Ivor Broadis

Ivan Arthur "Ivor" Broadis (18 December 1922 – 12 April 2019) was an English professional footballer.

During a career spanning nineteen years from 1942 to 1961, Broadis represented Carlisle United, Sunderland, Manchester City, Newcastle United and Queen of the South, gaining 14 caps and scoring eight goals for England at international level.

When Carlisle United heard how close he was, when he was just 23, they offered him the player-manager's position in August 1946.

Broadis is still the youngest man to have been player-manager in the English Football League.

Broadis is the first manager to transfer himself to another club when he sold himself to Sunderland in January 1949.

He consulted his wife before the move, as Blackburn Rovers were also interested.

As Broadis told the BBC, "Carlisle got £18,000 for me. It was an incredible amount in those days".

Broadis continued to live in Carlisle, even after his move to Sunderland, and trained with Carlisle United under new manager Bill Shankly.

One day Broadis arrived late for training.

Shankly's version of what he said to Broadis: "What do you think you're doing? Who do you think you are? If you do the training we do you can train with us and we'll play five-a-side and you'll run your guts out as an example to everybody else".

Shankly never said that he made Broadis as a footballer, "but I made him realise what was needed to be a player, and Ivor Broadis was one of the strongest and most dangerous inside forwards that ever played."

Broadis' description of events with Shankly: "Bill always regarded himself as the man who saved me, really – the man who gave me to England. I would maybe be lapping round and I admit I could have put a lot more into it. "You sort of take the routine from the club you are with and that was not good enough for Bill.

I was doing what I thought Sunderland would be doing, the way they were doing it.

And that wasn't Bill's way.

You had to come off jiggered.

So Bill regarded himself as putting me right and I think there's a lot of truth in that.

His strength was not Liverpool.

It was the strength he could give to anybody." With Shankly's infectious enthusiasm he would ask Broadis, "Are you doing anything this afternoon?

Aye, right then, if you're not, come down to the ground." They would upturn two chimney pots to each be a goal and play one-a-side.

Of his transfer to Sunderland Broadis remarked, "All I did was exercise the right to be transferred. Blackburn, Man City and Preston were interested but only Bill Murray, the Sunderland manager, came to see me. That's why I joined but it was the board who agreed the fee."

On his £12 a week Broadis commented, "When I was playing, the only agent was Dick Tracy."

Broadis went on to grace England's top division for the next six-and-a-half seasons.

Sunderland's big spending transfer fees on Broadis and others led to the club being known at this time as the "Bank of England club."

Alongside the likes of England internationals Len Shackleton, Dickie Davis, Willie Watson and Wales' Trevor Ford, Broadis scored 27 goals in 84 Sunderland appearances.

Broadis remembers his playing days with affection but not entirely without regret.

The inside-forward lamented, "The sad thing about that Sunderland side was that we should have won the League in 1950. They played me at centre-forward against a relegated Man City with three or four games to go and we lost. We finished third in the end. We should have won the league that year, it would have made such a difference."

In Sunderland's highest post war finish they ended up 1 point behind retaining champions Portsmouth and also runners up Wolves.

This is Broadis' highest ever league finish.

Broadis moved to recently promoted Manchester City in October 1951, this time for a fee of £25,000.

It was there Broadis gained his first England cap and wrote his first newspaper column thanks to the Manchester Evening News.

Broadis played at inside forward; after retiring from playing in 1961, he pursued a career as a football journalist.

He was the oldest surviving England international footballer until his death in April 2019 at the age of 96.

Broadis was born in Isle of Dogs, Poplar, London.

During the Second World War he completed 500 flying hours in Royal Air Force Wellingtons and Lancasters, although he was never on a bombing mission.

During the war he had guested as an amateur for Tottenham Hotspur among other clubs.

It was at Tottenham that someone misread his real name (Ivan) as Ivor, and so he inadvertently became known henceforth as Ivor Broadis.

Broadis recalled to the Northern Echo how he was in Italy when news of the Japanese surrender arrived.

"Next day we flew hundreds of troops back to England, some of whom hadn't had leave for five years. I was navigator, so I kept passing round notes telling them where we were. It was very emotional when we came over the white cliffs of Dover and you could see all the bonfires down below. I have very fond memories of that."

At the end of the war Broadis was posted to Crosby-on-Eden.

"Until after the war I'd never been so far north in my life, I thought I'd need a dog team to get up here," recalled Broadis.