Everton Legend - Ted Sagar

Ted Sagar

Edward 'Ted' Sagar was born on the 7th of February 1910 in the mining village of Brodsworth, near Doncaster and grew up in Highfields then later moved to Hatfield. He left school when I was 13 years old and for three years earned 5s ( 25p ) a day coupling tubs and driving ponies at Brodsworth Colliery. His goalkeeping helped him to get on at Thorne Colliery as they were on the lookout for a goalkeeper, and approached him. He told them the low wage he was on at Brodsworth so the Thorpe “Scouts” told him to say that he was 19 and they would arrange for him to get him £1 a day resulting in his first big transfer at 15s ( 75p ) a day extra.
He learned to live and play the hard way. Coal-mining was a tough occupation but it kept the many footballers who came from this occupation fit and hardened them up. He had his trial game for Everton F.C v Manchester United in a Central League game at Old Trafford. Everton were beaten 3-0, but the Goodison officials had seen enough to convince them. The Daily Post reported the following Monday, "Sagar kept a brilliant goal for Everton and prevented a much heavier defeat."
Ted signed the following Thursday when he came to Liverpool to meet the Goodison officials who fixed him up with homely “digs” in Eton Street, Walton. 

 

Ted only ever played for the one club from the moment he signed from the junior leagues and it was on January 18th 1930 that he made the first of a record breaking 463 appearances against Derby County, until he made his last appearance at Plymouth Argyle in November 1952. That total was an Everton record which outlived him, surviving until eight years after his death when it was surpassed by Neville Southall in 1994.
It was during the 1931-32 season that he really established himself in the side, and he spent the next 11 seasons as the first-choice goalkeeper at Goodison – although that period spanned 17 years, six of which saw football suspended while the Second World War was fought. Immediately after he settled into the team, Everton won the League title. Sagar missed only one game that season, and didn't miss any the following year as Everton were again successful, this time in the FA Cup. The season before war broke out, Everton were Champions once more and many observers agreed that the side of 1938-39 was the finest they had ever seen.

Ted Sagar is chaired off the pitch by team mates

He was known as a fearless goalkeeper of great ability and was quite light in an era when goalkeepers were barged into more often than today. "There is no finer goalkeeper in the League today," opined one newspaper, on the occasion he was selected to represent the Football League in 1934.

After the war, in the 1950-51 season, the 40-year-old Sagar, still first-choice - became the last Everton goalkeeper to play in a relegated side. Not an honour to be especially proud of, but it was something else Neville Southall came close to taking from him in 1994. He played his last match for Everton, who had been relegated in 1951, at Plymouth Argyle in November 1952 before his retirement.