Tony Allen (soccer player)

Tony Allen
Tony Allen, Eric Welsh and Colin Gie
Personnel
Surname	Anthony Allen
birthday	November 27, 1939
place of birth	Stoke-on-Trent ,  England
position	External defense (left)
Juniors
Years	station
	24th Boys' Brigade
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1956-1970	Stoke City	417 (2)
1970-1971	Bury FC	29 (0)
1972-1973	Hellenic FC
	Stafford Rangers
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1958-1960	England U-23	7 (0)
1959	England	3 (0)
1 Only league games are given.

Anthony "Tony" Allen (born November 27, 1939 in Stoke-on-Trent ) is a former English football player . The three-time England international spent most of his career at Stoke City .

Club career

Allen came as an amateur to the second division Stoke City in 1955 , after local rivals Port Vale had sought the services of the blonde. Under the coach of the reserve team, Tony Waddington , Allen developed into a junior international and signed his first professional contract on his 17th birthday. In September 1957 he finally made his debut under coach Frank Taylor in a 1-0 win against Doncaster Rovers in the professional team and then ousted "club legend" John McCue from his traditional position on the left defensive side.

When Waddington became head coach in 1960, the club's development began to take a positive turn. The offensive was reinforced alongside exceptional player Stanley Matthews with experienced players such as Jimmy McIlroy and Dennis Viollet , while Waddington put on the defensive on a second defensively oriented midfielder, a tactic known as "Waddington's Wall". Allen played 148 competitive games (121 in the league) in a row between March 1960 and March 1963, he himself attributed this to the fact that he had never lost his temper on the pitch. This was true even when he was spat at by Pat Crerand during a game against Manchester United in 1967 without the referee noticing. Since television images documented the incident, the International Football Association Board is said to have seen itself prompted to equate spitting with violent behavior in an extension of the rules, which is punishable by expulsion.

The team ended the 1962/63 season as second division champions and returned to the First Division after ten years . A year later he was with the club in the final of the League Cup , but after the return leg they were defeated by Leicester City 3: 4 in addition. Allen was part of the undisputed permanent staff until April 1965, when he had only missed nine league games since his debut when a serious knee injury put him out of action for half a year. In the season 1966/67 he had increasing problems to keep up with the pace of his opponents and Waddington reacted by ordering Allen in the midfield center at the side of Maurice Setters . Allen's strengths had previously been in the short passing game and his ability to “read the game”, so that he had no difficulty adapting to his new position. Only when Willie Stevenson was signed by Liverpool FC in December 1967 heralded its end and Allen finally left the club for a transfer fee of £ 10,000 for third division Bury FC in October 1970. By this time he had played 473 competitive games for Stoke and was there four times successful as a goalscorer. In February 1969 he was given a benefit game ("Testimonial Match") together with Eric Skeels .

His time at Bury was not very successful, at the end of the 1970/71 season there was relegation to fourth division , shortly after the start of the new season Allen left the club and, like some other English players, joined the South African club Hellenic FC in Cape Town on. In October 1973 he returned to England, ended his career with the Stafford Rangers in the Northern Premier League .

Following his career, he made a living owning a newsagent and later working for a security company.

National team

Allen had already played for the English youth team when he made his debut in the English U-23 national team in September 1958 against the Polish U-23 team. After five U-23 appearances, he surprisingly made his debut in October 1959 in Ninian Park against Wales for the English senior team (final score 1: 1). Less than two weeks later, he also played in a 3-2 loss to Sweden at Wembley Stadium . His third and last international match was before his 20th birthday on November 18, 1959 in a 2-1 win over Northern Ireland . Jimmy Greaves later described the events surrounding the international match against Sweden as follows in his autobiography:

“He [note: national coach Walter Winterbottom ] chose what he believed was an extraordinary group of young players to play against Sweden, most of them under 21 years of age. Tony Allen (Stoke City), Trevor Smith (Birmingham City), John Connelly (Burnley), Brian Clough and Eddie Holliday (both Middlesbrough) joined a 22 year old Bobby Charlton and me on a team that turned out to be Sweden However, he was too strong and won the game 3-2. It was only England's second defeat at home against an opponent from "overseas" [note: not from Great Britain or Ireland] and hit the FA like a bomb. The FA selection committee made it very clear to Walter [Winterbottom] that they were against his strategy of promoting young players to the national team and returned to the old system. "

- Jimmy Greaves: Greavsie

All of them were then used again in the U-23, but that he was no longer considered, but was also related to the consistency with which Ray Wilson occupied the position of the left full-back in the national team from now on.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Simon Lowe: Stoke City 101 Golden Greats . Desert Island Books, Westcliff-on-Sea 2002, ISBN 1-874287-55-4 , pp. 141-143 .
2. ↑ Simon Lowe: Stoke City 101 Golden Greats . Desert Island Books, Westcliff-on-Sea 2002, ISBN 1-874287-55-4 , pp. 108 f .
3. ^ Scotsman.com: Obituary: Pat Partridge, football referee (Nov. 14, 2014) . According to the history of the rules - 1970–1980 on fifa.com, this addition was not made until 1980.
4. ↑ ^{a b} englandfootballonline.com: England Players - Tony Allen , accessed August 11, 2017
5. ↑ stokesentinel.co.uk: Ex-Stoke and England star Tony Allen teaches junior football team (13 Sep 2010)  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on August 11, 2017  
6. ↑ Jimmy Greaves: Greavsie . Time Warner Books, London 2003, ISBN 0-316-72529-3 , pp. 118 f .