Donald Arthur Triner (21 August 1919 – 2002) 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 for

Port Vale Port Vale Football Club are a professional football club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England, which compete in . Vale are the only English Football League club not to be named after a place; their name being a reference to the valley o ...

either side of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Career

Triner played for Downing's Tileries before joining

in December 1938. Before turning professional he was employed as a

joiner A joiner is an artisan and tradesperson who builds things by joining pieces of wood, particularly lighter and more ornamental work than that done by a carpenter, including furniture and the "fittings" of a house, ship, etc. Joiners may work in ...

Hanley Hanley is one of the six towns that, along with Burslem, Longton, Fenton, Tunstall and Stoke-upon-Trent, amalgamated to form the City of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. Hanley is the ''de facto'' city centre, having long been the ...

. In only his second game, a 1–0 home win at Bristol Rovers on 7 January 1939, he broke his leg. He managed to make guest appearances for

Stafford Rangers Stafford Rangers Football Club is a semi-professional English football team from Stafford which plays in the Northern Premier League Premier Division. The team wear black and white stripes with black shorts. Stafford Rangers' rivals include T ...

from January to April 1940 before returning to guest for the Port Vale "A" team (the first-team were in abeyance due to the war). He was conscripted in 1941 and guested for

Morecambe Morecambe ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster district in Lancashire, England. It is in Morecambe Bay on the Irish Sea. Name The first use of the name was by John Whitaker in his ''History of Manchester'' (1771), w ...

when he was stationed in the area. He was demobbed in the spring of 1946, and with the threat of

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

vanquished, he returned to

The Old Recreation Ground The Old Recreation Ground was a football stadium located in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, England, and home to Port Vale F.C. from 1913 to 1950. It was the sixth ground the club used. Structure and facilities The stadium was in rather bad conditio ...

, breaking into the first team by December that year. He scored seven goals in 22 games in 1946–47. However, he once again broke his leg in May 1947, and failed to win back his place upon his recovery. He was released at the end of the 1947–48 season. At that point, he moved on to

Witton Albion Witton may refer to one of several places in England: *Witton, historic name of an area of Northwich, Cheshire **Witton Albion F.C. *Witton Gilbert, County Durham *Witton-le-Wear, County Durham *Witton, an area of Blackburn, Lancashire * Witton, B ...

. He scored six goals in twenty games in the 1948–49

Cheshire County League The Cheshire County League was a football league founded in the north west of England in 1919, drawing its teams largely from Cheshire, surrounding English counties and North Wales. Initially the league was dominated by the reserve teams of Footba ...

title-winning season and featured seven times in the 1949–50 campaign. He later played for Buxton, Biggleswade Town (released in May 1953 having "failed to come anywhere near to expectation") and Leek Town.

Career statistics

Source:

Honours

Witton Albion *

: 1948–49

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Triner, Don Footballers from Stoke-on-Trent English men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Port Vale F.C. players Stafford Rangers F.C. wartime guest players Morecambe F.C. wartime guest players British Army personnel of World War II Witton Albion F.C. players Buxton F.C. players Biggleswade Town F.C. players Leek Town F.C. players English Football League players 1919 births 2002 deaths