Ray Crawford (soccer player)

Ray Crawford
Ray Crawford (left) with Ted Phillips
Personnel
Surname	Raymond Crawford
birthday	July 13, 1936
place of birth	Portsmouth ,  England
position	Center Forward
Juniors
Years	station
	Portsmouth FC
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1954-1958	Portsmouth FC	19 00(9)
1958-1963	Ipswich Town	197 (143)
1963-1965	Wolverhampton Wanderers	57 0(39)
1965-1966	West Bromwich Albion	14 00(6)
1966-1969	Ipswich Town	123 0(61)
1969	Charlton Athletic	21 00(7)
1969-1970	Kettering Town
1970-1971	Colchester United	45 0(25)
1971	Durban City
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1961–1962	England	2 00(1)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
	Fareham Town
	Winchester City
1 Only league games are given.

Raymond "Ray" Crawford (born July 13, 1936 in Portsmouth ) is a retired English football player . The striker won the English championship with Ipswich Town in 1962 and is the player with the most goals in Ipswich's history with 288 competitive matches.

Athletic career

Beginnings: Portsmouth FC (1954-58)

Crawford was born the oldest of four children in the southern English coastal town of Portsmouth. He learned to play football in the local school teams and when he later did his military service in Malaysia , he was given the nickname "Jungle Boy" there, by which he would later be known in football. In his hometown he finally joined Portsmouth FC and in the 1957/58 season he completed his first appearances in the First Division . He made his 0-0 debut in the first game of the season against Burnley FC and the first year was extremely successful with nine goals in 19 league games, with the exception of a three-month injury break (as a result of a broken ankle). The club had only just avoided relegation and in the summer of 1958, coach Eddie Lever was sacked. Lever is said to have given the former employer the advice after his resignation not to sell Crawford under any circumstances. However, those responsible did not adhere to it and shortly after the beginning of the subsequent season, Lever's successor Freddie Cox let him move to the second division club Ipswich Town for £ 6,000 .

Sporting zenith: Ipswich Town (1958–63)

In the team of the later world champion coach Alf Ramsey , Crawford quickly developed into Ipswich's top scorer. The interaction with the equally accurate striker Ted Phillips was very much feared by opponents and the two went down in English football history as "Terrible Twins". In addition to Phillips, who was particularly noticeable for his extraordinary shot strength, Crawford had the reputation of allowing goal hazards to arise from so-called "half chances". Crawford had an above-average header game and he was widely regarded as one of the best "penalty area strikers" of his time. When Ipswich won the second division championship in the 1960/61 season and thus rose to the top English division, Crawford contributed 39 goals to the success and was thus the top scorer. A year later he won the top scorer's crown again, now in the premier league - Derek Kevan of West Bromwich Albion equaled his 33 goals . However, this was not only a personal success for him, because the team also won the English championship completely surprisingly . Crawford's high standing in the team was also demonstrated by the fact that the only game of the season in which he was missing was lost 5-0 at Manchester United . Crawford's only two appearances in the English senior team also fell during this season . He was the first player from the ranks of Ipswich Town to be considered by the "Three Lions". On his debut on November 22, 1961 against Northern Ireland (1: 1) he prepared the English goal of Bobby Charlton and on April 4, 1962 he scored a goal for a 3-1 friendly win against Austria . It remained the only appearances for England, but for Ipswich he made a British record 10-0 in the second leg against FC Floriana from Malta with five goals in the European Cup , which was only set by Peter Osgood from Chelsea . In the domestic league, however, things went downhill for Ipswich and in September 1963 Ipswich Crawford surprisingly let move to the slightly better placed Wolverhampton Wanderers .

Career autumn (1963-71)

At the "Wolves" Crawford knew how to convince with 41 goals in 61 competitive games, but shortly before relegation he moved on to local rivals West Bromwich Albion in February 1965 . At "WBA", however, he did not prevail, so that he decided to return to Ipswich Town after a year, which had meanwhile been relegated to the second division. He spent three more years at the site of his greatest success and screwed his goalscoring to 228 in a total of 354 competitive games, making him the best goalscorer in the club's history. In March 1969 he moved on to Charlton Athletic , which was shortly followed by an engagement with the amateur club Kettering Town . In June 1970 he returned to professional football and from then on played for the lower class Colchester United . There he scored 24 goals in 45 league games, but his two goals in February 1971 for a sensational 3-2 win in the FA Cup against runner-up Leeds United were far better known . He then ended his active career with a brief engagement in South Africa at Durban City .

After the active career

From 1972 he first worked for Brighton & Hove Albion as a youth coach, until Brian Clough was primarily responsible for the club. He later also worked in the youth field and as an assistant to Jimmy Dickinson at his home club Portsmouth FC; this was followed by an engagement in New Zealand with FC Eden . As head coach, he worked in the amateur field for Fareham Town and Winchester City before leaving the football business in 1984. In 2007 he published his autobiography entitled Curse of the Jungle Boy .

Title / Awards

• English Championship (1): 1962
• English top scorer (2): 1961 (2nd division), 1962 (1st division, together with Derek Kevan )

Web links

• Ray Crawford as England international
• Statistical data from the Post War English & Scottish Football League AZ Player's Database
• Ray Crawford in the barryhugmansfootballers.com database. Retrieved August 16, 2020.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Martin Brooks: Ipswich Town Champions 1961/62 . The History Press, Stroud 2011, ISBN 978-0-7524-5890-8 , pp. 139 ff .
2. ^ "The Golden Boot" (Google Books)