Post by harrybuckle on Apr 3, 2020 12:30:50 GMT
Former Rovers media manager Keith Brookman in conjunction with the Bristol Rovers History Group are researching and compiling a biography of Alfie Biggs.
Have you any memories of him on and off the field ? Any memorabilia photos, programmes, autographs etc
Would like to hear from you on here or you can email us with your coments and memories.
ALFRED GEORGE BIGGS
Born 8.2.1936 Bristol Died 20.4.2012 Poole
Height & Weight 6’; 11 st 8 lbs CF
Football League Début: 6.2.54 v Lincoln City
Career: Connaught Road School; Bristol Boys; Eagle House Youth Club; 1952 Bristol Rovers (professional, February 1953); 17.7.61 Preston North End (£18,000) [49,22]; 5.10.62 Bristol Rovers (£12,000) [424,178]; 16.3.68 Walsall (£10,000) [23+1,9]; November 1968 Swansea City [16,4]; July 1969 Taunton Town (to 1970).
Amongst the plethora of players who have represented Bristol Rovers across the years, there are a handful of names that stand out, one of whom is undoubtedly Alfie Biggs, a tall, strapping centre-forward, whose rumbustious style and never-say-die attitude epitomised Rovers’ halcyon days of the 1950s. Biggs, like so many of his contemporaries in the Rovers side, was Bristol-born; he was the youngest of nine children, and the seventh son, to George Burt Biggs (1884-1962) and Lily Ewans (1886-1967), who had married in Bristol during World War One. Brought up in Knowle and rejected as a schoolboy by Bristol City, he represented Bristol Boys, for whom he played in Woodcock Shield finals in 1949, 1950 and 1951. Making his début against, ironically, Manchester United in a friendly in 1953, he joined a side which had just been promoted to the second tier of English football for the first time in its history; Biggs was part of the reason Rovers were able to secure their footing there and push for greater success. His early years were somewhat restricted by military service as a corps lance-corporal stationed at Corsham and, in April 1955, he played for a Southern Command XI against Weymouth. In addition, he appeared alongside Duncan Edwards and Jimmy Armfield in an Army side which played the Royal Navy at Eastville in March 1956 in an Inter-Services Championship fixture. For the next sixteen years, the soi-disant Baron of Eastville Biggs enjoyed a successful, popular and prolific football career, predominantly with Rovers. Two matches serve as ample illustration of the rôle Biggs played in the Bristol Rovers story, one from the League and one from the FA Cup. In September 1955, Rovers travelled to Anfield for a Second Division fixture and defeated Liverpool 2-0. After Geoff Bradford had opened the scoring, Biggs cut in from the right on fifty-nine minutes and shot low and hard into the net to seal victory. Liverpool, of course, progressed to multiple Football League championships and European triumphs, whilst this fixture remains the sole time Rovers have won at Anfield. Later that season, in January 1956, Manchester United’s star players were humbled 4-0 at Eastville in the FA Cup, with Biggs scoring twice. The visit of a side bristling with international players encouraged a crowd of 35,872 to mass on the terraces and the home supporters were not disappointed as Biggs scored once in each half to secure arguably the greatest victory in Rovers’ long history. His 178 League goals leave him in second place behind Bradford, the club’s record League goal-scorer of all time; only seven men have played in more League fixtures for Rovers than he did; his is the sixth longest Rovers career, in terms of the gap of over fourteen years between his first and last League matches for the club. The thirty League goals he scored in 1963-64 represent the most recent occasion any Rovers player has reached this seasonal landmark, although Rickie Lambert came very close in recent years. Both Bradford and Biggs registered League goals against fifty-five different clubs. Biggs scored hat-tricks for Rovers at Stoke City in 1957, in eighteen second-half minutes at Notts County in 1964 and at Brentford in 1966, as well as in a home game against Peterborough United in September 1964. He was an ever-present in 1956-57 and in 1963-64 and “Clubman of the Year” in 1966-67. His six goals during the League Cup campaign of 1963-64 remain a club seasonal record as yet unsurpassed. He even scored after just fifteen seconds, in the home game with Bury in March 1968. An extrovert on and off the pitch, Alfie followed the Berkeley Hunt and invariable dressed smartly; his impeccable appearance in the changing room earned him the sobriquet “The Baron”. On the field, his style of play also led to his nickname of “Elbows”; yet this style earned him many admirers and much success. There is little doubt that, without his presence, Bristol Rovers Football Club would have been all the poorer. Prised away from Eastville by Preston North End, who paid £18,000 for his services as the successor to Tom Finney, he served as captain and was top scorer at Deepdale, contributing hat-tricks in the home wins against Scunthorpe United and Brighton and scoring for Preston at Eastville in February 1962; he also recommended the young Jimmy Humes to Rovers. That Rovers could sign him back represented a major coup for the club; however, despite being appointed club captain on his return, Biggs could not prevent his home-town club from being relegated back to third-tier football. He left Rovers for good in 1968, scoring against Rovers that August in a 2-2 draw at Fellows Park, although part of the agreement in his transfer to Walsall was that he would be granted a Rovers season ticket for life and he later worked at Taunton Town with Doug Hillard. On his retirement from football, Alfie Biggs worked as a car salesman at Newton Cars and at Luton’s Car Sales, postman, baker, on the maintenance staff at Eastville, for a business parcel delivery service and, from 1997, as a security officer at Bristol University. A regular snooker player at the Eastville Club, he continued to attend Rovers games. Together with his wife Marion Hill, whom he married in 1963, he moved to Poole in 2003; their two daughters are teachers, whilst their son works for a New Zealand-based timeshare company and they have five grandchildren.
