FREDERICK JOHN GRIFFITHS

Born Presteigne, 1873, died Westvleteren, Belgium 1917

Two caps: (Blackpool) v Scotland, England 1900

Career: South Shore 1894-96; Clitheroe 1896-97; South Shore 1897-1899; Blackpool 1899-1900; Stalybridge R 1900; Millwall Ath 1900-01 17 apps; Tottenham H 1901-02 nine apps; Preston NE 1902; West Ham Utd 1902-04 49 league apps; New Brompton 1904-06 52 apps; Middlesbrough 1906; Shiremoore’s Ath 1906.

FRED Griffiths was the first Blackpool player to gain international honours, at a time when the Seasiders were a non-league club operating in the Lancashire League.

The son of a Presteigne coal merchant, at one time Griffiths was on Sheffield United’s radar as a potential ‘understudy to the Leviathan Foulkes’, a reference to their 24-stone goalkeeper.

Griffiths did not join Sheffield United and continued to ply his trade part time in the Lancashire League with spells at South Shore, Clitheroe and Blackpool before a spell at Stalybridge.

However it was while at Blackpool that Griffiths, known to be a mountain of a man, made his Wales debut with two caps won in 1900.

Griffiths also played in the club’s first match at Bloomfield Road which remains the club’s home to this day.

Griffiths was a metal worker when he made the move south to Millwall Athletic and then Tottenham Hotspur.

He had a long spell in the Southern League and gained a reputation as a good shot stopper.

In 1901 Griffiths returned to Lancashire to join Preston North End - emerging giants of the English Football League.

He made 10 league appearances for the club before once more returning to London to play for West Ham United in 1902.

He replaced William Biggar in goal after Biggar conceded five goals in a defeat to Wellingborough Town, and remained the club’s first choice goalkeeper for two seasons.

In the summer of 1904 he joined New Brompton, where he spent two seasons, making over 50 first team appearances and serving as club captain

He next joined Middlesbrough but never played for the club’s first team, before a final move to minor club Moore’s Athletic of Shirebrook, where he also worked as a coalminer.

At the outbreak of the Great War, Griffiths served with the 15th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters, reaching the rank of sergeant.

The unit had originally been raised as a bantam battalion in Nottingham in 1915.

By 1917 the battalion was part of 35th Division which was thrown into the Battle of Passchendaele in October 1917. Griffiths was killed in action on October 30, 1917, and is buried at the Dozinghem Military Cemetery in Belgium.