Robert Loudon Steel (25 June 1888 – 1972) was a professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played for clubs including

Greenock Morton Greenock Morton Football Club is a Scottish professional football club, which plays in the Scottish Championship. The club was founded as Morton Football Club in 1874, making it one of the oldest senior Scottish clubs. Morton was renamed Green ...

, Port Glasgow Athletic,

Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional association football, football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English footba ...

and Gillingham.

Career

Steel joined Tottenham Hotspur in 1908 from Port Glasgow (along with

Willie Bulloch William Bulloch (18 February 1883 – 10 February 1954)Willie Bulloch
The Thistle Archive. Retrieved 25 ...

, who soon returned to Scotland) and played mainly in the

inside left Forwards (also known as attackers) are outfield positions in an association football team who play the furthest up the pitch and are therefore most responsible for scoring goals as well as assisting them. As with any attacking player, the role ...

position, although he was versatile and willing to fill in several roles, including in defence.The Spurs Alphabet
Bob Goodwin; Lulu.com, 2017; He featured in 245 games and scored 45 goals in all competitions (but not counting unofficial fixtures during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

) before joining Gillingham at the end the conflict – featuring in the

1919–20 Southern Football League The 1919–20 season was the 22nd in the history of the Southern League, and the first following World War I. Portsmouth won the Southern League championship for the second time, whilst Mid Rhondda won Division Two. There were no promotions or rel ...

– and later becoming a

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...

International

While at Tottenham, he was selected for the annual

Home Scots v Anglo-Scots Home Scots v Anglo-Scots was an annual association football trial match organised by the Scottish Football Association between the 1890s and 1920s to examine the abilities of possible players for upcoming full British Home Championship internationa ...

trial match in 1909 but never played for

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

at full international level.

Personal life

His brothers

Danny Danny is a masculine given name. It is related to the male name Daniel. It may refer to: People *Danny Altmann, British immunologist *Danny Antonucci, Canadian animator, director, producer, and writer *Danny Baker (born 1957), English journalis ...

and

Alex Alex is a given name. It can refer to a shortened version of Alexander, Alexandra, Alexis. People Multiple *Alex Brown (disambiguation), multiple people * Alex Gordon (disambiguation), multiple people *Alex Harris (disambiguation), multiple pe ...

were also footballers, with Danny also having a significant spell at Tottenham Hotspur and Alex spending time with

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football. Founded ...

; the three siblings played together in one

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

fixture against

Bradford City Bradford City Association Football Club is an English professional football club in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The team competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system and are currently managed by Mark Hughes. Th ...

in January 1910.Hotspur Towers - Spurs Steel
Keith Harrison, India Spurs, 28 January 2016

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Steel, Bobby 1888 births 1972 deaths Footballers from East Ayrshire Scottish men's footballers Greenock Morton F.C. players Tottenham Hotspur F.C. players Gillingham F.C. players English Football League players Port Glasgow Athletic F.C. players Kilwinning Rangers F.C. players Scottish Junior Football Association players Scottish Football League players Southern Football League players Men's association football forwards People from Newmilns