Obituary: Former Halifax Town player Tony Field - the local lad who made good and went on to play with Pele
Former Halifax Town footballer Tony Field has died aged 79, writes Johnny Meynell.
Field was a local lad who made good. Raised at Claremount, he starred for his school team at St Malachy’s, then in local amateur circles with Illingworth United before being recruited by then Halifax Town chief coach Don McEvoy.
He signed for the club, recently relegated to the Fourth Division, July 1963, and made rapid progress in the reserve side, where he was top scorer in his first season in the North Regional League.
He made his League debut at outside-left in a 3-0 defeat at Brighton & Hove Albion in April 1964 and appeared in the three remaining matches of that 1963-64 season in his more natural inside-left position, scoring his first goal to help seal a 2-0 win over York City on 20 April 1964.
A short-lived sideline modelling career never got in the way of his football, and the following season, with Willie Watson in charge, Field had an extended run-out in the side.
But as Town struggled, so did Field and he lost his place in the side. During the 1965-66 season, Field was limited to just five League appearances and was released at the end of that campaign having made a total of 23 first team appearances, scoring three goals.
He teamed up once more with manager McEvoy at Barrow, and netted twelve goals to help the side to Fourth Division promotion in 1966-67. Field helped Barrow adjust to life in the Third Division but signed off by scoring in each of his last three matches to take his tally to sixteen from 38 League games before teaming up with McEvoy for a third time at Third Division Southport.
There, he became something of a club legend, striking up a formidable partnership with Eric Redrobe, helping the side to an impressive eighth-place finish in 1968-69. But despite being top scorer with sixteen goals the following season, Field couldn’t prevent Southport’s relegation.
He appeared in 42 matches of their 1970-71 campaign and went on to take his tally to 133 League appearances and 41 goals before joining Blackburn Rovers in a player-exchange deal which saw Freddie Goodwin make the switch to Haig Avenue. Field scored seventeen goals – this total included his first senior hat-trick in a 4-0 success over Barnsley on 5 February 1972 for Rovers – to help lift the side from the foot of the Third Division table to mid-table security and his direct style of play made him a hit with the supporters.
In 1972-73 Field again hit seventeen goals but Rovers just missed out on promotion by two points, finishing third. He also netted his second hat-trick for the club in a 4-1 FA Cup victory over Lincoln City in the first round of the FA Cup, and in view of his popularity it came as a shock when Field was allowed to leave Ewood Park by incoming manager Gordon Lee in March 1974.
He left the club having made 106 League appearances, scoring 45 goals, and joined Sheffield United, making his First Division bow in a 1-0 victory at Manchester City on 16 March 1974.
Field became a crowd favourite at Bramall Lane and was forever famed for an individual goal he scored against Ipswich Town on 31 August 1974, where he ran from the halfway line and fended off the challenge of three players finding the net.
Field was ever-present during that 1974-75 season as the Blades strove for the League title, only to ultimately finish sixth.
The following term, United were relegated under Jimmy Sirrel but Field, having made a total of 66 League appearances, scoring thirteen goals, had left by the season’s close, heading for the NASL and signing for New York Cosmos, where he could claim among his teammates Pele and Franz Beckenbaurer
Field played two seasons there, making 46 appearances and scoring thirteen goals, helping the side clinch the Soccer Bowl in 1977. The following summer, he joined Memphis Rogues, making 75 appearances and scoring eighteen goals over three seasons before finishing his career with New England Tea Men in the Indoor Championships.
After retiring, Field remained in the USA and lived in later life in Memphis, where he died after illness at a hospice.