Anthony Wallace Long Nicholas (16 April 1938 – 25 September 2005) 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 le ...

who scored 42 goals from 133 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 ...

playing as an inside forward for Chelsea, Brighton & Hove Albion and Leyton Orient. He also played in the Southern League for Chelmsford City,

Dartford Dartford is the principal town in the Borough of Dartford, Kent, England. It is located south-east of Central London and is situated adjacent to the London Borough of Bexley to its west. To its north, across the Thames estuary, is Thurrock in ...

, Cambridge United, Gravesend & Northfleet and

Folkestone Folkestone ( ) is a port town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour and shipping port for most of the 19th and 20t ...

Football career

After spending time on the club's ground staff, Nicholas turned professional with First Division champions Chelsea in May 1955. He was capped by England at youth level: against a Denmark youth XI in October 1955, he scored three times in a 9–2 victory and, according to ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

correspondent, "had a rare eye for the target and a left foot of great power". While stationed at RAF High Wycombe during his

national service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The l ...

, Nicholas represented the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

football team, and helped his station to victory in the RAF Cup Final. He first played for Chelsea at 18, alongside

Peter Brabrook Peter Brabrook (8 November 1937 – 10 December 2016) was an English footballer who made nearly 500 appearances in the Football League playing for Chelsea, West Ham United and Orient, and was capped three times for the England national team. ...

Ron Tindall Ronald Albert Ernest Tindall (23 September 1935 – 9 September 2012) was an English footballer who played as a striker. He was also an accomplished cricketer, playing for Surrey. Football career Tindall played youth football for Camberley Wa ...

, Les Allen and

Frank Blunstone Frank Blunstone (born 17 October 1934) is an English former footballer who played as an outside left for Crewe Alexandra, Chelsea and the England national team. Playing career After surprisingly rejecting Wolverhampton Wanderers in favour of h ...

in a forward line with an average age of under 20. He played and scored in Chelsea's first appearance in European competition, against a

Copenhagen XI Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

in the first round of the

1958–60 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup The second Inter-Cities Fairs Cup took place between 1958 and 1960 and was won by Barcelona for the second consecutive time in a two-legged final against Birmingham City. Once again, a number of countries sent a representative team for one of thei ...

. Although he scored regularly for Chelsea, he fell out with manager Ted Drake, and joined Brighton & Hove Albion in 1960 for a club record £15,000 fee. He was Brighton's top scorer in the League in 1960–61, with 13 goals from 27 appearances, and his four goals in the last two games of the season made sure the club avoided relegation. He was Brighton's joint-top scorer, alongside Johnny Goodchild and Bobby Laverick, with 10 goals in all competitions, as the team failed to avoid relegation the following year. In Chris Westcott's book ''Upfront with Chelsea'', Nicholas recalled how his request for a wage increase, when the first-team players were on £20 a week, was turned down, and he went on to leave the Football League, aged just 24, for a wage of £28 a week at Southern League club Chelmsford City. After a brief return to the Football League with Leyton Orient in the 1965–66 season, Nicholas returned to

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 ...

with

, Cambridge United, with whom he won a Southern League Premier Division and Cup double in the 1968–69 season, Dartford again, Gravesend & Northfleet and

. He retired from professional football in 1973, but played for Great Baddow in the Essex Olympian League in the 1977–78 season.

Personal life

Nicholas was born in

West Ham West Ham is an area in East London, located east of Charing Cross in the west of the modern London Borough of Newham. The area, which lies immediately to the north of the River Thames and east of the River Lea, was originally an ancien ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, in 1938. While still playing football, he trained as a

cabinet-maker A cabinet is a case or cupboard with shelves and/or drawers for storing or displaying items. Some cabinets are stand alone while others are built in to a wall or are attached to it like a medicine cabinet. Cabinets are typically made of wood (s ...

and opened a DIY shop in

Chelmsford Chelmsford () is a city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Southend-on-Sea and Colchester. It is located north-east of London a ...

. This developed into a successful interior design business which he passed on to sons Tony and Kevin. He and wife Darlene were keen golfers. In later life, Nicholas was treated for

leukaemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...

. He died in a London hospital in September 2005 at the age of 67.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicholas, Tony 1938 births 2005 deaths Footballers from West Ham English men's footballers England men's youth international footballers Men's association football forwards Chelsea F.C. players Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. players Chelmsford City F.C. players Leyton Orient F.C. players Dartford F.C. players Cambridge United F.C. players Ebbsfleet United F.C. players Folkestone F.C. players English Football League players Southern Football League players