Derek Stokes

Showing our age Dave!

 

I can't remember how good he was when he played left wing, but I sure remember him as a prolific centre forward. I met him several times after his playing career ended, the last time when he had the New Vic in Bolton Woods. A great, down to earth bloke.

 

Funeral at nab wood 15th july

 

My friend and I started watching City as school boys in about 1955 and we used to pop into the T&A reading rooms after school to read back copies of the PINK editions of the Yorkshire Sports. In those days we were immersed in match reports from older editions. Years later I found he had published a paperback account of those matches we had seen together and also documented and collated later information. Derek Stokes was one of those early heroes of ours and of interest is this match report from a game we went to at VP in 1960. Unfortunately we got walloped 5-0 in the replay ay Turf Moor. R.I.P Derek

 

I was at the first game, we were robbed! Having beaten Everton and Bournemouth we would have played Blackburn in the next round. As I recall the Ref almost played on until Burnley equalised then blew. Bobby Webb was my hero in those days lovely right winger.

 

My dad used to wax lyrical about the replay and how many cars were on the road to Burnley full of City fans. The way he spoke about it the attendance must have been 100,000 plus, Bradford must have been empty and the traffic must have been like the final scene from "Field Of Dreams" where there is a queue of cars about 20 miles long with everyone coming to see Kevin Costner's Baseball field and the dead players he had awoken to play in it.

 

See below. Exactly what my dad used to tell me about it.

 

I went to both games,
A number 1 memory of mine

 

Same with us the roads we're chock-a-block for the replay 52,850 rammed into Turf Moor bearing in mind you turned up and paid at the turnstyle.

 

.....with Johnny Simm on the left, what a pair of wingers they were WW!!

 

David Markham did the eulogy he went through his career from start to finish and he finished with "he was every bit as good as you heard he was,i know because i was there "

 

Yes I remember Jimmy Mcilroy saying it wasn't fit for playing football and he would never play at Valley Parade again, but he did in a reserve game where I reminded him of his previous comment he smiled with that Irish twinkle in his eye.