Player Profile – Wally Hughes

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A friend was recently telling me about an article he had written for the Prescot Cables programme a few years ago which mentioned a player called Wally Hughes who briefly featured in Chester colours. While his stay at Sealand Road was restricted to three games for the Cheshire County League team he had a fascinating career managing both the New Zealand and Fiji national teams. The following article is reproduced with Roy McDonald’s kind permission and can also be seen on his Tales From Hope Street blog page. It is well worth checking out his other articles which can be found at:

https://roymcdonald.wixsite.com/blog

I researched his ‘career’ at Chester and Wally was signed by Stan Pearson on a one month trial in August 1959 after playing in the Possibles v Probables public trial match. The 25 year old outside right made his first start in the opening Cheshire County League of that season at home to Ellesmere Port Town. It proved to be a memorable debut as, after an uneventful first half, he scored the only goal of the game against the reigning Cheshire County League champions. 

Also making his debut for the reserves that day was 17 year old Ron Davies who, of course went on to have a long career with Luton Town, Norwich City, Southampton and Manchester United amongst others and was capped 29 times by Wales. 

Wally then played in the 1-1 draw at Bangor City followed by a 4-0 defeat at Northwich Victoria where he switched to the left wing to make way for promising 17 year old youngster Jimmy Cooper. Although he was described as ‘lively’ against Vics it proved to be his last game and he was released in September at the end of his trial.

The following is a reproduction of Roy McDonald’s ‘Cables to Kiwis’ article:

Walter Cyril Joseph Hughes was born in Dingle, Liverpool in 1934. Wally was an extrovert character who began his career on the groundstaff at Liverpool F.C. and, at 18, earned a playing contract. He was signed on professional forms on returning from the Forces shortly after the start of the 1954/55 season, but did not make the progress anticipated. He failed to make an appearance for the first team, and in April 1955 he was given a free transfer.

He became the archetypal journeyman footballer when he moved on to Stockport County where he, again, failed to make the first team squad and drifted on to Winsford United in the Cheshire League. Hughes returned to league football when he joined Sheffield United in early 1956, to become new manager Joe Mercer’s first signing. Injuries meant that within two weeks Wally was promoted to the first team, where he impressed on his debut, creating two goals for the Blades. However, he made just two first team appearances, before he was sent on loan to Midland League side, Wisbech Town in October 1956

In April 1957 he moved to Bradford Park Avenue (20 appearances), and on to Southport in February 1958 (11 appearances), making it seven clubs in three years. After Southport, Hughes continued his nomadic roam around football, returning to Winsford United, then Bangor City and Rhyl, before earning a month’s trial with Crystal Palace in early 1959. In August 1959 he landed at Chester. By the start of the 1960/61 season he was at Earlestown in the Lancashire Combination, and he began the 1961/62 with Prescot Cables – by my reckoning, his fourteenth club in eight seasons.

During these later years, Wally had taken his F.A. coaching badges and worked in coaching clinics for the F.A. and the Liverpool Coaching Association and also worked part-time for Cheshire Education Authority. In December 1961 Harry Topping was sacked as Manager of Cables and Wally was appointed player-coach. It is very likely that Prescot Cables was Wally’s first role in team management.

However, things did not go well for Hughes at Hope Street and within 3 months he, too, was replaced this time, by ex-Cable, Dick Platt.

In February 1962, the Liverpool Echo reported that, “Prescot Cables have released two of their professionals, inside forward and player-coach Wally Hughes and goalkeeper Jack Critchley. Hughes was at one time on Sheffield United’s books and has played in Italy.” [I have, so far, been unable to verify his time in Italy]

Wally went on to play for Cambridgeshire side, St Neots Town in the Metropolitan League before coming back to Merseyside, again, to join New Brighton for the 1963/64 season. Unsurprisingly, his stay with the Rakers didn’t last long and in March 1964 it was reported that his contract had been cancelled.

In 1973, Wally Hughes emigrated to New Zealand, where he took up the role of head coach of Dunedin City in the Southern League. At Dunedin he worked alongside another Prescot old-boy, Alan A’Court and took them to promotion in his first season.

After two seasons he became Director of Coaching for the New Zealand Northern Region and took charge of the Auckland representative side that played visiting teams like Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur. In late 1976 he was appointed coach of the Kiwi’s national football team, for the 1978 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign. On his appointment Hughes set his sights high, saying, “We are going to have a different attitude. We have been negative in the past but this time we will be positive and aiming high. My ultimate aim is to reach the last 16 of the competition and that means we have to win the Oceania group qualifying games first”.

Hughes first took charge of the New Zealand side in February 1977, winning six, losing five of his 12 games in charge, with one draw.

