Royston Edward Dwight (9 January 1933 – 9 April 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 ...
. He scored the opening goal in the
1959 FA Cup Final for
Nottingham Forest
Nottingham Forest Football Club is an association football club based in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England. Nottingham Forest was founded in 1865 and have been playing their home games at the City Ground, on the banks of the River Tren ...
.
Career
Fulham
Although a winger, he was renowned for his shooting ability. Dwight scored 54 goals in 72 games for
Fulham between 1954 and 1958,
[ including a hat-trick against ]Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
in 1956. In 1957, he was in the London XI that beat Lausanne Sport 2–0 in the semi-final second leg of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup at Highbury
Highbury is a district in North London and part of the London Borough of Islington
in Greater London that was owned by Ranulf brother of Ilger and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Roads.
The manor house was sit ...
.
Nottingham Forest
He moved on to Nottingham Forest
Nottingham Forest Football Club is an association football club based in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England. Nottingham Forest was founded in 1865 and have been playing their home games at the City Ground, on the banks of the River Tren ...
in the summer of 1958 for a 'substantial' fee, reported as £10,000.[ In 1958–59, his only full season at Nottingham Forest, Dwight scored 26 goals in 41 League and 9 FA Cup appearances, including two hat-tricks. He opened the scoring after 10 minutes for Forest in the 1959 FA Cup Final against ]Luton Town
Luton Town Football Club () is a professional association football club based in the town of Luton, Bedfordshire, England, that competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1885, it is nicknam ...
.[ After 33 minutes, with Forest winning 2–0, Dwight was carried off the ]Wembley
Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...
pitch after breaking his leg in a tackle with Luton's Brendan McNally
John Brendan McNally (22 January 1935 — 6 July 2011), known as Brendan McNally, was an Irish professional footballer who played as a defender.
Career
Born in Dublin, McNally first played football for a small local club, St. Finbarrs. As a sc ...
. Ten-man Forest held on, winning the match 2–1 to become the only team reduced in numbers by injury to win the trophy.[
Despite scoring in his comeback game the following March, he was not the player he had been before his injury. He played only twice more for Forest before dropping out of League football.
]
Later career
He moved back to play in his native Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
with Gravesend and Northfleet. He returned to league football with spells at Coventry City
Coventry City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Coventry, West Midlands, England. The team currently compete in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. The club is nicknamed t ...
and 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, eas ...
.[
He later managed Tooting and Mitcham, who had been Forest's 3rd round opponents in their winning FA Cup run in 1959, and also managed Dartford.][
]
Career outside football
Later in life during the 1970s he taught Physical Education at Forest Hill Boys Secondary School. He took up a position of Assistant Racing Manager in the greyhound racing industry at Catford Stadium
Catford Stadium was a historic greyhound racing stadium in Catford, a suburb of London.
Origins
Charles Benstead and Frank Sutton founded the stadium on Southern Railway land between two commuter lines in 1932. The entrance was on Adenmore Roa ...
and later Crayford & Bexleyheath Stadium
Crayford & Bexleyheath Stadium was a greyhound racing and motorcycle speedway stadium in the London Borough of Bexley.
Origins and Opening
In 1930 the Bexleyheath and District Motorcycle Club started making plans for a grass speedway trac ...
.
Personal life
When he was eight, Roy's mother died in childbirth while giving birth to his sister Susan, and following his father's death, he moved in with his grandparents.
He married Constance Carver in Dartford in 1954,[England & Wales, Marriage Index: 1916-2005] and was the cousin of singer Sir Elton John (real name Reg Dwight);[ Roy's father Edwin and Sir Elton's father Stanley were brothers.
Roy Dwight died in London in 2002 at the age of 69.][
]
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dwight, Roy
1933 births
2002 deaths
Fulham F.C. players
Nottingham Forest F.C. players
Coventry City F.C. players
Millwall F.C. players
Footballers from Belvedere, London
English Football League players
London XI players
Association football wingers
English footballers
Schoolteachers from London
Ebbsfleet United F.C. players
People in greyhound racing
FA Cup Final players