The Ultimate Torquay United team: Managers

Plainmoor’s chief reporter for over 50 years, Dave Thomas, continues his countdown to the ultimate Torquay United team:

The late Tony Boyce, chairman of Torquay United for nearly two decades (1965-84), once said: “I look for three qualities in a manager – contacts, contacts and more contacts.”

Years later Colin Lee, who served the Gulls with distinction as player, manager and chief executive, put it another way as he plotted the Gulls’ return to the Football League with Paul Buckle.

‘Recruitment, recruitment, recruitment’ was Lee’s mantra.

In other words, you can be the best coach and the best motivator, but if you haven’t been given either the budget or the time to sign the right players, you’re a hundred-to-one to produce a promotion team.

If you ask most fans for a list of their best managers, they’ll often come up with men who won things, and understandably so.

But managing Torquay United has always been a difficult job for all the obvious reasons, notably geography and money.

Even in 2024 there are plenty of people who seem to think that the English mainland ends at Bristol.

I’ve seen some very good managers at work at Plainmoor, men who either squeezed the most out of limited resources or laid the foundations for others to follow.

In that bracket I’d include Malcolm Musgrove (1973-76), Mike Green (1977-81), Roy McFarland (2001-2002) and relegation-beating quartet Stuart Morgan (1985-87), Neil Warnock (1993), Lee himself (2001) and Ian Atkins (2005-2006).

Musgrove was always more comfortable with his tracksuit on.

Formerly assistant to Frank O’Farrell at Leicester and Manchester United, he may have been almost too nice for the more brutal cares of management, hard though he tried to succeed in both over nearly four years in the mid-1970s.

Dismayed by the way he was treated in the end, Musgrove’s successor Green turned his back on the pro game after he left Plainmoor in 1981, never to return.

He certainly had more to give, for in his first managerial job he had put together some exhilarating attacking sides.

Green was helped in his first few years by his No.2 John Rudge, who went on to greater success with Port Vale.

But with former boss Frank O’Farrell still around as general manager, Green often felt as if he wasn’t completely in charge, and things were never quite the same after a real chance of promotion in 1979-80 slipped away.

His tenure is still wistfully recalled by older fans who recall how most opponents baulked at the prospect of taking on Green’s teams, especially with Steve Cooper, Les Lawrence and Donal Murphy up front, at Plainmoor.

Green was followed by Bruce Rioch, recruited by O’Farrell first as player-coach to Green and then manager.

A top-class international midfielder (Luton, Aston Villa, Derby, Everton) at his peak – he’d captained Scotland in the World Cup Finals only two years before he came to Plainmoor – Rioch often found life at Torquay frustrating from the heights he’d experienced not long before.

The game in the UK was not in rude health at the time, many fans staying away from down-at-heel grounds and hooligan problems.

Boyce was reluctant to pump much more money into a club he’d led for nearly 20 years, and Rioch and his assistant Alan Slough had to work accordingly.

They delivered a couple of mid-table finishes and a run to the Fourth Round of the FA Cup (1983), but when Rioch suddenly became involved in a training ground incident with left-back Colin Anderson in January 1984, he was given little alternative but to leave.

Thankfully for him, the episode did not stop Rioch going on to a successful career at Middlesbrough, Millwall, Bolton, Arsenal where he laid some of the foundations for Arsene Wenger, Norwich and Wigan.

But he’s always said that he learned more about management in two years at Plainmoor than he did anywhere else.

Buckfastleigh-born Colin Lee played under O’Farrell and Green before heading off on a fine career with Spurs and Chelsea.

But he was always made to be a manager in his own right, which he did with Watford, Wolves, Walsall and Millwall.

Crucially for the Gulls, he didn’t need too much persuading to return in 2001, to lead them out of relegation trouble, and again in 2007 when he couldn’t repeat it alongside Keith Curle.

But he did remain then as Chief Executive to the Paul Bristow-backed board which took over from Mike Bateson.

It was Lee who appointed and mentored Paul Buckle over the next few eventful years.

United may have saved some money when they axed his role in 2010, but they lost Lee’s valuable know-how and contacts.

Morgan, tasked with hauling United from the depths of two bottom-of-the-table finishes under Dave Webb in the mid-1980s, will never be near the top of most fans’ hall of fame.

But the way he held the club together and, with assistant Les Chappell, kept a shoestring, injury-hit squad fighting to the bitter end in 1986-87 remains an heroic and underrated achievement.

