1066 Football

personalities

Gareth Barry is undoubtedly the most famous player the area has produced, with local lads Dean Hammond and Steve Cook also plying their trade in the top divisions of the professional football leagues and St. Leonards FC and Hastings Town old boy Danny Ashworth is now Technical Director for the English FA. There are many footballing characters that we will feature over the next months but we are 'kicking off' with a real local hero: Peter Sillett.

Peter Sillett (1933 - 1998)

Chelsea Player: 288 appearances (34 goals).

England: 3 caps.

Hastings United Manager: February 1979 - November 1983.

Hastings Town manager: 1988 - November 1992.

 

The son of Charlie Sillett who played for Southampton before the war, Peter and his younger brother John, who managed Coventry to FA Cup success in 1987,  grew up in the Wiltshire village of Nomansland and both were on Southampton’s books before joining Chelsea as teenagers. Peter started his playing career as a 16-year-old with Southampton, turned professional at 17 and went on to become captain of England Under-23s.

  In 1953 Chelsea manager Ted Drake (former Hastings United manager Bobby Drake's father) signed him for £20,000, a record fee for a defender.

   With Chelsea winning the premiership for the first time in fifty years, the limelight is well and truely on the West London club and the name of Peter Sillett will be remembered forever with legendary status as the £13-a-week player helped Chelsea to the First Division championship. During the 1954-1955 season, the vital match was against Wolves on Easter Saturday and it attracted a crowd of 75,043.

   With the scores all-square coming to the end of the match a penalty was awarded to Chealsea, as one spectator remembers: 'Our hearts were in our mouths as we watched Peter Sillett step forward to take it, but ice-cool Peter smashed the ball into the net. The last 15 minutes seemed to last 15 hours.' Chelsea went on to clinch the title with a 3-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday on 23 April 1955.

   Peter took place in the first modern European club match as a London XI met a Basel Select XI on June 4, 1955. The game at Basel's St Jakob Stadium, watched by a crowd of 12,500, was the first in the Industrial Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, or Inter-Cities Fairs Cup as it became known - the forerunner of today's UEFA Cup. Led by Johnny Haynes, the 20-year-old skipper of Fulham, London won 5-0.

   He joined Guildford City in 1962 after a broken leg had finished his football League career and he went on to become player-manager and later manager of Ashford for nine years. He gained Southern League promotion for Ashford and inspired them to the FA Trophy semi-finals. Peter later managed Folkestone before becoming chief scout at Hereford where his brother, John, was manager.

   After a short break from the game Sillett took over as manager at the Pilot Field in February, 1979, and ushered in a welcome new era for Hastings United. He fired new interest among supporters and brought them the sort of excitement and success many thought had long since been despatched to history.

   Sillett had upped the workrate among his players and started to sign newcomers. Among the first was Ernie Batten, who proved a great Pilot Field favourite by scoring more than 120 goals over the next four seasons. Players like Gerry Armstrong, Malcolm Streeter, Peter Petkovic and Wayne Peacock flourished under Sillett while others such as Bob Gozier, Micky Crowe and Matt Stock helped to produce a highly successful formula. Victories were the order of the day and home defeats practically unheard of.

   Peter's first three full seasons in charge led to final placings of tenth, third and second in the newly created Southern division. In 1981-82 Wealdstone pipped them to promotion by one point and both clubs were elevated to the reformed Premier division. But if league results were going well, it was in the two major competitions that United rose to prominance and lifted spectator-interest to a modern-day high.

   Hastings were the only Southern League club to reach the third round of the FA Trophy in 1979-80 and on February 23, 1980, United undertook their longest ever journey to Barrow-in-Furness. Barrow won 4-0 with the help of two penalties and in front of a 1,223 crowd. A small group of United supporters were singing to keep their spirits up on the return train journey. Peter showed his appreciation of their presence by giving them a fiver to help drown their sorrows.

   In 1981-82 was to prove an historic season for Sillett as Hastings earned their first appearance in the FA Cup's first round proper for 21 years. November 21 was the date as United set off to take another Alliance Premier League scalp at Enfield. It wasn't to be. Batten missed a penalty and Hastings went on to lose 2-0 after a rousing tie in front of 1,505 fans.

   Peter finished his first managerial spell at Hastings in November 1983 and returned in 1988 as Hastings Town manager. He declared that it would take about three years to put together a promotion winning side and won the Beazer Homes League Southern Division 1992, which included his son John, having led the division for virtually the whole season.

   The 1992/93 season saw Town playing Beazer Homes League Premier Division football for the first time. They had to go into that campaign with their Southern Divison squad and were to find the leap in standard very difficult. Peter was dismissed in December, as the side struggled at the wrong end of the table due to a lack of goals.

   Peter's friendly nature was always evident and his man-managment was undoubted. To the people of West London, Hastings and Ashford he is a proper legend and Sir Stanley Matthews named Peter the best full-back he faced. Praise indeed!

   Peter died of cancer in 1998.