This Sporting Life: John Waite

1942: Betty Waite with her son, John Aidan, who is already looking alarmingly sturdy.

John’s Granny and Grandad Steel said he took after “Our Jack” – his Uncle Jack, a strong and talented football player shown here in the middle of the 1934-35 team in Wellingore, the Lincolnshire village where John was born eight years later. John’s Uncle Walter is centre front row.

1956: John Waite as captain of Wintringham Grammar School’s under-14s cricket team. Sitting on the other side of the teacher is his fellow all-rounder Bruce Middleton. They were to remain good friends into their seventies. At the back, in umpire’s white jacket, is Alan Willey who also lived in Clifton Road. CLICK TO ENLARGE.

1957: John is back row, second from the right. He had progressed into the school’s 1st XI cricket team showing his strength as both bowler and batsman. His fellow all-rounder Bruce is back row, second from the left. The team was run by the sports master Col. Ted Wilson, a veteran of World War I who liked to wear uniform.

1957: Cup Heroes. The school athletics team have just won Lincolnshire Grammar School cups. John is back row, second from right. Again Bruce is there, back row, third from left. They used to compete fiercely on the track at middle distance running, a la Seb Coe and Steve Ovett, but friendly. Only three years earlier, Roger Bannister had run the world’s first 4 minute mile and that inspired a decade of schoolboys like John and Bruce.

The school 1st XI football team – later described as the ‘dream team’. John is front left next to Bruce, who is captain. John used to fly down the right wing and cross it to Bruce to rise in the air and nod it into the net. Bruce remembers it as an ‘intuitive partnership’. Back, right is Keith Ormond, also from Clifton Road. This was an outstanding team but not without tragedy. One member took his own life while in the sixth-form. And John Haddock, back row third from right, became a pilot in the RAF’s Red Arrows display team only to die when his plane clipped another and crashed. He was 22. The scary man at the front is headmaster Ronald Gill, himself a former Olympic athlete, who ran a brilliant school with a stare that put the fear of God into the boys. He is practising it here, making all the lads look nervous rather than proud. He once told the boys in morning assembly: ‘I have witnessed incidents of promiscuous osculation taking place involving some of you and members of the girls’ school. Desist at once.’ He meant stop snogging. It was his kind of joke. He was always lecturing the boys on morals and ethics. When he retired, he left his wife and ran off with another woman to Scarborough.

1960: The consummate all-rounder, John is playing for the Lincolnshire Colts as well as hurtling down the wing for the school football team while also emulating Roger Bannister on the athletics track. No wonder his mum Betty used to serve him TWO egg and bacon breakfasts every morning before school. The hungry lad needed it. He is front row, second from left. But isn’t someone missing? Where the heck is his buddy Brucie? For once, the deadly duo have been split up. John must play without him.

At 17, while School Captain at Wintringham Grammar, John was selected for the first team squad at Grimsby Town, then a good Second Division club. This was a remarkable achievement. His signature is third line down on a page headed Grimsby Town Football Club, Autographs Season 60-61. Other names include the club’s stars – Ron Rafferty, Don Donovan, Jimmy Fell, Brian Clifton and Duncan Welbourne, as well as manager Tim Ward. Susan Dale never missed a home game when her boyfriend was playing. She’d cheer every time he touched the ball and boo terribly if he lost it, generally joining in the cries of ‘Come on Town’ and ‘Up the Mariners!’  Coincidentally, her father Ken was then working as general joiner/handyman at the Town’s ground, Blundell Park.

The next stage, John was selected for the England international youth side. He boarded a plane for Austria in the company of other young players including team captain Terry Venables and Martin Peters, later 1966 World Cup hero.

Austria 1960. John is fourth from left, looking down the line towards the skipper, Terry Venables. Martin Peters is extreme right.

Internationales Junioren-Turnier 1960. 15.-24.IV.1960 OSTERREICH. Sixteen images of players and staff. John is bottom row, second from right. Peters is on the left and Venables is second row, second from right.

John’s England badge bearing the Three Lions.

John’s England Youth Cap

Looking dashing, John wears a blazer bearing his England football badge, making one pretty fan (Miss S. J. Dale) giddy with excitement. Eileen Dale chaperones the excitable young couple.

1970s: While still playing semi-professional football, John worked as personnel officer for Lindsey Oil Refinery on the Humber Bank. Here he is (left) with two oil company public relations executives from Iraq, together with a training officer from France, touring the offices of the Grimsby Evening Telegraph. They are fascinated by the latest in computer technology.

1980s: John’s handsome features peer from the top of his weekly newspaper column. This one begins: ‘I suppose like any other Mariner supporter, there can be only one topic of conversation this week and that of course must be the superb performance and win at Everton. I am writing these notes in the Blundell Park offices as Mariner supporters, in a crammed packed Inn on the Park, relive those hectic 90 minutes….’

John watches over a presentation at Grimsby Town.

After his playing days John was manager, then chairman of Immingham Town. Here his son Mark (second from left) is the official team mascot and they have just won 2-0 against Ross Sports. He says: ‘I think that was when I first learned to swear really well.’ John is not in the picture.

Like father like son. Mark followed in John’s footsteps, becoming an outstanding footballer, one of several in the family. Here he is (front, second left) with his team at Keelby, where John and Susan lived. The boys proudly display the shield they have won.

Grimsby Evening Telegraph: ‘Mark Waite, the 14-year-old son of Grimsby Town’s assistant commercial manager John Waite has just returned after rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s best young soccer players. Mark, a promising left-sided midfielder, who attends Wintringham School and plays for Grimsby Boys under-14 team, turned out for the Bobby Charlton Select School at an international tournament in Nantes in France. The tournament featured 16 teams – including international sides from Brazil and Russia. Mark’s team was literally thrown together at the last minute and after being trounced 6-2 in their opening match they lost 2-1 and 3-1 before finishing with a 6-1 win.  Said his proud but modest father: ‘My father says that Mark is a better player than I was at his age.’

19 December, 2013. John was a special guest at Blundell Park. Here he is third from the left, standing in the centre circle to acknowledge the cheers from the crowd. It was part of the ‘Mariners Memory’ event, with the game against Kidderminster being used by fans to don their favourite shirt from days gone by and recall their most memorable Mariners’ events. John is talking to Terry Donovan, son of Town legend ‘Don’ Donovan who played at right back behind schoolboy John flying down the right wing.

John was not the only sporting hero in the family. Here Vic Riding, freshly laundered and pressed, strides out confidently in order to hammer some poor bowler over the rooftops. It is an impressive and stylish image even if close forensic examination reveals he is not wearing trousers but white shorts.