once more.
He returned to the League side for a single game, a 1-0 defeat by Arsenal on 24 February 1962 before in a Central League game against Derby County reserves on 17 March 1962 he appeared in the unfamiliar position of right half and he ‘revealed, now and again, the class which is in him as a wing half, but he was in and out, too’. Blackpool lost 2-1.
On 30 March and 3 April he played a couple of games at inside left, a 2-2 draw with Everton, in which he scored one of Blackpool’s goals, and a 2-4 defeat by Sheffield United. Then he played what turned out to be his final League game for Blackpool at inside right against Fulham on 7 April 1962; goals from Ray Charnley and Ray Parry gave Blackpool a 2-1 victory, so he ended on a victorious note.
He did, however, play one further first team game when he played against Norwich City at Carrow Road in the first leg of the League Cup semi-final on 11 April when he scored Blackpool’s goal in a catastrophic 1-4 defeat. He missed the second leg, which Blackpool won 2-0 (it was nail-biting as I was there!).
He ended what was his final season at Bloomfield Road having played 24 League games, scoring seven goals, one FA Cup tie, four League Cup ties, scoring one goal, nine Central League games, scoring three goals, two friendly games, plus making one substitute appearance, scoring one goal.
When the season ended he returned home to South Africa on 28 May 1962, his Blackpool career having encompassed 103 League games, in which he scored 16 goals, three FA Cup ties, five League Cup ties, with one goal, 51 Central League games, with nine goals, and seven friendly games, plus making one appearance as a substitute, scoring one goal.
He was reported as playing well for Durban United with brother Keith in November 1964. And when he left Durban United, he had a short spell with Durban City before retiring from the game. After retirement he worked for 27 years for Foschini, a clothing firm.
He made a welcome return to Bloomfield Road, along with brother Keith, as a guest of the club for the game against Northampton Town on 14 April 2007. And he mingled with supporters and reminisced about the wonderful time that he had had at the club. He had been an integral part of a reasonably successful Blackpool side, having finished in fourth, seventh, eighth, 11th, and 13th position in addition to dramatically fighting to escape relegation in 20th position in 1960/61 in his six seasons at the club.
He died on 21 September 2020 after a short illness. His name will long be remembered as having played a significant part in Blackpool Football Club’s illustrious history.
Brian Peterson was born in Durban on 29 October 1936 and was an inside forward who was signed by Blackpool on 8 October 1956 from his Berea Park club. He had apparently taken two years to make the decision to leave amateur football in South Africa and a partnership that he had in a sports store. He had started his football career with Berea Park FC but he had moved to Queens Park and made his senior debut at age 17 before returning to his original club. He represented the Natal Province team, playing in a Curry Cup final, and he also toured Australia with a South African representative XI.
After impressive games for the junior teams, Blackpool manager Joe Smith commented in early November 1956, ‘Peterson is a very promising player. He is the brainy type of player who has fine ball control and whose distribution is excellent’ and he added that he expected him soon to be in the Central League side.
After playing a number of games in the ‘A’ team he duly made his Central League debut against Chesterfield reserves on 10 November 1956 as Blackpool won 2-1. He then made his home debut in the Central League side on a cold, miserable afternoon 17 November 1956 against Stoke City reserves when he ‘was always calling for passes in the early minutes’ and ‘when he was given one [he] sent Booth away to shoot out by the far post’ as Blackpool eventually lost 1-0.
His talent was obvious and he was quickly promoted to 12th man for the League side against Chelsea on 1 December 1956 and many shrewd judges considered him another Ernie Taylor in the making. But, after his first taste of the League scene, he returned to play for the ‘A’ team against Everton ‘A’ on 8 December 1956 when Blackpool lost 3-0.
He returned to Central League action against Bolton Wanderers reserves on 22 December 1956 when he ‘made one or two good passes but the mud and slime made no surface for this lightweight’ as Blackpool lost 3-1. He scored his first Central League goal in a 3-2 defeat by Everton reserves on 25 December 1956 and his second Central League goal came when he was ‘sliding the ball past Rainford as the ‘keeper came out’ in a 3-1 victory over Blackburn Rovers reserves on 5 January 1957. He then switched position and made a surprise appearance at outside left against Sheffield Wednesday reserves on 2 March 1957 and he ‘came dangerously near opening his team’s account’ early in the second half but Blackpool lost 3-0 at Hillsborough.
His displays had been watched with interest by Joe Smith and he made his League debut in place of the injured Ernie Taylor against Cardiff City in a 4-3 victory on 9 March 1957. He partnered Stan Matthews on the right flank and it was noted by many a critic that he had not been born when Matthews was making his international debut.
Unfortunately he suffered a cut foot in training during the following week and, along with 10 other players, was declared unfit to play on 16 March 1957. When he recovered he discovered that at the last minute Ernie Taylor had developed a temperature before the game against Chelsea on 13 April 1957 and he was told that he would be in the League team for his second appearance. A Jackie Mudie goal settled the game 1-0 in Blackpool’s favour but Peterson earned the headline PETERSON DOES WELL.
Showing his versatility, for the Good Friday game against Arsenal on 19 April 1957, he switched to inside left to replace David Durie as the game was drawn 1-1. And then he moved to outside right, replacing the unfit Stan Matthews, for the return game against Arsenal on 22 April 1957 when Blackpool lost 4-2. He retained the outside right spot for the final two games of the season, a 2-1 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur on 27 April 1957 and a 1-0 victory over Burnley on 1 May 1957.
After a promising first season he had played in six League games and 12 Central League games, scoring two goals. And the end of season comment was ‘It will be interesting to look forward to the progress which Brian Peterson is expected to make. He arrived here last October almost an unknown South African. He has not stayed unknown for long.’
