Peter Stringfellow (footballer)

Football player infobox
playername = Peter Stringfellow


fullname = Peter Stringfellow
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1939|2|21|df=y
cityofbirth = Walkden
countryofbirth = England
position = inside forward
years =
1958–1960

1962–1964
1964–1965
clubs =Walkden Town
Oldham Athletic
GKN Sankey
Gillingham
Chesterfield
caps(goals) =
54 (16)

35 0(2)
28 0(7)

Peter Stringfellow (born 21 February 1939) is an English former professional association football player. He played for Oldham Athletic, Gillingham and Chesterfield between 1958 and 1965, making over 100 appearances in the Football League, but his professional career came to an end after he was involved in a fatal car crash.

Career

Stringfellow was born in Walkden in Greater Manchester and began his career playing for local team Walkden Town, before joining professional club Oldham Athletic in December 1958. An inside forward, he spent two seasons with the club, playing 54 times in the Football League and scoring 16 goals.cite book | first=Barry J.|last=Hugman | title=Canon League Football Players' Records 1946–1984| publisher=Newnes Books | year=1984| id=ISBN 0-6003-7318-5|pages=p453] He was the team's top scorer during the 1959–60 season with 11 goals, but was then forced to leave the club when he was posted to Malaya with the Royal Air Force.cite book | first=Roger|last= Triggs | title=The Men Who Made Gillingham Football Club| publisher=Tempus Publishing Ltd | year=2001| id=ISBN 0-7524-2243-X|pages=p310]

He later played for the non-league club GKN Sankey, based in Wellington, Shropshire, and then, upon leaving the Air Force, joined Gillingham in December 1962. He made his debut for the club the following April in a home match against Newport County. [cite book
last = Brown
first = Tony
coauthors =
title = The Definitive Gillingham F.C.: A Complete Record
publisher = Soccerdata
year = 2003
isbn = 1-8994-6820-X
pages =p72] In the 1963–64 season he made 25 appearances and helped the club to win the championship of the Football League Fourth Division. [cite book
last = Brown
first = Tony
coauthors =
title = The Definitive Gillingham F.C.: A Complete Record
pages =p73] At the end of the season, however, manager Freddie Cox decided that Stringfellow would not feature in his plans at the higher level, and the player moved to Chesterfield in an exchange deal which saw Charlie Rackstraw move in the opposite direction.cite book | first=Roger|last= Triggs | title=The Men Who Made Gillingham Football Club|pages=p268] Stringfellow made 28 appearances for the "Spireites", scoring seven goals, but in December 1964 he was involved in a car crash in which team-mate Ralph Hunt (the brother of Stringfellow's former Gillingham team-mate Dennis Hunt) was killed and two other players injured. Stringfellow had been driving the car which crashed, but no responsibility was attached to him for the accident. Nonetheless, following the accident, his form dramatically declined and he was allowed to leave Saltergate at the end of the season. He chose to emigrate to Australia, and no details are known of his subsequent life.

References