Bridgeman Billy Image 3 Chelsea 1908

Description

Bromley-by-Bow, London born outside left Billy Bridgeman joined West Ham United in 1903 from local junior club Adam & Eve and made his Southern League debut against Bristol Rovers on 10th October 1903.  In his first season he scored 4 goals in 18 games. The teenager showed a lot of promise and Syd King signed three other forwards, Charlie Simmons, Jack Fletcher and Christopher Carrick to join Bridgeman in the forward line.

Bridgeman scored West Ham’s first ever goal at Upton Park in a 3-0 win against Millwall in September 1904, scoring twice in the win. By the end of the season West Ham had scored 48 goals in 34 League games. Bridgeman got 11 of these goals. Bridgeman was less successful in the 1905-06 season, only managing to score 5 goals in 28 games. Bridgeman now faced strong competition for a first team place with Harry Stapley and Billy Grassam.

In 1906 after 20 goals in 75 appearances Bridgeman joined Second Division Chelsea along with George Hilsdon, making his Football League debut at Chesterfield in December 1906, and stayed nine seasons at Stamford Bridge, helping them gain promotion to the First Division in 1912 when they finished Second Division runners-up. He was a regular until the end of the 1913-14 season, but played only once more in the final peacetime season before the First World War, in a defeat at West Bromwich Albion in December 1914. After 22 goals in 160 games with Chelsea he joined Southern League club Southend United after the end of the War, where he had a single season at The Kursaal, ending his footballing career before The Shrimpers joined the Football League in the summer of 1920.