He returned home in the summer of 1957 to get married but returned to Blackpool for the following season after he had re-signed for the club for the 1957/58 season at terms of £14 per week in the summer and £17 per week in the football season.
He began the 1957/58 season with his first taste of European football when he was at inside left in the side that defeated Sparta Rotterdam 3-2 in a pre-season friendly game in Holland on 14 August 1957. And then after the Tangerines versus Whites practice match on 16 August 1957 the view was he was ‘developing into a footballer of great promise’ as he scored the Whites goal in a 4-1 defeat. But he missed the opening game of the season and then he played his first Central League game of the 1957/58 season against Sheffield United reserves on 26 August 1957 when the game was drawn 1-1.
He quickly earned a League re-call at inside left in place of the injured David Durie for the game against Luton Town on 4 September 1957 when Blackpool lost 2-0. He went on to score his first League goal for the club in the 79th minute in a 3-0 defeat of Sheffield Wednesday on 12 October 1957 when ‘Matthews took a free-kick and swept the ball across the field to the unmarked Peterson. The South African did not dally. Instead he cracked it first time into the left-hand corner of the net. Peterson threw his arms in the air and danced down the pitch. No wonder. It was his first goal in League football since he arrived from South Africa 12 months ago.’
Back in the Central League side on 19 October 1957 he was the provider for two of Ray Charnley’s three goals, hitting the bar for the first when Charnley scored from the rebound and providing the pass for his second as Blackpool defeated Newcastle United reserves 4-3. He replaced the injured Ernie Taylor in the League side against Nottingham Forest on 26 October 1957 when he partnered Stan Matthews who was playing his first game on the City Ground for 25 years! Blackpool won 2-1.
He scored a 54th-minute winner in the 2-1 victory over Chelsea on 2 November 1957 when overall he ‘did some good things’. He played his first game In the FA Cup in the third round against West Ham United on 4 January 1958 and although Blackpool took the lead in two minutes, they lost 5-1.
Then out of the blue Blackpool were hit with a bombshell when, on 27 January 1958 manager Joe Smith reported that Peterson had told him that he wanted to return to South Africa. But for the immediate future no movement took place.
Following an injury to Stan Matthews at Chelsea on 15 March 1958, Peterson replaced him at outside right for the game against Birmingham City on 22 March 1958. Blackpool went into half time at 2-2 and went on to win 4-2.
He continued at outside right in place of Matthews in a 2-1 defeat by Burnley on 29 March 1958 and his best moment came when he was ‘given an ovation when he cunningly outwitted Winton, but his curling centre was coolly anticipated by McDonald, who pulled down the ball by the right hand post’. Then, after injury ruled him out for a couple of games he returned at outside right for the 2-1 defeat by Preston North End on 7 April.
He created the opening goal for Bill Perry in a 2-1 victory over Portsmouth on 13 April 1958 and he was at outside right for the last game of the season against Tottenham Hotspur on 26 April 1958 because Stan Matthews was unavailable. Blackpool lost 2-1 with an all-South African right wing as Peter Hauser joined Peterson and both were involved in Blackpool’s late consolation goal. His 1957/58 season was a successful one as he played in 26 League games, scoring four goals, one FA Cup tie and 11 Central League games, scoring one goal. He also played in two friendly games.
Although he was due to return to South Africa in May 1958, on 18 April 1958 Blackpool offered him terms for the 1958/59 season. A spokesman for the club said, ‘Although Peterson has announced he is going home, there is nothing to prevent us from offering him terms just in case he changes his mind.’ And on 8 May 1958 he did return to his homeland. Many Blackpool supporters, disappointed at his return home, were worried that he would never return to play for the club especially when they heard that he had been reinstated as an amateur with Berea Park in the Durban League.
Fortunately he returned to Blackpool in November 1958 having sold his interest in the sports outfitters and he was re-signed by Blackpool on 1 December 1958 at a weekly wage of £17 out of season and £20 during the season. He was back in training with the team the day after he arrived in Blackpool. He commented, ‘It is wonderful to be back.’ And
he was back in Central League action against Sheffield Wednesday reserves on 13 December 1958 when he ‘distributed one or two neat passes’ as Blackpool lost 3-1.
His long awaited return to League action came against Nottingham Forest on 21 February 1959 when Blackpool won 1-0. And he went on to play 13 League games, scoring one goal, 10 Central League games and one friendly game for Blackpool in his first season back at Bloomfield Road.
In the close season Blackpool fulfilled their obligation to Tranmere Rovers by playing a friendly game at Prenton Park on 27 April 1959 in respect of the transfer of Johnny Green. Green scored Blackpool’s goal in a 2-1 defeat for the Seasiders and the programme noted, ‘Prenton Park fans will be able to assess the tremendous potential of the Maestro’s deputy, Brian Peterson, who returned from South Africa last autumn and now bids fair to create as big a stir in English football as his country-man, Bill Perry, on the opposite wing.’ That potential was recognised when Blackpool revised his terms for 1959/60 and the following season when he was to earn £16 per week out of season and £19 per week during the season.
After three games of the 1959/60 season, two of which were won, he was left out of the side after, in his own words ‘three bad games on the trot’. He duly returned to Central League action against Huddersfield Town reserves on 2 September 1959 and he scored Blackpool’s goal in a 1-1 draw. After missing four League games he returned to action in a 5-3 victory over Leicester City on 14 September and he remained in the side for a run of eight games before a niggling injury saw him sidelined for three games. He returned and showed good form in a 2-2 draw with Tottenham Hotspur on 28 November and he looked set to retain his place for the remainder of the season.