By the time Jim McNichol, Bryn the police dog and Paul Dobson had helped to snatch salvation from the jaws of oblivion against Crewe (2-2), Morgan’s hair had started to turn grey from the brown it had been at the start of the season.

Four games earlier, Morgan had stormed out of Peterborough’s London Road ground followed closely by his equally angry team, after a disputed late ‘handball’ penalty had turned what would have been a precious point into a devastating 2-1 defeat.

Your correspondent had driven the 500-mile round trip to cover the match and, in the days before mobile phones, had come away without a single quote.

The following morning Morgan rang me at home and said: “Sorry I left like that yesterday. Did you think it was a penalty?”

When I replied that, sadly, it probably was, Morgan added: “That’s good enough for me. But I can’t let the lads think it was.

“They’re mad at the moment, and we’ve got to keep them like that. We’ve got Cardiff on Tuesday. “

Over the following week United beat Cardiff 1-0 and Rochdale 2-1 at Plainmoor, results which kept them in the Football League every bit as much as that last-day draw with Crewe.

Morgan was also a brilliant talent spotter.

McNichol, Dobson, Alan McLoughlin, Tom Kelly, John Impey, Gerry Nardiello, David Cole, Russell Musker and, crucially, Mark Loram back from QPR were players from all corners of the country that Morgan signed for nothing – and handed on to begin the revival under Cyril Knowles the following season.

Warnock (1993) and Atkins (2006) managed to pull off their own Great Escapes in pretty remarkable circumstances, both coincidentally clinched with victories against all odds at Carlisle.

As he has done so many times in his record-breaking career, Warnock’s leadership and belief in himself lifted not just the team but the club.

Experienced pros started performing beyond their previous form, youngsters played without fear, and all within the firm structure that managers like Warnock know is nearly always essential for success in lower division football.

Having just been controversially sacked at Notts County, Warnock was at something of a crossroads, but those six months at Plainmoor were as good for him as he was for United.

Happily over the years, and certainly now, he’s never forgotten it.

Warnock handed the baton on to his ex-Notts player Don O’Riordan for what many fans recall as a happy couple of years.

United were helped by their highly productive Youth Training Scheme (Darren Moore, Chris Curran, Scott Colcombe, Duane Darby, Scott Stamps to name a few), something which undoubtedly helped the team spirit.

And who knows what O’Riordan might have achieved if Moore hadn’t been so controversially sent off at 3-1 up in the Play-Off Semi-Final 2nd Leg at Preston North End in May 1994?

Kevin Hodges had already combined playing (86 games) and youth coaching roles by the time he took over in 1996, good preparation for the step up.

An unfailingly polite and affable man, some people thought he might not be cut out for management, but he built his own team and followed a decent first season by leading the 1998 side to Wembley for the Play-Off Final.

Hodges was as passionate about winning as most, if not more.

In January 1998 United lost 4-1 on a Tuesday night at Scarborough. As I headed towards the dressing-rooms for some quotes, I bumped into Hodges’ player-coach Steve McCall coming the other way.

Steve had a half-grin on his face, which I wasn’t expecting. I gently asked why.

“I should hang on a bit, if I was you,” said Steve. “You know Kev doesn’t lose it very often, but he’s just delivered one of the finest rollockings I’ve ever heard in my life – and I’ve heard a few!”

Considering that McCall, 37 at the time, had played under Bobby Robson (Ipswich), Howard Wilkinson and Ron Atkinson (Sheffield Wednesday) and Neil Warnock (Plymouth) among others, it was quite a compliment.

United proceeded to win a club record eight matches on the trot and force their way into the promotion race.

They lost in the Play Off Final to Colchester at Wembley and Hodges and McCall were soon lured back to Plymouth.

The old ‘if only’ phrase surely applied to former Derby and England great Roy McFarland.

Having lost Lee after the Great Escape at Barnet in 2001, chairman Mike Bateson opted for some proper experience with McFarland that summer.

There wasn’t a huge amount of money, but over the next year McFarland, with his well-connected player-coach David Preece, rebuilt the squad.

Goalkeeper Kevin Dearden, Lee Canoville, Steve Woods, David Woozley, Reuben Hazell, Sean Hankin, Alex Russell and Jason Fowler were among the players whom McFarland signed, only Hazell (£5,000) costing a fee.

