LAST ONES OFF THE PRODUCTION LINE

Is it 'cos I'm getting on, are more people dying? I'm older than a lot of folk, so I have been around a bit and therefore know more people, especially oldies, who saddly pass on. So today, RIP Terry Wogan, but for football's sake, RIP Peter Baker, the Spurs' modest and efficient full back who played in the Double winning team and RIP Ray Pointer, who was in the Burnley side that was the team closest to Spurs in that 1959-62 period.

Pointer was the blonde bombshell, a quick and brave centre forward, who joined the Lancashire club in 1957, and who led the line in every game for Burnley in their First Division Championship victory in 1959-60, scoring 23 times. Burnley were left in the wake of Spurs the following season, coming 4th. They were runners up to Ipswich the following season (Alf Ramsey's success), 3rd in 1962-3 and then there was mediocrity. Much of this period of success, was to do with Pointer's goals-118 in 223 appearances.

Pointer, amazingly, only played 3 times for England despite scoring in two games and he did not even make the 1962 World Cup squad. In 1963 he suffered an ankle injury and went to Bury (1965) playing alongside a youthful Colin Bell. Jimmy Hill signed Pointer for Coventry's "revolution" from 1965, he then went to Portsmouth (1966-72) and finally Waterlooville, hanging up his boots in 1975. Pointer gradually faded and ended up coaching at Blackpool, Burnley, Bury until he retired to own a shop in Blackpool and suffered from Alzheimer's spending his last years in a care home.

Another Coventry goal scorer, who has died this week, is Ken Satchwell. He passed on at 75 years old and is famed for scoring 4 goals in a 5-3 victory over Wrexham on Christmas Day (yes, 25th Dec) in 1959, the last time the club played a league match on the big day. He was only 19 years old and managed a brace of goals the following day (Boxing Day) in Division Three (now League Two).

Satchwell was quite a goal scorer and started his footballing career as an amateur working for SU Carburettors and playing for their works' side at first. After Coventry 1959-62) he went onto Nuneaton Borough, Telford, Walsall, Wellington Town and Stourbridge, ending up on the shop floor again with British Leyland and for Land Rover at Solihull. Coincidently, this week the last Land Rover "Defender" rolled off the production line at the Land Rover car plant Solihull! Would have been more of a coincidence if it had been called an "Attacker"