PNE Online
Welcome to PNE-Online. Why not register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox! You can also join up as a forum Patron to help support in the running costs of the forum.

Happy Birthday to Dave Wilson

noelpne

0
Patron
Joined
Jun 7, 2004
Messages
22,513
Happy Birthday TODAY & Christmas wishes to former PNE right-winger Dave 'Tug' Wilson, Eighty years old today, believed to be the one surviving North End player from the 1964 FA Cup Final team.
Total * appearances for the Lilywhites, over 2 periods, amount to 308 + 15 as a sub, with a grand total of 41 goals.
Well done , and thankyou to a fine player.


* Record taken from page 285 of " The Who's Who of Preston North End " author Dean Hayes, 2006
 
63-64 was a wonderful season and to me it was a very special group of players.

Last saw him turn out v Brighton in 1973 when I worked down South.

Happy Birthday
 
Watch out, in a short while we'll have Ernest on regaling us with snippets from his past, that some of us with equally efficient memories also recall!😇 "Tug" Wilson was a very skilfull right winger in the Peter Thompson mould, (but not as prolific), also following PT to Liverpool after Shankley set eyes on him. Shame it never really happened for him there (shades of Ben Davies). Wilson could certainly put over an enticing cross. With Doug Holden on the left doing the same, it was no wonder Alex Dawson thought Christmas regularly came nearly every match for him. Crosses: I wonder if Ryan Lowe recalls what they are?
Like other contemporaries, Tug worked in the family butchers shop on Eldon Street, close to the picture house. He was a fine player, with some u23 caps, and occasionally putting on the number 9 shirt later on in his time at Deepdale.
 
Watch out, in a short while we'll have Ernest on regaling us with snippets from his past, that some of us with equally efficient memories also recall!😇 "Tug" Wilson was a very skilfull right winger in the Peter Thompson mould, (but not as prolific), also following PT to Liverpool after Shankley set eyes on him. Shame it never really happened for him there (shades of Ben Davies). Wilson could certainly put over an enticing cross. With Doug Holden on the left doing the same, it was no wonder Alex Dawson thought Christmas regularly came nearly every match for him. Crosses: I wonder if Ryan Lowe recalls what they are?
Like other contemporaries, Tug worked in the family butchers shop on Eldon Street, close to the picture house. He was a fine player, with some u23 caps, and occasionally putting on the number 9 shirt later on in his time at Deepdale.

I would like to think that by 'his' you meant Dave Wilson's not mine because when I write about such things I am trying to give those of you who simply weren't there some sense of what supporting this team has always been like and not anything about myself. Yes Dave Wilson at his best was a phenomenal player who could beat a fullback and put over a pinpoint cross to the head of Alex Dawson. He lost out a year or so after that great Cup Final to the challenge of Ernie Hannigan - also a brilliant player not as good a crosser of the ball as Dave Wilson but a more lethal finisher. There was a brief period before that transfer to Liverpool when there was an attempt to make Wilson into a 'new' Sir Tom by switching him from the right flank to centre forward and he did albeit briefly shine in that role. My old dad now departed from this life went to the 64 Cup Final and always said that Wilson had the beating of opposition left-back and that if we had played the ball out to him more we might well have won. I suppose that might be a bit of a metaphor for Dave Wilson's career in total - one of massive promise that was never quite totally fulfilled. But there was that period when Dave Wilson was a member of the team that has always shaped my expectations of what this club should be. Perhaps even more so it is the memory of that team and what it represented in terms of sheer footballing beauty that gave me hope it could somehow be emulated again and kept me going in some of the atrocious times that followed in later decades. As far as I am concerned that team of which Dave Wilson was a part is not something in the past - it is a continuing influence on the present. Quite simply it represents everything I want to be associated with the name Preston North End.
 
Some good memories of Dave Wilson. I started going in 1972, but don't remember much about him.
 