Sadly he broke down on 9 January 1960 after 30 minutes of the FA Cup tie against Mansfield Town but ten-man Blackpool went on to win 3-0. He was diagnosed as having cartilage trouble and he was sidelined for a long time. His season was virtually finished and although he tried a comeback in the Central League side against Manchester United reserves on 5 March 1960, he was unable to play again and after the one game, that Blackpool lost 2-1, he had to have further operations. Nevertheless he played 18 League games, scoring two goals, one FA Cup tie, five Central League games, scoring three goals, and one friendly game for Blackpool in the 1959/60 season.
To aid his comeback, he began the 1960/61 season playing junior football in the ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams where he ‘took things cautiously’. And he began his senior comeback in the Central League side on 1 October 1960 against Preston North End reserves when Blackpool won 1-0. He came through that game unscathed and he returned to the first team on 5 October 1960 for the League Cup tie replay with Leeds United when Blackpool lost 3-1 after extra time. But he aggravated the injury and he was out for the next game.
At the end of October a specialist advised him that he would be out until the following February, possibly until the start of the following season but he did stress that he would play again before the season ended.
It looked likely to be a Happy New Year for him when he visited a specialist in December 1960 and got an encouraging report on the right knee injury that had sidelined him for virtually 12 months. He was expected to be fit to challenge for a first team place early in 1961. And so it was as he made an unexpected comeback in the Central League side on 7 January 1961, a year after his injury, in a 4-0 victory over Chesterfield reserves.
After three successive Central League games, he returned to the League side on 11 February 1961 in 2-2 draw with Chelsea. He was back to full fitness and played every game thereafter until the end of the season and he regularly received good reports such as
at Cardiff City on 24 March 1961 when one critic reported, ‘Brian Peterson and Ray Parry [were] working hard and demonstrating ball control of a high order’ as Blackpool won the game 2-0 to ease their relegation fears. He finished the season having played 16 League games, scoring two goals, one League Cup tie, four Central League games and one friendly game.
He was rewarded for his hard work in recovering from injury by being given revised terms for the 1961/62 season. He was to receive £24 per week plus an extra £5 when he played in the League side. And he began earning that bonus immediately as he started the season at inside right in the League side, playing in the opening game, a 2-1 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur on 19 August 1961. And in the second game of the season against Blackburn Rovers on 21 August he scored one of the goals in Blackpool’s 2-1 victory. He moved to outside right for three games before a minor injury interrupted his season and he missed a couple of games.
He returned to action with a goal in a 4-0 defeat of Chelsea on 30 September and then after a 3-0 defeat at Arsenal (Stan Matthews’ last game for the club and a game that I attended at Highbury) he scored again in a 2-1 defeat of Bolton Wanderers on 14 October. Then after injury sidelined him once more for two games he returned with a goal in a 4-2 defeat of Manchester City on 2 December 1961. He scored again in the following game, a 2-2 draw with West Bromwich Albion on 9 December but after he scored Blackpool’s consolation goal in a 2-1 defeat by Sheffield United on 26 December, he was out of the side once more.
He returned to the League side for a single game, a 1-0 defeat by Arsenal on 24 February 1962 before in a Central League game against Derby County reserves on 17 March 1962 he appeared in the unfamiliar position of right half and he ‘revealed, now and again, the class which is in him as a wing half, but he was in and out, too’. Blackpool lost 2-1.
On 30 March and 3 April he played a couple of games at inside left, a 2-2 draw with Everton, in which he scored one of Blackpool’s goals, and a 2-4 defeat by Sheffield United. Then he played what turned out to be his final League game for Blackpool at inside right against Fulham on 7 April 1962; goals from Ray Charnley and Ray Parry gave Blackpool a 2-1 victory, so he ended on a victorious note.
He did, however, play one further first team game when he played against Norwich City at Carrow Road in the first leg of the League Cup semi-final on 11 April when he scored Blackpool’s goal in a catastrophic 1-4 defeat. He missed the second leg, which Blackpool won 2-0 (it was nail-biting as I was there!).
He ended what was his final season at Bloomfield Road having played 24 League games, scoring seven goals, one FA Cup tie, four League Cup ties, scoring one goal, nine Central League games, scoring three goals, two friendly games, plus making one substitute appearance, scoring one goal.
When the season ended he returned home to South Africa on 28 May 1962, his Blackpool career having encompassed 103 League games, in which he scored 16 goals, three FA Cup ties, five League Cup ties, with one goal, 51 Central League games, with nine goals, and seven friendly games, plus making one appearance as a substitute, scoring one goal.
He was reported as playing well for Durban United with brother Keith in November 1964. And when he left Durban United, he had a short spell with Durban City before retiring from the game. After retirement he worked for 27 years for Foschini, a clothing firm.
He made a welcome return to Bloomfield Road, along with brother Keith, as a guest of the club for the game against Northampton Town on 14 April 2007. And he mingled with supporters and reminisced about the wonderful time that he had had at the club. He had been an integral part of a reasonably successful Blackpool side, having finished in fourth, seventh, eighth, 11th, and 13th position in addition to dramatically fighting to escape relegation in 20th position in 1960/61 in his six seasons at the club.
He died on 21 September 2020 after a short illness. His name will long be remembered as having played a significant part in Blackpool Football Club’s illustrious history.
A Springbok Star
Eric Brian Peterson 1936 - 2020
Brian Peterson was born in Durban on 29 October 1936 and was an inside forward who was signed by Blackpool on 8 October 1956 from his Berea Park club. He had apparently taken two years to make the decision to leave amateur football in South Africa and a partnership that he had in a sports store. He had started his football career with Berea Park FC but he had moved to Queens Park and made his senior debut at age 17 before returning to his original club. He represented the Natal Province team, playing in a Curry Cup final, and he also toured Australia with a South African representative XI.
