Back Row
Reg Callow, John (Spud) Murphy, Ron Webb, Bill Cattel, Len Ling, Joe Roach
Front Row
Lionel Monk, Sid Salmon, Freddie (Ginger) James, Frank Gamon, Eric Cole
In this photograph of the team the club badge can be seen on the players shirts.
This picture, I believe, was taken during the 1940s, when they played in the Senior Romford League, and sometimes in the Southern Essex Combination.
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Miscellaneous items from the memory banks regarding some of the players pictured. Ling was not an uncommon name in Laindon at that time. There was a Ling’s shop next to the telephone exchange between Vowler Road and Emanuel Road and another next to the Hiawatha opposite the cop shop. I do not know which branch Lennie Ling (left half and possesser of the longest throw in I have ever seen) belonged. At one point Joe Roach (left back) and his family lived next door to my cousin Tony (who married Jeanne Archibald of Victoria Drive) but I do not know where or when.
Inside right, Sid Salmon’s job was reading gas meters for whoever owned the gas company. Was it the BUDC? Ginger James, who must have earnt his nickname early in life as I always knew him to be follicly challenged, lived next door to my uncle Jack and aunt Daisy in Beatrice Road. Eric Cole (right half) ran Cole’s green grocers in the High Road, about fifty yards north of Durham Road. In an age when off track betting was illegal, he was also an under the table bookie. My grandmother would routinely give my mother an envelope with her bets to surreptitiously hand to Eric Cole on the trips to the High Road shops. And to return with her previous winnings — if any! Finally, is that really Ron Webb? I remember him as taller with more hair.
I remember Reg Callow well. He played right back. I watched all the home games that were played on the ground behind the Laindon hotel from the late 40’s until the mid 50’s. I recognize all of the players except John Murphy and Lionel Monk. Missing from the team I knew are George Buck and Jackie Hutchins. I certainly cannot date the photo but since the players would not have returned from war until 1946 and given the absence of George Buck and Jackie Hutchins, I wonder if the date is not post 1955 when I ceased to watch them.
Reg Callow is one of residents at the care home I work at. He’s a lovely man! He loves looking at his trophies and this picture.
Front row L-R 3rd in – that’s my uncle (my mother’s brother) Fred James – he also played for Wolvenstow Avenue and had England Schoolboys caps.
John Could you be Kitty James son if so please ask the webmaster for my e mail or contact me on the message board thanks.
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