In December, the club received an email from Wayne Dennett who was trying to find out information about his grandfather.

Wayne informed us that Fred Dennett played for Linfield in the 1930 match against Glasgow Rangers but had no other info about his Grandfathers Linfield career.

Club historian Michael Cockcroft delved into the archives to see what he could find.

“I have to say that Fred Dennett was a completely new name to me, one I had not heard before. Very soon though, it became apparent that Wayne was 100% correct.”

In 1928 Fred Dennett arrived in Northern Ireland with the Sherwood Foresters and was based at Ballykinler. His exceptional footballing ability was soon noticed and he was snapped up by Newry Town. The goals started to flow and soon Fred attracted a lot of interest from cross channel teams. Linfield also showed great interest and after a couple of seasons with Newry Town, Fred made the move to Windsor Park for the 1930/31 season.

He made his debut for Linfield on 30th August 1930 in a 1-0 win over Cliftonville and played throughout September including the game against Glasgow Rangers. In between these two matches, Fred picked up a winners medal as he helped the Blues lift the Condor Cup with a 2-0 win over Bohemians (Joe Bambrick with both goals)

Unfortunately his wife took very ill and he had to return home to Sheffield which sadly brought his Irish adventure to an end. He restarted his career banging the goals in for a Junior team before signing for Sheffield United.

The match against Glasgow Rangers was played on 15th September 1930. The game was to mark the opening of the new stand & pavilion and ended in a scoreless draw in front of a crowd of 20,000.

Fred Dennett’s grandson has shared the menu card from the historic game as well as a few bits & pieces relating to his grandfathers time playing at Newry & Linfield. Some newspaper reports relating to Fred Dennett are also reproduced.