Ron Springett

Springett in 1962
Personal information
Full name	Ronald Deryk George Springett
Date of birth	(1935-07-22)22 July 1935
Place of birth	Fulham,London, England
Date of death	12 September 2015(2015-09-12) (aged 80)
Place of death	Kingston upon Thames, England
Height	1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)[1]
Position	Goalkeeper
Youth career
	Victoria United
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1953–1958	Queens Park Rangers	88	(0)
1958–1967	Sheffield Wednesday	345	(0)
1967–1969	Queens Park Rangers	45	(0)
Total		478	(0)
International career
1959–1966	England	33	(0)
1963	England(representative)	1	(0)
1960–1966	The Football League XI	9	(0)
Medal record Men'sfootball Representing England FIFA World Cup Winner 1966 England
* Club domestic league appearances and goals

Ronald Deryk George Springett^[2] (22 July 1935 – 12 September 2015) was an English professionalfootballer who played as agoalkeeper.

He began his career withQPR in 1953 where he made 147 appearances over two spells. He had a nine-year spell withSheffield Wednesday between 1958 and 1967 and amassed 384 appearances for them before returning to QPR to finish his career.

He earned 33 caps forEngland between 1959 and 1966 and was part of the squad that won the1966 FIFA World Cup.

Springett began his career at QPR in 1953.^[3] While at QPR, he was selected to play in theThird Division South representative team in 1957. He moved to Sheffield Wednesday for £10,000 in 1958 and made 384 appearances for Wednesday before returning to QPR in May 1967. As part of that deal, his brotherPeter, also a goalkeeper, moved to Wednesday from QPR.

Springett was a member of the Sheffield Wednesday team beaten 3–2 byEverton in the1966 FA Cup Final atWembley.^[3]

Springett made 33 capped appearances and one uncapped representative appearance* for England (*uncapped match - part of Football Association's centenary celebrations),^[3] all while at Sheffield Wednesday and until then the most international appearances by any Sheffield Wednesday player. He held this club record for 26 years until it was broken byNigel Worthington. He made his England debut againstNorthern Ireland at Wembley in 1959 saving aJimmy McIlroy penalty just before half-time to help secure a narrow 2–1 victory.^[3] He also saved a penalty in a match againstPeru in May 1962.^[4] He had been the first choice goalkeeper during the1962 World Cup inChile.^[3] His final cap was againstNorway in 1966 shortly before the World Cup finals. At international level, Springett also made 9 appearances for the Football League (team drawn from players of all Football League teams irrespective of nationality).^[5]

He was allocated the No.12 shirt as a member of theEngland squad that won the1966 World Cup by beatingWest Germany by 4 goals to 2.^[3] However, only the 11 players on the pitch during that match received winners' medals. Following aFootball Association led campaign to persuadeFIFA to award medals to all the winners' squad members, it was announced by FIFA, on 26 November 2007, that all non-starting members of World Cup winning squads (1930–1974 competitions) would also receive a winners medal. This list included Ron Springett, and so, on 10 June 2009, Springett was presented with hismedal by British Prime MinisterGordon Brown at a ceremony at10 Downing Street.^[6]

Sheffield Wednesday held a testimonial for Ronald Springett on 25 September 1967 atHillsborough Stadium. (ASheffield United XI beat a Sheffield Wednesday XI 3–2) The game was watched by 23,070 fans.^[7] Following his death, Sheffield Wednesday honoured Ron by featuring him on the cover of the matchday programme and observing a minutes applause prior to the home game againstFulham on 19 September 2015. Wednesday won the game 3–2. In a post match interview, Owls head coachCarlos Carvalhal dedicated the win to Springett.

Springett has been described byThe Independent as a clever, consistent, "brave and agile goalkeeper", with an excellent positional sense. Despite his small stature and lack of physicality, which gave him a slight disadvantage against larger, more physical centre-forwards, he was "adept at choosing the precise moment to smother shots at the feet of attackers, accepting that such plunges would result in occasional injuries. Swift of foot, deftly assured with his hands and adept at judging when to leave his goal-line, he could be a gloriously entertaining performer, though for all his acrobatics, his lack of height occasionally made him vulnerable to sudden long shots." Regarded as one of England's greatest ever goalkeepers, he was known for his determination, athleticism, and the "thoroughness of his preparation, as he kept a notebook in which recorded the preferred spot-kick methods of all his leading opponents".^[5]

Ron Springett had a daughterTerri Springett who also played professional football.

Springett died on 12 September 2015.^[3]

Sheffield Wednesday^[8]

• Football League Second Division:1958–59
• FA Cup runner-up:1965–66^[9]

England

• FIFA World Cup:1966^[8]

• Sheffield Wednesday Official Site
• EnglandfanzineArchived 29 September 2007 at theWayback Machine
• "Ron Springett".Barry Hugman's Footballers. Archived fromthe original on 8 June 2024.

• English men's footballers
• Sheffield Wednesday F.C. players
• Queens Park Rangers F.C. players
• England men's international footballers
• Men's association football goalkeepers
• 1962 FIFA World Cup players
• 1966 FIFA World Cup players
• FIFA World Cup–winning players
• Footballers from the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
• People from Fulham
• English Football League players
• 1935 births
• 2015 deaths
• English Football League representative players
• 20th-century English sportsmen

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from June 2024
• Use British English from June 2016
• All Wikipedia articles written in British English
• Articles using Template:Medal with Winner
• Webarchive template wayback links
• Pages using national squad without sport or team link