Lawrence Millsom (3 May 1901 – 26 September 1959) was an English 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 ...

who made 35 appearances in the Football League playing 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 ...

for

Rotherham County Rotherham County F.C. was an English football club based in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. They spent a number of years in the English Football League before merging with rivals Rotherham Town in 1925 to form Rotherham United. History The club ...

and

Torquay United Torquay United Football Club is a professional football club based in Torquay, Devon, England. The team currently compete in the , the fifth tier of English football. They have played their home matches at Plainmoor since 1921 and are nicknamed ...

Personal life

Lawrence Millsom was born in

Rotherham Rotherham () is a large minster and market town in South Yorkshire, England. The town takes its name from the River Rother which then merges with the River Don. The River Don then flows through the town centre. It is the main settlement of ...

, in what was then the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

. At the time of the

1911 Census The United Kingdom Census 1911 of 2 April 1911 was the 12th nationwide census conducted in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The total population of the United Kingdom was approximately 45,221,000, with 36,070,000 recorded in England ...

, he was the eldest son of George Millsom, an agent for the Royal London insurance company, and his wife Elizabeth. He married Mabel Margaret Curtis at Kimberworth Parish Church in January 1926. The couple had a son, Brian. Millsom was a keen

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

er at local level. He kept wicket for Kimberworth Wesleyans, and topped the batting averages in the 1925 Rotherham and District Sunday School Cricket League. The

1939 Register The National Registration Act 1939 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. The initial National Registration Bill was introduced to Parliament as an emergency measure at the start of the Second World War. The Act provided for the estab ...

records Millsom and his wife living in Torquay, where he worked in customer service for the municipal electricity board and volunteered with the air raid service. He remained in the same line of work: in the late 1950s, he was manager of the South Western Electricity Board's

Paignton Paignton ( ) is a seaside town on the coast of Tor Bay in Devon, England. Together with Torquay and Brixham it forms the borough of Torbay which was created in 1998. The Torbay area is a holiday destination known as the English Riviera. Paignt ...

service centre, and he spent 13 years as branch secretary of his

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

, NALGO. Millsom died on 26 September 1959 in Torquay at the age of 58.

Football career

Millsom kept goal for the Rotherham Schools team that played in the English Boys' Shield in 1914, in which they lost heavily to

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation. Grimsby is north-east of L ...

Schools in the third round. He was playing in the Sheffield Association League for Rotherham Amateurs by 1922, and signed for

Football League Third Division North The Third Division North of the Football League was a tier in the English football league system from 1921 to 1958. It ran in parallel with the Third Division South with clubs elected to the League or relegated from a higher division allocated t ...

club

in 1924. The ''

Sports Special Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, t ...

'' correspondent suggested that "Young Millsom has a lot to learn before he is fit for the senior team. Against Nottingham Forest Reserves last Saturday, he did well with a number of shots, but he made one mistake which deprived the Millmoor team of a Midland Combination point they had played well enough to merit." He made an unexpected Football League debut on 27 December 1924, replacing the regular goalkeeper, George Hopkins, for the home game against

Accrington Stanley Accrington Stanley Football Club is a professional association football club based in Accrington, Lancashire, England. The club competes in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. They have spent their complete his ...

. On what the ''Sports Special'' described as "a sea of mud"a rainstorm had forced the postponement or abandonment of many games that dayMillsom conceded one goal to "a cross drive which he had little chance to stop", and played well. He kept his place for three more matches, including a 4–0 defeat against

Halifax Town FC Halifax Town is a professional association football club based in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. They currently compete in and play at the Shay. They replaced Halifax Town A.F.C., which went into administration in the 2007–08 season. ...

in which, according to the ''

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'', his "fine display of goalkeeping" saved his team from an even heavier defeat. The arrival of John Mehaffy in mid-January 1925 for a substantial fee restricted Millsom to just one more appearance that season and, after Rotherham County merged with Rotherham Town to form

Rotherham United Rotherham United Football Club, nicknamed The Millers, is a professional football club based in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . The club's colours were initially yellow and black, but changed to red and white around 1 ...

, none at all for the new club's first team in 1925–26. He was not among the 14 players

retained In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a retained firefighter, also known as an RDS Firefighter or on-call firefighter, is a firefighter who does not work on a fire station full-time but is paid to spend long periods of time on call to respond to em ...

by Rotherham for the following season. In August 1926, Millsom joined Southern League club

. As at Rotherham, he was primarily a backup goalkeeper. England amateur international Archie Bayes was first choice, but Millsom made occasional appearances as Torquay won the their section of the 1926–27 Southern League and were elected to the Football League. During a training match ahead of the coming season, Bayes suffered a cut to his finger which went septic, so Millsom took his place for Torquay's first ever Football League fixture, at home to

Exeter City Exeter City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Exeter, Devon, England. The team play in , the third tier of the English football league system. Known as "the Grecians", the origin of their nickname is subject to ...

, and "came out of the test creditably" with a 1-1 draw. He played twice more before Bayes regained fitness, and then over the next four years made only 13 first-team appearances in total, as backup first to Bayes and then to Harold Gough and

Joe Wright Joseph Wright (born 25 August 1972) is an English film director residing in Somerset, England. His motion pictures include the literary adaptations ''Pride & Prejudice'' (2005), ''Atonement'' (2007), ''Anna Karenina'' (2012), and '' Cyrano'' ( ...

. In February 1932, Wright was dropped in favour of Millsom. He performed well, Torquay beat

Clapton 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 profess ...

3–0, and he kept the place until the end of the season. Ten new players came in over the summer, including Percy Maggs as first-choice goalkeeper, and Millsom's first-team career was at an end. He remained with the club for one more season, and was awarded a

benefit match A benefit is a match or season of activities granted by a sporting body to a loyal sportsman to boost their income before retirement. Often this is in the form of a match for which all the ticket proceeds are given to the player in question. Howeve ...

in May 1933, at which the attendance was "disappointingly small", at under 2,000. Millsom moved on briefly to Dartmouth United, champions of the Plymouth and District League. He then took up refereeing, and officiated at Southern League level.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Millsom, Laurie 1901 births 1959 deaths Footballers from Rotherham English footballers Association football goalkeepers Rotherham County F.C. players Rotherham United F.C. players Torquay United F.C. players English Football League players Midland Football League players Southern Football League players English football referees