A quiet unassuming man, Phil Jennings will sit in the corner of the Carlton Town dugout on most Saturday afternoons and midweek from August to May each year, taking it all in as the Millers do battle in the Northern Premier League. Most recently sitting behind the vocal Managerial duo of Tommy Brookbanks and Mark Harvey, Jennings a Coach at Carlton since 2015 is a real football man.

You wouldn’t know it, but Phil comes from a football family too. You could say football is in his DNA. His great uncles Bill and Sam, Bulwell born would both play for Norwich City during the early 1900’s before both moving on to the most intriguing of paths.

Bill, the elder of the two by eight years was a tough centre half who eventually moved from the Canaries to Luton Town. Sam, the younger brother, a prolific goalscoring centre forward would play for Middlesbrough, Reading, West Ham and Brighton before joining Nottingham Forest in 1928. Where after a short but successful spell at the City Ground (scoring 15 in 27 league games) he moved to Port Vale, Stockport and Burnley before moving to France in 1932 where he would play for Olympique de Marseille during the opening season of the first ever French Professional Football League.

Jennings scored 4 goals in 14 games for Marseille as the famous Cote d’Azur outfit finished second in the table behind Olympique Lillois. The Cinderhill born forward would move to Biel-Bienne in Switzerland then back to France and Parisian outfit Club Francais before returning to England and Scarborough then Wisbech prior to managing Glentoran and Rochdale.

For Phil, looking into his great uncles past has taken time and research. So much so that now he’s even thinking about writing a book on his footballing relatives. Phil’s story goes back over 12 years ago when he received a book for Christmas from his mum and dad about players that had represented Nottingham Forest over the years.

Phil said “Having known there were professional footballers in the family I thought I would have a look to see if our surname was one of them. I had in previous years done a lot of genealogy but had never looked into the football side of things as this was something that had only been mentioned years ago by my Grandma to my Dad before she died. So I took a look in the book and low and behold there was information on Samuel Jennings 1928-29.”

Phil commented “It wasn’t what I was expecting as my Grandma’s maiden name was Watson and that was the main focus as my Grandpa who loved his football never spoke about any family connection when he was alive. It was from here that I decided to look deeper into things as I had knowledge that there were two family members from that era that played professionally. From then on I was gathering information really quickly and it was a few years later when I thought about writing a book.

Amongst his notes Phil also found out that his uncle Bill was part of a Notts County side that won the second division title in 1913/14 and that he played through the war years with the team as they competed in the regional leagues when brother Sam would often join up as a guest player to also represent the team. Two siblings, side by side, Nottingham born playing professionally for a Nottingham team. Both going on to have fabulous careers in the game they loved.

*Article provided by Daniel Peacock (Editor).

*Main image @CTFC1904 Phil Jennings looks into his famous families footballing past.