But the collapse of the Football League’s deal with ITV Digital prompted Bateson to tighten the purse-strings, and when he told McFarland that Preece would at least have to take a pay-cut as his playing days were over, McFarland stood his ground.

He and Preece both left.

United had finished a modest 19th, but the passing game that later served them so well under Leroy Rosenior had been established after quite a few ins and outs, and McFarland and Preece had lined up a few more serious signings that summer.

They never got to complete those deals, in came Rosenior – he had applied unsuccessfully for the job 12 months before – and the rest is happy history.

Too many forget Atkins’ nine roller-coaster months at United from March to November 2006.

Installed when the Gulls looked relegation certainties, his feat in keeping the club up was, in its own way, just as remarkable as Morgan, Warnock and Lee had done before him.

He had a solid CV from spells with Colchester, Northampton, Carlisle and Oxford, and after keeping United up, he set about building a new team under the regime of Chris Roberts, who’d taken over from Bateson.

In the summer of 2006 Atkins paired ex-Plymouth centre-forward Mickey Evans and the pacy Jamie Ward up front, in a squad that also included Woods, Lee Mansell, Craig Taylor and Kevin Hill.

But even though United were going pretty well, things became increasingly chaotic off the pitch and Atkins eventually left in the face of Roberts’ desire to bring in Czech Lubos Kubik to replace him.

Another what-might-have-been?

That’s also surely the phrase with Martin Ling. It’s always a big ask to follow someone who has enjoyed the sort of sustained success that Buckle delivered for four years (2007-2011).

But Ling was in many ways the right sort of man to take over then.

In one of his first interviews, Ling paid tribute to the work that Buckle had done and the players he’d inherited. Not many do that.

The squad was also ready for someone with a lighter touch.

Ling and his No.2 Shaun Taylor, who’d played together with him at Swindon Town, supplied it. Ling’s gamble in signing an overweight Rene Howe paid off as the clever targetman became fitter than he’d been for years.

Howe became the focal point of an attack oiled by the differing gifts of Eunan O’Kane, Lee Mansell and Damon Lathrope in midfield.

With Bobby Olejnik in goal, and players like Kevin Nicholson, Danny Stevens and loan signing Billy Bodin all in excellent form, automatic promotion was on the cards.

But Howe was a key man, and when he got injured near the end of the season, it cost United dear and they ended up losing to Cheltenham in the Play-Offs.

It had still been a pretty memorable season, played out at a three-sided Plainmoor as Bristow’s Bench was constructed, and highlighted by a long-awaited ‘double’ over Plymouth Argyle.

Ling had suffered from some depression issues during his previous spell as manager of Cambridge United, but it still came as a shock when he suddenly fell ill just before a derby at Exeter the following (2012-2013) season.

United, who had sold O’Kane, Olejnik and Mark Ellis for £500,000 in the summer, weren’t in the best of form, but Ling seemed to be handling things well and few even close to him saw it coming.

He needed immediate and prolonged treatment, and United were left to grapple with a growing relegation battle without him.

When they eventually stayed up, after Alan Knill took over from Taylor, the board was left in an awkward position.

Knill wanted to carry on. Ling announced that he was recovered and wanted to resume his contract.

He took it badly when United decided to stick with Knill, and the episode remains one in which there were no winners.

Knill made it only until the following Christmas when, with United back in relegation trouble, he was sacked.

His successor Chris Hargreaves, who’d been Buckle’s promotion-winning captain, gave up a job assisting Eddie Howe at AFC Bournemouth in the Championship to manage his old club.

A natural leader and coach, he lost little time in geeing up a losing side, with away wins at Wimbledon and Portsmouth, but there were growing issues off the pitch.

Hargreaves believed that he would have some money to lift United out of trouble and, when it wasn’t forthcoming, he had to rely on young loanees.

He did pretty well, with starlets like Shaqille Coulthirst, Shamir Fenelon and Bayley Cargill, but the Gulls still lost their EFL status for a second time, along with Bristol Rovers.

They made a good start in the National League the following season, eventually finishing in mid-table, but the departure of the Bristow regime, and the arrival of the Dean Edwards-inspired supporter board spelled the end for Hargreaves.

His successor, briefly, ex-Mansfield boss Paul Cox, was also hamstrung and quickly left of his own accord.

After another ill-funded spell at Yeovil Town, Hargreaves remains a coach who’s probably never had the chance to realise his full potential.

You could say the same thing about Kevin Nicholson, in a different way.

