Bob Redfern

Robert Redfern (3 March 1918 – 3 July 2002) was an English professional footballer who played as an outside right in the Football League for Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic and Brighton & Hove Albion.

Life and career

Redfern was born in Crook, County Durham, in 1918. He played football for Tow Law Town before joining Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1936 as an 18-year-old. His stay was brief: he was farmed out to Cradley Heath of the Birmingham & District League before signing for Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic of the Third Division South in February 1937. He, together with Cradley winger and future England international, Jack Rowley, went straight into the team for the visit to Walsall on 27 February. Redfern made 89 league appearances for Bournemouth over ten years, seven of which were lost to the Second World War, during which he played as a guest for clubs including Crystal Palace, Fulham, Luton Town and York City. He finished his Football League career with a season at Brighton & Hove Albion.

He then returned to the south west, where he played non-league football for Weymouth and Bournemouth F.C., and later acted as secretary of the latter club. As a youngster, Redfern had received a scholarship which gave him free secondary education, a luxury for which his father, an unemployed coal miner, would not have been able to pay – he was still at school when he signed for Wolves – and he went on to work as a schoolteacher in Bournemouth. He died in the town in 2002 at the age of 84.