The following might be deemed by some to be out of place on this forum but I have always felt that you can't forget the past, so hopefully the following information on the club's first manager will interest most of our posters.
Walter
Whittaker, 1912-1914
The opening
of the 1911-1912 season saw Exeter
City employ two
professional keepers. First choice
was Walter
Whittaker, known
to the dressing room as ‘Big Walt’, a vastly experienced
custodian who had seen more football than any man in the team,
making league appearances during his career
for Newton Heath, Grimsby Town(twice),
Blackburn Rovers, Derby County, and
Clapton Orient.
A native of
Manchester who
stood 5ft-10
inches tall, and tipped the scales at nearly fourteen stones. The
second professional
keeper was Chapman,
recruited that summer from
Bolton Wanderers
reserves.
Exeter
City’s first
public practice match was played on 19th
August with big
Wwalt and Chapman
in the respective goals.
The start of the season saw Big
Walt play in the Southern
League match
against at Watford. 21st
of October, young Chapman was promoted to first team keeper following
the broken finger injury to big Walt
a week earlier. Whittaker
resumed his place in the first team a few weeks later.
In the
club’s junior teams a young Dick
Pym was starting
to make a name for himself and for the
Christmas games Whittaker
was out of favour for the keeper jersey. By the end of the season Pym
was the regular keeper for Exeter’s
first team, with Whittaker
and Chapman
sharing the reserve team role. With Pym
signing professional forms at the start of the 1912-1913 season,
Whittaker moved
to the Swans as
player manager.
Whittaker was appointed the
Swans manager with less than 8 weeks before the start of the season
and besides overseeing building work at the Vetch Field was also
instrumental in recruiting players after they had appeared in
pre-season friendly matches, drawing large crowds in Morriston and at
the Recreation Ground.
A succesful first season as a
professional football club saw the Swans just miss out on promotion,
win the Welsh Cup while the club’s reserve side won the Welsh
League Championship. It was mentioned in an article in the South
Wales Evening Post in 16/11/2006 that after the Swans had won the
Welsh Cup at the end of the 1912/13 season, Walter Whittaker took the
cup home to the Queen’s Public House in Gloucester Place, which he
was also in charge of.
The
1913/14 season saw the Swans enter the FA Cup competition for the
first time but the extra matches played would later in the season
affect the club’s chances of promotion as form fell away, while on
one occasion 2 first team matches had to be played on the same day
with the club’s reserve team playing in a Welsh Cup semi-final
match v Llanelly on the 7th
March 1914 while the first team played a Southern League game at
Croydon Common, losing both matches by the odd goal.
Although
the Daily Post had stated earlier in April 1914
that Whittaker had been re-apointed manager
of the Swans, but in a further report in
the Daily Post, dated 24/4/1914 it
announced that
the Swans Directors had
decided not to retain the services of Whitaker as manager causing
much discussion in the Town. Quite
possibly the change of chairman when
Newcombe replaced
Thorpe influenced the decision. Trainer
Bob Crone has also not been retained. The directors announced
they were going to advertise for a
trainer/manager whose business will be to have charge of the team.
At that
time Whittaker’s wife was to undergo a
serious operation, and he had no intention of leaving the Queen’s
Hotel but felt he
had been made the
scapegoat to the club’s failure to obtain promotion while
one Swans director objected to his having
two businesses. Whittaker blamed the directors for chopping and
changing the team, and for arguing amongst themselves while
the official reason for not offering
Whittaker a contract was
that they intend to adopt a new method of management.
I
believe Walter Whittaker was landlord at the “Adam and Eve”
public house in High Street, Swansea when he died at a very early age
of 37, in April/June 1917.
Record with the Swans:
Appointed: 15 July 1912 to 20 April 1914
1912/13 Division Two 3rd,
P 24, W 12, D 7, L 5, F29, A 23, Pts 31
1913/14 Division Two 4th,
P 30, W 20, D 4, L 6, F66, A 25, Pts 44
Managerial Record with
Swans:
Season:
1912/13-Southern
League Second Division: Final
Position 3rd
P24,
W12, D7, L5, F29, A23, Pts31
Cup:
Welsh Cup Winner
1913/14-Southern
League Second Division: Final
Position 4th
P30,
W20, D4, L6, F66, A25, Pts44
Cup:
Welsh Cup S/Finalist, FA Cup Round Two
Overall
Record as manager with Swans:
P54, W32, D11, L11, F95,
A48
Success
Ratio: Wins/Games: 0.593,
Points/Games: 1.39
Credits
Alex
Wilson, AFS REPORT, Sept 1986
The
late Professor David Farmer-The Swans Town & City,
1912-2000
Colin Jones-Swansea Town & City, The Complete
Record, 1912-2012
Niall O'Brien-team photo