The Remarkable Journey Of Hedley Williams

It all started with a 1940/41 Notts Alliance Championship winners’ medal. Arthur Hedley Williams was a Bilsthorpe Colliery player who was about to embark on a remarkable journey, during, and after World War II.

Skegby born Williams, who died in 1994 aged 77, was a local footballer living in Huthwaite, who signed for Nottingham Forest, who went on to play until he was fifty, a serving seaman of the Royal Navy during global conflict, football was a huge part of his life, although he often kept that part of his life, very private, from his family.

Hedley’s granddaughter Paula Palfreyman recently got in touch with us at Nottingham Sport. She, and her mother Rita Brudenell (nee Williams) donated Hedley’s first professional contract with Nottingham Forest to the club’s museum earlier this year, a huge written document that displays his wage at just £10 a week, with a bonus of £5 for every first team appearance made, or £3 when playing for the reserves, along with a 1946/47 player’s instruction book, they are soon to be on show in original format at the City Ground.

Rita donated her father’s official contract to the museum of Nottingham Forest.

In clearing out her loft, Paula wanted to also donate her late grandfather’s trophies to a cause that would respect and cherish them, when digging around for potential takers she noted that despite having hard evidence in a trophy that actually says so, that the 1940/41 season was not found in the record books as having ever been played (you can see our full list of Notts Alliance winners here). This prompted Paula to get in touch with us, to clarify.

Football ‘officially’ broke up for the outbreak of World War II, but a watered-down version of the Notts Alliance Championship did in fact take place, seven teams would play each other twice, Bilsthorpe coming out on top, to win their first ever title since forming eleven years earlier, Raleigh Athletic finishing as runners up ahead of Basford United, Cranfleet, Ericsson Athletic, Notts Payouts and Christ Church who were bottom.

The Notts FA had hoped to continue with a further small radius competition the following year, it’s not clear if that ever got the go ahead, but by then, a young Hedley was called up for the Royal Navy, and he would serve mainly in Gibraltar, out of HMS Calpe, the ship, that participated in the 1942 Dieppe Raid, that helped sink the German U-Boat U-593 in December 1943.

Whilst at war, Hedley, listed every game of football he played whilst on HMS Calpe, who forged quite the team as they took on other ships within the British Fleet, Nelson, Puckeridge, Formidable, Antelope, Royal Engineers and more, they played in Gibraltar, Oran, Malta, Algiers, Alexandria and Beirut.

Destroyer X (which HMS Calpe was known as for its gun mounting position) won 53 of 68 games scoring 283 goals to become widely known as the most famous soccer ship in the British Fleet. A wonderful winger with such ability, Arthur Hedley Williams played a huge part in that success.

Hedley kept a written record of all of his games for HMS Calpe during the war.

Williams (in white) during his playing days for Huthwaite CWS.

Those wizardry runs saw Williams participate with Nottingham Forest as an amateur during the war, until his reward of a post war professional contract in 1946, but without making a Football League appearance for Billy Walker’s second division side, a year later he would join Huthwaite CWS, working in the Co-Operative Wholesale Services Factory, where he would stay until retirement in the clothing section and sock department.

As a professional player, Williams was granted a permit by the FA to continue in the game without remuneration, whilst he was allowed expenses only, he could not take a wage nor participate in the FA Amateur Cup, but as an employee of the company, would become a hugely influential footballer in Huthwaite CWS winning the 1948/49 Notts Alliance title, dedicating his Saturday afternoon’s to the sport he loved, all the way through the 1950’s and even into the 1960’s.

A signed permit which allowed Hedley to play for Huthwaite CWS from Nottingham Forest.

Hedley (last but one bottom right) with Huthwaite CWS team-mates circa 1948

The 1948/49 Notts Alliance championship winning team.

Hedley (fourth in bottom row) was still playing aged 45 for Huthwaite in 1962.

On describing Williams, daughter Rita stated “Dad never talked about football”. She said, “He kept his football very private, he would come home with trophies and put them in his cabinet but never spoke on how he got them”.

“We didn’t ask” she continued. “We did once try to go and watch him play, he spotted me and my mother at the ground and said ‘what are you doing here. Women shouldn’t be at football. Go home’. So off we went”.

Hedley was a private man in that he kept his sporting stories to himself, “He didn’t even talk about the war” said Rita, “but then nobody really did, did they”.

Known affectionately as ‘Nodder’ by some team-mates, Hedley continued his sporting interest into retirement, he played bowls at Huthwaite and was a keen bicycle rider, “he cycled even in his seventies” remembered granddaughter Paula. Friends often saying, “that was his gateway to fitness”.

But it was in football, which he excelled the most, winning games, trophies, and admirers amongst his close friends and peers, an obituary in the Mansfield Chad reading “Farewell to a true Sportsman” continuing “If the war years had not intervened, who can say what he would have achieved with Nottingham Forest”.