Face in the crowd

May 1965

Face in the crowd

For Conisbrough man Mr. Albert Taylor, the visit he made to the Doncaster Rovers v. Sheffield United match at Belle Vue last week became a trip down “memory lane”.

A face in the crowd that hailed Mr. Taylor, of Taylor Street, Conisbrough, turned out to be a former Doncaster Rovers and Hull City defender, Mr. Arthur Rodgers Jnr., who began his career with Kilnhurst W.M.C. and Denaby United.

It was probably Mr. Taylor who set Arthur Rodgers on the path to a successful career.

“I was at Belle Vue when Mr. Rodgers stopped me in the crowd,” Mr. Taylor told me.

“ ‘Don’t I know you?’ he asked. ‘Didn’t you ‘fetch’ me from Kilnhurst?’ I was a scout for Denaby United at the time,” Mr. Taylor added.

“I brought him to Denaby – it must be over 30 years ago – and from there he went on to Hull City and Doncaster Rovers.”

But Mr. Rodgers, now a café owner at Marr, and whose father, Mr. Arthur Rodgers Snr., once kept the Commercial Hotel at Kilnhurst, had a bone to pick with the Conisbrough man.

1908 MEMORY

Mr. Rodgers explained that in a previous interview with the “South Yorkshire Times”, Mr. Taylor had omitted the name of his father from the Mexborough team of 1908.

Said Mr. Taylor, “I’m not altogether sure that’s correct, but his father did play for Mexborough Town and also for Sheffield United. At that time he was paid 25s a match – hardly compares with £100 a week, does it?”