However, New Zealand failed to qualify for the 1978 World Cup and after Hughes stepped down from the National team he coached in the New Zealand National league, before taking an appointment with the Al Ahli club in Dubai for 2 years, where he worked closely with the former Leeds United and England manager Don Revie, who was then in charge of the UAE National side. Wally said, “Of course, there were a few problems. There was the language problem for one thing. About 90 per cent of the players don’t speak a word of English. You lose something in imparting your message through an interpreter”. Revie gave Wally a glowing reference, writing, “I have watched him work and worked with him in coaching sessions, and I have no doubt in my mind that he is a very good coach indeed”.

After his stint in UAE he returned briefly to Merseyside, and was offered the chance to coach a Norwegian side. He said, “I am looking for a challenge. That’s what football is all about”. That challenge came when he took charge of the Fiji national side in 1981 for their first entry into the World Cup qualifying campaigns. After opening up with a four goal defeat against New Zealand, they drew 0 – 0 with Indonesia, before defeating Chinese Taipei 2–1. However, that was as good as it got, with crushing away defeats against Australia (10 – 0) and New Zealand (13 – 0) in the space of 48 hours. Hughes resigned after the Australian game, claiming that there was interference from Fiji team management and that he did not have a free hand in team selection, talks and tactics.

“I wouldn’t wish on any coach what I have been through,” he said. He claimed that some of his officials were working against him and that the match against the Socceroos was thrown away with one defender being responsible for letting in at least seven goals. He added that this defender went on a drinking spree with a team official after the drubbing at the hand of the Aussies. New Zealand eventually went on to reach the World Cup finals in 1982 in Spain. Hughes returned to New Zealand to coach at East Coast Bays AFC, Auckland University and Manurewa AFC.

As a coach, Wally Hughes was well regarded by contemporaries for his skills and knowledge of the game and for the standards he set, and is given much credit within New Zealand for laying the groundwork for the national side’s eventual qualification for the World Cup finals.

Wally Hughes died in Auckland, New Zealand in January 2011.

Gary Simpson (1959-2023)

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Former centre forward Gary Simpson has passed away at the age of 64. Gary joined Chester in summer 1981 and made 63 Football League appearances over the following two seasons scoring 18 goals. 

Born in Chesterfield, Gary joined his local club as a schoolboy and after signing professional in 1977 made his Football League debut for the Spireites, at Plymouth Argyle, in November of the same year. Over the next four seasons he made 43 appearances for the Saltergate club without truly establishing himself as a first team regular. In 1981 Alan Oakes brought Gary to Sealand Road for £6,000 in an attempt to invigorate a team that had struggled to find goals since the departure of Ian Edwards and Ian Rush.

Gary was unfortunate to sign for the club as financial problems began to bite and with a small squad Chester were out of their depth in Division 3 finishing bottom of the table winning just six games and managing only 36 goals. Gary himself finished leading scorer with 12 of these goals including two at his former club Chesterfield in an unexpected 5-3 win. 

The signing of John Thomas, following relegation to Division 4, saw some of the goalscoring pressure taken off Gary and he added another six goals as the club stabilised in mid-table. Nevertheless the financial situation was worsening and at the end of the 1982/83 season Gary was one of eight players released by the club as manager John Sainty was tasked with halving the wage bill. 

After leaving Sealand Road Gary joined a host of former Chester players at Oswestry Town and also played for Bangor City and Connah’s Quay Nomads. 

Alan Oakes welcomes Gary to Sealand Road

The Ground That Never Was

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At the end of the 19th century the large scale housebuilding in Hoole was beginning to encroach on Chester’s ground in Faulkner Street and it became clear that a new home would be needed if the club was to continue. One of the options was the nearby Lead Works Field sandwiched between the Shropshire Union canal and the railway line. In the end the plan, for an all purpose athletics field, never got off the ground but had the project gone through it could have altered the whole history of the club.. 

The completion of the 1896/97 season saw Chester Football Club in turmoil, not for the first or last time. The club seemed to be drifting along aimlessly with no committee meetings taking place and it was essentially being run by the secretary and players. No accounts had been produced for several weeks and the debts were mounting while the players, who had been unpaid, were refusing to continue into the new season if the current committee was still in place. On top of all this the Faulkner Street ground itself was becoming a major headache as new housing edged ever closer. Ironically, all this upheaval came at a time when the club was achieving some success on the field of play having just won the Cheshire Senior Cup for a second time. Such were the internal problems that a couple of the players refused to appear in the team photograph taken with the cup at the end of the campaign.