After impressive games for the junior teams, Blackpool manager Joe Smith commented in early November 1956, ‘Peterson is a very promising player. He is the brainy type of player who has fine ball control and whose distribution is excellent’ and he added that he expected him soon to be in the Central League side.
After playing a number of games in the ‘A’ team he duly made his Central League debut against Chesterfield reserves on 10 November 1956 as Blackpool won 2-1. He then made his home debut in the Central League side on a cold, miserable afternoon 17 November 1956 against Stoke City reserves when he ‘was always calling for passes in the early minutes’ and ‘when he was given one [he] sent Booth away to shoot out by the far post’ as Blackpool eventually lost 1-0.
His talent was obvious and he was quickly promoted to 12th man for the League side against Chelsea on 1 December 1956 and many shrewd judges considered him another Ernie Taylor in the making. But, after his first taste of the League scene, he returned to play for the ‘A’ team against Everton ‘A’ on 8 December 1956 when Blackpool lost 3-0.
He returned to Central League action against Bolton Wanderers reserves on 22 December 1956 when he ‘made one or two good passes but the mud and slime made no surface for this lightweight’ as Blackpool lost 3-1. He scored his first Central League goal in a 3-2 defeat by Everton reserves on 25 December 1956 and his second Central League goal came when he was ‘sliding the ball past Rainford as the ‘keeper came out’ in a 3-1 victory over Blackburn Rovers reserves on 5 January 1957. He then switched position and made a surprise appearance at outside left against Sheffield Wednesday reserves on 2 March 1957 and he ‘came dangerously near opening his team’s account’ early in the second half but Blackpool lost 3-0 at Hillsborough.
His displays had been watched with interest by Joe Smith and he made his League debut in place of the injured Ernie Taylor against Cardiff City in a 4-3 victory on 9 March 1957. He partnered Stan Matthews on the right flank and it was noted by many a critic that he had not been born when Matthews was making his international debut.
Unfortunately he suffered a cut foot in training during the following week and, along with 10 other players, was declared unfit to play on 16 March 1957. When he recovered he discovered that at the last minute Ernie Taylor had developed a temperature before the game against Chelsea on 13 April 1957 and he was told that he would be in the League team for his second appearance. A Jackie Mudie goal settled the game 1-0 in Blackpool’s favour but Peterson earned the headline PETERSON DOES WELL.
Showing his versatility, for the Good Friday game against Arsenal on 19 April 1957, he switched to inside left to replace David Durie as the game was drawn 1-1. And then he moved to outside right, replacing the unfit Stan Matthews, for the return game against Arsenal on 22 April 1957 when Blackpool lost 4-2. He retained the outside right spot for the final two games of the season, a 2-1 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur on 27 April 1957 and a 1-0 victory over Burnley on 1 May 1957.
After a promising first season he had played in six League games and 12 Central League games, scoring two goals. And the end of season comment was ‘It will be interesting to look forward to the progress which Brian Peterson is expected to make. He arrived here last October almost an unknown South African. He has not stayed unknown for long.’
He returned home in the summer of 1957 to get married but returned to Blackpool for the following season after he had re-signed for the club for the 1957/58 season at terms of £14 per week in the summer and £17 per week in the football season.
He began the 1957/58 season with his first taste of European football when he was at inside left in the side that defeated Sparta Rotterdam 3-2 in a pre-season friendly game in Holland on 14 August 1957. And then after the Tangerines versus Whites practice match on 16 August 1957 the view was he was ‘developing into a footballer of great promise’ as he scored the Whites goal in a 4-1 defeat. But he missed the opening game of the season and then he played his first Central League game of the 1957/58 season against Sheffield United reserves on 26 August 1957 when the game was drawn 1-1.
He quickly earned a League re-call at inside left in place of the injured David Durie for the game against Luton Town on 4 September 1957 when Blackpool lost 2-0. He went on to score his first League goal for the club in the 79th minute in a 3-0 defeat of Sheffield Wednesday on 12 October 1957 when ‘Matthews took a free-kick and swept the ball across the field to the unmarked Peterson. The South African did not dally. Instead he cracked it first time into the left-hand corner of the net. Peterson threw his arms in the air and danced down the pitch. No wonder. It was his first goal in League football since he arrived from South Africa 12 months ago.’
Back in the Central League side on 19 October 1957 he was the provider for two of Ray Charnley’s three goals, hitting the bar for the first when Charnley scored from the rebound and providing the pass for his second as Blackpool defeated Newcastle United reserves 4-3. He replaced the injured Ernie Taylor in the League side against Nottingham Forest on 26 October 1957 when he partnered Stan Matthews who was playing his first game on the City Ground for 25 years! Blackpool won 2-1.
He scored a 54th-minute winner in the 2-1 victory over Chelsea on 2 November 1957 when overall he ‘did some good things’. He played his first game In the FA Cup in the third round against West Ham United on 4 January 1958 and although Blackpool took the lead in two minutes, they lost 5-1.
Then out of the blue Blackpool were hit with a bombshell when, on 27 January 1958 manager Joe Smith reported that Peterson had told him that he wanted to return to South Africa. But for the immediate future no movement took place.
Following an injury to Stan Matthews at Chelsea on 15 March 1958, Peterson replaced him at outside right for the game against Birmingham City on 22 March 1958. Blackpool went into half time at 2-2 and went on to win 4-2.
He continued at outside right in place of Matthews in a 2-1 defeat by Burnley on 29 March 1958 and his best moment came when he was ‘given an ovation when he cunningly outwitted Winton, but his curling centre was coolly anticipated by McDonald, who pulled down the ball by the right hand post’. Then, after injury ruled him out for a couple of games he returned at outside right for the 2-1 defeat by Preston North End on 7 April.
