Roger was an Emley man through and through having been associated with the football club for over 60 years. He was a fine all-round sportsman, also playing for the cricket club.

Roger started his Emley Career in the early 1960s, making his debut in the 1962-63 season, and was the heart of the team that dominated the Huddersfield League in that period. He was a combative midfielder, playing at right-half as it was known then, very capable of looking after himself in an era when the midfield hard man was a necessity in any team. The role of the half-backs was to break up opposition attacks, and then play the ball to the attacking players. Roger, alongside John Hall and Melvin Matley, was extremely good at that. His ability to win and distribute the ball was key to Emley’s success.

Roger was at his peak as Emley reached the last sixteen of the FA Amateur Cup in 1968-69 and again in 1969-70.  This was an incredible achievement for an unknown Yorkshire village club. He played in all the Amateur Cup games, including in front of over 5000 people who somehow crammed into the Welfare Ground in the February of 1969.  That game was abandoned due to some typically awful Emley weather but I like to think Roger was impervious to it even as the spectators, huddled in their coats, headed for the warmth of their firesides.

Emley had stepped up to the Yorkshire League for the 1969-70 season and Roger was part of the team that won the Yorkshire League Cup, Emley’s first senior honour, as a second division team. Sadly, Roger did not see out the final, being sent off after getting into a fight with Rawmarsh’s centre-forward!

Roger was occasionally prone to getting in trouble with the officials, which was an occupational hazard in the position he played. He wasn’t to be messed around with on the pitch, once throwing his boots at, or at least towards, a referee who had the temerity to send him off with words to the effect “you might as well have these as well”!  He was a hard trainer too, going harder and faster than anyone else often kitted out in a t-shirt and shorts on the training ground behind the stand, whilst others shivered in their track-suits in the Emley winter winds.

Rarely out injured, Roger was an almost permanent fixture in Emley’s midfield.  Although not in the team for his goals, he did bag a few, especially in his early Huddersfield League days when he played a more attacking role. He once scored a hat-trick, against Wombwell in a Sheffield Cup game in 1971. The team needed to be strengthened as they were promoted to the Yorkshire League first division, but Roger remained as the driving force in midfield.  By the time Emley won their first Yorkshire League in 1976, Roger had reverted to right full-back and he played there in the 1976 Sheffield Cup final at Hillsbrough, Emley’s first victory in that competition, against Worksop Town. His skill and tackling ability served him well in that position even as age caught up with him, and he made several appearances for the Club in the second Yorkshire League Championship winning team of 1977-78. His final appearance for the Club was against Hallam on the 17th April 1978. In his 16 seasons as a player Roger played almost 400 games and scored at least 43 goals.

As his playing career ended Roger stayed to help the Club develop. He helped out on the coaching side, as Mick Pamment’s assistant for the first team and as coach of the reserve team, which also had great success in the late seventies and eighties. Roger also served on the committee for many years as Emley moved into the Northern Counties East League, seeing the Club through some difficult financial problems.  In more recent years Roger was a regular fan at games, sitting in the stand, offering the contents of his hip flask to his fellow supporters and enjoying the revival of the Club’s fortunes.

Though tough and uncompromising on the pitch, Roger was a gentleman and devoted family man off it.  Without him it is doubtful Emley AFC would have achieved the success it has over the past 60 years, and it certainly wouldn’t be the club that it is. He was a team player and the team he was part of raised Emley from local Huddersfield football to a standard that could compete with the best amateur and semi-professional teams in England.  He will be sadly missed by all at the football club and in the wider community of Emley.

Photographs courtesy of Huddersfield Examiner and the Huddersfield and District Chronicle