Dennis Frank Pacey (28 September 1928 – 23 September 2009) was an English

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 as a striker, mainly for

Leyton Orient Leyton Orient Football Club is a professional football club based in Leyton, East London, England, who compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. They are the second oldest football club in London to play at a professio ...

Millwall Millwall is a district on the western and southern side of the Isle of Dogs, in east London, England, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lies to the immediate south of Canary Wharf and Limehouse, north of Greenwich and Deptford, east ...

and

Aldershot Aldershot () is a town in Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme northeast corner of the county, southwest of London. The area is administered by Rushmoor Borough Council. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Alders ...

. An ex-pupil of

Strode's College Strode's College is a sixth form college located in Egham, Surrey. It was founded in 1704, when Henry Strode bequeathed £6,000 to set up a free school in his native parish of Egham. In the twentieth century, Strode's became a boys' grammar sch ...

, Pacey played for non-league sides

Woking Woking ( ) is a town and borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in northwest Surrey, England, around from central London. It appears in Domesday Book as ''Wochinges'' and its name probably derives from that of a Anglo-Saxon settlement o ...

and Walton & Hersham before being signed by Leyton Orient in November 1951. He made his debut the following month in an

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

tie against

Gorleston Gorleston-on-Sea (), known colloquially as Gorleston, is a town in the Borough of Great Yarmouth, in Norfolk, England, to the south of Great Yarmouth. Situated at the mouth of the River Yare it was a port town at the time of the Domesday Book ...

, and created an immediate impression by scoring a hat-trick in Orient's 5–4 win. He went on to break Orient's FA Cup goalscoring record, scoring 12 goals in all, a record which still stands as of 2011."Leyton Orient: The Complete Record", N Kaufman & A Ravenhill, Breedon Books, 2006 p. 243 After three successful seasons, Pacey moved to Millwall and again scored on his debut. After scoring 36 goals in 132 league appearances for the Lions, he moved to Aldershot in September 1959, before moving back into non-league football. Pacey later worked at

Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others be ...

before his retirement. He died in 2009, aged 80, after suffering an

aneurysm An aneurysm is an outward bulging, likened to a bubble or balloon, caused by a localized, abnormal, weak spot on a blood vessel wall. Aneurysms may be a result of a hereditary condition or an acquired disease. Aneurysms can also be a nidus (s ...

outside a supermarket near his home in Chertsey.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pacey, Dennis 1928 births 2009 deaths Footballers from the London Borough of Hounslow People from Feltham English men's footballers Men's association football forwards Woking F.C. players Walton & Hersham F.C. players Leyton Orient F.C. players Millwall F.C. players Aldershot F.C. players Dartford F.C. players Yeovil Town F.C. players English Football League players People educated at Strode's Grammar School