Lindon Albert Image 1 Merthyr Town 1921

Description

King’s Norton, Birmingham born goalkeeper Albert Lindon began his football career with Birmingham Fruiterers in 1906 and played for Delta Metal Works in 1907 before joining Second Division Birmingham, where he was understudy to Horace Bailey, making his Football League debut at Chelsea in November 1910. He made 7 appearances that season before moving to cross town rivals Aston Villa in 1911, but made only one First Division appearance at Tottenham Hotspur in March 1912 as Sam Hardy’s deputy.

He then had a season at Cup holders Barnsley in 1912-13 without making their first eleven before joining Southern League Coventry City, for whom he played both sides of the First World War, on resumption after the conflict in The Football League’s Second Division. Indeed he kept goal in their inaugural Football League match against Tottenham in August 1919, playing 31 matches that season before joining newly elected League club Merthyr Town in the summer of 1920.

He was ever present in Merthyr’s inaugural Football League season in 1920-21 in the Third Division (South), and remarkably he scored in a 3-3 draw at Bournemouth in April 1924. He became Merthyr’s player manager in July 1924 when manager Thomas Daniel Jones resigned and he stayed three and a half years before becoming player manager of Charlton Athletic after Alex MacFarlane’s departure to Dundee in January 1928, having made 268 appearances between the Merthyr sticks.

However his management spell at Charlton only lasted until the season end, although he continued as a player winning the Third Division (South) Championship the following season during which he made 28 League appearances, and making his last appearance of 36 at Hull City in October 1929, becoming their assistant manager. He had a further brief spell as manager of The Addicks between December 1932 and the end of the 1932-33 season but was unable to prevent Charlton’s relegation from the Second Division to the Third Division in 1933, and was replaced by the great Jimmy Seed, who would remain their manager until 1956, guiding them through the most successful period in their history.