George Petchey RIP

[Pete’s Picture Palace]

George Petchey, a tidy and hard midfield player with West Ham, Queens Park Rangers and then Crystal Palace in the 1950's & 60's, passed away just before Christmas aged 86.

I remember him well as in his 5 years at Palace from 1960-65, our team was promoted twice and George at wing half played a huge role in both promotion sides, from Div 4 to 3 in 60/1 and from Div 3 to 2 in 63/4. He played 143 games for Palace (12 goals) following on from over 250 at Rangers (22 goals) and a couple at West Ham at the start of his career.

More than that, though, was the fact that he became the first English footballer to win all his UEFA coaching badges and so was rarely out of job once an eye injury caused him to finish playing at just 34. He was coach/assistant manager at Palace under Bert Head, with another promotion from Div 2 to 1 in 68/9 under his belt, moving to Orient in 1971 as manager and taking with him a raft of Palace players at the time, and seeing the O's climb the tables to their best league finishes in over a decade. From the O's he moved to Millwall in 1978 for a couple of years.

He coached and scouted everywhere - Chelsea, Brighton, Newcastle to name but 3.

A couple of photos of him - firstly, with Vic Rouse for Palace at Gay Meadow, Shrewsbury in 1961. And then a nice mugshot while O's manager.





RIP George, you did a great job at Palace and many places throughout the game. Well done and thank you.