Alfred Milward (12 September 1870 – 1 June 1941) was a 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 played in the

1893 Events January–March * January 2 – Webb C. Ball introduces railroad chronometers, which become the general railroad timepiece standards in North America. * Mark Twain started writing Puddn'head Wilson. * January 6 – Th ...

and

1897 Events January–March * January 2 – The International Alpha Omicron Pi sorority is founded, in New York City. * January 4 – A British force is ambushed by Chief Ologbosere, son-in-law of the ruler. This leads to a puni ...

FA Cup Finals for Everton and in the 1900 FA Cup Final for

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

Early career

Born in

Great Marlow Great Marlow is a civil parish within Wycombe district in the English county of Buckinghamshire, lying north of the town of Marlow and south of High Wycombe. The parish includes the hamlets of Bovingdon Green, Burroughs Grove, Chisbridge Cro ...

, Milward was one of the first Southerners to establish himself in

the Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in Association football around the wor ...

. The son of a tradesman, he was educated at

Sir William Borlase's Grammar School (Follow things worthy of thyself) , established = , type = Academy grammar school , head = Kay Mountfield (since 2018) , founder = Sir William Borlase , specialist = Performing Arts College , address = Wes ...

and played for the school's Old Boys team and for Marlow, before joining Everton in May 1888. A well-built, hard-working, determined and technically clever winger, he contested every ball, played at full stretch for the duration of the game and had a knack of delivering a cross-field pass to perfection from up to 40 yards, combined with his shooting power from wide positions.

Everton

League debut

Milward made his league debut as centre-forward at Leamington Road against

Blackburn Rovers Blackburn Rovers Football Club is a professional football club, based in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, which competes in the , the second tier of the English football league system. They have played home matches at Ewood Park since 1890. Th ...

on 10 November 1888. Both teams had uniforms of similar colours: blue and white, but Rovers allowed Everton to wear their normal colours and came out in red and black jerseys. The match started at a frantic pace but neither side was particularly threatened. However, at one point Everton's right side struggled to cope with the Rovers' attack and Rovers exploited this to score. At half-time the score was 1–0 to Blackburn Rovers. In the second half, Everton had the sun behind them and started more aggressively. Everton's goalkeeper Robert Smalley had to make a good save to prevent Rovers scoring, but with the wind at their backs, Everton's play became flat and Rovers took full advantage scoring twice more, with the match finishing 3–0 to Blackburn Rovers.

1888–89 season

After their defeat at Blackburn in Milward's debut game, he was left out from 17 November until 29 December 1888. The new year of 1889 saw Milward back in favour, and he was picked to play at outside-left in the home match against Stoke City Potters where he scored his first League goal in a 2–1 win. Robert Watson made the pass and Milward shot past the Potters' keeper. The following week Preston North End were the visitors and Milward made his second appearance at centre-forward. From 19 January to 9 February, he played three games in a row, all at centre-forward. He missed the visit to

West Bromwich Albion West Bromwich Albion Football Club () is an English professional football club based in West Bromwich, West Midlands, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football. The club was formed in 1878 and has pl ...

but returned at centre-forward for the final game of the season, a 3–1 home win over Blackburn Rovers. He scored his second goal in that match. Milward played six matches for Everton where he scored two of his team's six goals. The team's 35 total goals scored that season was the second lowest tally by any League club. Everton finished eighth.

Later career

He quickly established himself and forced his way into the

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squad, being one of five Everton players in the national team to play against

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

in 1891. By this time Milward was noted as a hard-working outside-left at Everton and had forged a great partnership with Edgar Chadwick. Milward scored 11 goals in 22 games when Everton won the Football League title in 1890–91 and also won two

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 ...

Runners-up medals before leaving Everton in 1897 and joining the newly formed

New Brighton Tower New Brighton Tower was a steel lattice observation tower at New Brighton in the town of Wallasey, Cheshire (now in the Borough of Wirral, in Merseyside), England. It stood high, and was the tallest building in Great Britain when it opened ...

club. In 1899 Milward was enticed south to join an impressive-looking

team who, despite being in the Southern League, boasted a star-studded side of experienced ex-internationals and former top flight players. With Milward in the side they surged past three top flight clubs in 1900 to reach the cup final, with Milward himself netting a brace to humiliate his former Everton colleagues in the first round. On the day of the match, in-fighting between the English and Scottish players over the selection of one of the forwards caused a rift in the team that was evident in their easy defeat. Milward died in Winchester on 1 June 1941.

Honours

Everton * Football League championship: 1890–91 *

finalist:

and

Southampton *

finalist:

1900 As of March 1 ( O.S. February 17), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 13 days until February 28 ( O.S. February 15), 2 ...

* Southern League championship: 1900–01

References

Sources

* * * *

External links

Everton F.C. profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Milward, Alf 1870 births 1941 deaths People from Great Marlow English footballers England international footballers Marlow F.C. players Everton F.C. players New Brighton Tower F.C. players Southampton F.C. players Gillingham F.C. players Southampton Cambridge F.C. players English Football League players Southern Football League players English Football League representative players People educated at Sir William Borlase's Grammar School Association football forwards FA Cup Final players