They`ve Played For Your Club….Poole Town

Series on well-known players who have represented clubs currently in the Southern Football League.

Harry Osman started his career with the Dolphins in the Western League between 1930 and 1935.

He moved to Plymouth Argyle, Southampton and Millwall before the outbreak of the Second World War and then briefly with Bristol City after the war, where he served in the Tank Corps and was wounded.

He totalled 130 League appearances and scored 35 goals from outside left before signing for Southern League side Dartford in 1948.

After three years with the Darts, he moved to fellow Kent Southern League outfit, Canterbury City, as player-manager for two years and then managed then-Hampshire League side Winchester City for four years until 1957, introducing a teenage Terry Paine to the team – Paine, of course, went on to become a legend at Southampton and played for England in the 1966 World Cup tournament.

Osman emigrated to Florida where he died in December 1998 at the age of 87.

Len Phillips played for Poole between 1956 and 1959, mostly in the Southern League after they won promotion in 1957.

After coming out of the Royal Marines in 1946, Phillips signed for Portsmouth and spent his entire League career with the Fratton Park outfit, making 245 appearances and scoring 48 goals from inside forward (midfield).

He was a member of Pompey`s First Division championship sides of 1949 and 1950 and was deemed good enough to win three full international caps for England against Wales, West Germany and Ireland.

Just two years after his last cap, he signed for Poole and helped stabilise them in the Southern League Division One before moving to Southern Premier Division Chelmsford City in 1959.

He spent four years at New Writtle Street, helping the Clarets to runners-up spot behind Headington United in 1960//61 under former Portsmouth team-mate Harry Ferrier.

In 1963, Phillips left Chelmsford for league rivals Bath City and he played almost 100 times for the Romans before ending his career as a player with Southern Division One side Ramsgate Athletic, playing on until the age of 43!

He died in Portsmouth in December 2011 at the age of 89.

Arguably, one of the most famous players to pull on a Poole shirt is Charlie Austin.

The striker began his career in the Reading youth academy but was released in 2006.

His first club in non-League football was Hellenic Leaguers Kintbury Rangers where the 17-year-old started to court attention by scoring 20 goals in 27 games.

He stepped up a division by signing for Hellenic Premier side Hungerford Town in 2007 and helped the Crusaders finish third.

He had a brief spell with Southern League Division One South West outfit Thatcham Town before the whole Austin family moved to the Dorset coast.

Learning his trade in bricklaying, Austin signed for Poole Town, then members of the Wessex League.

He helped the Dolphins to win the Wessex League title in 2008/09 (the first of three in succession), scoring 48 goals in 45 games which obviously caught the attention of professional clubs once again.

He had a trial with his local club AFC Bournemouth, but although they wanted to sign the 20-year-old, he was unable to due to the Cherries being under a transfer embargo at the time.

It was Swindon Town who offered Austin another trial in September 2009, and they signed him.

He played 54 times for Swindon, netting 31 goals before he moved north to Burnley in January 2011 for £1 million, despite Ipswich Town agreeing terms a week earlier.

He again scored over a goal every other game for the Turf Moor outfit and Queen's Park Rangers paid £4 million for him in August 2013.

He returned to the south coast to join Southampton in January 2016 for another £4 million fee and on transfer deadline Day, August 2019, Austin signed for West Bromwich Albion for yet another £4 million fee.

Earlier this month, Austin re-joined QPR on loan for the remainder of the season.

Roger Brown was a solid, reliable, old-fashioned centre-half who began and finished his playing career in non-League football.

He started out with local side Dostill Rovers and then Midland Combination outfits Bolehall Swifts and Paget Rangers.

He then stepped up to the Southern League Division One North with AP Leamington in 1974, spending almost four seasons at the Windmill Ground and helping them to promotion to the Southern Premier Division.

In February 1978, Brown was signed by Bournemouth following a recommendation by Harry Redknapp after he had briefly played alongside the centre-half at Leamington in 1976.

Bournemouth paid a fee of £10,000 for a player breaking the full-time ranks at the relatively late age of 25.

He went on to make 63 appearances for the Cherries before following manager John Bond to First Division Norwich City in the summer of 1979 for a fee of £85,000.

He had made 21 appearances for the Canaries when he was sold to Fulham for an £80,000 profit.

He made 141 appearances for the Cottagers, scoring 18 times.

He re-joined Bournemouth in December 1983 to play for Redknapp and made another 84 appearances for them, including their famous FA Cup win over Manchester United.

He returned to non-League football with stints at Conference side Weymouth and then Southern Division One South neighbours Poole Town, where he was player-manager in 1986/87, although it wasn`t hugely successful as the Dolphins finished third-from-bottom.

However, he went on to manage Fourth Division Colchester United from November 1987 to October 1988.

And after quitting football to become a production manager, he returned to manage his old club Bolehall Swifts along with his brother Gary.

He sadly passed away in August 2011 from cancer at the age of just 58.