He battled on with precious little money to keep United in the NL, repeatedly pulling rabbits out of unlikely hats and sending out sides that nearly always fought hard to make up for what they lacked in quality.

Now assistant to Gary Caldwell at Exeter City, it will be interesting to see if Nicholson ever tackles the No.1 job again.

Three years ago many Gulls fans would have rated Gary Johnson among the best, even though all his time at Plainmoor was outside the EFL.

In his first three seasons he led United to a runaway NL South Championship, mid-table in the Covid-curtailed 2019-2020 campaign and then, after topping the table at Christmas, ‘that’ 2021 NL Play-Off Final against Hartlepool at Bristol City.

Backed by a domestic promotion record bettered only by Warnock, Johnson was charismatic, experienced and knew his stuff.

But it was as if he, and the Clarke Osborne regime which backed him, never recovered from that afternoon at Ashton Gate.

No Torquay manager who gets relegated to the NL South can expect to keep his job, but Osborne and CEO George Edwards had stuck for a short while by Gary Owers and then, even when fortunes plumbed new depths last season, they did the same with Johnson.

It all came crashing down, Johnson resigning within hours of Osborne pulling the plug on February 22.

Yes, that old recruitment thing went wrong and, in his late 60s, he may not have been the force he once was.

But if Johnson is remembered more for his last two-and-a-half years than for his first three, it’s a little sad, for at one point back in 2021 it seemed he could do no wrong.

It was a daunting situation for Johnson’s No.2 Aaron Downes to inherit.

What might have happened to the club if, weighed down with that eleven-point deduction, they’d gone down again to the Southern League?

United owe Downes a debt of gratitude for preventing that unthinkable fate over the final 13 perilous games of last season.

Only six managers in United’s history have won promotions – Eric Webber (1960), O’Farrell, Rosenior, Buckle, Johnson and...John Impey.

The experienced, wise-cracking, poetry-quoting Dave Smith had taken over from Knowles in 1989 after a promotion-laden career with Mansfield, Southend and Plymouth.

A run to the Fourth Round of the FA Cup, including a 1-0 win over West Ham at Plainmoor, was followed by a flying start to the 1990-1991 season under new chairman Mike Bateson.

But United unaccountably hit the buffers in November, and they were flailing in mid-table when Bateson’s patience ran out after three wins in 21 games.

He turned to Impey, former captain and youth coach but untried at senior level, with 12 games to go.

Impey, a no-nonsense centre-half, reinstilled some discipline and galvanised a talented squad so well that they surged back up the table and made the Play-Offs with a last-day 2-1 home win over York City.

Underdogs against Burnley in the Semi-Final and Blackpool, United beat them both, overcoming Blackpool in a penalty shoot-out after a belter of a final (2-2) at Wembley.

Has a first-time manager ever made such a start?

It wasn’t to last. Impey tried to carry on as he’d started, with the methods and values he believed in, but they increasingly fell on stony ground.

An opening day 3-1 home win over Hartlepool was followed by a series of league defeats, and Impey was sacked by the first Saturday in October, barely four months after that thrilling night at Wembley.

In less than three years United get through SIX managers.

After Smith and Impey, Bateson turned to a combination of Wes Saunders and John Uzzell, then former Southampton and Yugoslavia defender Ivan Golac, then youth coach Paul Compton before, as the Gulls headed towards successive relegations in 1993, finally calling in Warnock to save the day.

In any list of top United managers the names of O’Farrell, Knowles, Rosenior and Buckle have to be up there.

When O’Farrell was appointed by Boyce in the summer of 1965, he was by no means a popular choice.

The long-serving Webber, whose side had just come so close to beating a mighty Spurs side in the FA Cup, had been in charge for 15 years and was hugely respected, even loved.

O’Farrell was cut from very different cloth - devoutly Catholic, a slightly dour disciplinarian and tactically pragmatic.

Entertaining but losing was anathema to him.

Early in his first season, Boyce learned that some of Webber’s older players weren’t exactly embracing O’Farrell’s new principles.

He visited the Plainmoor dressing rooms before training one day and, while O’Farrell was still in his office, politely told the squad that all of them would be out of the club before the new man in charge.

O’Farrell’s authority was never questioned again and, as his methods produced the consistency he craved, he took United on a heady journey.

Promotion at the end of his first season (1966) was followed by near-misses in what’s now League One in the next two years, gates doubling to 10,000.

