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Bob Chambers 1955/56 season
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Another excellent David Ballheimer article in the HB programme with his Hendon team of players with names beginning with C - a pretty formidable line-up. However, I believe his comments on keeper Bob Chambers to be harsh and rather unfair. As one of the very few supporters to have seen Chambers in action, I don't recall his keeping to be poor (although I can think of several subsequent keepers over the years who were). To be honest one of my memories of him is how old he seemed (I was 13 at the time!) The 1955/56 team was extremely strong and won the Athenian League title again. The season was also notable for the advent of the great Miles Spector.
Re: Bob Chambers 1955/56 season
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Hello Mike. To defend myself, I looked at our record in the first half of the season, when Bob played in most matches from early September to the end of 1955 and, apart from two clean sheets in first three or four games, there were only two more in a largely winning team in those four months.
Sadly, as the Colindale Newspaper Librbary and London Borough of Barnet newspaper archives are no longer as easily accessible as they once were and both almost require a day off work for research, I have to go with other sources and the 100 Years history book gives him two mentions, one of which was his arrival from the Midlands and the other an injury he picked up in the London Challenge Cup tie against Chelsea. I assume he left at the end of the season, possibly returning to the Midlands, but it is conjecture.
What is clearly true is that Chambers played only one season at Hendon and played in 20 out of 28 League games in our Championship campaign.
My previous series have featured mainly on our Isthmian days, but I decided I was going to go through the whole 110 years of the club for the dream teams, so apologies in advance if my information is not 100 percent right.
Re: Bob Chambers 1955/56 season
Views: 1973
In fact, Bob Chambers appeared in 22 league matches out of 28. Two league lineups had the wrong name (Bob Avis) in goal, caused by semi-predictive text when the data was initially entered. These errors have now been corrected.
Bob joined us from WBA and, as Rob says, he is known to have made one appearance for them. Assuming it was a first-team appearance, it was definitely a cup game or, depending on Bob's age, a wartime game, as Bob's name does not appear in the "Premier and Football League Appearance Records 1946-2005", a copy of which I have.
Re: Bob Chambers 1955/56 season
Views: 1994
No need to defend yourself, David - your hundreds (thousands?) of articles are always brilliant and I continue to be in awe of your work.
Re: Bob Chambers 1955/56 season
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I have a very small bio on him. Originated from the Birmingham area. A keen boxer in his youth - played once (not confirmed if a first-team appearance), for WBA. Had a trial at Hayes - played the one season for Hendon - his wife gave birth to a son around the time his form may have been brought into question!! Don't know why I included that! Post Hendon, played for Bromley, living in Highgate, and expressed a desire to return to Hendon as it took 2 hours to get to training!
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