The 1897 Cheshire Cup winners minus a couple of boycotters

The formation of a new committee during the summer saw some sense of normality return to the club although they controversially refused to take on the debt overseen by the previous regime. One of the reasons for adopting this stance must have been the costs involved in preparing for the forthcoming 1897/98 campaign. The landlord of the Faulkner Street ground wanted to increase the rent but the club also faced the prospect of moving the hoardings closer to the pitch at a cost of £50, a move which would only have been a temporary measure. The alternative was to find a new ground with two or three options available. A field by the Lead Works looked the most viable choice but in the end the club decided to remain where they were for another season as it was felt that the cost implications of erecting new hoardings, moving and levelling the pitch were even more prohibitive than staying where they were. 

Nevertheless the Lead Works Field looked an attractive option for sport and in April 1898 a share prospectus was issued by a new company called the Chester Athletic Ground Limited. They proposed issuing 700 shares at £10 each in order to purchase the land and fund a high class athletic ground adapted and equipped for a range of sports and pastimes. The company estimated that their ambitious venture would cost around £8,800 with the balance met through mortgaging the property.

Although the football club was not directly involved they had come to an agreement with the Athletic Company to play their matches at the ground and were a key component if the scheme was to succeed. 

James Tomkinson

The men behind the company were all prominent figures in the area. The chairman, James Tomkinson, was a bank director who owned Willington Hall near Tarporley and later went on to become Liberal MP for Crewe until his death in 1910. Others involved included Benjamin Chaffers Roberts, a retired tea merchant who had built and lived at Oakfield house, which now stands at the heart of Chester Zoo. Another director was James Frost, a corn miller and JP who lived at Boughton Hall while other directors included solicitor Hubert Potts, Land Agent John Cunnah and Civil Engineer Henry Taylor. 

While football was important to the pioneering project the main focus was on cycling which was going through a boom period with new technology seeing a surge in activity. The introduction of the “safety bicycle” with equal, smaller sized wheels as well as the inflatable tyre both helped fuel this interest. The local papers had regular columns on the sport and the Faulkner Street ground had hosted the first race meeting of Chester Cycling Club which attracted more than 1000 people on a Wednesday evening in July 1897.

The scale and range of the project was certainly ambitious because as well as football and cycling there were also plans to include a running track, inside the banked cycle track. In addition the prospectus also mentioned lawn tennis courts for the summer as well as cricket and croquet alongside horticultural and other shows and entertainments.

The prospectus highlighted the proximity of Chester General Station which was “less than five minutes walk” away with access from City Road down what is now Queen’s Road. From the other direction there would have been entrances by the canal bridge on the junction between Station View Road and Hoole Lane. Part of the proposed site is now covered by the extension to Westminster Road which has by-passed Station View Road and made it into a cul-de-sac. 

The proposed 6 acre site of the Chester Athletic Ground

Within the prospectus it was suggested that the ground would hold 20,000 people and as well as stands, dressing and bath rooms there would also be other recreation and amusement facilities.

Despite the best intentions and high profiles of the people involved the project never got off the ground and the share application only realised around £4,000 of the £7,000 needed. One of the drawbacks is that the price of £10 a share was felt to be well out of the range of the working man and it was felt that there might have been a better take-up if they had been priced at a more reasonable £1. Meanwhile the men behind the Chester Athletic Ground company had come to the conclusion that the ground was not large enough to make it pay and it is difficult to see how they could have accommodated the suggested number of spectators in the limited space after a football pitch, cycle track and athletics track had been installed.

As far as the football club was concerned it seems that it was more a case of jumping at the only opportunity available. The imminent loss of the Faulkner Street enclosure created a sense of urgency and purchasing and converting the Lead Works Field would have been outside Chester’s financial capabilities. Having someone else construct a ground and then renting it from them would have been an ideal solution but the football side of the project seems to have been of secondary importance to the cycle track. It is hard to believe that the ground would have been suitable for watching football with spectators a long way from the action and I’m sure the drawbacks of sharing a ground with multiple sports would have soon become problematical. It certainly wouldn’t have been a long term solution. 

In the event Chester were forced to vacate Faulkner Street in 1898 and decamped a few hundred yards down the road to what was only a temporary home at the Old Showground in the Panton Road and Vicarage Road area of Hoole. That ground only existed for one season when housing again took over and for two seasons the club temporarily disbanded before emerging on the other side of the city on Whipcord Lane in 1901.

As an afterthought I went down to the area to see if I could get a couple of photographs to accompany the article. The old Lead Works Field is currently covered by two derelict office blocks and an overgrown car park and is for sale although the area available is now 4.34 acres. It did occur to me that if there are any multi-millionaires with money to burn and a huge amount of imagination it would still make a terrific but impractical site for a Stadium, minus a cycle and running track of course.

