Charlie Dove

Charles Dove (1879–?) was an English footballer.

Career Dove was regarded as being very physically fit for a footballer; in 1895 he stood nearly 6 feet tall and weighed 12 stone, which was considered large for a sixteen-year-old from a working-class area of Essex. His main position was defender.

He played for many local teams, winning two medals as a right back with Park School. Upon leaving school he joined Forest Swifts Juniors as a centre forward, before moving on to captain Plaistow Melville. Dove continued to make his name at Upton Park and with South West Ham. working as an apprentice to the riveters and playing for the newly formed Thames Ironworks in 1895. The half a crown (12½p) membership would have been a third of his weekly wage.

Dove would continue to be a major player for Thames Ironworks, and its later incarnation of West Ham United until his controversial transfer in 1901 to arch-rivals Millwall. In total he made 49 appearances for Millwall.

After football, Dove returned to his work as a shipwright, spending his last years with a daughter in Hillingdon, West London. He died sometime after 1947/8. His son, Ernest, was a career soldier, rising from private to major RAOC, serving in the BEF in France 1939/40. A grandson, Jim, was in the Royal Signals Corps, later in the New Zealand equivalent and served in the Malaya Emergency (ref.Jim Dove, grandson b. 1930, retired to NSW).