Peter Arthur Patrick Harburn (18 June 1931 – 13 March 2010) was a professional footballer who scored 93 goals from 217 appearances in the Football League playing for Brighton & Hove Albion, Everton,

Scunthorpe United Scunthorpe United Football Club is a professional association football club based in the town of Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England. The side currently competes in the National League, the fifth tier of the English football league system. The tea ...

and Workington. He played as a

centre forward 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 ...

. He then played

non-League football Non-League football describes football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is specifically used to de ...

for Chelmsford City, where he also acted as trainer and manager, Stevenage Town and

Wisbech Town Wisbech Town Football Club is a football club based near Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, England. The club are currently members of the and play at the Fenland Stadium. History Although a Wisbech Town existed in the 1890s, the current club was estab ...

Life and career

Harburn was born in

Shoreditch Shoreditch is a district in the East End of London in England, and forms the southern part of the London Borough of Hackney. Neighbouring parts of Tower Hamlets are also perceived as part of the area. In the 16th century, Shoreditch was an impor ...

, London. As a youngster, he was on

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings whi ...

's books before he joined the Royal Navy in 1946. While serving in the Navy, he played for Portsmouth as an amateur, but never played for that club in the League. Described as "a gauche amateur with Portsmouth, who had the happy habit of scoring via almost any part of his anatomy that the laws allowed", he moved on to Brighton & Hove Albion, and turned professional with that club in February 1956 having bought himself out of the service. A few days later he was mistakenly named in the Great Britain squad preparing for the Olympic Games, for which, as a professional, he was ineligible. In his first full season with Brighton, he scored 27 goals, including a sequence of 8 goals in 8 consecutive matches, a club record not beaten until 2001. The following season, 1957–58, Brighton finished as Third Division South champions. Harburn recalled the team were expected to take an attacking approach: "We scored 114 goals in our promotion year and I remember the manager

Billy Lane William David Lane (born February 6, 1970 in Miami, Florida) is an American builder of custom motorcycles, owner of Choppers Inc. in Melbourne, Florida, known for his 2009 conviction and imprisonment in Florida for a drunk-driving incident in 2006 ...

telling us that when you see the whites of the goalposts whack it." He and Dave Sexton were joint top scorers with 20 goals in all competitions. Harburn asked the club for an extra £1 a week, but was refused, and in July 1958, he was sold to Everton for a fee of £6,500. The player himself thought he "wasn't ready for that quality of football", and he made only four appearances at the top level, scoring once. After five months of the season, he moved on to

in January 1959 for a fee of just £4,000. He scored in each of his first two games for Scunthorpe, and finished the season with 8 goals from 15 games, a return that "proved instrumental in the fight to avoid the drop" from the club's first season in the Football League Second Division. He played in the first five games of the following season, without scoring, but was deemed surplus to requirements after Harry Middleton's arrival from Wolverhampton Wanderers. He finished his Football League career with two seasons in the Fourth Division with Workington. He went on to Southern League club Chelmsford City, where he scored 12 goals from 37 appearances. He acted as trainer under Billy Frith's management, then as

caretaker manager In association footballing terms, a caretaker manager or interim manager is somebody who takes temporary charge of the management of a football team, usually when the regular Manager (association football), manager is dismissed or leaves for a ...

after Frith left the club, and was appointed manager in his own right in February 1966. After 50 games in charge, with 24 wins and 15 draws, Chelmsford sacked him, but he won a £601 compensation payment for wrongful dismissal. He went on to play

for Stevenage Town and

before returning to Chelmsford to work in the Alcohol licensing laws of the United Kingdom, licensed trade. He died on 13 March 2010, aged 78.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harburn, Peter 1931 births 2010 deaths Footballers from Shoreditch English footballers Association football forwards Brentford F.C. players Portsmouth F.C. players Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. players Everton F.C. players Scunthorpe United F.C. players Workington A.F.C. players Chelmsford City F.C. players Stevenage Town F.C. players Wisbech Town F.C. players English Football League players Southern Football League players English football managers Chelmsford City F.C. managers Place of death missing Chelmsford City F.C. non-playing staff