Bentham Stan Image 1 Everton 1938

Description

Leigh, Lancashire born inside right Stan Bentham played for Lowton St Mary’s and had a trial with Bolton Wanderers before joining Wigan Athletic in 1933. In his first season he played five times for the club  as they won the 1933-34 Cheshire County League title, Bentham scoring three goals. He turned professional on 1st January 1935, still only aged 18, when First Division giants Everton signed him.

Bentham made his Football League debut against Grimsby Town at Blundell Park on 23rd November 1935, scoring twice in a 4-0 victory, but was mainly in the reserves for his first three seasons at Everton, becoming a regular first team player from the start of the 1938-39 season, when he missed one League match as Everton won The League Championship. Bentham scored a hat-trick in a 6-2 win over Sunderland at Goodison Park in April 1939 on Everton’s run in to the title. But he was 23 years old when the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 forced the abandonment of peacetime football.

By the time League action resumed for the 1946-47 season, he was already 30 years old and had lost most of the prime years of his career. He remained with Everton as a player and mainly played at right half, missing only five matches in their first post war season in 1946-47 but thereafter he was less regular before retiring at the end of the 1948-49 season, by which time he had played 128 competitive matches for the Goodison Park club (113 of them in the League) and scored 17 goals. He remained on the club’s payroll as a coach until 1962, when he secured a similar position at Luton Town where he coached through the mid 1960’s. This was to prove his final job in football.