He created the opening goal for Bill Perry in a 2-1 victory over Portsmouth on 13 April 1958 and he was at outside right for the last game of the season against Tottenham Hotspur on 26 April 1958 because Stan Matthews was unavailable. Blackpool lost 2-1 with an all-South African right wing as Peter Hauser joined Peterson and both were involved in Blackpool’s late consolation goal. His 1957/58 season was a successful one as he played in 26 League games, scoring four goals, one FA Cup tie and 11 Central League games, scoring one goal. He also played in two friendly games.
Although he was due to return to South Africa in May 1958, on 18 April 1958 Blackpool offered him terms for the 1958/59 season. A spokesman for the club said, ‘Although Peterson has announced he is going home, there is nothing to prevent us from offering him terms just in case he changes his mind.’ And on 8 May 1958 he did return to his homeland. Many Blackpool supporters, disappointed at his return home, were worried that he would never return to play for the club especially when they heard that he had been reinstated as an amateur with Berea Park in the Durban League.
Fortunately he returned to Blackpool in November 1958 having sold his interest in the sports outfitters and he was re-signed by Blackpool on 1 December 1958 at a weekly wage of £17 out of season and £20 during the season. He was back in training with the team the day after he arrived in Blackpool. He commented, ‘It is wonderful to be back.’ And
he was back in Central League action against Sheffield Wednesday reserves on 13 December 1958 when he ‘distributed one or two neat passes’ as Blackpool lost 3-1.
His long awaited return to League action came against Nottingham Forest on 21 February 1959 when Blackpool won 1-0. And he went on to play 13 League games, scoring one goal, 10 Central League games and one friendly game for Blackpool in his first season back at Bloomfield Road.
In the close season Blackpool fulfilled their obligation to Tranmere Rovers by playing a friendly game at Prenton Park on 27 April 1959 in respect of the transfer of Johnny Green. Green scored Blackpool’s goal in a 2-1 defeat for the Seasiders and the programme noted, ‘Prenton Park fans will be able to assess the tremendous potential of the Maestro’s deputy, Brian Peterson, who returned from South Africa last autumn and now bids fair to create as big a stir in English football as his country-man, Bill Perry, on the opposite wing.’ That potential was recognised when Blackpool revised his terms for 1959/60 and the following season when he was to earn £16 per week out of season and £19 per week during the season.
After three games of the 1959/60 season, two of which were won, he was left out of the side after, in his own words ‘three bad games on the trot’. He duly returned to Central League action against Huddersfield Town reserves on 2 September 1959 and he scored Blackpool’s goal in a 1-1 draw. After missing four League games he returned to action in a 5-3 victory over Leicester City on 14 September and he remained in the side for a run of eight games before a niggling injury saw him sidelined for three games. He returned and showed good form in a 2-2 draw with Tottenham Hotspur on 28 November and he looked set to retain his place for the remainder of the season.
Sadly he broke down on 9 January 1960 after 30 minutes of the FA Cup tie against Mansfield Town but ten-man Blackpool went on to win 3-0. He was diagnosed as having cartilage trouble and he was sidelined for a long time. His season was virtually finished and although he tried a comeback in the Central League side against Manchester United reserves on 5 March 1960, he was unable to play again and after the one game, that Blackpool lost 2-1, he had to have further operations. Nevertheless he played 18 League games, scoring two goals, one FA Cup tie, five Central League games, scoring three goals, and one friendly game for Blackpool in the 1959/60 season.
To aid his comeback, he began the 1960/61 season playing junior football in the ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams where he ‘took things cautiously’. And he began his senior comeback in the Central League side on 1 October 1960 against Preston North End reserves when Blackpool won 1-0. He came through that game unscathed and he returned to the first team on 5 October 1960 for the League Cup tie replay with Leeds United when Blackpool lost 3-1 after extra time. But he aggravated the injury and he was out for the next game.
At the end of October a specialist advised him that he would be out until the following February, possibly until the start of the following season but he did stress that he would play again before the season ended.
It looked likely to be a Happy New Year for him when he visited a specialist in December 1960 and got an encouraging report on the right knee injury that had sidelined him for virtually 12 months. He was expected to be fit to challenge for a first team place early in 1961. And so it was as he made an unexpected comeback in the Central League side on 7 January 1961, a year after his injury, in a 4-0 victory over Chesterfield reserves.
After three successive Central League games, he returned to the League side on 11 February 1961 in 2-2 draw with Chelsea. He was back to full fitness and played every game thereafter until the end of the season and he regularly received good reports such as
at Cardiff City on 24 March 1961 when one critic reported, ‘Brian Peterson and Ray Parry [were] working hard and demonstrating ball control of a high order’ as Blackpool won the game 2-0 to ease their relegation fears. He finished the season having played 16 League games, scoring two goals, one League Cup tie, four Central League games and one friendly game.
He was rewarded for his hard work in recovering from injury by being given revised terms for the 1961/62 season. He was to receive £24 per week plus an extra £5 when he played in the League side. And he began earning that bonus immediately as he started the season at inside right in the League side, playing in the opening game, a 2-1 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur on 19 August 1961. And in the second game of the season against Blackburn Rovers on 21 August he scored one of the goals in Blackpool’s 2-1 victory. He moved to outside right for three games before a minor injury interrupted his season and he missed a couple of games.
