Len Gibbons

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Len Gibbons
Personnel
Surname Leonard Gibbons
birthday November 22, 1930
place of birth Birkenhead ,  England
date of death July 2011
Place of death Childer Thornton ,  England
position defender
Juniors
Years station
Wolverhampton Wanderers
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1948-1954 Wolverhampton Wanderers 25 (0)
1954-1956 Tonbridge FC
1956-1957 Hastings United
1957–? Salisbury City FC
1 Only league games are given.

Leonard "Len" Gibbons (born November 22, 1930 in Birkenhead , † July 2011 in Childer Thornton ) was an English football player . The defender was part of the Wolverhampton Wanderers' championship team in the 1953/54 season, but was not used there regularly and from the mid-1950s was only involved in non-league football in southern England.

Athletic career

Gibbons was born near Liverpool on the Wirral Peninsula . While still at school in Ellesmere Port , his teacher recommended him to Wolverhampton Wanderers . The then Wolves player Stan Cullis from Ellesmere Port had already played under the same teacher . Immediately after leaving school, he joined the Wanderers in August 1946 and learned to play football far from home. In February 1948 he received his first professional contract and subsequently did his military service in the British Army .

In the 1951/52 season he formed for a while with Bill Shorthouse the defender couple and came in this season to a total of 22 first division and three cup appearances. The Correspondent for Sports Argus described Gibbons in February 1952 as “one of the outstanding discoveries of the 1951/52 season” and characterized him as “one of the fearless kind”, who had the speed necessary to catch up with opponents and whose tackles were “as effective as are sharp "and who" wasted no time in clearing and tried to hit the balls forward ". In the following two seasons, only three league appearances followed, one of them in the 1953/54 championship season , which was too little to receive a championship medal. Otherwise Gibbons hired himself in the reserve team, with which he won the Central League title in 1953, for example . Despite his few appearances in the first team, he received a special payment ("benefit") for his long membership in the club.

In July 1954 he was on the transfer list and subsequently joined the FC Tonbridge playing in the Southern League , in 1956 he moved to league rivals Hastings United . In mid-1957 he moved to the Western League for FC Salisbury City , a few weeks earlier the Wanderers had given up his registration with the Football League.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Len Gibbons in the database of barryhugmansfootballers.com (English). Retrieved August 16, 2020.
  2. ↑ a b c LEN GIBBONS IS THE MIDLANDS 'FULL-BACK DISCOVERY . In: Sports Argus , February 2, 1952, p. 4.  (link with costs)
  3. ↑ Wolves benefits for 'unknowns' . In: Sports Argus , December 10, 1960, p. 4.  (link subject to charge)
  4. ↑ Two more Villa men may move shortly . In: Sports Argus , July 10, 1954, p. 4.  (link subject to charge)
  5. ^ Albion, United Hopes High As Training Begins . In: Sussex Agricultural Express , July 27, 1956, p. 14.  (link with costs)
  6. ↑ Hastings and Sussex . In: Hastings and St Leonards Observer , July 20, 1957, p. 9.  (link subject to charge)
  7. ↑ MIDLAND SOCCER RETAINED LIST . In: Sports Argus , May 4, 1957, p. 2.  (link subject to charge)
personal data
SURNAME Gibbons, Len
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gibbons, Leonard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH November 22, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Birkenhead
DATE OF DEATH July 2011
Place of death Childer Thornton