Player List, 1967-82
These lists show all known players who appeared for Bedford Town in competitive first team matches, or scored in first team friendlies, in the 1967/8 to 1981/2 seasons. They have been compiled in a similar format to the Best Years Player Lists (see Players Lists for the Best Years 1950-67), and are arranged by alphabetical order of surname. Please click on the relevant sectional link below.
Because local press coverage became less and less detailed as this period elapsed, there are quite a few players for whom very little detail is known, especially reserve or youth team players who appeared only in a few Floodlit League or similar minor matches. Latterly the Bedford local papers omitted almost all reference to the reserve or youth teams, which means that such fringe players may have come and gone without any press mentions at all. There is at least one player in this list-the mysterious "Crane" who is supposed to have appeared in one match, away to Alvechurch in 1981/2-who I suspect may have been a mis-hearing over the telephone by a copy-taker at the Birmingham Sports Argus! There is at least one more, "Steve Best", who appeared for several matches under what proved to be a nickname (see under "Zacharski"). As regards those who played at the very end of the club's life, I've tried to follow where they played for the next few seasons but I'm sure that I haven't listed all their clubs, especially the younger ones. As always I'd be delighted to receive corrections.
Please note the caveats about the appearance and goalscoring stats in these lists (see The Later Years (1967-82). Although the goalscoring stats are very substantially correct, the appearance stats are based on known or scheduled appearances and can only be regarded as the best I can do for now. Appearances include substitutes who are known to have come on, but not unused ones.
In the 2021 update I have tried to add, in the Notes space, a little more detail to the bare listing of other clubs that a player played for by adding dates of joining or leaving those clubs where this is known. For players who appeared at first team level in the Football League or Scottish League, these dates can be followed in Barry Hugman's site for the Football League (http://barryhugmansfootballers.com/), or Neil Brown's (http://www.neilbrown.newcastlefans.com/) for the Scottish League. As regards non-league clubs, in most cases this information comes from reports in the British Newspaper Archive's online library (BNA). Sometimes it's not possible to say exactly when a player moved clubs but only to find evidence of his appearing for a club at a particular time. In these cases the note will say, eg, "by 12/51", meaning that the first report I can find of his playing for a club is dated December 1951, but he may actually have joined them earlier. Similarly the note may say "still there 12/51" meaning that this is the latest report I can find that names that player at that club, but he may have stayed longer. Inevitably this is a hit-and-miss process because not all moves were reported, and there are still many areas of the country, and periods of time, where local papers are not yet on the BNA website. This can mean that there are long apparent gaps in a player's career where it's unclear where they were playing. Often it's not really possible to say when or where a player's career ended, unless there is a report specifically stating that they have retired.