He returned to action with a goal in a 4-0 defeat of Chelsea on 30 September and then after a 3-0 defeat at Arsenal (Stan Matthews’ last game for the club and a game that I attended at Highbury) he scored again in a 2-1 defeat of Bolton Wanderers on 14 October. Then after injury sidelined him once more for two games he returned with a goal in a 4-2 defeat of Manchester City on 2 December 1961. He scored again in the following game, a 2-2 draw with West Bromwich Albion on 9 December but after he scored Blackpool’s consolation goal in a 2-1 defeat by Sheffield United on 26 December, he was out of the side once more.
He returned to the League side for a single game, a 1-0 defeat by Arsenal on 24 February 1962 before in a Central League game against Derby County reserves on 17 March 1962 he appeared in the unfamiliar position of right half and he ‘revealed, now and again, the class which is in him as a wing half, but he was in and out, too’. Blackpool lost 2-1.
On 30 March and 3 April he played a couple of games at inside left, a 2-2 draw with Everton, in which he scored one of Blackpool’s goals, and a 2-4 defeat by Sheffield United. Then he played what turned out to be his final League game for Blackpool at inside right against Fulham on 7 April 1962; goals from Ray Charnley and Ray Parry gave Blackpool a 2-1 victory, so he ended on a victorious note.
He did, however, play one further first team game when he played against Norwich City at Carrow Road in the first leg of the League Cup semi-final on 11 April when he scored Blackpool’s goal in a catastrophic 1-4 defeat. He missed the second leg, which Blackpool won 2-0 (it was nail-biting as I was there!).
He ended what was his final season at Bloomfield Road having played 24 League games, scoring seven goals, one FA Cup tie, four League Cup ties, scoring one goal, nine Central League games, scoring three goals, two friendly games, plus making one substitute appearance, scoring one goal.
When the season ended he returned home to South Africa on 28 May 1962, his Blackpool career having encompassed 103 League games, in which he scored 16 goals, three FA Cup ties, five League Cup ties, with one goal, 51 Central League games, with nine goals, and seven friendly games, plus making one appearance as a substitute, scoring one goal.
He was reported as playing well for Durban United with brother Keith in November 1964. And when he left Durban United, he had a short spell with Durban City before retiring from the game. After retirement he worked for 27 years for Foschini, a clothing firm.
He made a welcome return to Bloomfield Road, along with brother Keith, as a guest of the club for the game against Northampton Town on 14 April 2007. And he mingled with supporters and reminisced about the wonderful time that he had had at the club. He had been an integral part of a reasonably successful Blackpool side, having finished in fourth, seventh, eighth, 11th, and 13th position in addition to dramatically fighting to escape relegation in 20th position in 1960/61 in his six seasons at the club.
He died on 21 September 2020 after a short illness. His name will long be remembered as having played a significant part in Blackpool Football Club’s illustrious history.
Brian Peterson was born in Durban on 29 October 1936 and was an inside forward who was signed by Blackpool on 8 October 1956 from his Berea Park club. He had apparently taken two years to make the decision to leave amateur football in South Africa and a partnership that he had in a sports store. He had started his football career with Berea Park FC but he had moved to Queens Park and made his senior debut at age 17 before returning to his original club. He represented the Natal Province team, playing in a Curry Cup final, and he also toured Australia with a South African representative XI.
After impressive games for the junior teams, Blackpool manager Joe Smith commented in early November 1956, ‘Peterson is a very promising player. He is the brainy type of player who has fine ball control and whose distribution is excellent’ and he added that he expected him soon to be in the Central League side.
After playing a number of games in the ‘A’ team he duly made his Central League debut against Chesterfield reserves on 10 November 1956 as Blackpool won 2-1. He then made his home debut in the Central League side on a cold, miserable afternoon 17 November 1956 against Stoke City reserves when he ‘was always calling for passes in the early minutes’ and ‘when he was given one [he] sent Booth away to shoot out by the far post’ as Blackpool eventually lost 1-0.
His talent was obvious and he was quickly promoted to 12th man for the League side against Chelsea on 1 December 1956 and many shrewd judges considered him another Ernie Taylor in the making. But, after his first taste of the League scene, he returned to play for the ‘A’ team against Everton ‘A’ on 8 December 1956 when Blackpool lost 3-0.
He returned to Central League action against Bolton Wanderers reserves on 22 December 1956 when he ‘made one or two good passes but the mud and slime made no surface for this lightweight’ as Blackpool lost 3-1. He scored his first Central League goal in a 3-2 defeat by Everton reserves on 25 December 1956 and his second Central League goal came when he was ‘sliding the ball past Rainford as the ‘keeper came out’ in a 3-1 victory over Blackburn Rovers reserves on 5 January 1957. He then switched position and made a surprise appearance at outside left against Sheffield Wednesday reserves on 2 March 1957 and he ‘came dangerously near opening his team’s account’ early in the second half but Blackpool lost 3-0 at Hillsborough.
His displays had been watched with interest by Joe Smith and he made his League debut in place of the injured Ernie Taylor against Cardiff City in a 4-3 victory on 9 March 1957. He partnered Stan Matthews on the right flank and it was noted by many a critic that he had not been born when Matthews was making his international debut.
Unfortunately he suffered a cut foot in training during the following week and, along with 10 other players, was declared unfit to play on 16 March 1957. When he recovered he discovered that at the last minute Ernie Taylor had developed a temperature before the game against Chelsea on 13 April 1957 and he was told that he would be in the League team for his second appearance. A Jackie Mudie goal settled the game 1-0 in Blackpool’s favour but Peterson earned the headline PETERSON DOES WELL.
Showing his versatility, for the Good Friday game against Arsenal on 19 April 1957, he switched to inside left to replace David Durie as the game was drawn 1-1. And then he moved to outside right, replacing the unfit Stan Matthews, for the return game against Arsenal on 22 April 1957 when Blackpool lost 4-2. He retained the outside right spot for the final two games of the season, a 2-1 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur on 27 April 1957 and a 1-0 victory over Burnley on 1 May 1957.
