Stanley Lynn (18 June 1928 – 29 April 2002) was an English professional

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

er who played as a

right back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

. He made nearly 450 appearances in

the Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

for

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 history ...

Aston Villa Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park ...

and

Birmingham City Birmingham City Football Club is a professional football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. Since 2011, the first te ...

. Nicknamed "Stan the Wham", he was renowned for his powerful right-footed shots which came from his "Booming Boots". Born in

Bolton Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish people, Flemish weavers settled in the area i ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, Lynn was a tough-tackling right-back who started his career at

in July 1947. He played only 35 league games for the club before

stepped in with a £10,000 bid in March 1950. He established himself in the Villa team in 1954, and was a regular fixture in the side until 1960. He helped Villa win their seventh

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

1957 1957 ( MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th y ...

, the

Second Division In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...

championship in

1960 It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism. Events January * Ja ...

, and the 1961 League Cup. Playing against

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

in January 1958, Lynn became the first full-back to score a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

in a top-flight match. He transferred to Villa's arch-rivals

in October 1961, by which time he had lost much of his pace. He went on to play nearly 150 games for the club, helping them to their first major trophy, the 1963 League Cup, defeating former club Aston Villa in the final, and in the 1964–65 season finished as Birmingham's joint leading scorer. Lynn joined

Stourbridge Stourbridge is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands, England, situated on the River Stour. Historically in Worcestershire, it was the centre of British glass making during the Industrial Revolution. The 20 ...

for a couple of seasons before retiring in 1968. He still made appearances for Aston Villa All Stars, a charity fundraising team of former players, until 1985. He worked in the toolroom stores at Lucas in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

until his retirement. He was twice married and had two children. In later life he suffered from

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

, and died in a Birmingham nursing home in 2002 at the age of 73.

Honours

with Aston Villa *

winner 1957 FA Cup Final *

championship 1959–60 *

League Cup In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...

winner

1961 Events January * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba ( Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). ** Aero Flight 311 ...

with Birmingham City *

winner

1963 Events January * January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cov ...

References

External links

Profile
at Post War English & Scottish Football League A - Z Player's Transfer Database. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lynn, Stan 1928 births Footballers from Bolton 2002 deaths English footballers Association football fullbacks Accrington Stanley F.C. (1891) players Aston Villa F.C. players Birmingham City F.C. players Stourbridge F.C. players English Football League players FA Cup Final players