The old Lead Works Field currently For Sale giving a good view of the area sandwiched by the railway and canal

The junction of Hoole Lane, Station View Road and Westminster Road where one of the entrances to the Athletic Ground would have been located
Looking down Charterhall Drive across the centre of what was the Lead Works Field

John Sainty (1946 – 2023)

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John Sainty, who has sadly passed away at the age of 77, served Chester as manager for 12 months between November 1982 and November 1983. When John was appointed he was faced with the unenviable task of managing a club at one of its lowest ebbs as severe financial constraints affected many decisions. In many weeks he had to rely heavily on non-contract players in order to field a team but he did mastermind two notable victories. In the Milk Cup, in 1983/84, the Seals overcame a 3-0 first round first leg deficit against Bolton Wanderers with an impressive 3-0 triumph at Sealand Road to go through on penalties and this was followed, in the second round, by a first leg 1-0 win over second tier Leeds United at Elland Road with a goal from Andy Elliott. 

John started his footballing career as an apprentice at Tottenham Hotspur before going on to play in the Football League with Reading, Bournemouth, Mansfield and Aldershot. After serving on the coaching staff at Norwich he moved with John Bond to become assistant at Manchester City and Burnley before replacing Cliff Sear at Sealand Road. Initially appointed as ‘caretaker coach’ for a six week period this role was extended until Easter when he was finally confirmed as manager. Chester finished the season in 13th place, a respectable achievement given the financial economies which had seen John lose two members of his coaching staff, Jim Walker and Vince Prichard.

For the 1983/84 season the newly renamed Chester City faced even deeper financial problems and after losing leading scorer John Thomas to Lincoln John also had to contend with an even lower budget as the wage bill was slashed in half. Although he did bring in future Welsh international Andy Holden it was a measure of how difficult the situation was by the fact that two players, Paul Raynor and Trevor Phillips, rejoined the club after being released when Chester had been relegated in 1982.

A season of struggle was inevitable and with only one league John was relieved of his duties with Chester bottom of Division Four.

John went on to serve Glossop North End and Mossley as a manager before serving as assistant manager at Stockport County and then moving back down south to become Academy Director at Southampton and managing Lymington & New Milton and Bemerton Heath Harlequins in the Wessex League.

Top 20 Attendances

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A recent request for a list of Chester’s highest attendances prompted me to look through the records and expand the search to find the top 20. I thought the results might provide interesting reading:

1 – 20,378 Chelsea FA Cup 3rd Round replay 18/01/52 L 2-3

2= 19,000 Leeds United League Cup 4th Round 13/11/74 W 3-0

2= 19,000 Newcastle United League Cup 5th Round 18/12/74 W 1-0

2= 19,000 Aston Villa League Cup Semi-Final 22/01/75 D 2-2

5 – 18,816 Sheffield Wednesday FA Cup 4th Round replay 25/01/39 D 1-1

6 – 18,706 Stoke City FA Cup 4th Round 25/01/47 D 0-0

7 – 18,251 Newcastle United FA Cup 3rd Round 22/01/66 L 1-3

8 – 18,004 Wrexham Division 3 North 29/08/36 W 4-1

9 – 18,000 Plymouth Argyle FA Cup 3rd Round 11/01/47 W 2-0

10 – 16,835 Wrexham Division 3 North 04/02/33 L 0-3

11 – 16,375 Tranmere Rovers Division 3 North 28/03/36 D 1-1

12 – 16,283 Wigan Athletic FA Cup 2nd Round 04/12/65 W 2-1

13 – 16,160 Wrexham Division 3 North 28/02/48 W 4-1

14 – 15,882 Derby County FA Cup 3rd Round 02/01/71 L 1-2

15 – 15,255 Stockport County Division 3 North 24/04/37 D 1-1

16 – 15,202 Wrexham Division 3 North 01/10/55 W 2-1

17 – 15,106 Wrexham Division 3 North 29/09/34 W 6-2

18 – 15,024 Wrexham Division 4 26/12/69 W 2-0

19 – 14,921 Wrexham Welsh Cup Final 03/05/33 W 2-0

20 – 14,782 Wrexham Division 4 27/02/65 W 6-1

I have seen various figures quoted for the Chelsea FA Cup tie in 1952 but have gone for the more precise figure of 20,378 rather than the rounded up one of 20,500 that is often used. I have also little doubt that the attendances of 19,000 for all three League Cup ties were probably based on the capacity of the ground at the time rather than a fully accurate total.

Given that there is a general belief that Chester always lose when there is a larger than expected attendance It is interesting to see that only four of the top 20 games resulted in defeat and three of these were against teams at least two divisions higher.