Charlie Calladine

Personal life

Calladine was born in 1911 in Wessington, Derbyshire, a son of Samuel Calladine, a coal miner, and his wife Mary Ann née Riley. Calladine was the nephew of another Charles Frederick Calladine, his father's younger brother, who played league football as an outside left for Notts County in 1907–08 and was killed in action during the First World War while serving as a tunneller. Calladine himself served in the Royal Artillery during the Second World War.

He was a resident of Holloway, near Matlock in Derbyshire, when he died in 1983 at the age of 72.

Football career

In December 1928, the Derbyshire Times described the 17-year-old Calladine, who had just scored five goals in a match for his village club, Wessington Ivanhoe of the Matlock and District League, as "a promising young player, on whom several higher class clubs have an eye." By the end of the season, he was playing in the Midland League for Scunthorpe & Lindsey United, and his goalscoring from the inside-left positionnotably his contributions to their progress in the 1929–30 FA Cup, in which they reached the rounds proper for the first time in the club's history prompted the Derby Daily Telegraph "Walters" to opine that he "[could] not see [Scunthorpe] retaining him much longer." They did keep him for the rest of the season, which he finished as the club's top league goalscorer, jointly with Bill Baldwin and Jackie Beynon, with 23 goals, but he then signed for Football League First Division club Birmingham.

Calladine made his Football League debut on 11 April 1931 away to Huddersfield Town, playing at centre forward in a 1–0 defeat. He played twice the following season, again in the forward line, but did not reappear for another twelve months. When Jimmy Cringan was injured ahead of a demanding Christmas programme of matches, Calladine was selected at left half for the visit of Portsmouth on 24 December 1932. Birmingham won 4–0, and Calladine had found his position. Described as a physically strong player, vigorous in style, with a powerful shot, he missed only one match in what remained of the season. In March 1933, the Sheffield-based Daily Independent reported that he was "being regarded as a candidate for the left half position in the England team." He helped Guildford finish as runners-up in the 1938–39 Southern League, and signed on for the following season, which was abandoned soon after the start of the Second World War.

Career statistics