Arthur Rowley

Record-holding goal scorer

George Arthur Rowley, footballer and manager: born Wolverhampton, Staffordshire 21 April 1926; played for West Bromwich Albion 1944-48, Fulham 1948-50, Leicester City 1950-58, Shrewsbury Town 1958-65; managed Shrewsbury Town 1958-68, Sheffield United 1968-69, Southend United 1970-76; married; died Shrewsbury 18 December 2002.

He was never feted as a star and he was outshone by his brother Jack, of Manchester United and England fame; but the fact remains that no one in the history of English League football has popped the ball into the net more times than Arthur Rowley. In a playing career which spanned four clubs, 19 years and 619 matches spread over all four divisions, Rowley plundered 434 goals, and it is a mark of his staggering pre-eminence that the next most prolific marksman in the League is the pre-war icon Bill "Dixie" Dean, who accumulated 379.

True, the burly Black Countryman spent only three seasons in the top flight, and his style of play boasted all the finesse of a runaway steamroller, but neither his employers nor their supporters were heard to complain about lack of artistic merit. Fearsomely combative in the air, a dreadnought at ground level and possessed of a savage left-foot shot, Rowley was a single-minded goal machine whose final haul surely would have been even more bountiful had his teenage years not coincided with the Second World War.

Hailing from a footballing family – his father was a goalkeeper with Walsall – he made his first impact five days after his 15th birthday when he appeared alongside his brother as a guest for Manchester United in unofficial wartime competition. In 1942 he signed amateur forms for Wolverhampton Wanderers, but he failed to become established at Molineux and switched to West Bromwich Albion, with whom he turned professional in 1944.

Rowley achieved little of note at the Hawthorns, where often he was used on the left wing, rather curiously in view of his lack of pace, but his career gained dramatic impetus when he moved to Fulham in exchange for the flankman Ernie Shepherd in December 1948. Now deployed at centre-forward, he was a revelation, scoring 19 goals in 22 appearances on the way to a Second Division championship medal.

However, he performed unimpressively in his first term among the élite and accepted a £12,000 transfer back to the lower level with Leicester City. At Filbert Street, Rowley was shifted to inside-left, blossoming luxuriantly and achieving remarkable consistency. His tallies over the next nine League campaigns never dipped below 20, there were several in the high 30s, with a personal best of 44 goals in 42 outings, including four hat-tricks, in 1956/57. In that season, as in 1953/54, he spearheaded Leicester to the Second Division crown and both times he went on to prove his worth in the higher echelon, recording healthy totals for a team which was struggling to cope with their own elevation.

Certainly Leicester benefited from Rowley's prime years, which featured his only major representative honours. There was one appearance for England "B" against Switzerland in March 1956 – he scored once in a 4-1 victory – and another for the Football League against the Irish League the following October when he failed, for once, to hit the target.

In June 1958, in his 33rd year, it seemed likely that his playing days were winding down when a £7,000 deal made him player-boss of lowly Shrewsbury Town, but he confounded expectations by continuing to score freely. He proved capable at management, too, succeeding spectacularly in his dual roles during his first term at Gay Meadow, transforming a previously lacklustre side and leading them to promotion from the newly formed Fourth Division, netting 38 goals in the process.

In 1959/60 Rowley's Shrews narrowly missed rising to the Second Division, and in 1960/61 they claimed the scalp of Everton in the first League Cup competition before bowing out 4-3 on aggregate to Rotherham United in the semi-final. Though he became increasingly bulky and ponderous of movement, Rowley remained an important influence on the pitch, using himself as a central defender at times and continuing to play until laying aside his boots in 1965, his 40th year.

After spending most of the 1960s in mid-table, Shrewsbury finished among the Third Division leaders in 1968 and he was rewarded with the boss's chair at Sheffield United, newly relegated from the First Division. The Blades attained a top-half place in 1968/69 but Rowley, who was renowned for a defensive managerial approach, could not get on with the general manager John Harris and he was sacked at season's end.

In 1970 he took over the reins of Southend United, plotting their first-ever promotion from the League's basement in 1972, but he was dismissed after they went down again four years later. Thereafter Rowley, a quiet fellow and not a natural mixer, left the game, going on to become a district manager for Vernons Pools before retiring to the Shrewsbury area.

Ivan Ponting