Simon Gough, coached successfully St Bede's School in East Sussex. An unfashionable school twenty or so years ago, but now one that takes football very seriously and has held it reputation in both ISFA and English Schools' FA competitions. Goughie is now in the middle-east making proper money, apparently.
He sees the blog occasionally and also links up through Facebook, so as I was meandering my way out to Manchester today to watch an ISFA Cup tie (see previous blog), Goughie comes up with "Did I ever tell you about my dad and George Raynor?"
This got me going. First of all George was born about 5 miles away from my Yorkshire home in Hoyland Common (some references say Wombwell) in 1907, the son of a miner. Before his death he had been knighted in Sweden, coached in Italy and ended up managing Skegness Town at the Burgh Stadium! Don't stop reading.
The Skegness link comes with the English Schools' Football Festival, which was held in a variety of Butlins and Pontins around the country, notably in Bognor Regis, when I was playing for Sussex Schools U18s, before Goughie was born I bet, and later in Skegness at the Derbyshire Miners' Welfare Holiday Centre, where the ISFA squad performed. Imagine 40 or so county sides of 18 year old footballers crammed together in chalets, playing matches against other counties on local pitches.
George Raynor spent his final years of football management in Lincolnshire, coaching Town for £10 a week, a club in the Midland League, entertaining local school kids with football and working at Butlins as a storeman to supplement his salary. He died in Buxton in 1985 aged 78, mainly unsung by English football, but loved by the Swedes, but not recognised by the English press.
He played for Elsecar Bible Class, Mexborough Athletic and Wombwell. There was one match for Sheffield United in 1930, then Bury, Mansfield and Rotherham United. He found himself working as a PE instructor in Baghdad, he assembled the Iraqi national team, was at Aldershot towards the end of the war and also held a post in Rome coaching for Lazio, along with various Swedish clubs in the 1950s.
Unable to get a decent coaches' job in England, Stanley Rous at the FA recommended him to the Swedish FA, where Raynor had huge success, taking the national team to an Olympic Gold medal in London in 1948, a third place in the 1950 World Cup (we all know what happened to England that year), an Olympic Bronze medal in 1952, beaten by the great Hungarians and a World Cup Final defeat by Brazil and Pele in Sweden in 1958.
Despite some flirting with English football, Coventry City (1955-6) for example, his continental ways did not suit the English FA, and after a scatheing attack on the FA in his autobiography, there was no chance of him being taken on in his home country. Revolutionary ideas such as three points for a win and a reduced "First Division" were two of his suggestions. Not many listened, bit like Cloughy?
He does have recognition in the Swedish Football Museum in Degerfors and his portrait hangs in the Swedish FA HQ.
He helped Sweden beat England 3-2 at Wembley in October 1959 and in 1962 he was asked back to help Sweden with their World Cup campaign and in 1966, at 60 years old, he took unfashionable Doncaster Rovers to the top of the Fourth Division 1967-8, his last post.
Despite a campaign, there is no statue in Barnsley to remember Raynor's contribution to World football.
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