It is with sadness that we announce the death of Ted Wilson on the 26th July 2017. Ted was a double amateur international, representing Singapore, where he lived his whole working life, at both football & rugby union. He is survived by his wife, Anne, daughters, Tamsin & Kim, & grandsons Danny & Tommy.
His entry in Jo Russell’s History of the Club is as follows:
Ted Wilson, an Old Malvernian, played in the Christmas schoolboy games along
with his brother-in-law, Mike Hopkin, who became a Ramblers goalkeeper.
After two years as left-half for Malvern¹s 1st XI, Ted joined in 1960 when
he started articles, and went straight into the Ramblers 1st XI. He
experienced his first London Tour at the age of seventeen: “I drank far too
much on the Saturday night, before ending up at someone¹s house for a party.
I can’t remember what happened after that.”
At Moor Lane he recalls everybody being very hospitable, pouring pints down
him before one of the Preston boys, such as Johnny Ainsworth, took him home.
On one occasion he played an away game, and after several beers Ted was
dropped off around 10pm at Warrington Station, where he boarded the Preston
train. He went to sleep and woke up in Carlisle. Ted eventually got a bus
to Morecambe and then Preston, before walking up the garden path just as his
father opened the front door to take in the milk on the Sunday morning.
Renowned as a young, hard-tackling, goal-scoring midfielder, contributing
upwards of ten goals a season, his fellow players of the period have cited
him as the best footballer of his generation. Johnny Ainsworth likened him
to Steve Gerrard. He was big, strong, fast, could head a ball, shoot and
had good ball control. He had everything, and a nice guy too. Richard, his
younger brother, recalls watching him play in an Arthur Dunn tie when Ted
scored a hat-trick from full-back, including a diving header when wearing
his large, rimmed glasses. He was a hard man when hard tackling was
allowed, and was of the type to run through a brick wall. Definitely one to
have on your side rather than the opposition.
Ted admits that he was an aggressive bastard who scored most of his goals
from the edge of the box, thanks to Barry Burns pinging over accurate
centres. I was known as “goal-a-game Wilson”, as in one season I scored
thirteen goals in consecutive games. After three seasons he decided he
needed a new challenge. Ted joined Broughton Amateurs in the Lancashire
League as their centre-forward, in one season notching up 29 goals. Ted was
spotted by a Preston scout and invited for a trial, and performed well. But
his father told Ted that professional football was not the future, believing
that a public schoolboy would have found it difficult to survive, when he
already was on the road to becoming a qualified accountant.
Ted then returned to the Ramblers before going out to Singapore in late
1965, where he played rugby for the country. He continued to live there for
the rest of his working life before eventually retiring to Burley-in-
Wharefdale.