Butcher, Baker, Candlestickmaker

Our challenge to find rider names that are also occupations came up with a few interesting lists. These are reproduced below. Thanks to Jim Henry who suggested the challenge.

Monk	Sadler

Steve decided to avoid occupations that were also titles, such as King and Pope. He also elected to not take liberties with spelling, therefore the likes of Tyler and Forrester are not included.

Alderman, Phil
Archer, Bill
Baker, Steve
Barker, John
Bishop, Steve
Brewer, Dave
Butler, Troy
Carpenter, Johnny
Carter, Roy
Chamberlain, John
Chandler, Glyn
Chapman, Peter
Collier, Bernie
Cook, Colin
Cooper, Bob
Farmer, Alan
Fletcher, Ian
Glover, Carl
Hooper, John
Hunter, Norman
Knight, Richard
Mason, Alan
Miller, Tommy
Monk, Garry
Potter, Lee
Priest, John
Proctor, John
Sawyer, Les
Sexton, Jeff
Shearer, Terry
Shepherd, Dave
Smith, Kevin
Skinner, Russ
Slater, Dave
Steward, Graham
Swain, Scott
Thatcher, Bill
Turner, Chris
Wainwright, John
Weaver, Barry
Wright, Arthur

Tracy stretched things a little, but who could fail to smile at him listing Craven as an alternative name for a dietician? He also found three sheep based occupations - a handy reminder that he lives in New Zealand!

Joe Abbott
J.Brewer [Stoke 1961]
Steve Baker
Phil Bishop
Troy Butler
Leopold Baron
Uppie Bos
Terry Betts [at the bookies !!]
Peter Craven [dietician !!]
Brian Crutcher [sheep]
John Cook
Kenny Carter
Peter Clark NZ
J. Carpenter 50s
F.Collier [Stoke 1961]
Paddy Dean
Vic Duggan [ditch digger]
Dick Fisher
Bruce Forrester
George Farmer [Middlesborough]
Mick Gardiner
Cory Gathercole [Australia]
George Hunter
Bob Herdman NZ [sheep]
Lance King
George Major
Charlie Monk
Egon Muller [herds donkeys]
Putt Mossman USA
Alan Mason
Rick Miller
Anders Michanek [Swedish for mechanic !!]
Jack Parker [Cars]
Bill Pitcher [Baseball]
Theo Pijper
Don Potter [Stoke and Leicester 50s]
J.Pitman [Poole 58]
Jarrad Priest [Australia]
Tommy Roper
Andy Smith
Carl Stonehewer
Cedric Stockman [Australia]
Terry Shearer NZ [sheep]
Nigel Sadler [Australia]
Thomas Sailer [Germany]
Ian Turner
Chum Taylor
Paul Tyrer [Firestone]
Split Waterman
Keith Whipp [Wimbledon]

Sheffield fan Norman came up an interesting nugget of information, apparently Pijper means Innkeeper.

Phil Alderman
Ian & Simon Cartwright
Kenny and Wayne Carter
Bruce Forester
Carl Glover
Karl & David Mason
Theo Pjiper (Innkeeper)
Tommy Roper
Andy Smith and other Smiths
Carl Stonehewer
James & Charles Wright

Ken tried to find one occupation for each letter of the alphabet, suggesting that either the rules were badly explained or that Ken really likes a challenge! His comment of "A curse on Jim for asking this" suggests that he's spent some serious thinking time on this!

Bill Archer
Dave Brewer
Colin Cook
Barry Duke
Colin Earl
Bruce Forrester
Carl Glover
George Hunter
I?
Dave Joiner (US rider)
Richard Knight
Tom Leadbitter (from Lead Beater)
Charlie Monk
Steve Naylor (Nail Maker)
O?
Jack Parker (Park Keeper)
Q?
Tommy Roper (Rope Maker)
Andy Smith
Glynn Taylor
U?
Vaclav Verner (Watchman)
Cameron Woodward (Forest Warden)
X?
Martin Yeates (Gatekeeper)
Rohn Zellner (US Junior,Tax Collector)

Robert, whose contributions have brightened this site for a number of years now, went off on an interesting tangent.

Back in the first teams in 1928, West Ham had a Don TAYLOR and White City (London) had a Harold COOK

On a slightly different note, Both Harringay and White City London had a DICKY BIRD.

Coventry had a LORD, Cyril Lord.

Lea Bridge had A SLOW rider, Alex Slow.

Wembley should have no matches rained off because they had FAIRWEATHER, a Bert Fairweather.

And of Course, we had religious Riders, Phil BISHOP (West Ham) and Joe ABBOTT (Burnley, before becoming a Belle Vue Ace), Hall Green (Birmingham) had a CROSS, Tom Cross, and stretching religion slightly, but definitely work, we had a (good) SHEPHERD, Harry Shepherd started in 1930 with Crystal Palace. We could even push our luck for the first Man, ADAM, well actually, it was Adams, Jack Adams of West Ham.

I think I need to get out more!

This article was first published on 7th June 2007