Oh boy, real memories coming back now. Dave Wilson was a very good outside right.

Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas to Dave and all our readers of this forum.
all the bes

Oh boy, real memories coming back now. Dave Wilson was a very good outside right.

Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas to Dave and all our readers of this forum.
all the best everyone.
I watched him develop through our youth team who had a good set up 'back in the day'. Did very well at PNE and that earned him a transfer to the mighty Liverpool. Unfortunately he was always in the shadow of another PNE favourite Peter Thompson and never made the step up required. After returning to PNE his career went down hill and he became a bit of a journeyman in the lower leagues.
 
I watched him develop through our youth team who had a good set up 'back in the day'.

We may now just possibly have the best set of youth players since Dave Wilson was part of that set-up. So perhaps some of them will help give us some great times in ghe future.

But for the moment I will sign off until the most important match ever in the whole glorious if at times as we all know a bit vexatious saga of this team which as always is the next match we play because that is the next opportunity we have to shape the future. So until Boxing Day peace and goodwill to all North Enders everywhere - even those who get a bit sarcastic about me at times.
 
I watched him develop through our youth team who had a good set up 'back in the day'. Did very well at PNE and that earned him a transfer to the mighty Liverpool. Unfortunately he was always in the shadow of another PNE favourite Peter Thompson and never made the step up required. After returning to PNE his career went down hill and he became a bit of a journeyman in the lower leagues.

Correct, that's how I remember him too.

Happy Birthday Dave.
 
Watch out, in a short while we'll have Ernest on regaling us with snippets from his past, that some of us with equally efficient memories also recall!😇 "Tug" Wilson was a very skilfull right winger in the Peter Thompson mould, (but not as prolific), also following PT to Liverpool after Shankley set eyes on him. Shame it never really happened for him there (shades of Ben Davies). Wilson could certainly put over an enticing cross. With Doug Holden on the left doing the same, it was no wonder Alex Dawson thought Christmas regularly came nearly every match for him. Crosses: I wonder if Ryan Lowe recalls what they are?
Like other contemporaries, Tug worked in the family butchers shop on Eldon Street, close to the picture house. He was a fine player, with some u23 caps, and occasionally putting on the number 9 shirt later on in his time at Deepdale.
Played with Tug on many occasions with PNE. KEL, SPAV& TUG the nicest guys at the club.
Happy Birthday Dave.

Alan Lamb
 
I'm glad that both him and Alan Spavin , as both members of the FA Youth Cup Finalists team in 1960 V. Chelsea ) - finally got some Silverware under Alan Ball Snr, at the end of the 1970 - 1971 season.
It didn't work out for him at Anfield, Shanks only giving him a Cameo in the last match of the 66-67 Season, against a team that probably was already doomed for the drop into League Division Two: - Blackpool😄👍👍
As another poster noted - shades of Ben Davies.....
Following coming back in '68, Tug's very last first team game was the opening game of the '73-74 season, still playing alongside Spav & Kel, all those years later.
 
Funnily enough, I was chatting to a Swansea supporter about three weeks ago and the Preston players he could remember from the sixties were Alex Dawson, Alan Spavin and Dave Wilson. I guess that might say something about their ability. Looking forward to the game on Monday, I generally catch one around Christmas time.
 
I remember seeing him play for us in the '66-'67 season and also when he came back to us.

Happy birthday Dave and wishing you a wonderful Christmas and a great 2023
 
I remember seeing him play for us in the '66-'67 season and also when he came back to us.

Happy birthday Dave and wishing you a wonderful Christmas and a great 2023
Dave Wilson was a real old school right winger. Always willing to take players on I seem to remember he wasn’t the most robust player in a challenge. I also recall that when Shankly bought him he paid a decent fee and it was rumoured that it was a way for him to help out his old club financially ( even in the sixties we always hurt of money) the fact he only played him once then gave him back to PNE on free seemed to bare this out.
 
Top