Roy Stephenson

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Roy Stephenson
Personnel
birthday May 27, 1932
place of birth Crook ,  England
date of death February 4, 2000
Place of death Ipswich ,  England
position Winger (right)
Juniors
Years station
until 1949 Burnley FC
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1949-1956 Burnley FC 78 (27)
1956-1957 Rotherham United 43 (14)
1957-1959 Blackburn Rovers 21 0(5)
1959-1960 Leicester City 12 0(0)
1960-1965 Ipswich Town 144 (21)
Lowestoft Town
1 Only league games are given.

Roy Stephenson (born May 27, 1932 in Crook , † February 4, 2000 in Ipswich ) was an English football player . The right winger started out at Burnley , but rarely got beyond the role of substitute. Via the detours Rotherham United , Blackburn Rovers and Leicester City , he found his way to Ipswich Town in 1960 . With this club he rose under the later world champion coach Alf Ramsey within two years in the first division and won the English championship in 1962 .

Athletic career

Stephenson played in his hometown of Crook for the team from the local coal mine Wohlfahrt before he successfully completed a trial training session at Burnley FC in the late 1940s . Shortly after his 17th birthday, he signed his first professional contract in June 1949 and at the end of the 1949/50 season he made his debut on April 10, 1950 in the first division game at Liverpool FC . The fast right winger prepared Alf Clarke's 1-0 winning goal . The newcomer then played three more games, but this did not mean the sporting breakthrough. In the following three years he was mostly in the shadow of Jackie Chew , who was considered "set" on the right wing position. At the end of the 1953/54 season, Chew's time in Burnley ended, but with Billy Gray another competitor had been committed to his position by Chelsea FC . In the fight for his position in the team, Stephenson motivated this situation to his best season to date 1954/55, in which he played a little more than half of the games and scored ten goals - he switched to the right half-forward position. His good performance also led to an invitation for the English U-23 team, which, however, did not lead to any use and in the further course of his career the national teams remained out of reach for him. The hopes of a regular place in Burnley were then dashed in the 1955/56 season, when he only occasionally came to the train and shortly after the beginning of the 1956/57 season he left the club in the direction of the second division Rotherham United .

Stephenson spent just over a year in Rotherham before returning to Lancashire and advancing to the top English league with the Blackburn Rovers in 1958 . In addition, he was part of the Rovers team in the 1957/58 season, which reached the semi-finals in the FA Cup . Back in the First Division he shot his only first division goal for Blackburn in March 1959 against the ex-club from Burnley in a 4-1 win. It was not only the last goal for the "Rovers", but also the last ever appearance for the team and for a transfer fee of 8,000 pounds it went on to league rivals Leicester City . There he played only twelve first division games in more than a year and in the summer of 1960 he moved to the second division side Ipswich Town .

At the same time Burnley had just won the English championship in 1960 , but there was little to regret for the now 28-year-old. The reason for this was that Stephenson had the best career years in the following two years under the later English world champion coach Alf Ramsey . Led by the goal scorers Ray Crawford and Ted Phillips , Stephenson rose to the top English league with Ipswich in 1961 . If this was considered a surprise, a sensation followed a year later when Ipswich Town won the English championship in 1962 . Stephenson was absent from only one game against Manchester United ( Dermot Curtis replaced him there ) and he himself contributed seven goals to the success. Then things went downhill in sporting terms and after the departure of Ramsey under successor Jackie Milburn, the development reached its low point with the relegation in 1964 as bottom of the table. In the Second Division he played a few more games before he left the club in the summer of 1965 to end his career outside of professional operations at Lowestoft Town . He kept his residence in Suffolk until his death in February 2000 .

Title / Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Brooks: Ipswich Town Champions 1961/62 . The History Press, Stroud 2011, ISBN 978-0-7524-5890-8 , pp. 146 .
  2. ^ "Roy Stephenson" (Clarets Mad)
personal data
SURNAME Stephenson, Roy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Crook , England
DATE OF DEATH February 4, 2000
Place of death Ipswich , England