After a promising first season he had played in six League games and 12 Central League games, scoring two goals. And the end of season comment was ‘It will be interesting to look forward to the progress which Brian Peterson is expected to make. He arrived here last October almost an unknown South African. He has not stayed unknown for long.’
He returned home in the summer of 1957 to get married but returned to Blackpool for the following season after he had re-signed for the club for the 1957/58 season at terms of £14 per week in the summer and £17 per week in the football season.
He began the 1957/58 season with his first taste of European football when he was at inside left in the side that defeated Sparta Rotterdam 3-2 in a pre-season friendly game in Holland on 14 August 1957. And then after the Tangerines versus Whites practice match on 16 August 1957 the view was he was ‘developing into a footballer of great promise’ as he scored the Whites goal in a 4-1 defeat. But he missed the opening game of the season and then he played his first Central League game of the 1957/58 season against Sheffield United reserves on 26 August 1957 when the game was drawn 1-1.
He quickly earned a League re-call at inside left in place of the injured David Durie for the game against Luton Town on 4 September 1957 when Blackpool lost 2-0. He went on to score his first League goal for the club in the 79th minute in a 3-0 defeat of Sheffield Wednesday on 12 October 1957 when ‘Matthews took a free-kick and swept the ball across the field to the unmarked Peterson. The South African did not dally. Instead he cracked it first time into the left-hand corner of the net. Peterson threw his arms in the air and danced down the pitch. No wonder. It was his first goal in League football since he arrived from South Africa 12 months ago.’
Back in the Central League side on 19 October 1957 he was the provider for two of Ray Charnley’s three goals, hitting the bar for the first when Charnley scored from the rebound and providing the pass for his second as Blackpool defeated Newcastle United reserves 4-3. He replaced the injured Ernie Taylor in the League side against Nottingham Forest on 26 October 1957 when he partnered Stan Matthews who was playing his first game on the City Ground for 25 years! Blackpool won 2-1.
He scored a 54th-minute winner in the 2-1 victory over Chelsea on 2 November 1957 when overall he ‘did some good things’. He played his first game In the FA Cup in the third round against West Ham United on 4 January 1958 and although Blackpool took the lead in two minutes, they lost 5-1.
Then out of the blue Blackpool were hit with a bombshell when, on 27 January 1958 manager Joe Smith reported that Peterson had told him that he wanted to return to South Africa. But for the immediate future no movement took place.
Following an injury to Stan Matthews at Chelsea on 15 March 1958, Peterson replaced him at outside right for the game against Birmingham City on 22 March 1958. Blackpool went into half time at 2-2 and went on to win 4-2.
He continued at outside right in place of Matthews in a 2-1 defeat by Burnley on 29 March 1958 and his best moment came when he was ‘given an ovation when he cunningly outwitted Winton, but his curling centre was coolly anticipated by McDonald, who pulled down the ball by the right hand post’. Then, after injury ruled him out for a couple of games he returned at outside right for the 2-1 defeat by Preston North End on 7 April.
He created the opening goal for Bill Perry in a 2-1 victory over Portsmouth on 13 April 1958 and he was at outside right for the last game of the season against Tottenham Hotspur on 26 April 1958 because Stan Matthews was unavailable. Blackpool lost 2-1 with an all-South African right wing as Peter Hauser joined Peterson and both were involved in Blackpool’s late consolation goal. His 1957/58 season was a successful one as he played in 26 League games, scoring four goals, one FA Cup tie and 11 Central League games, scoring one goal. He also played in two friendly games.
Although he was due to return to South Africa in May 1958, on 18 April 1958 Blackpool offered him terms for the 1958/59 season. A spokesman for the club said, ‘Although Peterson has announced he is going home, there is nothing to prevent us from offering him terms just in case he changes his mind.’ And on 8 May 1958 he did return to his homeland. Many Blackpool supporters, disappointed at his return home, were worried that he would never return to play for the club especially when they heard that he had been reinstated as an amateur with Berea Park in the Durban League.
Fortunately he returned to Blackpool in November 1958 having sold his interest in the sports outfitters and he was re-signed by Blackpool on 1 December 1958 at a weekly wage of £17 out of season and £20 during the season. He was back in training with the team the day after he arrived in Blackpool. He commented, ‘It is wonderful to be back.’ And
he was back in Central League action against Sheffield Wednesday reserves on 13 December 1958 when he ‘distributed one or two neat passes’ as Blackpool lost 3-1.
His long awaited return to League action came against Nottingham Forest on 21 February 1959 when Blackpool won 1-0. And he went on to play 13 League games, scoring one goal, 10 Central League games and one friendly game for Blackpool in his first season back at Bloomfield Road.
In the close season Blackpool fulfilled their obligation to Tranmere Rovers by playing a friendly game at Prenton Park on 27 April 1959 in respect of the transfer of Johnny Green. Green scored Blackpool’s goal in a 2-1 defeat for the Seasiders and the programme noted, ‘Prenton Park fans will be able to assess the tremendous potential of the Maestro’s deputy, Brian Peterson, who returned from South Africa last autumn and now bids fair to create as big a stir in English football as his country-man, Bill Perry, on the opposite wing.’ That potential was recognised when Blackpool revised his terms for 1959/60 and the following season when he was to earn £16 per week out of season and £19 per week during the season.
