Frank Wignall

Frank Wignall
Personnel
Surname	Frank Wignall
birthday	August 21, 1939
place of birth	Blackrod ,  England
position	Center Forward
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
until 1958	Horwich RMI
1958-1963	Everton FC	33 (15)
1963-1968	Nottingham Forest	157 (47)
1968-1969	Wolverhampton Wanderers	32 (15)
1969-1971	Derby County	45 (15)
1971-1973	Mansfield Town	56 (15)
1973-1974	King's Lynn FC
1974	Burton Albion
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1964	England	2 0(2)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
1973-1974	King's Lynn FC
1974-1976	Qatar
1981-1983	Shepshed Charterhouse
1 Only league games are given.

Frank Wignall (born August 21, 1939 in Blackrod ) is a former English football player and coach . As a center forward "classic character" he played his way through the early 1960s at Everton and Nottingham Forest to the English national team , but lost after three broken legs in a row the sporting connection. As a supplementary player, he won the championship with Derby County in 1972 and shortly afterwards he switched to the coaching profession. Qatar was in charge of the selection in the mid-1970s .

Athletic career

Everton FC (1958–1963)

Frank Wignall, who was born in Blackrod - halfway between Wigan and Bolton - first started his career at the nearby Horwich RMI club in the Lancashire Combination . In May 1958 he moved to Liverpool for Everton , where the young center forward had to wait until the 1960/61 season for the first probation opportunities in the senior team. On his debut on October 12, 1960 in the league cup against Accrington Stanley , he met twice for a 3-1 victory and also in his first appearances in first division games from late November 1960, he was dangerous for goals. At the end of the season, his statistics showed 15 goals in 19 competitive games, eight of them in the top English division.

Despite this exceptionally good quota, the sporting breakthrough in the "Toffees" was denied in the following period. This was primarily due to the direction of the new coach Harry Catterick , who relied less on Wignall as a classic center forward and instead favored the more agile striker Alex Young and Roy Vernon . After just twelve league games in the following two years, Wignall moved to league rivals Nottingham Forest in June 1963 . His contribution to winning the English league title in 1963 was previously marginal with an effort and own goal against Manchester City (1: 1) and was not enough for the official receipt of a championship medal.

Nottingham & Wolverhampton (1963-1969)

In Nottingham, Wignall immediately conquered a regular place and scored 30 league goals in his first two seasons. This catapulted himself into the focus of the English national coach Alf Ramsey , who experimented with numerous players in his own country in the run-up to the 1966 World Cup . So he came to two senior internationals for England in the fall of 1964 and on his debut against Wales on November 18, 1964, he scored both goals for a 2-1 victory. In the 1-1 draw in Amsterdam against the Netherlands, however, he went empty-handed and there were no more appearances for the "Three Lions". Injury problems that overtook him from April 1965 were partly responsible for this. At the end of the 1964/65 season he broke his leg and shortly after his recovery he suffered the same mishap in a home game against Newcastle United and a third time against Liverpool . In March 1968 his engagement in Nottingham ended and he found a new employer with the Wolverhampton Wanderers .

The "Wolves", who had returned to the first division the year before, were fighting for relegation and Wignall was instrumental with nine goals at the end of the season that this could be accomplished. A 6-1 win against the ex-club from Nottingham shortly after his arrival, in which Wignall scored two goals, had a special significance. In the following season 1968/69, however, he lost his place in the team again and shortly after the coaching change from Ronnie Allen to Bill McGarry , he moved in February 1969 to the emerging second division Derby County under coach Brian Clough .

Derby County, career end and coaching activities (from 1969)

As a supplementary player, Wignall immediately played a major role in a team's success in Derby. Although he was only in the starting line-up four times in the remaining games of the season, with his four goals (including the 1-0 winner against Fulham ) he contributed to winning the second division championship and the associated promotion to the first division . When Derby County developed into one of the top clubs there, Wignall was mostly limited to the role of substitute, but especially when he won the championship in 1972, he helped the season get off to a good start with three goals in the first four league games. Permanently, however, he did not prevail against competitors such as Kevin Hector , John O'Hare and Alan Hinton and even before winning the championship, he moved to the third division club Mansfield Town in November 1971 .

In 1972, he rose to fourth division in Mansfield and the following year the attempt at direct promotion failed just two points behind in fourth place. In the course of the next year he let the active career fade away at smaller clubs like the FC King's Lynn and Burton Albion and at the first mentioned club he acted in the function of the player-coach . In October 1974 he took over the job of national coach in Qatar , but did not pursue the activity of sporting director more intensively after his return to England. Between July 1981 and March 1983 he was in charge of Shepshed Charterhouse near Nottingham, where Wignall continued to live.

Title / Awards

• English Championship (1): 1972

Web links

• Frank Wignall as England international
• Statistical data from the Post War English & Scottish Football League A - Z Player's Database
• Profile at Playerhistory.com ( Memento from February 17, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Frank Opinion On What Might Have Been" (wolvesheroes.com)
2. ↑ "Wignall's early goals helped to get the ball rolling towards title for Rams"  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Derby Telegraph)