Player who paved way for Bermuda

Former defender Arnold Woollard is the Bermudian pioneer the likes of Clyde Best and now Nahki Wells have followed.

Ask Bermudians ‘who is Bermuda’s greatest footballer?’ and many would say Best. Some might say Shaun Goater, but few, if any, would offer the name ‘Arnold Woollard’.

Woollard’s accomplishments, however, rank him as one of the island’s top footballers of all time and perhaps the best defensive player the island has every produced. He racked up 10 games in the top flight for Newcastle, and played with such greats as Jackie Milburn, Frank Brennan at Newcastle and against the likes of Danny Blanchflower, Johnny Haynes, Jimmy Hill and Billy Wright.

Woollard, now 82 and living in England, spent his early childhood years in St. George’s before moving to Pembroke; his schooling was at Dellwood and Warwick Academy. As an 18-year-old, he impressed the director of Northampton Town, Phillip Hutton, who was visiting Bermuda in 1949. Then a superb left-winger for BAA, he soon found himself on a boat headed for England, and when he stepped on the pitch for Northampton in August 1949, he became the island’s first professional football player.

Former West Ham United player Best said: “He was a super guy. He paved the way for the rest of us.”

BAA team-mate George Sousa said Mr. Woollard was “outstanding, a bit temperamental, but very outstanding”.

A spell with Northampton featured a fourth round FA Cup against Arsenal, which they lost 3-2 before the largest ever home crowd in Cobblers’ history of 72,408.

He then moved to Peterborough United in 1952 joining top-division Newcastle United, for £5,000. Even though he only played 10 games for Newcastle — he missed out on their Wembley FA Cup final win over Man City in 1955 because of an eye injury — before being sold to Bournemouth in June of 1956 for £2,000, Woollard said his time with the Magpies was the highlight of his professional career.

He went on to play a key role in huge FA Cup upsets — something Wells has emulated in the League Cup — beating First Division powerhouses Wolves and Tottenham Hotspur.

This is a shortened version of an article first published by the Bermuda Sun in February 2001.