Joe Rayment

Life and career Rayment was born in West Hartlepool, County Durham. His father, also called Joe, had played football for Hartlepools United in the 1920s. Rayment began his football career as a youngster with First Division club Middlesbrough, while doing an electrical engineering apprenticeship at a local company. Having spent the 1951–52 season in the fourth team, and beginning the 1952–53 in the third eleven, Rayment made his first-team debut on 20 September 1952, at the age of 17, in a 4–1 defeat away to Liverpool. Middlesbrough's manager suggested the club would be abandoning their policy of paying big transfer fees to concentrate instead on producing home-grown players, and wanted Rayment to commit to the club as a full-time player, but his reluctance to abandon his apprenticeship prevented him from so doing. but his engineering employer sacked him for losing too much time to his football commitments. A company spokesman said that although staff participation in sport was encouraged, "there is a limit and he must make up his mind whether he wants to be one thing or another." Rayment himself said he had tried to do his best for both parties, but because the apprenticeship was important to him, Over three years with Hartlepools, he scored 17 goals from 65 matches in League and FA Cup, and signed as a full-time professional for local rivals Darlington in 1958. In the next round they beat First Division club West Ham United 3–2: Rayment scored the second and debutant Lance Robson, then a dental student, the winner. In front of a club record attendance of 21,023, Rayment opened the scoring after 16 minutes of the third round, against Bolton, with what the Guardian's reporter called "a terrific shot", but the First Division side, with England international Nat Lofthouse at centre forward, came back to win 2–1 in the last seconds of the match.

Rayment remained with Darlington for seven seasons. He scored 28 goals from 173 league appearances, all in the Fourth Division.

After leaving football, Rayment spent eight years as an engineer in the Merchant Navy.