Ralph Norton joined Reading's groundstaff aged 15 in 1957.

He graduated through the club's junior and youth teams until he signed as a professional a day after his 17th birthday.

He made his League debut at Notts. County in September 1960.

Most of his appearances for Reading were as inside forward, but towards the end of his career at Elm Park, he moved back into a Wing half position.

In August 1965, he wrote himself into Reading`s history book when he became the club's first substitute, stepping off the bench to replace Peter Shreeves against Watford at Elm Park.

In all, he made 114 appearances for Reading, scoring 11 goals.

He joined Bournemouth in July 1966 and played 32 times for the Cherries before moving a few miles down the Dorset coast to join Southern Premier Division Poole Town.

For the final three years of his playing career, Norton dropped into the First Division of the Southern League with Cheltenham Town and then Salisbury in 1970/71.

Jimmy Allen actually started his career with Poole in the Western League.

Born in the town, he made the senior side as a teenager and then at the age of 21, was transferred to First Division Portsmouth for a fee of £1,200 in 1930.

Four years later, he won an FA Cup runners-up medal after defeat against Manchester City but shortly after the final, he was sold to Aston Villa in for a record transfer fee of £10,775 – equivalent to around £750,000 today.

He had played 132 times as a defender for Pompey and had won two full England international caps against Northern Ireland at Windsor Park and against Wales at St James` Park.

He played over 150 times for Villa before the outbreak of the Second World War and he retired from playing through injury in 1944 at the age of 35.

In 1948 he took up the job as manager of Southern League Colchester United, and it was under his watch that the U`s finished fourth and second in the league and earned a place in the Football League when it expanded to include a new Third Division South and North.

Allen resigned as manager in May 1953 and retired to the Portsmouth area and died in 1995 at the age of 85.

Sam Surridge is an example of how sending young players to non-League clubs can prove beneficial.

The striker has gone on to play in the Premier League and has been capped by England under-21s since graduating from the AFC Bournemouth academy ranks.

Born in Slough, Surridge moved to Dorset with his family when he was seven and was raised and schooled in Ferndown.

He joined the Cherries youth ranks when he was nine before leaving the club three years later to play local football with Wessex League side Bournemouth Sports.

Surridge returned to the Cherries academy when he joined the under-15s and was soon offered a scholarship, scoring freely for the club's youth team.

His first spell away from his parent club came in 2015/16 when he joined Southern League Premier Division neighbours Weymouth where he made 7 appearances and scored one goal.

He impressed during a productive loan spell with Poole during their debut season in Vanarama National League South in 2016/17 season.

He netted 7 times in 12 games for the Dolphins.

Surridge joined then-League Two outfit Yeovil Town on loan at the start of the 2017/18 campaign and made his Football League debut as a 71st-minute substitute during the Glovers' chastening 8-2 defeat at Luton Town on the opening day of the season.

He went on to make 53 appearances and scored 10 goals for Yeovil, the striker featuring against Manchester United in the Fourth Round of the Emirates FA Cup at Huish Park.

Surridge enjoyed a fruitful loan spell with Oldham Athletic during the first half of the 2018/19 campaign, netting from the spot in their memorable win over Premier League Fulham in the Third Round of the FA Cup in January 2019.

He scored 12 goals in 20 appearances for the Latics – 8 in 15 games in League One, 3 in 3 games in the EFL Trophy and one in two games in the FA Cup.

Surridge was rewarded with a new contract in December 2018 and was handed his debut for the Cherries as a substitute in the 5-1 defeat at Arsenal in the Premier League in February 2019, coming off the bench to replace Ryan Fraser in the 80th minute at the Emirates Stadium.

He also came off the bench in the 5-3 defeat at Crystal Palace on the final day of the 2018/19 campaign.

Surridge enjoyed a fruitful loan spell with Swansea City in the first half of the 2019/20 season, netting 7 times in 23 appearances in the Championship and Carabao Cup.

He returned to Vitality Stadium in January 2020 and made 4 substitute appearances in the Premier League and also opened his goal account for the Cherries, bagging a late consolation in a 2-1 defeat by Arsenal in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup.

He was on target again in September 2020 as the Cherries exited the Carabao Cup, going down 2-1 at Manchester City.

Surridge made his full senior debut for the club in the 3-1 win against Coventry City in the Championship in October 2020, netting his first three league goals in Bournemouth colours before the end of the calendar year.

On the international front, Surridge made his debut for England under-21s when he replaced Eddie Nketiah in a 2-2 draw against Slovenia in a friendly in Maribor in October 2019.

He came on for the Arsenal man at half-time and netted in the 70th minute to put the Young Lions ahead.

Four days later, he made a substitute appearance in England’s 5-1 win over Austria in a European Under-21 Championship qualifier at Stadium MK.

He made his first start for his country in a 3-3 draw against Andorra in a European Under-21 Championship qualifier at Molineux in October 2020.

Poole Town Web Site