Charles Fleming (12 July 1927 – 14 August 1997) was a Scottish

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 played for Blairhall Colliery, East Fife,

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 ...

and the Scotland national team. Fleming was nicknamed 'Cannonball Charlie' for his shooting ability, and is Bath City Football club’s all time top goal scorer. Fleming was born in

Blairhall Blairhall is a village in West Fife, Scotland. It is situated 1.1 miles (1.77 km) west of Comrie, and 6.7 miles (10.783 km) west of Dunfermline. The village was originally a small hamlet but was expanded in 1911 to house the miners from ...

Fife Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i ...

and joined East Fife from Blairhall Colliery and became an integral part of East Fife's success in the 1940s and 1950s. Fleming won the

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 ...

with East Fife in

1949 Events January * January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2022. * January 2 – Luis ...

and

1953 Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito i ...

and was part of the side that reached the 1950 Scottish Cup Final.Bobby Black interview
During his time with East Fife he won his only

international cap In sport, a cap is a player's appearance in a game at international level. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of rugby football and association football. In the ea ...

, scoring twice for Scotland in a 3–1 win against

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

on 3 October 1953 at

Windsor Park Windsor Park is a football stadium in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the home ground of Linfield F.C. who own the land the stadium is built on, while the Irish Football Association own and operate the stadium and pay Linfield an annual rent ...

. The match counted for both the 1953–54 British Home Championship and

1954 FIFA World Cup qualification A total of 37 teams entered the 1954 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds, competing for a total of 16 spots in the final tournament. Switzerland, as the hosts, and Uruguay, as the defending champions, qualified automatically, leaving 14 spots open ...

. He moved to English club

in January 1955 for £20,000 (plus Tommy Wright in exchange) where he remained for three seasons. He moved to

Bath City Bath City Football Club is a semi-professional football club based in Bath, Somerset, England. The club is affiliated to the Somerset FA and currently competes in the National League South, the sixth tier of English football. The club have ...

in 1958, and scored 206 goals for Bath until his departure in 1966, making him the clubs all time record goal scorer. At Bath City he signed his ex East Fife teammate, Bobby Black. In 1964, he played in the

Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League The Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League was a soccer league in Canada. The league operated for six seasons from 1961 to 1966 across four cities in two Canadian provinces and one American state. In the 1960s, the Eastern Canada Professional ...

with

Toronto City Toronto City was a Canadian soccer team based in Toronto, Ontario. Between 1961 and 1967, teams using this name competed in both the Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League and the United Soccer Association. History ECPSL In 1961, along with ...

External links

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fleming, Charlie 1927 births 1997 deaths Association football forwards Bath City F.C. managers Bath City F.C. players East Fife F.C. players Toronto City players People from Culross Scotland international footballers Scottish Football League players Scottish football managers Scottish footballers Sunderland A.F.C. players English Football League players Scottish league football top scorers Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League players Scottish Junior Football Association players Footballers from Fife Blairhall Colliery F.C. players