United were going well again when, after several other clubs had tried and failed to tempt him away, he finally said ‘Yes’ to Leicester City just before Christmas 1968.

His last match was a 2-1 defeat at Crewe and, typically, O’Farrell took the loss as badly as he’d ever done. No fond farewells from him.

He took Leicester to the FA Cup Final and back into the First Division before landing the plum job at Manchester United.

The situation there was remarkably similar to the one he’d encountered at Plainmoor, taking over a popular but ageing team from a loved and long-serving manager (Sir Matt Busby).

True to himself as ever, O’Farrell found that the values and philosophy he had instilled at Torquay in 1965 did not necessarily work in the trophy-filled corridors of Old Trafford in 1971 and, as hard as he tried, he lasted only 18 months there.

It took the Reds to suffer an unthinkable relegation two-and-a-half years later to realise that most of the things O’Farrell had been warning them about were true.

They probably should have let him put them right.

O’Farrell went on to manage Cardiff City and the Iranian national team with considerable success before returning to Torquay to serve his old club again as manager and general manager in the late 70s and early 80s.

O’Farrell was succeeded at Plainmoor by Allan Brown.

Former Scottish international Brown arrived in slightly unusual circumstances. Enjoying a successful run at Luton Town, he’d upset the Hatters by applying for the Leicester job when O’Farrell beat him there. He was out at Kenilworth Road.

Boyce then decided to give Brown the post at Plainmoor, and Brown wasted little time in declaring that O’Farrell had been too defensive and he was going to change things.

His approach appeared to work for a while, and Brown kept United near the top of the old Third Division for a couple of seasons, but the defensive wheels then started to come off.

Torquay were heading in the wrong direction when, after a 2-0 lead turned into a 2-3 home defeat by Wrexham in October 1971, Brown declared: “This team will get me the sack.”

Forty-eight hours later, it did. Moral of the tale – when your predecessor has done a pretty good job, don’t knock it!

O’Farrell’s assistant Jack Edwards took over for a while before Musgrove, who’d not long lost his job at Old Trafford with O’Farrell, was brought in (January 1973) .

Yes, Rosenior did inherit several talented players from McFarland in 2002, but it’s one thing being given a chance to do something big, it’s another to deliver it, especially at ‘little’ Torquay.

Rosenior added Martin Gritton, Jo Kuffour, Craig Taylor and Brian McGlinchey, and the way he managed them all could hardly be faulted.

In that 2003-2004 promotion season United were up against better-funded clubs like Hull City, Huddersfield Town, Swansea City, Bristol Rovers, just-promoted Yeovil Town under Johnson and eventual champions Doncaster Rovers.

Rosenior was at his best at moments of worry, like a winless run of five games over Christmas and New Year which had many people believing that United had shot their bolt.

He allowed his senior players to lead and regroup, stick to the principles they held dear and they stormed back with 30 points out of the next 39.

Some of the stuff United played that season was breathtaking. Most teams simply couldn’t get the ball off them, and ended up in a mess trying to do it.

To win automatic promotion, playing such football in a division traditionally dominated by strength and ‘Route One’, remains something which still brings a smile back to all of us who watched them do it.

‘If only’, after the sale of leading scorer David Graham to Wigan, his replacement Bayo Akinfenwa had managed to get fit and start firing a bit earlier, instead of halfway through the next season, United would surely have stayed in League One.

But Rosenior couldn’t keep them up, nor could he halt a downward spiral as more of the promotion side left.

Unlike Ling, Knowles never publicly acknowledged the quality of player he inherited from Morgan, but he did privately.

And, of course, he completely galvanised the whole club, the team and strengthened it.

Cyril was a man with a pedigree (Spurs, England), a presence and he brooked no arguments. What he said went.

Whether he planned it or not, Knowles also had more than enough ‘men’ around who could handle that style of management.

He could be subject to mood swings, almost certainly from the brain tumour which eventually killed him at the age of 47 in 1991.

But over eight years as a manager before he died so young, Knowles won automatic promotion at Darlington and Hartlepool and took Torquay to the Play-Off Final and Wembley (1989 Sherpa Van Trophy Final) after beating Wolves in the Semis.

That takes some beating.

Soon after Paul Buckle was appointed manager in 2007, we met for a coffee and a chat – we knew each other from his time as a young player in mid-1980s.

United had just been relegated to the Conference for the first time. Buckle had seen the division the previous season as assistant to Paul Tisdale at Exeter City.