After three games of the 1959/60 season, two of which were won, he was left out of the side after, in his own words ‘three bad games on the trot’. He duly returned to Central League action against Huddersfield Town reserves on 2 September 1959 and he scored Blackpool’s goal in a 1-1 draw. After missing four League games he returned to action in a 5-3 victory over Leicester City on 14 September and he remained in the side for a run of eight games before a niggling injury saw him sidelined for three games. He returned and showed good form in a 2-2 draw with Tottenham Hotspur on 28 November and he looked set to retain his place for the remainder of the season.
Sadly he broke down on 9 January 1960 after 30 minutes of the FA Cup tie against Mansfield Town but ten-man Blackpool went on to win 3-0. He was diagnosed as having cartilage trouble and he was sidelined for a long time. His season was virtually finished and although he tried a comeback in the Central League side against Manchester United reserves on 5 March 1960, he was unable to play again and after the one game, that Blackpool lost 2-1, he had to have further operations. Nevertheless he played 18 League games, scoring two goals, one FA Cup tie, five Central League games, scoring three goals, and one friendly game for Blackpool in the 1959/60 season.
To aid his comeback, he began the 1960/61 season playing junior football in the ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams where he ‘took things cautiously’. And he began his senior comeback in the Central League side on 1 October 1960 against Preston North End reserves when Blackpool won 1-0. He came through that game unscathed and he returned to the first team on 5 October 1960 for the League Cup tie replay with Leeds United when Blackpool lost 3-1 after extra time. But he aggravated the injury and he was out for the next game.
At the end of October a specialist advised him that he would be out until the following February, possibly until the start of the following season but he did stress that he would play again before the season ended.
It looked likely to be a Happy New Year for him when he visited a specialist in December 1960 and got an encouraging report on the right knee injury that had sidelined him for virtually 12 months. He was expected to be fit to challenge for a first team place early in 1961. And so it was as he made an unexpected comeback in the Central League side on 7 January 1961, a year after his injury, in a 4-0 victory over Chesterfield reserves.
After three successive Central League games, he returned to the League side on 11 February 1961 in 2-2 draw with Chelsea. He was back to full fitness and played every game thereafter until the end of the season and he regularly received good reports such as
at Cardiff City on 24 March 1961 when one critic reported, ‘Brian Peterson and Ray Parry [were] working hard and demonstrating ball control of a high order’ as Blackpool won the game 2-0 to ease their relegation fears. He finished the season having played 16 League games, scoring two goals, one League Cup tie, four Central League games and one friendly game.
He was rewarded for his hard work in recovering from injury by being given revised terms for the 1961/62 season. He was to receive £24 per week plus an extra £5 when he played in the League side. And he began earning that bonus immediately as he started the season at inside right in the League side, playing in the opening game, a 2-1 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur on 19 August 1961. And in the second game of the season against Blackburn Rovers on 21 August he scored one of the goals in Blackpool’s 2-1 victory. He moved to outside right for three games before a minor injury interrupted his season and he missed a couple of games.
He returned to action with a goal in a 4-0 defeat of Chelsea on 30 September and then after a 3-0 defeat at Arsenal (Stan Matthews’ last game for the club and a game that I attended at Highbury) he scored again in a 2-1 defeat of Bolton Wanderers on 14 October. Then after injury sidelined him once more for two games he returned with a goal in a 4-2 defeat of Manchester City on 2 December 1961. He scored again in the following game, a 2-2 draw with West Bromwich Albion on 9 December but after he scored Blackpool’s consolation goal in a 2-1 defeat by Sheffield United on 26 December, he was out of the side once more.
He returned to the League side for a single game, a 1-0 defeat by Arsenal on 24 February 1962 before in a Central League game against Derby County reserves on 17 March 1962 he appeared in the unfamiliar position of right half and he ‘revealed, now and again, the class which is in him as a wing half, but he was in and out, too’. Blackpool lost 2-1.
On 30 March and 3 April he played a couple of games at inside left, a 2-2 draw with Everton, in which he scored one of Blackpool’s goals, and a 2-4 defeat by Sheffield United. Then he played what turned out to be his final League game for Blackpool at inside right against Fulham on 7 April 1962; goals from Ray Charnley and Ray Parry gave Blackpool a 2-1 victory, so he ended on a victorious note.
He did, however, play one further first team game when he played against Norwich City at Carrow Road in the first leg of the League Cup semi-final on 11 April when he scored Blackpool’s goal in a catastrophic 1-4 defeat. He missed the second leg, which Blackpool won 2-0 (it was nail-biting as I was there!).
He ended what was his final season at Bloomfield Road having played 24 League games, scoring seven goals, one FA Cup tie, four League Cup ties, scoring one goal, nine Central League games, scoring three goals, two friendly games, plus making one substitute appearance, scoring one goal.
When the season ended he returned home to South Africa on 28 May 1962, his Blackpool career having encompassed 103 League games, in which he scored 16 goals, three FA Cup ties, five League Cup ties, with one goal, 51 Central League games, with nine goals, and seven friendly games, plus making one appearance as a substitute, scoring one goal.
He was reported as playing well for Durban United with brother Keith in November 1964. And when he left Durban United, he had a short spell with Durban City before retiring from the game. After retirement he worked for 27 years for Foschini, a clothing firm.
He made a welcome return to Bloomfield Road, along with brother Keith, as a guest of the club for the game against Northampton Town on 14 April 2007. And he mingled with supporters and reminisced about the wonderful time that he had had at the club. He had been an integral part of a reasonably successful Blackpool side, having finished in fourth, seventh, eighth, 11th, and 13th position in addition to dramatically fighting to escape relegation in 20th position in 1960/61 in his six seasons at the club.
He died on 21 September 2020 after a short illness. His name will long be remembered as having played a significant part in Blackpool Football Club’s illustrious history.
