Has died, aged 94. A well known name in these parts, less so across much of the rest of the country.
He was a miner, came from Thrybergh, and signed for Rotherham United. Spent his entire career playing for them and eventually racked up enough appearances to become record appearance maker, an accolade he holds to this day. He played 500 games for them, plus some more in the war years. Then he became manager for a period in the mid 60s.
Left there and went to Swindon Town in the third division. He was their manager when they beat Arsenal to win the League Cup in 1969, and also guided them to promotion in the same season. Hopefully there'll be some sort of oblique reference in this week's BDG cartoon.
That summer he jumped to the first division and became the Sheffield Wednesday manager. Which was perhaps not the best of destinations, he inherited a disjointed and disunited squad and compounded the problems by selling better players than he bought. We got relegated that season and he was sacked in early 1971 with the club in the middle of the second division. His name came up a fair bit some thirty years later when the similarly named Mr Wilson had much the same set of experiences.
He largely disappeared after that, a spell at Mansfield then a period as general manager at Swindon, then he retired and lived in various places. I remember the (Sheffield) Star tracing him to Bournemouth in the mid 90s, the article on the Millers website suggests he eventually settled in Hunstanton.
He was a miner, came from Thrybergh, and signed for Rotherham United. Spent his entire career playing for them and eventually racked up enough appearances to become record appearance maker, an accolade he holds to this day. He played 500 games for them, plus some more in the war years. Then he became manager for a period in the mid 60s.
Left there and went to Swindon Town in the third division. He was their manager when they beat Arsenal to win the League Cup in 1969, and also guided them to promotion in the same season. Hopefully there'll be some sort of oblique reference in this week's BDG cartoon.
That summer he jumped to the first division and became the Sheffield Wednesday manager. Which was perhaps not the best of destinations, he inherited a disjointed and disunited squad and compounded the problems by selling better players than he bought. We got relegated that season and he was sacked in early 1971 with the club in the middle of the second division. His name came up a fair bit some thirty years later when the similarly named Mr Wilson had much the same set of experiences.
He largely disappeared after that, a spell at Mansfield then a period as general manager at Swindon, then he retired and lived in various places. I remember the (Sheffield) Star tracing him to Bournemouth in the mid 90s, the article on the Millers website suggests he eventually settled in Hunstanton.
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