“This is a fight league, Dave,” he said over his cappuccino, “and we’re going to fight our way out of it.”

He was true to his word.

Buckle’s teams, packed with strong characters playing no-nonsense football, should have gone straight back up the first year, when their brave cup runs eventually caught up with them.

After the astute additions of Nicky Wroe and Wayne Carlisle significantly improved an already good side, they did it at Wembley 12 months later.

From 2007-2011, Buckle built and rebuilt two teams, gave United more cup success than they’d enjoyed for years, won promotion back to the EFL and to the brink of League One via three Play-Offs and two trips to Wembley.

Some Gulls fans may have found it hard to love him, but what do you want from a manager?

O’Farrell and Knowles could both be tough men to get along with at times, but were Shankly, Clough, Ferguson and Mourinho all sweetness and light? Hardly.

So, my managerial shortlist will read – Frank O’Farrell, Cyril Knowles, Leroy Rosenior and Paul Buckle.

Manager Shorts

When the Gulls clinched safety from relegation at Carlisle in 1993, manager Neil Warnock was so delighted that he persuaded chairman Mike Bateson to treat the whole team to an impromptu meal in an Italian restaurant in Lancaster.

Nobody cared that they still had more than 300 motorway miles to go!

After pulling off United’s 1987 Great Escape, Stuart Morgan led Weymouth and then Dorchester to some of the highest Southern League finishes in their history.

Dorchester finally sacked him (1999) after an FA Cup defeat against Taunton Town, who included manager Russell Musker, Tom Kelly, Mark Loram, Chris Myers and Darren Cann – Morgan had signed them all at Plainmoor 13 years before.

When chief executive Colin Lee appointed Paul Buckle as United’s new manager in 2007, he knew his man.

Twenty years earlier, Lee had been Youth Coach at Brentford and Buckle, who later signed for the Gulls (1994), was an 18-year-old apprentice at Griffin Park.

If you’re into ‘win percentage’ stats, current United boss Paul Wotton is currently top with 50%, having won half of his 22 games.

Next up is Paul Buckle 46% and Gary Johnson 45.4% (most of their matches outside the EFL), which makes the records of Frank O’Farrell (44.6%) and Cyril Knowles (41.4%) look all the better.

The Final Shortlist

GOALKEEPER – Mike Mahoney 1970-75, John Turner 1978-80/1983-84, Neville Southall 1998-2000, Bobby Olejnik 2011-2012

RIGHT-BACK – John Bond 1966-69, Jim McNichol 1986-91, Paul Holmes 1988-91/1999-2003, Andy Gurney 1997-99

LEFT-BACK – Tom Kelly 1986-95, John Uzzell 1989-91, Brian McGlinchey 2003-2006, Kevin Nicholson 2007-2017

RIGHT CENTRE BACK – Dick Edwards 1970-73, Matt Elliott 1989-92, Alex Watson 1995-2001, Steve Woods 2001-2009

LEFT CENTRE BACK – Mike Green 1977-79, Phil Lloyd 1987-92, Wes Saunders 1990-93, Craig Taylor 2003-2007

RIGHT WING – Donal Murphy 1978-80, Paul Smith 1988-91, Rodney Jack 1995-98, Wayne Carlisle 2008-2011

LEFT WING – Tony Scott 1967-70, Mark Loram 1985-93, Kevin Hill 1997-2008, Danny Stevens 2007-2014

CENTRAL MIDFIELD (2) – Tommy Mitchinson 1969-72, Bruce Rioch 1980-83, Alan Little 1982-84, Sean Joyce 1988-1993, Alex Russell 2001-2005, Jason Fowler 2001-2005, Chris Hargreaves 2007-2010, Eunan O’Kane 2009-2012

STRIKERS (2) – Robin Stubbs (1963-69/72-73), Alan Welsh (1967-72), John Rudge (1969-72), Willie Brown (1975-78), Les Lawrence (1977-82), Steve Cooper (1978-84), Dave Caldwell (1987-88/89-90), David Graham (2001-2004/2006-2007).

MANAGERS – Frank O’Farrell (1965-68), Cyril Knowles (1987-89), Leroy Rosenior (2002-06), Paul Buckle (2007-11)

Tickets for the Dave Thomas Team of a Lifetime event at Plainmoor on Friday, December 13 are available to purchase from https://www.tickettailor.com/events/clearskypublishing/1440324