Harry Albemarle Swepstone (14 January 1859 – 7 May 1907) was an English international

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

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

Career

Born in

Stepney Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name appl ...

, Swepstone played club football for Clapton, Pilgrims, Ramblers,

Corinthian Corinthian or Corinthians may refer to: *Several Pauline epistles, books of the New Testament of the Bible: **First Epistle to the Corinthians **Second Epistle to the Corinthians **Third Epistle to the Corinthians (Orthodox) *A demonym relating to ...

and

Swifts Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to: * SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks ** SWIFT code * Swift (programming language) * Swift (bird), a family of birds It may also refer to: Organizations * SWIFT, ...

. He earned six caps for

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

between 1880 and 1883. Nicknamed the 'Little Pilgrim' by the press, Swepstone has the dubious distinction of conceding 18 goals in just six international matches as England goalkeeper, despite keeping two clean sheets, after making his debut in a 5–4 defeat to

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 ...

Hampden Park Hampden Park (Scottish Gaelic: ''Pàirc Hampden''), often referred to as Hampden, is a football stadium in the Mount Florida area of Glasgow, Scotland. The -capacity venue serves as the national stadium of football in Scotland. It is the no ...

. Swepstone was a founder-member of the famous amateur team

, established in 1882, and is credited as suggesting the team's name.

References

1859 births 1907 deaths English men's footballers England men's international footballers Clapton F.C. players Corinthian F.C. players Swifts F.C. players Men's association football goalkeepers Pilgrims F.C. players Footballers from Stepney {{England-footy-goalkeeper-stub